Nothing is easier than self-deceit.: Highland Games and more!

Last weekend, Ben and I went with my mother and step-father up to Lincoln, NH to attend the New Hampshire Scottish Highland Games. Last year we went on Saturday (it's a 3-day event) and saw big burly Scottish guys pulling boulders and tossing cabers, but this time we decided to attend on Friday and see the sheepdog trials. Also a plus - the place is way less packed on Friday, although the weather was a little spotty.

Note: sheepdog trials are sort of amazing. The dogs are all border collies, and fairly young. They are taught to run the sheep (in this case, it was three sheep) through an actually rather complicated course. There are points assigned for how fast it's completed, and how many of the obstacles (mostly fences that the dogs have to make the sheep go through) are completed correctly. The owners direct the dogs with a whistle, and different whistles mean different things. They also use verbal commands like "lay down" and "come by". The dogs are remarkably good at handling the sheep, and it's sort of crazy to watch them execute this complicated sheep dance pattern. We saw about six dogs do the trials, most of whom I guess go to national competitions for this stuff, and we also got to see them training some of the younger dogs. The pictures I got sort of suck, because the iPhone is far from a good photo-taking device, especially in the wind and at a distance.

Other than that, we also got to see a couple of harp demonstrations, Ben did a scotch tasting, and there were tons of food, clothing and merchandise vendors as well as awesome music.

We also took home a bunch of good food, including oat cake, fudge, Scottish candy, and shortbread, and we stopped at the orchard near my house in NH for some apples and other apple products.

Speaking of my house (well, my parents' house) in NH, here's a view from the back deck:

As if this all wasn't enough, Ben and I finally decided to take the jump and buy a TV (our first) and an Xbox. Well, my mother bought the Xbox for us, and a couple of games. I now play Halo (yeah, it shocked me, too) and I'm having fun with Dante's Inferno (the game, not the epic poem). It's fun to have a console after all this time, but it's really ruining my productivity. I pretty much didn't even bother making dinner this week at all, between having to finish the Halo 3 campaign and having to raid in World of Warcraft.