Well, VD is around the corner. Yes, I meant Valentine’s Day and not Herpes. In honor of this pseudo-celebration brought upon us by retailers I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of my experiences with my lovely wife.

When Creative Geeks Collide
When Angela and I shared a home office in Northern Virginia things could get a little tight. I had my desk against one wall while she had her desk pushed up against the opposite wall. In between us was about 5-6 feet of space. At any moment we could turn around and see what the other person was working on. It was ideal for us creatives. I had my little bank of computers and she had all the printers and such. Yes, it was a hot bed of activity. It also meant that while we were both working in the office would could easily interrupt each other or, as close quarters is prone to amplify, annoy the crap out of each other.

Such is the case when Angela and I were arguing one day. Who knows what it was about. It was something about a client of ours and we both had ideas of how to handle a particular situation. As things started heating up and the tension was getting high we finally broke off into that ‘FINE! I’m going to sit here and be silent and ignore you, moron!’ mode and the office was utterly silent. None of the pets dared to even come in to see how we were doing. And that’s how we were for a good 10 minutes, back to back and ignoring one another; seething in anger and wallowing in our pride. Neither one of us would budge and say something to the other.

Ok, so neither of us would. I had the grand idea to let someone else do the talking for me. Being the ass that I am I pointed my browser to Meriam-Webster’s online dictionary (http://www.m-w.com) and snickered to myself. As I was sure that Angela would still be mad at me I did the only thing that I could to both get the last word in as well as lighten the mood: I plugged in the word ‘stupid’, turned up the volume on my speakers and then clicked on the icon that had allowed you to hear the pronunciation of the word. And there, in all its glory, was a the very clear male voice that said one word –

“Stupid”

And then I clicked it again.

“Stupid”

Angela looked at me and where my browser was pointed. I’m sure she could see me smiling and giggling. She immediately pointed her browser to the site and plugged in a word.

“Ass”

Back and forth it went. “Retard”, “Jerk”, “Jackass”, and even “bunghole“. That did a lot to lighten the mood as we both feverishly typed insults into websites that would speak for us. When it was all said and done we were both chuckling at how “stupid” we were.

The Culture Trade-off
I’m normally the person who gets Angela hooked on watching shows that she never would have thought of watching. On a recent trip home she got me hooked on watching the Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes”.
[youtube width=”320″ height=”264″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yalxitqREPI[/youtube]

Based in Baltimore, Charm City Cakes produces some AMAZING cakes. Neither of us are sure how they taste but, dang, they look good. I also understand that they’re expensive.

While Angela gets me hooked on weird cooking shows, I keep trying to break into her head with anime. She’s starting to come around. I’ll show her one or two episodes of something that she thinks sounds stupid and then all of a sudden BAM! She asks if there are any other episodes. At the moment she’s caught up in Death Note (guy with a God complex can kill people by writing their name in a notebook) and Nodame Cantabile (two musical prodigies get together – a guy who wants to be a conductor and a woman who can play anything after hearing it at least once).

If only I could get her to go to Otakon in Baltimore to the dance from ‘Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya’, Hare Hare Yukai (this may take a while to load. It is 46MB and it isn’t streaming):

The above was ripped from the DVD (not released in the US yet) and is an extra. Here’s the “clean ending” posted on YouTube (clean endings mean that there is no text over the video):

[youtube width=”320″ height=”264″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8n_eVzkpTk[/youtube]

The attention to detail in the first video is amazing. How can you not love Haruhi?!