Monday Morning Rambling, Christmas Eve edition

All right, I know I've said in the past that we've recently moved, and during that move, we managed to snag ourselves a house. Of course, with a house comes all the usual tidbits of hassles, such as plumbing.

Well, the toilet in the master bath just doesn't want to flush appropriately, so I've been fighting with it for a while. Well, during one of those duels, I turned on the tub in order to use that water to attempt of force a flush. Imagine my disdain when the water refused to go down.

So, I did what any reasonably intelligent man would do: went to Lowe's. While there, I picked up a package of sulfuric acid. The good stuff that eats paper towels, skin and other organic materials. So, following the directions on the package, I poured two cups of the stuff down the tub drain, followed by four cups of water, every 15 minutes. Nothing happened. I waited overnight, the stuff still wouldn't drain down. So I go buy a snake. It refuses to go down the drain, every time I attempt it, I manage to hear a dull clunk sound.

Which is when I look at the drain control and noticed that it was in the 'up' position. Mumbling dire things under my breath, I pushed it down and watched the water happily flowing away.

So that's happy, but my toilet is still annoying, despite four cups of the acid poured down its gullet.

If this evil keeps up, I may be forced to... hire someone.

My own stupidity aside, I've not gotten a lot of SF stuff since Friday. Been a tad busy with family and shopping. I did manage to get my wife a number of gifts; all but one of which she asked for.

I just hope that I'm getting some good fun geek gifts for Christmas this year.

Speaking of gifts, AnimeNetwork the website has given us a wonderful gift in the form of a broadband service video service. There appears to be some good series on it, so I'm hopeful.

Unfortunately, AniMonday is on hiatus for the next two weeks, as they're providing us a Stargate Atlantis and then Twilight Zone marathons. I think I'd rather have the anime.

Books-wise, Darth Pane: Rule of Two will be released Wednesday, and I'm in the midst of reading the infinitely wonderful Hal Spacejock: Second Course. Reviews will be up soon concerning them. Additionally, on the review front, I've gotten some feedback over at theForce.Net concerning my reviews: specifically that they don't focus enough on characters, content, and overarching problems with the books. So, I was wondering what other folks thought about them.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and that they don't have to suffer through more than one showing of Star Wars: The Holiday Special.