March 2004 Archives

So another day goes by in my life, with thing staying the same... yet not the same. Anyhow I thought I'd start this wonderful entry off with a quote that Heidi Johnson sent me. I think its something we all need to keep in mind while in college. (Jared, this means you big buddy)

"Make a little room in your plans for romance again, Anne, girl. All the degrees and scholarships in the world can't make up for the lack of it."
-Aunt Josephine in the 1st book

I received a nice e-mail from our dean of students concerning the security of our mail at Gustavus (snail mail, for you techno junkies). I could just go off on it, but that would be too easy. I think I should quote it first, to give you an unbiased report first.

"Authorities are currently investigating mail-handling procedures for incoming mail at the College. Mail is continuing to be processed as usual. The efficient, timely, and secure handling of community mail is a priority of the College Postal Services and its employees. Additional steps are being taken to improve security in mail handling."

So why exactly should we be concerned with the security of our postage? Has there been some anthrax threat sent to GAC, or our the postal employees (mostly student) untrustworthy? I'd like to know why we're concerned all of a sudden with e-mail on campus, and why this should warrant an e-mail. Is this e-mail a warning to the general student population that the student anti-postage movement will no longer be tolerated, or that that the sending of condoms through the campus mail isn't necessary (if so, man, will I be missing out on a lot of room mate freaking out). I am most certainly perplexed by the entire situation. Is this just a perpetuation of the fear factor we have on campus, or maybe it just post 9-11 silliness happening again.

So my father did not realize that I was going to be home this Friday, he thought I'd be home next Friday. I hope I'm not going to crash any parties or nothing. I guess this means I'll need to bring home even more movies, seeing as how they didn't expect to have me around for so long. Sigh... maybe I should just stockup on anime before I leave.

Tonight's Orchestra sectional was a nice double hitter, being twice as long as usual. For some reason our orchestra has been contracted to go play the Nobel Symphony up in the Twin Cities in a couple of weeks, and in addition to us playing we'll be supplemented by professional. No no no, not contract killers, but musical professionals (well, they could be killer). The thing is that they come down to rehearse with us, which was very very very weird/interesting. Long story short, I hate two hour rehearsals.

So I'm going to redo the navigation bar for my page over break. I'm going to make be all javascript, so that when I want to change something, it only requires changing one file and not all the files. Besides that, I'm going o be quite content with my webpage for some time, though I should really add some more book/movie/music reviews over break.

On a very cool note, it appears as if I have yet another reason to move to Canada. Its been ruled that file sharing is completely legal in Canada, and that the music industry has no right to sue people. Go Canada, go.

So the day went from sunny to crap, and back to mildly sunny. I took some flower photos and stuck on one the new photoblog.

Besides class, nothing really interesting happened today. Really, nothing at all. Its sad and true. The only good thing was me procrastinating and watching Zach play some more gameboy while eating cookies. Oh well, at least I finally tweaked my photoblog into the way I want it. If you wish to see a bigger image of any certain photo, just click on it.

Oh, it actually happened. You can now pre-order your copy of Star Wars on DVD. But its not out till September, and it'll be the 'special edition DVD.' Bastard Lucas.

Also, its looking as if I'll be bringing the webserver home over break, unless someone knows a person on campus who'll stick it in their room for 10 days?

I actually did it! I made a photoblog! Whoo hoo. This has completed my otherwise pointless day. Well, mostly pointless, in many respects. Look at the lefthand part of the main page to see the lastest photoblog posts!

I had that fun old mid-term today. It wasn't too bad, but man, did my hand cramp up like there was no tomorrow. I can only hope my complete lack of effort pays off in the homework department. I know it will eventually. These things tend to work out.

So I ahve everything together for my Japanese application. I just need to send it off. I'll probably do that tomrorow, or Wednesday, after I look through it for quite some time. I also got that blood test back, I came up negitive. Go figure.

So it was nice and warm outside today. There were even several flowers that came up. But by noon, it was cloudy, cold, and it snowed a bit. I need to move to the South West, or Japan. I think I'll aim for Japan.

Steve carted away the Beige G3 233 and Monitor from our section tonight. I drive him over to his place, and he kindly gave me a nice $70 check. This coupled with the webserver ebay $ which should come in soon will pay for our new webserver. Then again, I also need ot be buying that camera over break. I found a great deal online, for the camera, extra battery, case, 256 memory card, mini-tripod, and cleaner for only $400. Hmmmm.... also in complete weirdness, Carl is thining of getting a Powerbook. I don't know where this came from, but more power to you Carl. Now if only I had the money to get one myself.... Oh well. Summer isn't too far off.

In an odd turn of events, China has banned all weblogs. Dude, thats harsh.

Actually, it wasn't really a dance party. It was a dance concert. Or moreover, the Spring dance recital. Anyhow, it was called "Roots, Wings, and Prayer." It featured some very good dancers and some very fun routines. The downside, it cost $5. Blah on them.

So I have a mid-term for parties and elections on Monday. I'm not too worried about it. Ok, maybe slightly, but I've only missed one day of class and I"m quite sure I can write a good essay if I just think about it. Did I ever tell you how much I hate tests? Well, I do. Must study!

So once again the guys and I find ourselves watching Farscape at 12 O'Clock on Sunday night. How I miss the show, and wish that Sci-Fi hadn't canceled it. Or at least would get around to making a movie or something out of it. Seriously, it was the only good show on Sci-Fi, and may still be.

Lastly, we had a news van from Channel 9 here on Sunday. It appears as if the State Attorney General's daughter, who goes here, got in a bit of trouble when she took her sister out for her 21st birthday. A lot of trouble. Assaulting cops, spending time in jail. Wow, looks like we won't be seeing her on campus for a while. Don't you love Minnesota?

So I eventually got up at about noon today. Matt was gone, so I'm guessing either he died and someone took the body away, or he was well enough to head home on his own. Either way, I know not what happened.

The weather outside was kinda crap all day long. It rained hard, then light, then hard again, then it stopped, then it rained hard. You get the idea. The nice part is that it was a warm rain, not a cold rain, so everyone was enjoy it. Which probably means that everyone will be sick come Monday. The downside to a nice spring rain is that you need to avoid all the worms that happen to be slithering along the sidewalk. I always try to avoid them, I can always use some good karma, but sometimes it you make a wrong move and get worm all over your shoes. Not a good thing.

Joke:This shirt says 'dry clean only,' which means it's dirty. That was the highlight of the Just Add Water cd release concert that happened at the dive. They're a ska band, which means they suck (Just kidding). The show was running about an hour behind, and I kinda felt the urge to go hang with Jared instead. I don't get to see him much during the week, and I do miss our bonding time. We drove into Mankato with the prospie to see the new Tom Hanks film, Lady Killers. Quite the funny movie, as one would expect from the Coen brothers, and a super duper acting job my Tom Hanks. I've would believe that this may be Oscar worthy, indeed if not a whole host of other meaningless awards. I'm quite glad that I went to see it, and I would highly recommend you go see it. Yes you. Go right now. See it. Its funny.

Webserver sold for only $56. About half of what I hoped for. I guess this means that I'll have to be killing Jared for the insurance money.

So this Friday I did... well, a paper. Yeah, the mid-term that I had due at 5 O'Clock on Friday was finished and sent off about 4:55 p.m. that same day. It wasn't that I put it off.. ok, I did put it off. But I figured I had a lot of time on Friday to finish it up at work, and I really hadn't anything to do at work... long story short it appeared to be a very easy paper, which it was, it just took me a while. Fridays in the library are always dull, no one is around, the employees all want to go home, and it was a very very nice day out. The weather around here has been super warm (for this time of year) and the spirits of all the students on campus has been lifted up. Everywhere you look people are playing Frisbee or roller blading about. Ahhh.. spring is in the air, and I spent all of the day in the Library or in class.

Well, I actually did something constructive in the evening. Beth Anders and Brit Forsberg had a recital which I attended, and I managed to stay awake through all of it. I tend to have problems staying awake at concerts that come directly after a meal. Its odd, but Zach apparently has the exact same issue. Anyhow, Beth had a very cool concert which went off without a hitch, and then there were some wonderful cookies and punch afterwards! Come on, cookies are always good in my book. Mmmm...

So I eventually headed back to the section and found, to my surprise, everyone playing video games! Actually, no surprise. But Jared was hosting a prospie from Massachusetts this weekend, and the guy appeared kinda cool. I found him IMing his girlfriend, of which he was having problems with. I told him that things didn't get any better in college, in respect to women. But we all headed off to see the campus movie, which happened to be the wonderfully historically inaccurate The Last Samurai. I do enjoy a movie that completely rejects history, and banks on the fact that the average American knows nothing of their own history, let alone Asian history. I'm not saying it was a bad movie, the sword fights were cool (though I don't know why there were ninjas in Japan... ninja's are from China...), and all the small Japanese people made Tom Cruse look tall. I think it helped that my coke was slightly tainted with the sweet taste of Captain Morgan. It helped me get through the sometimes bad dialogue.

Lastly I got the mysql database problem fixed! The latest update of OS X (10.3.3) fixed the problem, and I was able to import all my old blogs properly! This is a great stress off me. Properly working blogs make very very happy, though the update did kinda break the mailing lists I had set up. I did get them working again, through some spiffy technical wizardry in the terminal! Ha ha ha! I think technical achievements are always better at 4 a.m. because everything is more exciting at that time.

Oh, before I went to bed Matt Engle came in, half dead. He had gotten his eye scratched while playing foam swords, and was in a lot of pain. He was going to head home, but that probably wasn't the best idea, because he had a patch on his eye, and he couldn't really see. I made sure he stayed in the section. I'd hate to see him die.

So it rained a lot today. It wasn't raining when I got up at 8, which is quite early for me on a Thursday, but man did it come down hard later I the day. I was up early for a physical, which I need for my study abroad application to Japan. The problem was that I was scheduled for Tuesday, not Thursday. Luckily I was able to get in this morning anyhow. Man, I must be losing it big time. Its entirely possible. The downside to a physical was that I had to walk around all day, in a t-shirt, with a swab of cotton on my arm. The Japanese apparently want an HIV/AIDS test before you can study in their country. No biggy, but man, I miss my blood. Well, that and responding to people asking 'Did you give blood?" with an awkward 'no, I had an HIV test.' Lets just say lunch was interesting.

So I should be doing my paper, but I'm not. I'm thinking about the crappy database issue our webserver is having. Posts are disappearing, not going in order, and being generally misbehaving. This is all due to a database error, or something like that. All I know is that I'll be doing some work this weekend on it. Maybe now I can get all my old posts to import properly. That'd be nice. That or I may just destroy the server all together. That would not be cool.

Oh, yeah, our webcam keeps crashing whenever someone connects via ssh and starts making our server talk. Bastards. So no one frickin do it again.

Oh, last night I broke down and watched some anime. I watched Kiki's Delivery Service. Very fun, and it made my evening. Go go anime.

Back to my paper and Pib Extra now. Wish me luck peoples.

For some reason the sun came out today. I don't know where its been the last four months, maybe it went on extended vacation or a sabbatical, but its back now. Lucky for us because it got up to about 64 Degrees F, which made everyone happy. I was quite lucky today because my three hour class was lacking a teacher, so we were left to our won devices when it came to discussing the books for the week. I took this opportunity to express my opinions about holding class outside, of which we did. The 20 or so of us went over to the Shakespeare pit and talked for about an hour... of the three... and then left. Which was good for me, because I took a nice nap, and then drive Heidi down to the Mary's Yarn store. That was fun, actually, because they had a couple of cats, which were fun to play with. How I do miss cats, or my cat, or any cat. Sigh... cats.

In other good news for the Josh, my Friday mid-term was pushed back till Monday, which leaves me all of tonight and all of Thursday to do a nice little 5 page paper for my Latin America and the US class. Nothing like a paper to make your week feel better. This is nice though, my mid-terms have been really spread out over these last three weeks before spring break. This take a lot of stress off me, and lord knows how I can't handle stress.

So in the world of Josh technology I've yet to sell the 266 Beige G3 on eBay. Currently its at only $16, which sucks, but then again, we still have another 3 days left on the auction. My hope is still to get it it up to around $100 to help cover a large chunk of the new B&W G3 we have as our webserver. I'm also really enjoying this whole webcam thing thats happening in our section. Actually, I like to use it to see whats happening in the section, so I don't have to let people know I'm in my bedroom, and can avoid people if I wanted to. The problem is that I'll need to take my webcam with me to Japan next semester, and I highly doubt that anyone here will want to buy a webcam for the section (those cheap bastards). I'll probably end up buying a crap webcam this summer for the section, like $20, or something. This would also be kinda nice so I can see whats happening in the section while I slave away in Japan. I'm also still waiting for the new Cannon S410s to come out, so that I can buy a nice S400 (at a much cheaper price). This camera blows my old camera out of the water, and I really want it for the trip to Japan. Good quality photos are so hard to come by. I just need to get my money together, and get this damned beige G3 out of our section. But ocne i do, I know where to go for my deals.

In stranger news Jared Lee announced today at lunch that he was going to buy a 15in Powerbook G4 over spring break. Holy shit! What does this mean? It means that everyone in the section will own a Mac, and that the total number of working computers in our section will reach an all time high of 13! Super freaky man. Super freaky. But at least I can stop making jokes about Jared's crap PC all the time. What ever will I do with all this free time I'm going to have?

So in a random sort of way that is my life, my father and sister visited today. They happened to catch me as I was walking back from dinner. So weird, it really freaked me out. I never expect to see my family around here, and I usually give myself several days of prep time to calm myself down and to prepare for the visit. Sigh.... Thank goodness they only stopped down to say hello on their way back from the cities.

Oh, lastly, this link is mainly for Zach. Violinists in Great Britain are suing for more pay, saying that they play more notes then any other person in the orchestra. My response to that? Find a new Job.

I added a nice slackcam shot on the toolbar to the left for my main blog page. When I get a photoblog going I'll also have photos appear here. Its not worth it to do it to every page, just the main page. Actually, the webcam has become a bit too interesting around here. I don't know whats worse, the fact that we have a webcam, or that people are spending so much time watching it. Actually, the problem has come up about what to do in the morning with the webcam. Zach is afraid that someone will see him in his boxers as he goes from his room to the shower. Zach, to be honest, no one wants to see that. It shouldn't be a problem. I changed the shot timer on our webcam to take a shot every minute as opposed to the 10 second timer it was on before. First off, no one needs that much 202, and I also want to take a bit of stress off of the server. No need to tax it anymore then necessary, seeing how we're running it off only 160 RAM. Hopefully Stef will get that RAM I lent her last year when she goes home. Another 128 stick never hurts, and I really want this webserver to run smooth all the time. Mmmm... RAM.... I also found out that people who use our weblog should NEVER try and change the post date, that was what was screwing up our archives before. Not that big of deal actually. (But which is why my previous post to this one shows up as being posted in the middle of today. So bad of me)

So I've got lots of homework to do tonight, and I'm still not doing it. I took a quick break for a coke and a bit of lounging around, only to find a good chunk of time had passes. My bad. Its all due to Matt and Ben playing the new Pokemon Colosseum game. Its fun to watch, well, as much fun as watching a game where imaginary creatures battle it out, and where Matt always wins. But back to my homework, for I have much. It'll be nice once midterms are over with this next week.

So I made the mistake of looking under my bed this weekend, and found that the dust bunnies were organizing. Entire legions of dust bunnies were arming themselves for a final assault on my bedroom. It appeared as if they had even started forming resistance cells on my shelfs. So this afternoon, after a daze of a lesson, I came back and took them out. Good thing too, because it appear as if they were starting WMD programs. If I had known this, I'm quite sure the Bush administration would have fully backed my relentless counter attack on the dust bunny population.

Note to self, spicy food, especially food that has the prefix 'sizzling' in front of it, should not be consumed by me. So much for that sizzlin steak I had last night, its now causing me tons of pain. You'd think I'd learn after a while, but I don't. Once again my enjoyment of spicy food caused me a large amount of suffering afterwards. Curse you food.

So it was kinda dull around here this afternoon, so I hooked up my iSight webcam to our new server, and turned it into the new 202 SlackCam! So now you can bring up that page and see whats happening in 202, via ten second intervals. Kinda fun, no? Its also kinda sad. Oh well. Some people, mainly Zach, have been having too much fun with it lately. Check out his blog, and you'll see what I mean. (Also, the image you see to the left is an actual up to date shot from the webcam, so there could actually be no one around)

I went to an art show on campus tonight and saw a bunch of student artwork. Some very cool stuff done by several people I know. Also, some very cool student films were shown. Super cool. Which reminds me that I need to finish my China DVD project. Oh well. One very cool thing at the art show was a massive panting done by Heidi Johnson. Supercool. This thing can be seen across half of campus!

I learned something today. You can ssh into a computer, then type 'say' and then hit Enter. Now everything you type will be said by the computer. Justin Delegard got us all good when he logged into our webserver, and while watching us in our webcam, made our webserver talk to us. I know, very odd, and very confusing. I hope to pull this prank on people I know.

Peter Olson has a weblog. Who would have thought.

So a few things you should know about this weekend.

I put our old webserver up on eBay. I hope to get abut $100 for it, to help pay for the large cost of getting our new webserver, which now works just fine. Man, it still bothers me that it took so much time to get it working. Actually, Zach did something extremely cool. He installed some cool PHP Scripts on our file server so that we can stream music off of it anywhere! Go Zach! He scored a big one here. I think I may install it on my own personal computer, so that I might have access to all my music when I go home randomly. Which would be cool. Also in the world of music, someone finally got around to making a nice program that lets you copy music over iTunes Shared Music on a network. I know I know, not legal, but the RIAA sucks. Which is good, because I took about 4 hours this weekend and redid my famous single's playlist. A playlist of all my favorite songs. Zach likes it at least.

Heidi and I hung out for a while this weekend, went to go see Hidalgo. So in all the previews for this movie we always saw the main guy say 'Sounds a lot like South Dakota," for which my guy buddies would always give me crap for. Well when watching this film I noticed a complete lack of this line, which really got me. So bad! Oh well. At least Hidalgo beats the other movie I saw this weekend which was Dawn of the Dead, a remake of the classic 1978 Dawn of the Dead. It is a very good zombie movie, as zombie movies go. At least the people in the film were not complete idiots about what they were doing, like in so many other zombie films.

Dale Emmons, an old friend of Zach's came up for the weekend. Sadly he left his rum here. Sadly, I will be forced to take it in as my own.

Oh, long story short I will no longer be moving to Rochester, so I'll be back in Sioux Falls this summer. Don't know whats really going to happen overall.

We had a nice orchestra concert today. What more can I say. We had a concert. My parents came up. the people rejoiced.

So I have the new server up and running, but not without some issues. First off, getting 10.3 server and our Blog software to work together was a major issue. I give up for a point and went back to 10.2 server, and then back again to 10.3. Special thanks to Josh Whitver to for helping out in the end. Then there was the whole problem with the old blog entries when I tried to import them back into MoveableType. The ended up all out of order and screwing up my archives, nether of which is a good thing. Long story short, after much time and effort on several people's parts, I have concluded that importing my old entries again is never going to happen, so I did the next best thing, posted them all as one big ass post. All 110 of them or so. They're all there, so if you actually wish to find something, they are organized by date. Its really kinda sad, but I guess they're here. It was fun though looking back through the old records of what I'd done the past semester or so. Memories.... so many memories....

Well, I also took this opportunity to do some housecleaning on my webpage. I put up all my old How-To's from the now deleted GACMug page on my site under the heading 'Tutorials.' I also stuck up some more photos and changed a couple of links.

Ok, in the last 10 days, heres what happened: I went to the President's Ball up in the cities with Heidi Johnson, which was a blast. Big time dancing and fun. Photos are up on my webpage. I also played in the annual Seven Last Words of Christ concert on Sunday. That went off well, no one started on fire sue to the candles and we all played well. I have a lot of homework coming about in the next few weeks, seeing that we have midterms. I just had one today in Latin American Politics. Zach and I have started swimming for half an hour or so every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I now know how out of shape I am. For some reason I'm playing very well

I have so much to talk about, but so little time and energy after the whole weblog/server fiasco that has been happening. I'll start posting again now that everything is being nice and functional again. But then again, I'll be buying joshuazimmerman.com before the night is over. Screw trying to figure out a cute or insightful domain name, so I'll go with my name before it too is snatched away from me.

So today was a very good day. I got up at a relatively early time for a Tuesday and set off trying to get my China photos printed off for the international photo contest. I tried Confer's digital Arts lab, but it was locked, so I went to the Main Olin lab, which proved to be useless because their color printer sucked so badly. I ran into Heidi, who also was kinda miffed because she too had wanted to use the Confer digital arts lab. We went back to Confer from Olin, and eventually found someone to let us in. I printed off my 5 photos, after a little bit of photoshop work, and then set off to turn them in.

See we could only turn in one photo per person, so I turned in some photos under other people's names. Wait before you yell at me, see, I asked them first. I also told them I'd give them 10% of the winnings. I'm just doing it for the fun of photos, not for anything money related.

The B&W G3 that will become our webserver arrived today. I had to borrow a pull-cart to bring it back to Wahlstrum. Too bad I had class today, or I'd have started working on it. This also means that the webpages will be going offline very very soon. At least for a day or two, so I can move the pages and blogs over to the new machine. I hope it all works out, I have come to love my blog oh so much.

Well, after opening up the package I found that I had spilled packing peanuts all over, so I went down to borrow a vacuum from 102. I went to ask Colleen, and found that she had a USB webcam on her PC! Ok, this isn't very interesting, but I've been trying to find a windows person with a USB webcam so I can try out iChat's ability to video chat to PCs using AIM 5.5. It worked, but as expected the quality from her camera really sucked. Go figure, its a USB 1.0 webcam, and I'm used to firewire webcams. Sigh.... its so tough being so darn cool when it comes to technology.

So my day was as such. Class, as usual, was kinda dull. I've really got to start cracking down and doing a bit of work, seeing how mid-terms are coming up very soon. The problem is that this next weekend is going to be very hectic for me. Very.

So in theory, i was going to have a viola lesson today. But Warren forgot to tell me that he wasn't going to be around. Silly Warren. I got a bunch of practicing done instead, which I needed to do. I ended up talking to him anyhow because I had a quartet rehearsal with him tonight. See, as we always do this time of year, the orchestra puts on a concert of The Seven Last Words of Christ. I have the movement called 'I Thirst', which I've played before. We had our first rehearsal tonight, and we play on Sunday.

I worked at the library today, but just for a bit. I mostly filed away some documents, an then Zach, Ben, and I all went to Mankato. Ben needed a few items, Zach bought a massive powerstrip for his computer ($50). Zach's speaker system for his laptop keeps picking up radio stations, for some reason. So he covered all the wires and speakers with tin foil to stop the signal, but to no avail. Anyhow I wanted to get some cool photo paper so that I could submit some photos to the international photo contest here on campus. We went to Culvers afterwards, and had some fabulous chicken, of which, I used way too much BBQ. The results were not pleasant.

So when I got back I had quartet rehearsal, then did some random work-age, and then started the Application from hell. Lets just say the application was about 20 pages, and I'm still not completely done yet. When I do finish, the Japanese will know everything about me. Everything. Its kinda scary.Oh well, the sooner I get this in the sooner I can stop worrying about it all, man, and is there a lot to worry about.

Saturday in a nutshell: Went to Target for supplies. Quick stop at Best Buy. Went to bad campus movie. Took a nice walk in the snow. Had some hot coco and schnapps. Bed.

On Sunday I was a techie whore. I worked on Caren Carlstedt's iBook for about four hours and made a cool $40 on that deal. Later I worked on Meg Larson's iMac, upgrading it to 10.3 and showed her how to do a bunch of stuff. There was another fun $25. This will all go to pay off the new webserver. Which should be here very very soon.

Lastly, this probably is the coolest sword ever. You all know it, and it would so sooo nice to have on my wall.

So my day was unexciting, mostly. It had snowed the night before, and things were looking very pretty outside. I brought my camera along and took a few photos before it all melted away. Darn you classes, getting in the way of my photos! Anyhow, class was uneventful for the day, as usual. I was kinda hoping that the webserver would have arrived, but no luck. I guess I'll have to wait till Monday.

I worked in the Library as is a usual Friday, and I didn't get any work done, as is also usual. I do love my work study job so. See, I've gotten to the point where I'm caught-up with the papers the professors bring to me, so I try and leave some stuff in my 'IN' box so that I have a reason to come back. See, I need this money to help pay for my Japan trip, getting maybe a better digital camera, and a powerbook. Money money money. So much money, and now I need to pay off that darn webserver.

So Zach, Jared, Emma, Jolene, Cory, and myself all went to see The Passion of the Christ down in Saint Peter. So I reserved all my comments about the movie, until now. WARNING: Do not chastise me for the comments I will be making. Do not post comments chastising me, they will be deleted. Do no come talk, or IM, or e-mail me and chastise me. That being said, here it goes. I didn't like the film, I was not moved by the film, and I really can't say I recommend it for anyone. Watching that film reminded me of when I was 8 and stayed with a neighbor for a weekend while my parents were gone. They took me to a Catholic Church service, and I didn't understand a thing that was going on, I felt like everything was my fault, and afterwards I was depressed. Me: "Why did Jesus die?" Preacher "Because you touch yourself at night." I can sum up the movie in the three modes in which it was presented: 1) Jesus getting the shit beat out of him in the most gory way possible. This film was so violent that I'm going to agree with several reviews I read and say this movie should be rated NC-17, not R. If you can't handle blood or violent movies, this is a film you should avoid. Oh, and to those people who take their kids to see it, be prepared for years and years of therapy. 2) Slow motion Jesus falling down. Every five minutes Jesus fell down, and in super slow mode. Plus when this happened, you were able to see all the blood also fall down, in super slow motion. Again, not a pretty thing. 3) Jesus flash-back. These flashbacks were the only time you ever got a hint of any Jesus related message. These happened very once and a while, and I guess was a nice way of showing the audience that Jesus did something else in his life besides die a horrific death. This review will probably cause some people to say that I'm going to hell, and they could be correct. My problem with this film in general was that all it did was say "hey kids, look what Jesus had to put up with because you're so bad!" and neglected to tell us any of the important messages that Jesus was trying to teach us. I mean the dude walked around the desert teaching people, and all we got to see was a really bloody enactment of him being killed. Oh, and then theres the devil, which is always around. You see the devil in the crowds, doing stuff to people, holding what must be the most freaky little baby I've ever seen. It was entirely weird. Oh, and the devil is a woman, which once again shows, women are the root of all evil. Lastly we had Judas, who always gets the bum rap. If I understand things correctly, Jesus HAD to die. That was his job. So I guess Judas was the only apostle that ever got anything done, because the other ones in this film just kinda look sadly and mope around while Jesus is beaten to death. Look at who else was in the film we have the Romans and the Jews, of which this film kinda shows that neither were to blame for the death of Jesus. The Romans come off as being stuck between a rock and a hard place, not wanting to kill Jesus but needing to keep the Jews from rioting. The Jews are not to blame, but the big wig temple priests who were trying to maintain power. Oh well, so much to think about. Then again, Mel Gibson does take a few liberal tendencies. Like kinda picking stuff up from the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Not really sticking to a single account. But that is Mel Gibson for you. So to wrap this up, I didn't like the film, and I don't think it will be the "biggest event for Christianity in the last 20 years, and bring new followers to God," as I overheard someone say.

After the movie I watched Back to the Future part 3. The old west one. I needed some light comedy after the other film I watched. Lindsay Fox, Lisa, and I had a few laughs while I had a nice post crucifixion drink. Eventually Samantha popped in and stole me away to 207 for a few animal crackers and jokes form her boyfriend. Good times people, good times.

So my back really sucks. Its really curvy, and not even curvy in a sorta good way, its curvy in a sorta bad way. Once again, I went down to the Chiropractor and had my back worked on. He kindly cracked my back, and looked at my old x-rays, and told me that I should go swimming 3 times a week to help my back out. This means two things: 1) buy some swimming trunks. 2) Get back in the water. See I've not gone swimming for around five years or so. Its been a long time. I used to swim constantly, heck, I was even on a swim teams for a number of years. Oh well, I guess I overdosed myself. Back to the pool with me.

On my way back I noticed that there is a new (new to me at least) used CD and DVD store in downtown Saint Peter called Tune Town. I thought I'd take a stop in and see what they had. I know, its my downfall. Used DVDs. I talked to the guy working there for a while about movies and music and how the store was doing. Its actually a really nice place, and their prices are quite fair. I ended up buying the Back to the Future Box Set and Lolita, of which I ended up watching Back to the Future 1 & 2 tonight. Great Scott!

I went in for my follow-up interview for going abroad, and I even got dressed up for it, thinking it would be a big deal. Nope, not at all. I sat down and the lady said "You're in, now heres all the paperwork you need to do." Man, did the paperwork never end! Typical Japanese paperwork, its going to be a marathon. Plus all the stuff GAC has for me to do. But the good news is GAC says I can go abroad, and now I just gotta get into the school, which I should not have a problem doing. I am quite smooth, even on paper. Which reminds me yet again, to get those photos turned in for the International Photo Contest!

I'm awaiting the arrival of the new webserver. I'm kinda dreading it, because its going to be a lot of work trying to get it all reset-up again. Sigh... between the webserver and the DVD project I've yet to even think of starting, it looks like I'll have a full weekend ahead of me.

Oh, lastly, this is extremely funny. Look at this graphic, isn't there something wrong with it? Yeah, I didn't make this up, its from a real company that I believe our Library actually buys stuff from, or is thinking of buying stuff from. For those of you who are not getting this, think of it this way. 'Equality of access, Intellectual freedom." Then read below. "A different type of content filter." Ironic? Maybe. An internet filter program that advertises intellectual freedom. What a world what a world.

What really bothers me is when people don't care about their rights as Americans, or care if they're having their rights taken away. For example, the Patriot Act, thrown together during the post September 11th hype gives the government a while bunch of new sweeping powers to investigate and gather information, all in the name of national security. No one appeared to care about the clauses that allowed the government to jail a non-citizen, without trial, for as long as they wanted, or the fact that the gov. didn't need a reason. But what gets me is the surveillance rights granted to Gov. Agencies, such as improved wire tap abilities, or the ability to search homes (of non-citizens) for no reason. But what really gets the librarians angry is the fact that the FBI can come in a take people's library records, without having to give a reason or without telling the person they're spying on. Word on the street has it that some Librarians are deleting their records every month to prevent such actions from taking place (keep in mind the FBI has been used this law to go after citizens with names similar to those of suspected terrorists, who check out 'suspect books.' Like a kid in California doing a report on Dams, his name was kinda similar to a suspected terrorist). This in mind I was all too happy to sign a petition to get rid of this part of the Patriot act that was in our Library, and I actively tell people to sign it. But what gets me is this answer "I don't care if they look at my records, I'm not a terrorist." So this appears like a valid answer so many questions. Such as my response which "Would you acre if they wire taped your phone?" In which this co-worker responded, "No, as I said, I'm not a terrorist." See, my problem is that the government has no right to tap my phone, go through my mail, search my house, or look at my library records without due cause. If no one steps up and speaks out against the small intrusions into our lives that are happening right now, it leaves the door open for bigger and more intrusive laws that are passed in the name of "National Security." Such as the Patriot Act part 2, which allows the Government to take away citizenship from anyone they suspect of being a terrorist. Ok... can no one else see the potential abuse of power? Just 'suspecting' someone of being a terrorist? This is how Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan got started, and I'm afraid of what course our nation is taking due to fear, fear which is unfounded.

Its been snowing all day long. First it was a light wet snow, almost just rain in nature. As the day went on it turned into small flakes of snow falling. By 3 o'clock it was big fluffy cotton-ball sized snow. yeah, it was really tempting to run out of class and go run in the snow for a while, but I don't think Professor Kaster would have gone for it. (Though I never know, he is kind of a funky guy, he might have joined me) But eventually the snow turned back into rain, and the day was just overcast and kinda drab. None of the snow survived its fall to the ground, mainly due to the ground being so warm right now. Thank goodness for that.

So it appears as if I'm going to this years annual President's Ball. What is this strange thing called P-Ball? Its kinda like a college Prom event, expect most everyone is legal to drink. I've not gone the past two years, and I didn't plan on going this year either, but I guess things change. Heidi Johnson accosted me this morning on my way to class and asked me to go with her, which surprised me to no end. I can't say I know her very well at all, but hey, I can't pass up an opportunity to get dressed up and have some fun on the dance floor. Josh & Tux = Girls Gone Wild.

So I've found a bunch of really cool links that someone out there might just enjoy. Seriously, they're funny. So, it turns out that most young people don't read or watch the news, except the Daily Show. There has to be some joke here; drunken nun runs tractor into car. I can't make this stuff up. I should have gone to Harvard, nude protest over animal rights was broken up by police, after they were informed that the girls had weapons. It was very cold there. So, what do you do when Koalas take over an island? Start for form the Final Solution for the koala problem.

Yes, I curse eBay. So I was getting really excited that I was going to win an auction at a fairly low price (for our new webserver), and then at the last second, the price skyrocketed! Except this time I did win, but paid slightly more then I would have wanted too. Oh well, I guess now I have to be thinking of selling the old webserver. Sigh... how I'll miss it. Sweet sweet tribble. You've served us well, but your time has come.

Yeah, that was my day. Work work work. First class, then a lesson, then library.

I actually got all my forms in to the study abroad office! But as I figured, Warren had yet to turn in his recommendation letter for me. Silly Warren.

I gave Professor Lamberton and my boss Sandee several of the remixed war posters. They both enjoyed them, I believe.

Nothing else really interesting happened today. Seriously, nothing. It was dull, and semi-productive. I'll try and keep up the productivity.

Oh, the new $20 bills explode in microwaves, thus proving that the government is tracking your every move.

Also, don't let your kids say old nursery rhymes, they're more dirty then HBO after midnight.