3 Months of Busy-ness

I have a spare 15 minutes, so let's see how far I can get....

Another year, another fantasy football season that sees my team having unbelievably bad luck and all my opponents' players just happening to have career weeks against me. Also, just like last year, a lot of my opponents' players who have amazing performances against me end up getting hurt the following week (exhibit A: Michael Vick). This week my opponent had both Jay Cutler and the Giants defense, so something had to give. Unfortunately it was poor Jay's head. As a Bears fan, last night was a miserable game to watch....

Engineering school has reached new levels of ruthlessness. I'm constantly working and having to shun family, friends, free time, creative pursuits, and sanity.

My technological annoyances continue. Oh the woes of being a broke college student...it now appears that my creaky old laptop is too old for further software updates (this includes Itunes...apparently I'm stuck with version 9.2 from now on)...which also means I cannot update the software on my Iphone. (I'm on version 3.1.3 of that...) I could potentially upgrade the software from another computer, but apparently that would mean losing everything on my phone - including pictures (all 1000 of them). As my creaky old laptop is incredibly slow and short on memory, an attempt at transferring my pictures to my computer is no simple task. What I really need is a fairy-god-mother to show up at my porch door with a brand new Mac laptop (and Iphone G4 while she's at it) and a case of Newcastle. And since we're asking for really cool things to be delivered to me - how about my lovely girlfriend, too?

Alright, my allotted free time is up. The Engineering Monster is coming....

I can almost see the lights of the Goodyear blimp

"Just wakin' up in the morning, gotta thank God / I don't know but today seems kinda odd" -- Ice Cube

It's funny how some songs stick with you through the years. ITunes has a feature that lists the last date/time that each song was played. Sometimes it's amazing to see that I haven't played a certain song in years. The above-quoted Ice Cube song was last played on June 3, 2004 - but to my mind it seems like I hear it (and every other song on my computer) at least once a month.

Why is it that I buy these flavored CoffeeMate creamers and they taste great the first time I use them, but then after that....I feel like the son in "There Will Be Blood" being forced to drink a tall glass of whiskey and milk?

So who saw House last night? I was NOT expecting a suicide! I figured someone was going to be killed off....but not like that....(I probably shouldn't say anymore in case some of you haven't yet seen it)

No, I did not go to Tater Day yesterday. On Saturday, however, I had a dentist appointment in Benton and had to dodge several dual-Rebel-flag-bearing pick-ups as I made my way through town. You know....as much as some of us roll our eyes at it, I'm sure other communities have similar annual cringe-inducing events. The Polish carpenters told me about this small town in Georgia where every year for Oktoberfest the entire town makes beer and gets hammered. They're even allowed to stumble around drinking in the streets. (No, not New Orleans) They said there's a lot of German immigrants there who brew authentic old-world style beers. (I wonder if that should be "old" with an e on the end?)

Sorry Wenders, time to gripe about something: the seat in my truck. Driving my truck has become physical torture. Normally just driving around in my truck causes my sciatica to flare up (back and hip pain), but after someone else adjusts the seat it becomes even worse. Then the more I mess with it trying to fix things, it only gets worse until I'm literally squirming in my seat and driving faster just so I can get out of the vehicle sooner. Hey - we live in a society where blaming others is the norm - maybe I can sue Ford for my chronic sciatica problems?! What say you, my abnormal amount of lawyer friends?

Yeah...what's up with that? An unusually large number of my friends are either lawyers or hold engineering degrees. I wonder what professions I do NOT have friends in..... I don't know any chiropractors. I don't know any police officers (do I?....). I don't know any Hollywood actors or screenwriters. No plantation owners. No research scientists. No astronauts. No preachers/evangelists. No politicians. No pro or semi-pro athletes. No psychiatrists (but a few psychologists). No mechanics. No librarians. No oil-drillers. But it's possible I do know someone who has force-fed their kid a tall glass of whiskey and milk.

Well, enough rambling. Time to start my day. I hope I don't have to use my AK...

Another Spring Break Bites The Dust

Well, I don't know how many of you watched Battlestar Galactica's second-to-last episode ever last night. In fact, I can't name a single friend that I know watches the show. In any event, last night's episode was a very good one - very intense and building up to next week's 2 hour finale.

I have a lot of work to do today, but I'm considering only spending a couple of hours on it and then running off to the movies. I woke up this morning thinking I had to stay at home today because there would be carpenters here. But due to the rain, they've decided to not work today and instead come tomorrow. So, now I have the day free (other than my work) and tomorrow I have to remain here. Hmm....what to do...

So my spring break is over and what did we learn? Well, we learned that the Weezer song "The Spider" is still too depressing to listen to all the way through. We learned that just because you say you're going to have a nice relaxing day to yourself doesn't mean you won't find yourself cleaning out basements, trailers, and unloading truck-bed's full of tools in torrential downpours. We learned that March is still a lousy excuse for a month. We learned that when you grow your hair out for 7 months and then go to get it trimmed (just a bit) you might not be happy with the results. We also learned that spring breaks spent at home go by just as quickly as those spent drinking and getting skin cancer in warmer locations.

The other day I finally turned on the Genius program on Itunes. I had been fearful of doing this as it scans your music library for information and then sends it to Apple. However, it claims that it does so anonymously. Well, I took the plunge and now Apple has all sorts of secret info on me. I had heard people rave about the supposedly "eerily perfect" playlists that Genius creates. Uh...I'm just not seeing it. I keep giving Genius shots at coming up with playlists and I'm not seeing at all how they are supposed to be so great. Basically it seems like it starts with a random song and then selects songs by similar artists to go with it. Maybe that's the point...and maybe that is a good idea...but I like a little more variety. I have almost 3,000 songs on my Itunes and a wide range of different artists. Yet when Genius fills a 25 song list I'll find maybe 12 different artists and often multiple songs from the same album. In a 25 song list I shouldn't find 2 songs from Thom Yorke's solo album - considering that there are about 10 songs on that album and those are the only 10 Thom Yorke songs out of the 3,000 on my computer.

But the real reason I wanted to try Genius was for the new music recommendations. It's supposed to offer up selections from the Itunes store that you would like based on your library. I've been a little more happy with this aspect of the program, but again feel like there should be more variety. In the Itunes store they'll offer a list of 15 recommended songs with a "more" tab that keeps generating more lists. There have been a lot of good ones on there that have caught my interest. However, I keep seeing the same bands and even same albums over and over again. I have an astounding number of Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and Muse songs on my computer - but I don't seem to be getting a lot of recommendations that are similar to them. Instead I get a lot of indie bands (which for the most part I'm not into) and seemingly random rock songs that I've never heard of. Also they're really pushing the Smashing Pumpkins Rarities album. Nearly every 15 song list has a track from that album on it.

So my jury is still out on Genius, but I'd like to hear what others have to say about it.

Another complaint about Itunes and its music catalogue: how come I can't find all the b-sides and rare tracks that I want? Why offer a seemingly random selection of such songs and not all of them? I guess this is on the artists/labels themselves. If you're going to sell your music on Itunes, why not make all of it available? Kudos to Radiohead for making a solid effort in this regard. But they still need to make those extra tracks from their last album available.

Okay, time to get some work done....and then maybe an attempt at fun today...