I hadn’t seen the first season of 24, so this past Saturday my dad brought it over, Stu showed up, and we had another 24 marathon.

Once again, well worth the time spent. I can see totally why the show took off. Great cast, great writing… it doesn’t get much better.

It also showed me how they reward long-time viewers: if you watch carefully, you can see peripheral characters from previous seasons show up in later seasons with larger parts, tying things in together nicely.

My dad ended up loaning Stu the second season so he can catch up, which is cool. That’s where I started. Stu also apparently had the weird 24 surreal after-effect I had after my first marathon where he just had to call Jack and tell him about the bomb on the plane at 3:00a. Funny, but understandable. Heh.

Dad says the fifth season is the best yet, so I’m excited for this fall when it comes out on DVD.

Scott Guthrie has a great article about some of the IIS 7 features coming in Windows Vista and Longhorn. Included:

• HttpHandlers and HttpModules can participate in any server request, not just for .NET apps.
• ASP.NET configuration system integrated into IIS (web.config for all apps!).
• Admin GUI that combines administration of IIS and ASP.NET settings.
• Better error auditing/debugging through a new system called “Failed Request Event Buffering.”
• Vastly improved APIs (check out the example of the simplest program ever that can enumerate the worker processes and current requests). Check this out for more on the API updates. Bye bye, WMI!

I’m stoked. Seriously. All of this stuff is going to make the ASP.NET world so much easier to work in. I’ve already started shooting emails off to folks around work about ways we can leverage these things.

Made my first purchase on the Xbox Live Marketplace last night. Bought the game Zuma, which is sort of an addictive little puzzle game.

I’d only played it a couple of times before - once on the computer, once on the demo version for Xbox 360 - but I fired it up after buying it for 800 “Microsoft Points” ($10) and ran at it for a little over an hour. Thought I was seriously kicking ass until I saw that I ranked like 20,000th or something. Hmmm.

Jenn played after me. Jenn is a Zuma whore. Her Zuma addiction is not unlike that of a heroin junkie. She did pretty well, better than I did (ranking like 13,000th or something).

So glad I paid $600 for a Zuma 360 - a very expensive, high-definition, Zuma-playing device. I anticipate she’ll be on that when I get home, her very soul lost to the chanting demons of the game, eyes blurry, hands aching, just needing one more game.

I joined Xbox Live since the Silver membership is free and they give you a free month of the Gold membership, just to try it out. Added my gamercard to the site over in the navigation section, and I even already have a Friend. I realize I’m like a week late and several dollars short on this, but I have to hand it to Microsoft - they did a pretty snazzy job getting the network thing set up. I don’t anticipate I’ll be entering into any online tournaments, but just so I can play against folks I know I’ll probably chip in the $50 a year for the Gold.

I noticed that Xbox 360 shows your wireless controller battery level on the dashboard and mine’s already getting low. It’s looking like you can get about 12 hours or so of play from a set of double-A batteries. (I haven’t actually run out of juice yet, but given the rate it’s going, that’s the amount of time I’m guessing I have.) As such, I cashed in some gift certificates that have been piling up and got the quick charge kit, a second rechargeable battery (the charge kit comes with one), and, while I was at it, Tomb Raider: Legend. That should be here shortly. In the meantime, I’ll probably have to pop some new batteries in so I can continue riding the walls around the track in Project Gotham Racing 3. (I totally suck at that game. I think I might have beaten one or two things on “normal” mode, but the rest? Easy mode, baby.)

I joined Jenn up to Xbox Live, too, at the Silver level, so she can go buy little games and stuff from the Xbox Live Marketplace. She’s addicted to those damn Pop Cap games, and what better way to play them than in high definition, right?

Easter’s come and gone in a massive storm of nonevent. Not that I was really expecting much to happen, so I suppose my expectations were entirely valid.

Stu’s last day at Corillian was Friday, so a small group of us went to Newport Bay for happy hour where we got cheap food and crappy service for an hour or so to celebrate Stu’s liberation. Jenn and Tif got together for a girls’ movie night, so Stu and I played some Paper Mario.

Saturday was a clean-up-around-the-house day where Jenn and I finally got to a lot of the errands and things we’d been putting on “the list” for the last couple of weeks. Random stuff - shopping, cleaning things, putting things away, etc. Nothing too exciting there, but it was good closure on things that needed to be done. After we finished with the chores, Jenn and I spent some time playing Project Gotham Racing 3, where I thoroughly determined that I’m pretty much no good at it but still have fun playing.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day, and I suppose that’s how it should be on Easter. Jenn and I went to breakfast at Biscuits Cafe, which is really good. I had sweet potato pancakes, heavy on the “cake,” light on the “pan.” So tasty, yet heavy - like eating a gold brick baked in spice. Also had some eggs, hashbrowns, and bacon. Just doesn’t get better than that. Fell into a food coma about 10 minutes after leaving.

I spent a couple of hours reading comic books that I’d purchased but never quite got around to reading, then Stu came over and we finally finished Paper Mario (clocking in at about 40 full hours of play). Jenn whipped up some Indian food - chicken in a spicy ginger sauce - and we all sat and watched SNL: The Best of Phil Hartman, where Stu was given a lot of US pop culture reference in one big dose.

Now it’s Monday, and frankly, I’m bored. Stu’s no longer over the cube wall from me, and while it’s not a showstopper or anything, he did sort of keep me sane around here.