Anniversary?!

I missed the 1-year anniversary of this blog! Sheesh. Some parent I am.

It's been interesting putting up my rambles for the world to see, but I'm having fun with it. I think I kept pretty true to the original tenets of the blog: no goths, no poetry, and the majority of the personal stuff (especially the whiny stuff) got kept out. I won't lie, I let some of it slip in, but that's okay - as long as I'm not waxing poetic about every crush I have and that kind of jazz.

The last year has seen me go from unemployed bum -> engineering job-seeking -> engineering graduate school student -> pre-med student. So that's a drastic career, scholastic, and life change within the course of one year. The social life was great, didn't kiss as many girls as I'd like [ha!], got drunk more times than I can count [take that, responsibility!], but the year was a blast. Here's to many more to come.

And check out my photo blog if you haven't yet. I'll be great when I freaking finish it. It takes forever to upload pictures on my crappy DSL!

Mezmerized

So the more I listen to it, the more I really love the new System of a Down album "Mezmerize". There's at least 8 solid songs on it, and that makes me happy. There's still quite a few 2005 albums that I need to listen to, but there's only so much time in the day.

I love it when ESPN Classic replays the old Muhammad Ali fights. Tonight the "Thrilla in Manilla" [Ali v. Frazier] was on, and I tell you - boxing isn't nearly the same now days. Ali was a beast. Boxing actually was enjoyable to watch, and I can't get enough of these fights.

As I have documented before, I really don't like pro basketball. For some reason though, I've watched a lot of the NBA Playoffs this year and have thoroughly enjoyed the games. I love Shaquille O'Neal and would love to see the Heat do well, but my absolute favorite player has got to be Tim Duncan. He's just a good guy, and he's an incredible (the best) player. I look forward to watching the rest of the Conference Finals and the NBA Finals.

Baseball was kind to me today. My Yellow Jackets eliminated FSU in the ACC tourney by thrashing them 18-2, with the game called after 7 innings due to enforcement of the 10-run mercy rule. It was FSU's worst loss in 23 years. Topping that, the Red Sox absolutely tore through the Yankees, piling up a monsterous amount of runs for a 17-1 victory at Yankee Stadium. Go Sox.

Last night I was sitting around on my butt and Amy [coworker, RN, overall hottie] gave me a call so I headed over to her place and we sat around and drank all night. Had an absolutely incredible time. It was just so refreshing to sit back, chill, and just talk for hours on end. That's when you know you've found a good friend, when you can just sit and talk about the most random stuff for hours and when you do finally look at your watch, you can't believe that it's six hours later. I had a great time, and we'll have to do it more often. [If you're in Tallahassee and are looking for a kickass drinking buddy, I highly reccommend Amy.]

Lumines, an addictive puzzle game for the PSP that basically combines Tetris with Columns, is possibly my new favorite puzzle game. I love the heck out of it. Yesterday I showed up for a movie 45 minutes early just so I could sit in a darkened theater and enjoy my little puzzle game.

Star Wars Episode III was the movie I went and saw, and it reminded my why I don't like seeing movies in theaters. A family of dumb rednecks to the left ("Daddy what's that?" "IT'S DARTH VADER!!") and a family of just noisy huge people constantly eating and crumpling napkins and slurping drinks to the right. I love the theater for the huge picture and the awesome sound, but I sure don't miss avoiding the crowds. Regarding the movie, it was good, and tied up a lot of loose ends. The best of the prequels, by far. I like movies that end on a dark note, as Empire was my favorite SW movie.

I'm a dork. Just in case you didn't know. I was drinking booze out of an Erlenmeyer flash last weekend.

A Load of It

First off, anybody seen the new Starbucks Expresso Shot commercial where some guy named Hank is followed around by a crowd of people singing along to Rock and Roll Pt 2? HANK! Great commercial. Not as good as the "Glen" commercial with the band Survivor. Worst commercials? Old Navy commercials that take old songs from the 80s and 70s and change the words to fit some crappy item they're selling [ie "Super Skirt" to the tune of Rick James' "Super Freak"]. Horrible stuff.

My Top 10 songs, from a rotation standpoint:
1. "B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down
2. "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz
3. "Holiday" by Green Day
4. "Revenga" by System of a Down
5. "Orpheus" by Ash
6. "Banquet" by Bloc Party
7. "Southern Belles in London Sing" by The Faint
8. "Wishbone" by Architecture in Helsinki
9. "It'5!" by Architecture in Helsinki
10. "The Hand That Feeds" by Nine Inch Nails

A decidedly rock list. I'm not on a rap fix right now, that's for sure. The new System of a Down album is pretty damned good. The first 5 songs are ridiculously hot. The new Gorillaz album is good, the video even better. "Holiday" is the best Green Day song in years (and by far and away the best one on the overrated American Idiot album). "Orpheus" is possibly the greatest driving song ever, 2nd only to "All I Want" by the Offspring. Both songs were used in racing video games that I loved the hell out of ["Orpheus" is in Burnout 3: Takedown and "All I Want" was in Crazy Taxi 1]. The tracks by AiH are carefree and fun. "Banquet" sounds like a more sophisticated Franz Ferdinand. "Southern Belles" and "Hand that Feeds" just rock. They make me want to get up and move.

I still haven't seen Star Wars Episode III, and yes, I am a huge dork. But not that big of a dork. I can't stand the crowds. After Episode II, I wasn't too thrilled to get out there and see it either (now Lord of the Rings was a different story).

The vibrate motor on my phone just stopped working the other day. That's really annoying.

Ubuntu's running well on all the machines still. The problems are minor, but some take some nasty work arounds. I wish I had my Xbox Media Center functional again so I could catch up on all the shows I've downloaded.

Lost season finale is tonight. I really like that show.

The iPod Shuffle is working great still. It's odd that I use the 1GB Shuffle far more now than my 40GB Nomad. Speaking of, I really, really need to update the Nomad.

I do miss iTunes in Linux. I'm using Beep Media Player [essentially a Winamp clone] but I miss the artwork/browser panes in iTunes. Rhythmbox is close, but still missing a lot. I also want a MusicBrainz client.

I finally cashed in all my iTunes Pepsi caps that I got from my coworkers (around 100 or so in total from January-April) and bought a few albums: all the Ben Folds/Iron and Wine/Postal Service rarities, The Stars' "Set Myself on Fire", Of Montreal's "The Sunlandic Twins", and The Go-Betweens' "Oceans Apart" - haven't listened to them all yet, but I immediately converted them all to DRM-free mp3 [and not DRM-encrusted Apple AAC] so that I can use them wherever I want.

I am saddened by Subway ending their Sub Club promotion. No more stamps given out, and they'll just give you $0.40/stamp for the stamps you've got. Sad thing? I've got 9 little booklets done [I used to work across the street from a Subway in Detroit]. So I guess I need to cash those little bastards in.

School's going great so far. No tests yet [Bio on Tuesday, Chem2 on Wednesday] but I've pretty much destroyed all the quizzes, homeworks, and labs. Shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and I had a Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch again today. BK needs to make that a permanent item on the menu. Oh, and the Darth Vader / Burger King stare-down commercial is comedy gold. As is the Darth Vader "I'm your....uncle" one.

I watched Big Lebowski again last night and I still love the shit out of that movie. Quite possibly the most quotable movie that I know. "YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT, DONNY."

I finally got a subscription to the greatest magazine in the world, 2600, after years of wanting it. The first issue arrived the other day, and it was an absolute joy to read. I love the hacker mindset, that constantly inquisitive drive that hackers have to fight for personal freedoms and to always find out how things work. Barnes and Noble has copies, I suggest you pick one up one day.

And I should be finishing Metroid Prime 2 sometime soon. What a great game.

Oh, and women still continue to just baffle the heck out of me. The ones I like the most are either not available or nowhere near me or just not interested. In the words of Homer Simpson: "Aww! The waiting game sucks! Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!"

Concert Season

Okay, I love two things about summer: concerts and road trips. Here's what I'm thinking of tentatively of what my Summer 2005 concert schedule's gonna be. Anybody and everybody's welcome to join me at any of these things, I'll always take company on a road trip or at a show.

June:
2nd (Thu): The Faint [sadly with Bright Eyes], Orlando, Hard Rock Live
8th (Wed): Iron and Wine, Tallahassee, Beta Bar
17th (Fri): Architecture in Helsinki, Carrboro NC, Cat's Cradle [I wish they came closer to FL]
23rd (Thu): The Aquabats, Tallahassee, Big Daddy's
27th (Mon): My Chemical Romance, Orlando, Hard Rock (this one's iffy)

July
19th (Tue): Weezer, Orlando, Hard Rock Live [for MTV]

August
7th (Sun): Vans Warped Tour '05, Orlando, Tinker Field
23rd (Tue): Green Day, Atlanta, Phillips Arena

If I somehow DO manage to get to all of these tours, then I'll have hit almost all my favorite bands from 1994 [Green Day, The Offspring, Weezer]. It could be a great summer, we'll see. And if you've never gone on a roadtrip with me, you're missing out. Roadtrips are a blast. The schedule above is very tentative [nothing's final till I buy tickets, right?] so if you've got any additions/suggestions, then fire away. Guys and girls are all welcome in my car for any road trip, so long as you're not an obnoxious ass and you're willing to chip in for gas money.

Curiously Strong?

Okay, I admit it. I have an addiction. I seem to buy everything I see with the word 'Altoids' on it. Ever since I had one of those mints a few years back, I've been hooked. I usually had a tin of the original mints laying around, but admittedly I'm more of a gum person than a mint person. So when Altoids came out with gum, I ditched my old standby [Wrigley's Orbit] and went with the little mini-tins of Altoids gum. Not kidding you, in my backpack are currently 6 Altoids gum tins - one peppermint, one cinnamon, one sour apple, one sour cherry, and two other sour apple tins currently holding Motrin and Tylenol Extra Strength samples that a drug rep at work gave me.

So today I see the newest little Altoids thing, the Altoids minis. Go look at their shoppe if you want to see what I'm talking about. Speaking of, looking at that link exposes me to a couple things I've never tried before...like Liquorice and Ginger Altoids. I really want a tin of each now.

One cool thing that the nerds out there are doing with Altoids is modding the tins to do other things. My personal favorite is the Altoids Headphone Amp that somebody rigged up. I really want to make one of those. Somebody else also suggested using an Altoids Gum tin for an iPod shuffle case - I'll have to see about that one. Also cool is the emergency backup battery for an iPod in an Altoids tin. 4 extra hours of playtime off one 9V battery! Neat stuff. Makes me want to figure out something cool to use all my extra tins for.

So besides the ubiquitous Almond M&Ms and Reese's Pieces, Altoids are the best candy in the world. Or at least they come with the coolest containers.

Ketchup and Toast

Okay, it's been forever and a half since I updated this thing. I started college again on Monday on my pre-med track at Florida State. Biology I (which FSU is making me re-take), Chemistry II, and their respective labs are the classes for the summer. It really was amusing to me attending these classes filled with sophomores and freshman and hearing the way they talk, particularly complain, and how you can see the struggle for them to understand the material on their face. I'm one of the oldest people in my classes, if not THE oldest, and it's an interesting change of pace. I remember having some older people in my undergraduate classes at Georgia Tech and I often wondered how it felt for them to be so out of place from a demographic standpoint. I know without a doubt that my age and my drive are going to help me do better in these classes. Hope that proves right.

Movies time. Recently I've seen Sin City, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fever Pitch, The Life Aquatic, Night of the Living Dead, and Hitch.

Sin City: Finally saw this one today and I liked it. Was it incredibly awesome? Not really. Was it a good flick? Yeah. It really was like a comic book in movie form. I liked the shooting style of the film and the acting was superb, and even the story was good. But the three subplot, substory style really kept it from feeling like a full-length movie to me.

H2G2: I thorougly enjoyed this. I've read all the books, and I have to admit that anybody who expects a 100% straight adaptation of the book into movie form would probably be upset. Elise, who saw it with me, hadn't read the books but she enjoyed it. I hope they make more of the series.

Fever Pitch: I saw this for two reasons, I too am a die-hard Red Sox Fan and I've always had the hots for Drew Barrymore. Verdict? Good date movie, especially for a sports fan.

Hitch: Same category, good date movie that's suitable enough for a guy to see. (It didn't suck).

The Life Aquatic: This movie has caught a lot of grief from Wes Anderson fans, but I really liked it. I bought the DVD yesterday and rewatched it, and I have to say that I think it's still just hilarious. I don't think it's better than Tenenbaums, but I do like it more than Rushmore.

Night of the Living Dead: I bought this DVD for $1 when I was in Chapel Hill at a Walmart and watched it while Meg was in class - and what a good buy. For $1 I got a classic horror film complete with its terrible ending.


Okay, now on to the music. Here are the albums that have been on heavy rotation for me lately:
Reel Big Fish - Turn the Radio Off [it's good, fun music]
Ash - Meltdown [rocking pop]
Autopilot Off - Make A Sound [refined screamo, full of energy]
Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth [incredible rock]
The Faint - Wet From Birth [possibly the best album of 2004]
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die [incredible ADD symphonic pop]
Ludacris - The Red Light District [Luda's my favorite rapper]
The Game - Documentary [Compton's back on the rap scene]
50 Cent - The Massacre [some great tracks]
My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge [the other great 2004 album]
Beck - Guero [reminds me a lot of Mellow Gold]
Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman [CYNICAL but great]


My computers are now Windows free. All three of my machines are now proudly running Debian-based Ubuntu Linux which not only has the best user interface that I've ever seen but also works flawlessly with all the hardware I've thrown at it (my crappy Dell laptop, my Dell desktop, and an old K6-2 333mHz homebuilt pc). Wireless [especially 802.11g] works great. To anybody interested in ditching Windows, give it a shot. Download a LiveCD from the website and give it a shot. Try it for a day.

The only program that I'm missing so far is Hello, as I was using it to finish up my photo blog. I guess I'll use the Windows box for that till I get Hello to play nicely with Wine and Linux.

Dawn of the Dead?

First off, go and read this story. Now. GO READ IT NOW.

Read it yet?

That is some messed up stuff right there. Freaking zombies. Angry, pissed off, undead zombies. And it is REAL. Crazy.










(Of course it was fake. A good fake though.)

A Hazy Shade of Winter

Sorry I haven't posted in forever and a day, but I have been busy as hell. The past few weeks have been filled with over 200 hours of work, a roadtrip to NC and VA, and one hell of a wedding. Coupled with all this was some wicked problem my computer's had with me. I wanted my computer to work, it had a different idea. Now that Windows is gone [thank you, Ubuntu Linux!] and my computer is once again functional, I'll have some pictures and posts up soon. I've had a few ideas for posts, so expect some pots once I get some free time again.

Till then, it's 7 straight days of work coupled with school starting back up. Whoo!