May 2004 Archives

After much packing and much driving, I am now home. Well, home I guess. I now am starting the great process of unpacking the large amount of junk that I have. So many boxes to go through. So much of my clothing will just go back into boxes. I won't be needing it for a long time. Well, at least until I go off to Japan.

I've been setting up computer stuff all day. Both the file server, webserver, wireless access point, and all my peripherals are hooked back up again. Goooo webserver. My mother finds the massive amounts of cords in my room to be appalling. Thank goodness she never saw behind out server rack in the section. I'm really liking my wireless access point. Its a Linksys Wireless-G Router. Very easy to set up. Good range. I'm downstairs watching the T-Wolves game with my parents.

Oh, I posted a random photo on my photoblog. Its of 4 CDs we stuck in our microwave. We were kinda lacking things to do.

The webcam is down, and may be down forever. The guys don't want me to buy one to put in the section, nor am I going to leave my iSight there for them to use. I found a really cool little OS X app, which is really just a GUI frontend for a unix app. Called OSXplanet, this little guy can display a number of different background on your desktop of the world, with changing light patterns to show night and day all over the world. Plus it can also show cloud pattern (up to date ones), storms, satellites, and volcanic activity. Best part is, its free.

Thats right, I'm moving out! Tomorrow. My parents came up today to help me move out, and thank goodness they did. I had so much junk we were barely able to get it all packed into their car and mine. Zach helped us lug stuff around, in exchange for free food. He is such a food whore. The sad thing is I'm going to have to throw out my desk! Oh no! It was the best $20 desk a boy could ask for, and now some rat will probably make its home in it.

So Zach's Powerbook has a problem. A major one. Besides being owned by Zach. How mean of you to think such thoughts! Shame. Anyhow his hard drive is failing, and so after much testing we made a trek up to the South Dale mall to get it fixed. Yes, a road trip. With Zach. See, but this time I had a Powerbook of my own! Muh ha ha ha ha! Seriously, it was uneventful and dull. Zach just wanted to get back so we could play Starcraft. Sigh...

I'm making my last DVD right now for the China DVD thingy. All in all I've sold over 50 of them, which is more then I ever had expected to sell. It'll pay for the wireless access point I have waiting at home, and probably a couple of other random things I'll be buying this summer. Technology upgrades are always fun.

Speaking of technology upgrades, wheres my wish-list for the summer!

1) A Blue and White G3. To replaces our old file server.
2) A nice 200 GIG HD for my external firewire case.
3) Travel gear for my iSight. Maybe a flexer and a case of some sort or another?
4) A Bluetooth Game Pad. Though there are none on the market. Pipe-Dream.
5) A webcam for the section. Though the guys don't like the idea.
6) A PDA. I'll get into that here.

Nate Haleen showed up on campus Friday, in a rare appearance. Nate's been in Japan this last semester and he stopped into the library to say hello. He also gave me a number of tips for when I'm overseas. The most important one is buy a PDA in Japan, so it'll have a built in dictionary and support for Japanese characters. He showed me his and I figure it'll be a good investment, especially if I'm ever going to go back. See to buy a nice little electronic dictionary in Japan is about the same price as buying a PDA. Go figure. I've not been a fan of PDA ever since Zach, Ben, and I all ditched out Palm Pilots in favor of iPods. I always figured a decent phone and my iPod would be enough for me. Oh well, I guess this'll be one more piece of electronics to grace my household. The problem is that the Japanese version of the PDA I'll probably get doesn't have wireless on it, where as the American version does. I can't buy the American version because it lacks Japanese character support. Sigh... I guess if I really want wireless support I could always buy an adaptor.

So this evening John and I each had a nice juicy steak. Once again, thanks for making such a great grill george Forman! We then went through the anime on our file server, deleting well over 120 GIGs worth of stuff. Even though we have 500 GIGs of storage on that computer, we never have enough room. Though I'm tempted to put more HDs in it, I just don't wish to spend the money when we have so much useless stuff that can be gotten rid of (mostly anime). I'm going to burn off a bunch more anime onto DVD, and will probably delete some of that also. But thats a job for this summer.

Dave and Cory came over later on and hung out. Dave has this crazy idea of getting Jared some 'action' next yeah when Dave is going to the U of M. I say good luck in your endeavor. Anyhow we ended up watching the movie Sev7n and playing some WarCraft 3. All in all, a good night.

Earlier this semester I screwed up some electronic reserves material for one of the professors on campus who had giant packets of materials for his students to read each week. I didn't get some stuff online when it needed to be, my mix up completely. So I send him an apology letter, and I get one back complaining about how he's had nothing but constant problems with the eRes system all year. Mind you he's the only one complaining this much everyone else appears to find it very handy and this first year was the most work we'll ever have to put into it. I'd like to quote you from his letter. "But I have ONLY had problems with e-reserve since it was instituted." I for one would love to know how this person had issues with eRes before it was instituted. Just a random though, which has turned into a massive paragraph.

So this link reminds me of pranks we pull on each other around here. Lord knows it to show how much we care for each other, in a friendly wort of way. What has our world come to. Also in news, yet another reason to keep a second hidden blog full of all your nasty comments and threats.

Its been a while since my last post, but for good reason. I was kind of busy with... things. Like those papers I had to turn in... and saying goodbye to people... and packing... and video games... You know how it is.

So what did I do that was productive this weekend. This could be a tough one to figure out. I got groceries for the next week, due to my Caf account being dead and all the people I mooch off of being gone. I got the basic necessities. Tuna, potatoes, butter, cheese, and really cheap meat for grilling on my grill (which may be illegal on campus, seeing how its nothing more then a really big hot plate). I bought a new camera case for my camera. Ok, so you're probably saying "Josh, don't you already have a camera case?" and to which I would say I do. But the problem is that my old camera bag/case is only secured on my belt via the wonder of velcro, which isn't all that magical or secure when walking or sitting. Plus there was no room to hold my extra battery or memory cards, so I figured it was money well spent. Oh, and yes, it is the exact same damn camera bag as what Zach has.

In other weird news things have changed in the section. Jared and Ben have moved out for the summer, while John is setting himself up for his summer of research on campus. In order to help his research along John has adopted a new hair color, which is why I think would should call him a purple people eater. I don't know why exactly he did it, but this happens like once a year. All I can say is that our shower and our sinks are now preeminently purple in some areas.

I'm spending this week working in the library. Which means I get to have some close personal fun time with my laptop. It comes in handy. See about half the books in the library were checked out during finals, and now they've all returned, which means we need to check them and route them. So I will stand there for many hours on end checking in books, which means my laptop mobile a mobile cartoon station. Hello cartoons.

Speaking of watching way too much TV, John and I spent all of Tuesday night watching old episodes of News Radio. Must I remind you how dull it is here without anyone around? Who knows what strange and silly adventures we'll have to undertake in order to keep ourselves entertained!

Not really, they just need to get done, which is what Sunday and Monday were made for. And quite possibly Tuesday.

So my Latin American Politics final was annoying. Yes, not tough, not bad, but annoying. I knew all the answers, or at least what was wanted. I had a tough time thinking back and finding examples of everything I needed. So much to think about, so little time. Oh well.

So once again I took a nap. I've been a bit rundown lately, and my sleep schedule has been a bit off. This nap lasted for 4 hours, much to the annoyance of Heidi who wanted me to help her take down her art project. See she had hung up a bunch of pink fabric in the Saint Peter park about a week ago, and her permit had run out so it had to be taken down. See this probably wouldn't have been tough if a) It hadn't been strung up in areas that were unreachable to all but but spider monkeys, and b) the fabric had not had the same strength as pantyhose. Needless to say I was afraid that Heidi was going to fall to her death several times, and there are still strands of pink in the top reaches of the trees. So word to the wise, don't string stuff up in trees too high for you to climb! Sigh...

So anyhow Heidi and I went out to Panera for dinner. MMmmmmm sweet sweet soup and bread for dinner. Always good. We then meandered over to Target for some random supplies, where we ran into Warren, who wanted to buy 5 DVDs from me. For the tour guides we had in China. After target we went to Cold Stone, where we had some amazing ice cream. Needless to say I'm quite full.

So I've collected a fare amount of money from the DVD sales, and I'm contemplating what to buy with it. I was going to buy a wireless access point for my parents home. Here in lies my problem. Do I buy an Apple brand Airport Base Station, or a generic one. The generic one will be about half the cost, probably $70 for what I want, whereas the Apple one will be $170. The Apple one will act as a print server to any USB printer, and it comes with very cool Apple software which makes things super easy, though it will cost me a lot of $. Hmm... I wonder if I can sell my books back.

Which brings me to another problem I'm having. The Book Shark! Thats what our book store is called due to its high prices and low buyback prices. Usually this is just annoying, but this semester all my books will probably not be able to be bought back by the store, seeing as how they're not going to be taught next semester. Annoying.

So I come back after being very full and find the section playing HALO. Goodie. I hop in and find that I'm back in my groove again. I captured a few flags, killed some people, was a bitch with some vehicles. That sort of thing. Zach was annoyed with me though after our last game. See I was majorly mean, I kept killing his team as they jumped out of a teleportation spot. Whereas everyone else had about 30 kills for the game, I had 73. I'm so mean.

So I have one final down, and one to go. Well, then there is the matter of the two papers that are in progress.

My Parties and Elections final went very well. Or I thought it did.

I got a really nice e-mail from Sarah Yrjanson about the China DVD. Heres what it said:

"I just wanted to thank you for putting together that China DVD. I watched about 45 minutes of it tonight and I can't believe what a beautiful job you did! It's amazing to look at the different pictures and video clips you added. I can't believe that it was only $5, too! For heaven's sake, you should have charge a bit more for all the time
and effort you put into it. It's unbelievable, Josh. Thank you so much! Oh yeah, and in the funny photo section of the DVD, thanks for putting my humping duck chopsticks holders at the end! I laughed so fricken hard!! :) Best of luck to you during finals and see you at Graduation!"

I'm glad to see someone liked it.

Was forced to terminate Katie Grove's blog.

Sleep is needed. Latin american Politics Final Tomorrow.

School is over for the semester! Kind of. I have a final on Friday, and a final on Saturday. Then again, I have two papers that are due next Tuesday. I'm sure I'll get them done sooner or later. Like when I have nothing to do next week.

I'll be at the library all of next week, working off some more work study money. I'll be quite lucky actually because the library staff will be gone two full days next week, so I'll have full run of the library! Time for a PARTY! Or in other words, me having fun with my laptop at the front desk, or sleeping at the front desk. It could be fun. By fun I mean me getting paid.

I spent a good chunk of time researching tonight. I've been trying to find some primary sources for my Panama paper, which means looking through volumes of 'Foreign Relations of the U.S.' for info. I checked out several books, but there was one set of years that isn't available in book format, only in microfiche. See now this isn't too bad, in theory. Except that looking at it for about half an hour has given me a giant headache which I can't shake. Plus I couldn't get the damned machine to print off the info I wanted. Oh well, theres always tomorrow.

While walking back to Whalstrum from the Library I stopped by the chapel to watch the bats. See bats circle the chapel because of all the bugs that are attracted to the massive lights which illuminate the spire. As I was walking away an owl flow just a few feet overhead. I've not seen one up close in several years. It was a highlight of my night.

I spent some time over in Uhler at Steve's place helping him with his Beige G3. Those buggers are tough to get open if you don't know how, and this one was being extra bitchy. I showed him how stupidly they were set up inside. I played some StarFox, and found that my computer emulator plays the game like 3 times as fast as the actual game, which makes it so much more difficult. The pain of having a fast computer. Hanging out in Uhler was much the change from hanging out in 202. Different people, different furniture, different video games. So different, yet so similar. I even got Matt to install 10.3 on his 500 mhz iMac. Oooo the fun we had waiting the 30 minutes to install.

So I come back to the section and play some HALO. Why? Because I'm dumb. I should go to bed, but I slept all afternoon and then again, I've got this headache. Not that killing everyone in sight in HALO makes it any better, but it distracts me for a bit. At least until Katie Groves stops by to bitch at me. Sigh... Anyhow so here I am, watching Boondock Saints and writing up a blog, on Jared's love seat. How fun it is.

Links are fun, check them out! The power of God, only through ebay. Use the force Lucas, and stop making bad films. Late someone else do it for a change. Run Mac OS X on a windows computer? How about A Mac, running Windows, running OS X? How do you fight terror? With even more terror.

So my paper was done in the wee hours of the morning. It turned out quite well, clocking in at 10 pages long. Nothing is as fun as NAFTA in the morning. Staying up so late didn't screw up my sleep schedule at all. Luckily I took a long ass nap Sunday afternoon, which provided me with a second wind come sometime after FarScape. The other problem that always comes up is that I get easily distracted. Like by Ben. Man, he's so distracting. Damn you Ben.

I worked in the Library today. Work, and played some HALO. It works. I also used the library's paper cutter to make lots of nice DVD covers. Zach, Ben, and I stuffed the DVD cases tonight while watching Futurama. They're so nice.

Jared talked me into going to see Troy tonight in Mankato. Lets just say that the movie was made to show off Brad Pitt's body. Seriously. The movie had some fun battles, and some halfway good acting, but it was lacking in something.... oh yeah.. FOLLOWING THE DAMNED STORY! Being someone who has read way to much classical Greek mythology in class I noticed the massive changes made to the story of Troy. Lots of changes. Things that mattered. Like when people died, and who killed them! These things matter! Oh, and they threw in a little love story to show off more of Brad's body. Man.... it dragged on and on and on. In reality the war took 10 years, which it felt like at times, seeing how the movie lasted some 2 hours and 45 minutes. If you were not confused by the many characters, to which you're missing a lot of important background information, you'll probably be confused by the endless subplots in the film.

Oh, and an update to the flame war that went on in the comments section of my blog a week or so ago. It appears as if our the 'incident' is not an isolated one. I can not comment on the facts of the evening, but it looks like John did. The events of the evening have been confirmed by several others who were also at the bar. Man, if you have a drinking problem that you don't want the world to know about, don't do it in public. Or am I being too pragmatic?

So Zach and Jolene had their junior recital on Saturday. It went quite well, at least, before the troll ate Jolene. ok, no troll, and the concert went well. I took quite a few photos. Man, I took way too many photos. Something like 80 shots during the concerts. I had to work with the manual settings to find a good configuration for the shots. Once again, I must say how much I love my new camera. I even used the Black & White feature to take some super stunning shots of Jolene. Even Zach was impressed with the B&W shots, and he put quite a few of them on his webpage.

I guess I really didn't do anything else real important on Saturday. Played some HALO again with the guys, along with some StarCraft. I've also been stockpiling tomato soup for the week when I'm here without a caf account, thanks to girls with lots of caf money. Man, I need some more interesting stuff to put on my blog.

So Sunday... umm... I slept in... and took a nap... and now I'm kinda working on a paper which is due tomorrow morning. Don't worry, its looking good right now. Seriously. I'm not even the slight bit sleepy. I think I'll have some soup first. Nice, free, caf tomato soup.

So I'm here at the Smash Brother tournament in the Dive, waiting for my next turn to kick some video game character ass. Ben and Zach talked me into returning to the game, seeing that Zach needed a team mate. There have to be about 20 guys here huddled around several TVs, watching each other beat the crap out of their controllers. Its a rather odd sight to anyone who doesn't know whats going on, like the gathering of girls who are holding some sort of discussion on the other side of the Dive. My only hope is that Zach and I can do a decent job in team play, only because it gives us something to do tonight. Its a dull night. We only officially have 10 more days left of school, then finals, then home. Home and work. Blah! Well, at least I've found a use for my laptop, on the go blogging. Go figure.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday, last night, and this afternoon working on my Latin American Panama paper thing. It would help if I wasn't so distracted all the time, by my roomies. man, talk about peer pressure. Its not drugs or alcohol, its my roomie and their damn technology. Damn you all to hell! I'll be happy when that bastard of a paper, and the other papers I've yet to start writing, are done for the semester. Blah!

So I'm walking to the caf, talking to a friend and I get ushered into a banquet room. The community service banquet that was going on tonight had some extra food, and I was a warm body. I can't pass up tacos. Actually it was a whole Mexican theme thing going, with margaritas and a mariachi band. I did like the music. Free food is good right now, because I only have $30 left in my food account for the next two weeks. I've been eating off of Anna's caf account, except now she's a bit overextended herself. So if you see me in the next two weeks, buy me lunch!

My empty DVD cases came in today. 50 of them. I guess I can make a nice over for them and start burning off DVDs this weekend. I've had 20 orders so far, which is really nice, but I just have to start burning them off. Thank goodness for a the nice internal 4x DVD-R. I'm probably going to use a really cool concert program form tour to make the front over, and then put a quick little blurb on the back of it. I'll just go print off 25 copies on one of the super nice color printers in the Confer Digital Arts Lab. He he he... extreme abuse of college property.

I'm a little ticked off. The software that runs our blogs is no longer free. Well, the new version at least. Moevabletype.org is now charging lots of $ to use the new 3.0 version of Some people I know were complaining of it, but in all reality I'm not worried. The system we have running right now is good enough for our needs. Quite frankly I don't wish to go through all the hassle of updating it to a new version. I'm afraid I'd botch up the system. Which you know I'd do at least once.

So remember how everyone was making all those bad jokes about interns, and sex, and politics. Turns out its rather true. Looks like old Bush and the thought police are at it again. The ACLU was forced to remove text from its website. Bad Bush, Bad. This is why I don't play Rugby. Dumb girls.

I've eaten my fill of free food tonight. Sara and I first went to the History Department banquet and a place called Kokomo's. Its a strange wanna be tropical grill/bar sorta place in Cleveland (Minnesota). Very tacky, and at the same time, the kinda place you'd expect the GAC history department to go to. Its the kind of grill where they give you meat and you grill it yourself on a big ass type grill. Sara and I shared some meat, seeing we wanted to save some space for the Orchestra banquet afterwards. Anyhow the history profs are a fun bunch, we were all told to watch out for Byron, who has been known to have problems grill meat over open flambes. I managed to grill out meat to a nice golden brown, without burning it to bits. We ate and run, seeing that we both wanted Chinese food at the Orchestra banquet. We eventually made our way there though the back roads of Minnesota. The Chinese food was as good as always, but it was way too much food for the Josh tonight. The down turn of the night was when Zach lost the bid for Orchestra President to Kate Riggs. I personally think the election was rigged itself in favor of Kate, but thats just me. Oh well, we could always have a crack team of Ninjas take her out.

I somehow managed to get an A- on my Parties and Elections paper I got back today. I don't know why, but I'm happy. Happily confused is more like it. Oh well. I'll be happy if I can get a good grade on the test this Friday things will be looking up for me. Speaking of papers, I should really get my 20 page one done tomorrow. Yeah, good idea.

The semester is almost over. I'm sad. But yet not. I don't think my summer will be too dull because I'll have Japan looming over me the entire time. Which is good. I need to buy a wireless router for my parents home though. Not having wireless would be majorly unfun. So much to buy so little time.

Real life Pac Man? Could it be true? Maybe. Oh, and Jared is goign to have a super fun time in Australia. Super fun time, if you know what I mean. Some of the funniest things ever written in an IRC chat room come together in one easy page.

So I'm on the futon trying to type this up while listening to some music, except that all I can hear is Zach and Ben button mashing GameCube controllers. They're practicing for the Super Smash Brother Melee competition this Friday, in which I too will be joining in on the fun. Zach and I are a team, so to speak, and we plan on taking home the gold. Ok ok ok, there is no gold to be taken, except maybe some respect. Nah, I don't need no respect.

So I gave my fabulous presentation on Why We Gave Back The Panama Canal in my Latin America History class. Lets just say the paper has yet to be written, and I can't beleive I gave such a good presentation on it. At least I thought it was good, I'm not too sure what Sujay (my prof) though. I guess I should get crackin on the 20 odd pages that need to be written (in draft form) by this Friday. The fun!

I'm a big Zelda fan. I've always been one. From the original Nintendo version, to the N64 one (I didn't have time to play the GameCube version, I watched Ben do it). Well it looks like Nintendo has done it again, witha super cool looking one! Check out this video Zach hooked me up with. Man... I might just have to buy a GameCube just for this game. Or play it in Japan. That would be cool, Japanese games.... It would help if I knew Japanese.

So I went to a campus movie tonight. I know I know, lots of work to do. But don't worry, I skipped orchestra to go to it. The movie is a foreign film called Osama. It was a heartbreaking film about a young girl in Afghanistan who must masquerade as a boy, because of the oppression of the Talaban. I was about to cry through most of the film. The oppression and the tragedy that the women of the country faced (may still face) was unbelievable. I've been wanting to see this film, and I'm glad I did.

Why do I love America? Its because of what we stand for. Greed, money, and power. Mmm.... power. I've been waiting for the downfall of Britney Spears for quite some time now, this downfall being her posing naked in some magazine. She was once cast as an innocent virgin, a young teen, and now a sex symbol. Ahh... what people won't do to sell records these days.

So I actually went to Mankato to get books today. Wow, being in a fully funded library on a big University Campus was rather fun indeed. Lots and lots of books. It was nice being on a deserted campus, and a library that was hardly being used at all. When I checked out books the guys behind the front desk expressed their dislike for the new Minnesota Library system, and how their boss had kinda gone insane because of it. I told them that we felt the same way up at GAC, and that my boss had also gone insane because of it. This time I did not almost get killed by a deer.

So if you had an expensive laptop, and you hated it because of hardware problems would you 1) Get it fixed through the warranty 2) Return it 3) Sell it 4) Smash it to bits. I would never, ever, in my life do this to a new computer, hell I have issues taking apart an old Macintosh SE for a fish tank. What was he thinking.... My heart goes out to you little 12in Powerbook. Wherever you are.

The webcam is working again. Well, it was always working except people keep turning it away from the futon. I find this really really weird. Kinda like people who get freaked out when you take photos of them. In our techno-urban world you always have photos being taken of you, you always have your name out on the net, and you always have a video camera lurking around the corner. Our webcam takes a photo every 2 minutes, deleting the old photo. There is no hidden archive for future viewing, no secret police watching your every move. This is our section and we want a webcam in it. If you don't like it, please go somewhere else. Maybe thats just me, and maybe its cuz I'm a guy (the majority of the people who get freaked out by the camera are female), or maybe its cuz I'm super laid back in life in general. Oh well. I guess you can look at our section where Zach, Jared, and I are watching Basketball and surfing on our Powerbooks.

Oh, I was able to make a burnable disc image out of one of the DVDs I created using a little program called DVD Imager. I can now start mass producing the China DVD I've made later this week. I've also got to remember to burn off a large chunk of Anime on Borg to DVD this summer. Make room for other stuff. Sigh... so much to do. If I really felt like it I could always turn the anime into MPEG2 and burn it onto a DVD in a way so as to make them playable on TVs. That would be fun, but I'd have to do more research on how to turn DIVX back into MPEG2. Thats what the summer is for.

So I did make it back alive, just to let you know. As if you cared none the less. Anyhow I did get Heidi to drive back which allowed me to slightly slumber once or twice. Well, slumber and play StarFox. I mean, what good is lap[top if you can't have fun every now and then. Once I got back I started on the massive homework that is building up. Meaning papers. I did actually drive down to MSU, except that MSU out for the summer and the Library there is closed on Sundays. I need to go back tomorrow (between 7:30 and 4:30) and also not die. On the way there tonight the car in front of me came very close to hitting a dear. Meaning, had I not been passed by that car I probably would have run into that deer, or come darn close. Hows that for a refreshing thought.

So I've having DVD issues. The ones I've burned have worked in about 50% of the DVD players I've tried. Oddly it works in Zach and I's Powerbooks, but not John's Macintosh tower. They work on my DVD player, but not on my parents DVD player back home. This is quite troubling, and I'm wondering what to do about the matter. I'm also having problems making a disc image out of any of the DVD's I've made. The problems being that I can't. I'm praying that the friendly people on MacNN forums have some ideas.

So do you feel safe in airports? You shouldn't. So a bunch of TNT, clearly labeled, was placed in a passenger's bag for a security test (they didn't know). Well, the package managed to make it through airport security. $7 billion to upgrade airport security, and it was foiled by a man who didn't know he had explosives. White people can't jump. People in general shouldn't jump when they're 6 stories up. Oh, while you're at it, who about making computers out of wood? I mean, why not.

I'll be gone tonight because I'm going home for Mother's Day. Surprise surprise mom.

Ben and I went to see Van Hellsing yesterday. Don't go see it. The movie majorly sucks, in a majorly bad way. This is comin from me who enjoys bad movies, but Van Hellsing was a bit too much for even me. Ben and I were laughing through a great quantify of this film, and I'm quite sure it was never intend on being funny.

PC Magazine says that the next version of Windows look a bit too much like a current Apple OS.... hmmm... did we really expect anything else? Don't worry, by the time the next version of Windows actually comes out, we'll be up to OS 10.8 or something.

I'm completely done with the China DVD. Now all I have to do is start burning off DVDs and wait for the little cases to come in. I'll be testing a copy of the DVD on my parents tonight, see how they like it.

So when men fall in love they act like women, and when women fall in love they act like men? So a study shows, which explains a lot, but it doesn't explain the lyrics to the song Lola. Man, that song is just bad. I rather prefer the song Yoda, but maybe thats cuz I'm a die hard Star Wars fan.

Oh, kill me now. So much damned homework to do its not even funny. Papers... catching.. up.. with... me... Kahn!!!!

Do you actually know what Cinco de Mayo is? Seriously, answer this question right now. If your answer was 'Mexican Independence' then you're dead wrong. No one in my 300 Level Latin American history class actually knew what it was. In reality its celebrating a victory over the French army (go figure) back in 1862. Oddly enough its being marketed in the US as a new holiday, or another excuse to drink a bunch. Lots of beer ads have been playing telling us to celebrate, and even one that says Cinco de Mayo is 'Mexican Independence.' So what does this mean for America? Are we butchering a Mexican holiday in order to sell beer, or are we just extremely misinformed about Mexican history? I think its an effort by American business and corporate culture to create a new holiday so that we spend money on beer and chips. It wouldn't be too out of place, think of Valentines day, Mother's Day, Secretaries Day, or any other random 'Day' in which we need to buy flowers and a card for someone. I for one only have one thing to say about corporate Cinco de Mayo, and that is "Que lastima!"

So Microsoft is being fun again. First off internal estimates on what the next version of Windows will need comes out to be a 6 ghz processor, 2 GIGs of RAM, a terabyte of storage, and very fast wireless. Oh, and it won't be out till 2008. This is in stark contrast to Apple's trend of releasing a very nice update every year. Hell, Jobs is even going to talk about 10.4 (Tiger) at WWDC. Too bad I'll be in Japan next year, or else I'd go up to the cities with Zach and Justin again, and wait in line for a copy, then install it on the way back. what a fun time. Oh, and you'll also like this if you use hotmail. Microsoft is selling a 'Bonded Sender' service that allows companies to send spam around their spam filters. I think this is the time to get a free e-mail account at Google or Yahoo, or any of the other millions of e-mail places out there. Bad Microsoft, bad.

I'm just about finished with the China DVD. I've got just a bit of work to do, and then massive homework time. I've got to get a working draft of my Latin American History Paper done this weekend, or mostly done. Which means I'll be spending tomorrow night at MSU getting books, and working my butt off. which is ok, cuz I do fine once I'm in the 'zone.' Though I will be taking a break Friday to see Van Hellsing, which although I've had my doubts about, looks to be a good solid 'B' movie. Its going to be so bad. I started worrying when the advertising blitz started. The advertising was over the top, which could mean two things. 1) Its going to suck, and they know it, so they're advertising the hell out of it and hope that the opening weekend sales will carry the movie for a while. 2) They had a large advertising budget because they paid their writers and actors shit money for a shit job. I'm guessing it could be both, because some reviews I've read are not very favorable. But hell, it has to be better then when we went to see The Punisher. Man... so bad.

Ok, so I do love good tech, which explains why I have so much of it. But man, who doesn't love an iPod these days? Working in the Library I see people constantly coming in with them, which isn't hard thanks to the tell tail white earbuds. But I must say I love this new commercial Apple just put out, because I seriously think this happens. Speaking of tech Zach is going to buy the exact same camera as me. Copy cat. Wow, then we'll both have like most of the same junk, in various forms. The same looking computer (though mine is a much newer model, then his), the same looking mouse (though mine is Bluetooth, and his is Wi-Fi), iPods (though his is a 40 gig, and mine an older 10), the same looking Firewire HDs (though his a 5 in sized one, and mine is a 3.5 in), the same laptop stands (though he uses two, and I only use one), and now the same camera. Dude, if he picks up the Viola next year... no one will be able to tell us apart! Well, maybe expect the fact that I'm cute and personable and he's not. Zing!

I took in the old car to get a new tire. The fun, or lack there of. Nothing like spending money on a tire. I also ordered 100 DVD-Rs off NewEgg.com. Now I've just got to finish up those damned China photo slideshows.... I did the big one today, Beijing, which ended up being over 15 minutes long.

But the important part of my day was the second trip I made to Mankato for a $4 laptop stand. Ben found some wire mesh document holders, which when turned upside down, make a perfect Powerbook laptop stand. Zach and I both ended up buying two of them. We had to use some cardboard wrapped in duct tape to support the back, so it doesn't wobble. At least till this summer when I can saw off the ends of it. Beats buying a $40 designer laptop stand, and this one allows nice airflow and a raised screen. Fun fun fun.

Thats about it. I have another picture of my laptop on the stand in the old Photoblog. I've been putting quite a few photos on there lately, so check it out, or hell, even comment on it. That'd be fun.

Oh, Professor Greg Kaster sent me this article about schools using blogs to hook prospective students. We talked about getting something set up for the GAC History department, which would be really cool. Its not like its a tough system to install and configure. I mean, I set it up not knowing squat. Plus the cool thing is History Majors have lots of fun stuff to talk about. Like not doing homework, wild History Parties, and the crazy girls of the History department who often do mud wrestling for us on weekends. Oh wait... nope.. not happening. But what is happening is that we now have 79 History Majors this year. Go GAC History.

Yeah, not much to say about today except that I attempted to get some work done. I did manage to sort through all the China photos I have sitting on my hard drive, and I found out that iMovie will import photos nicely. I just gotta figure out in what way I wish to arrange through the photos so I can put together slideshows. Then all I gotta do is throw together a DVD and we're in business. Well, that and burn off the DVDs... and get my tire fixed... call about summer jobs.. and finish all these damn papers. Sigh....

Zach went super crazy and installed KDE on his laptop. Talk about super freak weird windowed system he's got going on now. Just take a look at this picture. Sigh... now he can run Linux and Unix apps in the KDE Windowed system, and totally freak people out. Or just run the virtual remote control he has set up for our media station, which lets him control Windows form his laptop. Nothing like the ability to turn music on in our section from anywhere on campus... or maybe even off campus. Now that'd be weird. Just check out the picture and see how nicely OS X and KDE are together. Awww... so cute.

I went to this years 'South Side Bash," which is a big BBQ and amateur music fest on the south side of campus.... too bad it was cold, or more people would have done the slip and slide. The hamburger was good, but the music from the group playing was... well.. bad. Yes, I am being critical, but I nicknamed this group AWF, or Angry White Freshmen. I can only take so much bad music at one time, and I do like a very wide range of music. At least the company was good.

So thats my day. Nothing too exciting. Oh, though I'd not recommend eating a bunch of cookie, popcorn, and juice before going to bed, which is what I'm about to do now. Ow ow ow ow.

(Oh, and if anyone is actually wondering, I'm still working on a new layout template for my blog, I've just not got time for it. You can see it, in its current working version. I'm thinking of putting a header on top, or something, and redoing the links in CSS instead of JAVAscript. I'll do that this summer.)

So heres my long story. I had bought a wireless router from Amazon.com, a D-link one for usage at home. I was trying to get it to work here in the section, and in the process I managed to break my ethernet port on my Powerbook. Not really broke, just the little prongs on the inside that clip onto ethernet cables. This happened because of the stupid ethernet cable that the D-Link router came with. So to add to injury, the router stopped working, and after an hour of really bad tech support I was finally transfered to someone who told me the item was defective, and I should return it to the place of purchase. So I sent to back to amazon.com, and decided not to get a replacement. But now my Powerbook was damaged, so I called Apple and they said they could fix it, though the guy on the phone wasn't that helpful. So I drove up to the Apple store in the Twin cities to see what they had to say, and they told me that they'd have to replace the motherboard to fix that little clip of plastic, and that it probably wasn't worth it at this point (which was true). So I drove back to Saint Peter, and low and behold, things got worse. About 30 miles from school my tire blows out. Not just a little blow out, but a big hole type blow out. So Heidi and I had to get the spare out, and put it on, while sitting off I 169. Had she not been there, I would have been out of luck. Not fun, and also scare cuz the spare is a tad bit low on air. We did make it back, alive and everything. So long story short, I hate you D-Link.

So Heidi was nice enough to come with me because she needed fabric for an art project, and thank goodness she did. She did find the fabric she wanted, but she wanted to look elsewhere also. But I guess she can't use me or my car for that now due to my blow. sigh...

I'm still working on the China DVD project. I'm halfway through the pictures, but I still have another thousand or so to go before I'm done. I've so far gotten about $45 in orders, which I need to use on blank DVD-Rs. Hopefully Lee can drive me into Mankato tomorrow, or soon. That or I get a new tire. I want to start burning off DVDs this next week, but that means I'll have to be done with the project.

We had a super cool concert today. We played Brahms , Zach did a wonderful solo. The fun.

Lots of papers to do. So little time. Nothing new about that.

The epic true story of Mario, in flash. Its actually quite cool.