CE Wills

      Hey, everyone, and I hope the holidays find you content and healthy. The title of this post is a bit misleading, since I am already home and plan to be home for Christmas. I'll have to figure out why I used that title in a moment.       This is Christmas Eve, of course. I am sitting here next to the window so I can hear the Fed-Ex guy, should he arrive. I was tracking a package for someone that should remain unnamed. This parcel left a local place around 6 A.M. this morning and should arrive today. Oh, it is not that big of a deal if it arrives after Christmas.      Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of top-secret, devious, underhanded, fun plots in the works for Christmas. I thought seriously about a 'Santa' scheme. When my boys were young, we did the traditional thing and awoke in the middle of the night to place some stuff under the tree from Santa. If there was a bicycle to put together or an AT/...

   Hey, everyone. It being Christmas, I thought you might have a few Super-Heroes on your list. As a full service blog, I thought I'd share some of the things I have bought for my super-friends. 1) Spiderman- Anything. The guy has no luck at all. 2) Submariner- Deodorant. He smells like fish. 3) Superman- Kryptonite antidote. 4) Green Lantern- A matching green bracelet for that cool ring. 5) Iron Man- Pepper Potts, wrapped in a red ribbon. Just a red ribbon. 6) Batman- A dehumidifier for that drafty old Bat-cave. 7) Hulk- Clothes are always good. The dude is hard on clothes. 8) Flash- Shoes, obviously. Yellow Reeboks with wings on them. How is it that he doesn't have a shoe deal with Nike or someone? 9) Wonder Woman- Victoria's Secret, of course. I'd need her there with me to try on the stuff. 10) Black Widow- A whip, to go with all that black leather. 11) Thor- A new name. So he wouldn't sound like a muscle condition with a speech impediment. 12) Cat...

    Hey, everyone. It is unseasonably warm in the southern U.S. this week, with temps yesterday hitting the low 70's.  I coaxed Carley into getting out in the yard and tossing around the football for a while. I have been teaching her to throw the spiral; I.E. putting a spin on the ball so that it will fly farther and truer. She has the knack of it.     Speaking of football, The Falcons are now 11 and 1. Drew Brees had a tough night at the Georgia Dome. I respect Drew's abilities but he shouldn't have said that stuff about "We own the division, we know it and they know it".     In sports it is impossible to ignore the luck factor. I'd rather be lucky than good. If you have a measure of both it would seem ideal. The Falcons have had more lucky breaks than normal and are talented as well. I began to follow them from the time of their creation, back in 1966. Up until then, there were not a lot of choices for southerners to pull for. Of c...

     Hey, everyone. To begin with, all you folks who haven't bought  Shadowgun can now buy it for the price of $2.99.  Not too shabby for what may be the best game on the app store.     I recieved an I-Tunes gift card today and have plans for it already. There are a few games that I intend to buy and I may sit down tommorrow evening and search the music store for some cool oldies to buy. I need enough for a new CD. About 20 should do it. I may, perchance, partake of a limited number of suitably festive drinks while doing that. As far as the games go, the games I've been eye-balling are as follows. 1) Modern Combat 2, Sandstorm. 2) Batman, Arkam City Asylum. 3) R.U.S.E.     There was another one which I can't remember at the moment. Whatever.      Today, tonight, we had a get-together here at the green retreat. We ate a ridiculous amount of food. Excuse me, I ate a ridiculous amount of food. There was turkey...

    Hey, everyone. Just a quick note on games. Nova 2 , the great space shooter game, just went to 99 cents at the app store. This is a steal at that price. Also, Hero of Sparta 2 , an epic, lengthy game with awesome graphics, is free at the moment. It's a sword fighting game but is cool enough that even I liked it. There are monsters and climbing, all the stuff that big kids like myself like. Gangstar Rio is another $6.99 game that has dropped to 99 cents. I just bought it, at that price, so I can't say if it is good or not.     My wife just bought one of the Brokensword   games (The Smoking Mirror). It is a mystery, but she hates it. You just walk around tapping stuff to see if it will help you. It is 800 Mbs. of memory. Should have been good. Maybe I should give it more of a chance before I slam it? I mean, for 99 cents, what do you have to lose? I feel guilty if I complain at all.     EA games has started their Christmas sale with a lo...

     Santa has had a tough Christmas season this year. He is now emaciated and limp as a noodle. Yet he still has the big night ahead of him. He has so many deliveries that UPS couldn't even help him. Yet he keeps a brave smile on his face. He landed here at the green retreat, hoping for a little peace and quiet. He said he just had to get away from those noisy elves. So he just hung about with me all day Saturday.      The dude reads the blog, I guess, and he was a bit irritated with me for my earlier blog about Christmas. He did acknowledge that those retailers who doubled the price of toys for this time of year, would get a lump of coal in their stocking.       I bought a game yesterday. It is called Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters. I haven't played it much but it seems a bit repetitive. It was on sale for 99 cents, so there wasn't much of a gamble. I'll get back to you if it is good. So far, you dodge aliens an...

    Yes, this is a paraphrase of the George Harrison song. Yes, it is about Christmas. Yes, it refers to the classic line from Scrooge , "Bah, Humbug".     Lest I get any odd visitors, let me say up front that I like Christmas. It's a cool time of the year. The reason I am writing this is merely to talk about the merchant thing. A few years ago, Carley and I were out shopping for the Grandkids' presents. We had decided on a certain amount of money to spend on each person and for the kids, of course, we were in the toy aisles. Because the toys are fun for me to play with and check out. Much to my surprise, it was plain that all the items had been marked up by about a third or more, just for the purpose of ripping off people who had to buy for children. Some of the stuff had actually doubled in price.       So, instead of getting quite a bit of cool stuff for the money, we got a rather pitiful looking buggy of stuff to take home and...

    Hey, everyone. I thought I'd update an earlier post about apps you should get for your brand new Christmas device from Apple. You might need a little help spending your Christmas money. The app store is one of the great things about having an I-Pad. A central, convenient and relatively cheap place to buy toys is hard to beat. Just ask all the folks spending $50 for x-box games. I've jotted down a few apps and games you might like. Keep in mind that the I-Phone version of the same game will cost about one third of the price of the I-Pad game and will play just fine. Also, the prices go up and down with sales, so don't get mad at me, okay? 1. Stanza- the best app for books, probably. It has listings of free books, enough to keep you busy for years. There's a version for your PC as well. 2.Plants vs. Zombies-99 cents. The best game on the store, plus no blood and gore. 3.Angry Birds-99 cents. One of the most popular games in the world. The HD version will cost you a...

    It was a couple of months since he had seen them. The little boy that wasn't big enough to walk when he left would surely be toddling now. The young man had been in boot camp for a couple of months and had been sent straight to advanced training from there. He missed the black-haired beauty that was his wife. He missed her so badly that it hurt deep inside him. She wasn't much more than a kid, herself.     When he got to his new post, he got a weekend pass and went home to get his wife and baby. The baby didn't really seem to know him but it was wonderful to hold the two of them in his arms. There were some tears all around.     They drove hundreds of miles, in the dead of winter, in their old rattletrap Chevrolet. He had taken the sides off an old washing machine and placed the metal in the floorboards so less cold air would blow in through the holes. He was late getting back to base and got in some trouble.     When th...