June 2004 Archives

So I kinda cleaned my room. Just a bit. Went over to a friends house and got.. some... files... Lets just say I'll be well entertained by mindless killings for a while. I also found out that my firewire port is being really flaky. Before I just thought it was my external case, but now I think its the port. Something that I should get fixed (for free) before I go.

I've been reading even more travel books on Japan, which is bad because I'm quickly running out of books to read. I found this really funny quote about Japanese gardens written by a westerner in the 19th century. He described the requirements for a Japanese landscape garden as "a cart-load of rocks, a pail of water, a modicum of ingenuity, and unlimited imagination - all concentrated on a space the size of a mat." I think he left out the tortured miniature trees, hacked up in a Freddy Kruger style slasher flick. I actually find these gardens to be very beautiful, though I could never maintain one. I just remember the poor fate of my Banzi Tree two years ago. Poor little tree.

I just got back from seeing Spider-man 2, and I can say nothing but wow! Its so damn good! I went to an 11:15 am movie, and the place was about 70% full of people. So heres a quick review of the film. The first half of the movie is Spider-man having a bad day. Life sucks for Peter in about every way possible. No money, no friends, no sleep, and bad grades. During this time he meets Dr. Octavius, and is there for when his experiment goes bad, thus making him into the bad guy known as Doc Oc. Peter is still very much in love with MJ, who is finding it easier to try and forget Peter then love him. Peter is filled with self doubt and finds his powers slipping. So he decides to give up being Spider-man. This doesn't work too well because he keeps finding himself trying to be a hero. Long story short Doc Oc gets hired by Harry Osborn to capture Spider-man in exchange for some materials needed for Doc's crazy experiments. Doc takes MJ hostage in an attempt to get Peter to being him Spider-man. Some super cool battles ensue, MJ falls for Peter. The end. Or is it?

Some randomly cool things: A scene where Doc Oc is in a hospital and the doctors are about to remove the arms. the arms go crazy and kill everyone in a very Evil Dead sort of way. We even see one doctor grab a little chain-saw, which made me laugh. Speaking of Evil Dead my favorite B movie actor Bruce Campbell makes a cameo as an usher with a stick up his ass. You the man Bruce. The acting in this second film was much better then the first. J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson was brilliant! I couldn't stop laughing. If you're a Spider-man fan you'll see lots of comic references in this film in the way of characters showing up. Watch and you'll see.

My beef: MJ apparently has the Lois Lane syndrome. Whenever a bad guy comes into town, she ends up in trouble. Not a big deal because you're in love with the hero. In this film Spider-man takes his mask off about every 10 minutes. If you're a super-hero who is afraid of people knowing who you are, stop taking off the damn mask! Some people.

Overall a super awesome film. I'll probably go see it again this weekend with my parents. Jared Lee, go see this film.

So I didn't go to work tonight. My foot is quite swollen, and it hurts to stand. So I'm home.

I ended up watching Spider-man (the original) tonight with my parents. Had three Mike's, ended up talking to an old flame for a bit online. Very old flame. Weirdness.

Watched some blind date. Realized people on that show are dumb, don't know what they want.

I could use a night out.

Oh, in a talk with an old friend from high school I was accused of finding faults in all the people I knew from high school. The only complaint I've made is that they all keep blowing me off or not wanting to talk to me. So for this reason I this friend doesn't wish to hang out. His other complaint is that I don't 'know' the people anymore, so I can't really hang out with them. I find this very circular logic, but then again, he doesn't hang out with anyone either, which confirms my hypothesis: You can't go home. That and the people I knew from high school are kind of idiots. Which was true then, and now.

Working 12 hours overnight, standing, hurts my feet. I found out tonight that my right foot hurting so badly is caused by my shoe lift, the one that keeps my back from hurting while I stand. So I can either take out the lift and have my back hurt, or leave it in and have my right foot/leg hurt. Yeah, sucks. On a good note I'm now working 9 pm to 9 am, as opposed to the 11 to 11 shift I was doing before. With my old shift I often got off at 8 or 9, cutting down my hours. with my new shift I should be getting another 5 to 6 hours in a week, which is a bit over $50.

Why is this extra work so important to me? Well, despite what some people may have told you, Japan is very far away. Across the Pacific. The distance is so far, in fact, that it is impossible to walk there. Or drive there. Or even take a fast train there. No no, I must fly there. Which, according to Expedia.com, will probably cost me $1200. Ooo. Bad news. That and the fact that Japan is an expensive place to live. Tokyo was just named the most expensive place to live in the world. Money would be helpful when a movie ticket cost $15 (according to Nate).

One big question for all those weird Bush-ites out there, show me the WMD? Its been 18 months, where are they? I mean, show me something? Also, didn't Bush say that we'd not let Iran or N. Korea get nukes, but yet we've not stopped either of them? Something about a whole axis of evil thing. I'm just wondering. Must have been smoke, like the whole Osama - Iraq link. Go figure.

I should get some rest now. I plan on seeing Spider-man tomorrow after I get off work, which means about noon. I figured I'll beat the working crowd. That and I can go to bed afterwards. The movie looks awesome.

Oh, check out the cool new stuff from Apple! Preview of 10.4 and also cool new 30in metal monitors. My Powerbook wants one.

I'm back from the zoo, alive and well. Lots of fun animals in small cages. I felt really bad for them. I saw a billboard for the Omaha Zoo saying "Where the gorillas roam free!" Except for when I saw the gorillas, they weren't really roaming free. Kind of like being in small habitats. Poor poor gorillas. Maybe seeing all those big cats made me miss my own cat, which would be true. Sigh... so many kitties. On a funny note, I saw a small tabby cat go at it with an elephant. The elephant did chase the cat away, but not before I could laugh. Also funny, this picture of a monkey, who looks like Jared. Or at least the facial hair does. I immediately thought of Jared. In a good way. In much the same way seeing the penguins made me think of Ben. Get your hands off my facial hair you damned dirty apes!

I should sleep now, seeing as how I work tonight and could use some sleep. I'll put up the fun photo album of those poor animals when I get my other photo albums up, which will be by mid-week.

PS. Only 7 days till Jared is at the hands of those crazy Australians!

I'll be in Omaha this weekend for a bit of family bonding. Its my sister's B-Day so my parents figured we should meet her down there for some family time. Plus my father has a job interview. I guess the main fun will be time spent at the Omaha Zoo, of which I will take many fun Zoo photos. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Because I'm no done watching all the episodes of Futurama I'm in need of something else to watch during dinners and breakfasts alone. I've decided to start watching all the old episodes of the The Tick. Only one thing to say to that! "Spooooooooooon!"

I've finally got a working template for my photos albums and I've started the process of remaking all the albums. Its mainly just me going through my photos and putting them into folders, then exporting them. I'm sure I'll get it done sometime this next week. I'm still trying to figure out how to organize the photos. I currently have it divided into several categories: School, family, trips. Except I find that most of my albums fit into several categories, not just one. I'm thinking of doing my albums by year, which makes the most sense. Oh well, I should actually end up doing that.

I think I'm the only person I know of who doesn't rush to get paid every Friday. I've so far got two paychecks that are still waiting to be picked up. I got chastised by my mother for not getting them. My response is that I don't really have a need to go pick them up. I don't spend any money during the week, and I have enough to buy random glasses of Sprite at B&N whenever I wish to.

Jared is leaving for Australia in 9 days. Be sure to say goodbye, it could be the last time you ever see him. Also, wish him the best of luck with the foreign ladies. He'll need it.

My mother took me to get some of my digital photos printed off at a local photo center. Only 29 cents a photo, not too bad. I guess now I actually have tangible copies of photos, as opposed to these silly electronic ones.

My parents put our dog of almost 14 years down yesterday. Jessie had been on a downward slide for several months now, and was in extremely bad shape when my parents took her in. Its kinda sad being home now without her annoying howl and constant patrolling of our hallways. Being home is very tough, especially when you lose an old friend.

Being home is starting to get weird again for me, now that I am venturing out of the household. I'm always a bit tentative about getting out of the house when I'm home because I really hate those awkward situation with people I know, and people I should know but don't. Such as when my father and I went out for dinner last friday night, we ran into Jack. Jack was a server at this restaurant (luckily not ours) and he knew me, and apparently remembered me quite well. Now I recognized his face right away, but that was about it. I franticly looked for a name tag to see if I could remember anything, but no, I could not. But as always I BSed my way through it all, as usual. Now something dawned on me while working the other day, something that I hadn't really thought about much. Do people remember me at all? A new girl started working at Fuji the other day, someone I remembered from High School. Beth is tall, smart, and always has a very cut set of glasses on. I instantly remembered her, and the limited contact I had with her in High School (she was two years my junior). When i was leaving work I struck off a conversation with her, which I think caught her off guard. I'm quite sure she didn't remember me at all, and I so clearly got the brush-off from her after a few moments of chit-chat. "I should be letting you go, you're probably tired from work." Ow. But not like it matters, I was just curious to see if she remembered me at all. I guess it kinda goes to show you can't go home. Or you can, but that people are dumb.

I'm so very happy to find out that one of my favorite movies of all time is about to be re-released in theaters in a very cool directors cut. Donnie Darko is going to be out again this summer in a very cool new extended director's cut! I'm very pumped, but very very bummed at the same time. I'll probably not be here to see it, which means I'll have to wait and buy the DVD. I'd be down with that, show my true commitment to Sparkle Motion.

With so much free time at work, well free time of my mind, I've been thinking about GAC and stuff, and how annoying it is being at a small school. I talked to my father about it the other day and he completely agreed. Seems things were just the same at his small college, back in the day. Don't get me wrong, I love GAC and I love the people, but at the same time its those exact same things that get to me each day. Sometimes GAC feels like High School, except we have a better cafeteria and we live on our own. A good chunk of the GAC student population appears to have stopped growing mentally when they hit high school. The same dumb naïvety and innocence that we all find cute in children is still greatly present within the population of Gustavus. This is made even worse by that fact that GAC is located outside of any major city, and a student can spend 4 years there and hardly ever leave campus. I don't know, sometimes I wish I could slap some people in the face and say "Theres a big world out there that isn't centered around your dorm floor." GAC reminds me of a High School Graduation speech, one where you're told that you can make a difference in the world and that nothing is ever as bad as it seems. The problem is that the world is a scary place, and that you can't really ever change anything, not in the ways our young minds want. Maybe I'm just venting my own frustration in not finding much to do on the weekends. Sure the Twin Cities is only 45 miles away, but have you ever tried to motivate lazy friends to drive up there? Plus its so darn expensive to drive anywhere. Thank goodness I'm finding somewhere else to be next semester. I could really use a change. Maybe I'm just ready to graduate to a larger environment?

Barnes & Nobels really kind of sucks without wireless. Though I am able to read with surprisingly few distractions. Kinda helps when you don't constantly see people you know, or people that wish to talk to you. I've been reading through Japan Made Easy, yet another fun Japan book by Boye Lafayette De Mente. Little tidbits of information that might make my stay a bit easier. I should really write down and practice a lot of the sayings he lists in the book, attempt to fit in. As much as a six foot plus white guy can do in Japan.

I'm starting to plan out some trips to both the U of M and the U of W this summer for law school visits. As much as I like the Twin Cities the idea of going to school in Madison, WI does thrill me a bit. Call me a sucker for cheese if you must, but who knows. My father has even been trying to get me to go down to the University of Nebraska for a visit, which I may just do.

Yes Jared I will be going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 this Friday, probably for lack of anything else to do. No I do not worship Michael Moore (unlike the unholy worshiping Jared does at his alter to Rush Limbaugh), and no I do not agree with everything he writes or makes into a video. But he does make some interesting points every now and then, and far be it for me to say bad things about a film without actually watching it first (Jared, hear that?). I guess the same goes for former President Clinton's book, which has been selling quite well in recent days.

Before I wanted to say that I changed the layout in my Photo section, and I was going to upload some more albums when I realized that I really hated the default html page that BetterHTMLExport puts out. I mean I have this nice new pay layout and I'm stuck with a very dull and boring set of photo albums. So then I remembered that the reason I bought BetterHTML Export was to be able to use custom templates that people had made, of which I found many cool ones. Some even used PHP or CSS, and are very cool to play with. Long story short I really need to re-export all my photo albums in a cooler template, when I have time. Maybe head over to B&N for an afternoon and do that. I also have become behind on my labeling of photos in iPhoto, so I should spend a good hour or two and do that. Before I forget who people are. You know I will.

I need to buy more DVD cases. A couple more orders of the China DVD have come in, and I also need to make some for my family. More money to spend. I was thinking of buying yet another piece of shareware this week, thus depleting my money supply even more. G-Force is a awesomely groovy visualizer plugin for iTunes that puts the default iTunes visualizer to shame. The basic version of G-Force is actually free, but I've used it so much and the pay version has a few extra perks. Every time I watch it I think "Somewhere out there, there is a college students smoking pot and watching the exact same thing."

Sleep is needed before I work again tonight. Although work goes by faster when you're only half awake.

First off, my webpage is now entirely converted over to the new look and feel. Check it out. Really. Go click on Personal or Technology and see all the cool stuff. My next big project is to redo the Photo area, probably chop it down to smaller bits, separate pages. Maybe some thumbnails.

Bad news. The back left rear blinker on my car has a hole in it. Some of it broke off, which is always weird, and which means I'll be having to fix it.

In response to the mocking my Zach and Jared to my bad math on the whole Hard Drive cost thing, I was looking at real world HD size, not what they tell you. See when you have a HD that says its say 60 GIGs in size, its not really a full 60 GIGs. Hell, my 80 GIG HD is in reality only 74.4 GIGs. Its a somewhat unknown rip off of the computer industry.

So my back has been killing me lately. I went to my father's Chiropractor who gave me a bunch of stretches I need to do to combat my extremely tight hamstrings. I think I'll combine this with my new Anime Workout. What, you've not heard of my revolutionary Anime Workout? Its quite simple. You take a treadmill, and a laptop, and then you run while watching Anime, thus combining the joy of anime and the pain of running.

So Japanese for Dummies is really good. I think I'll take it to work with me tonight. I've got nothing else to do during those breaks, and I can't take late night CBS news anymore, which is the only channel the break room gets. Fun fun fun.

So Jessie, our Spring Spaniel, is about gone. I'm quite sure my parents are going to have to put her down in the next day or two.

I should rest before I work tonight. We've also got father's day stuff tonight too. Fun.

Right now I'm being "that guy" at Barns & Nobel. I'm here in the Cafe´ area with my laptop, a drink, and some books. I've noticed many people before being "that guy" while I was working at B&N in summer pasts, but I never thought I'd have a chance to actually be "that guy" in this lifetime. I guess the only major downside to being "that guy" at a B&N in South Dakota is that I there is no way in hell that a B&N here would ever have wireless, which I guess is kind of annoying, but does allow me to work without the distraction of AIM or the internet. No if only I could somehow gain some appreciation of coffee or tea I'd be set. It's not really good to be "that guy" without an expresso or tea in hand, a Sprite doesn't cut it.

So what books am I breaking down and buying? Well, I've got Japanese For Dummies in hand right now, which is turning out to be a very handy and informational book. Seriously, I kid not. I'm probably going to end up buying it and eating it up. It's got a lot of very handy words put in a format that is easy enough for a history major to understand. I've also been paging through Cultural Japan, by Boye Ladayette De Mente (Man, now thats a name). Very interesting cultural information, which I may need. I'm not really worried about getting killed or lost or even overly confused in Japan (Japan is probably one of the most safe countries to travel to, and probably the most friendly and helpful, according to Mr. Long-ass name). What I am extremely worried about is not being able to shed my cultural skins, so to speak, and open myself up to Japanese culture. Even more so is offending or not knowing what to do with my host family. If I can at least have some idea of what to expect or what to do then I won't feel like such a foreign idiot (more so then I will). I'm sure I'll survive. Now my parents on the other hand. They appear to be interested in traveling to see me sometime during my stay, which would be cool and all because it would allow me to travel around a bit with them. (I think the largest worry for me is that I won't want to leave, and that someone will have to drag me onto an airplane and strap me down)

So if you've not noticed by now my entire webpage is slowly being converted over to the new template. Slowly. I have most all the pages under 'Personal' done, very easy to do. I'm in a quandary about what to do with the 'Photos' area. I'm searching for some interesting way or interesting layout to use for all the photo stuff. I've seen some people do some really cool stuff with css, or I could just do what Zach and Jared have done for their albums. Hell, maybe I can even find some super cool php scrip that will make a directory for all my photo albums. Knowing me I'll probably just break down the various categories of my albums and make them each their own individual pages. Maybe a some thumbnails. I did manage to get a favicon working. If you're using Mozilla or Safari you can see a fun blue 'Z' up by the web address. Fun fun.

I'm really enjoying my LinkBlog right, now that I have it actually working. Its run via an php include, like my PhotoBlog, so I don't need to rebuild my main page each time I update the LinkBlog or PhotoBlog. I also refuse to use the geeky terms for them. Most of the time people call a LinkBlog a 'SideBlog' (its on the side of your main page) and a PhotoBlog a 'FotoBlog.' I have how the internet is killing out language. Oh no! I'm starting to sound like the French!

I'm really missing my 30% B&N discount right now as I look at the prices of these books! Ow, looks like I'll be spending $40 on them tonight. I don't know how I'm going to save up the $ for a ticket at this rate, unless I start to sell my body to science. As long as they don't tickle me I should be fine.

If you've not done so already, talk to Jared Lee soon! He'll be gone before you know it, lost in Australia. While Japan may be one of the safest places to visit, Australia is not. He'll be at the mercy of jellyfish, sharks, spider, and snakes. According to a book he's been reading I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come back missing a finger or two. Don't die Jared, we miss you! Or at least I do!

Zach is in Aspen at some sort of String Festival. I think its just a chance for him to score with some super hot music babes! At least thats what I want to believe, for myself. Either way he's got some fun photos on his webpage of the amazing Colorado mountain-scape. It should also be noted that he stole the code for his PhotoBlog from me, which isn't a big deal seeing how I stole it from someone myself, but at least he could change the colors! Oh the humanity!

I should really get around to paying Ben for some hard drives he bought for me. Two of them, both weighing in at 250 GIGs each. One is to replace the 60 in my external drive for when I travel to Japan, and the other is for our file server, which will mainly be for a massive backup drive for all my music, photos, and data. Plus at the price Ben got them for its a steal! (Well, not really a steal, but cheap! 40 cents a megabyte!) I figure I should backup everything before going, just on the chance that I lose it all or that it gets destroyed by some Giant Robot or Mothra.

So if you've not noticed I put into place a new layout and design for my page. I've yet to finish setting up all the sub-pages to the site with the new template. I'm sure I'll get that done tomorrow when I'm doing nothing... like most Saturdays. Its just my dad and I this weekend, so I guess I'll have even less to do while he's playing golf.

I've been having a really wacky sleep schedule lately due to my overnight shifts the first part of the week and then the fact that my parents want me to be active and fun the other half of the week. Its really messing with my mind. I've been waking up at like 4 or 5 in the morning, and then I can't get back to sleep. One morning I watched a bunch of Futurama, then this morning I redid my blog. Its kinda weird.

My parents have decided to put our dog Jessie down in the next week. She's a really old dog and she's not holding up very well. We're not even sure she knows whats going on anymore. First my cat dies over January, and now this. Not to say that my parents are taking it very well either. Poor dog.

I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Some good, some not so good, some just plain dumb. The first film I saw was one that I rented called The Station Agent, which I've been waiting to hit video for quite a while. Its an independent film, which means I'd never get to see it in the theater. Its a wonderful story about people, trains, and life set in the desolate landscape of New Jersey. Heck, even my father liked it, which often says quite a lot about a film. The next film, even I can't believe I watched. Each time I went to the video store it was sold out, but I eventually got ahold of one copy. Euro Trip. Ok, I know, how low have I sunk. But I wanted a mindless, silly, stupid, movie to watch. Plus I do enjoy watching people make fun of the French. Its not too bad of a movie. My father had been wanting to see the second part of Kill Bill, so we went to the cheap seat theater ($2 a ticket!) and watched that. Still a damn good movie. Oh but I I was overjoyed to to see a movie tonight! Dad and I went to see The Terminal, staring Tom Hanks, which was just an awesome movie. I laughed my head off, and also had a tear in my eye. I love Tom Hanks and his super good acting skills. "Wilson!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So I've found a new thing to be annoyed at when going to the movie theater. Teenage girls text messaging with phones that light up more then a Christmas tree. Some girl was one row down from my father and I and she sat there the entire movie text messaging people, with her super light up phone, that lit up even more when she out a message. Annoying. I once read an article about how in Japan theater and concert hall owners were installing cell phone jammers. Maybe we need some of those in America.

So I have lots to say, and very little strength left to say it. I'm about to hit the sack and sleep the day away in order to work again tonight, but I figured I should post something.

So my new blog design, forget it. I kept running into problems trying to modify it and get all the menus in place. It was cool for a while... for quite a while... oh well. I'm thinking that I want to rework the template that Zach is using for his webblog. Change the colors a bit, add expanding menus, the whole 9 yards. Zach has been doing the same thing these last few days, installing his own photoblog. He figured he needed one now that he has a camera. Oh, also speaking of Zach, what a sad day this is. I was looking through all the photos on his webpage, and I noticed two things: 1) A very large amount were my photos. 2) He only had one photo of me. So sad am I... sniff.... Thank goodness the other room mates are not alive to see this day!

Saturday I got my parents to get out of bed early so that we could go see the start of a Hot Air Balloon Race! Seriously, its very exciting and fun. Lots of people, lots of balloons, lots of photos. I took about 130 shots while we were there, and stitched a few together. Hey, look whats posted below, a stitched photo! I'll probably post the other photos in my photo album eventually. When I get around to actually fixing this infernal webpage.

So I broke down and went to see the Chronicles of Riddick. I was also very board Saturday night. So the movie wasn't the greatest. In fact, I wouldn't even call it very good overall. But we must keep in mind what type of movie this is: Sci-Fi Action. And as a Sci-fi Action flick it really needs little to no actual science, and lots of action. Of which it delivered in great numbers. Every second. Of the film. You're asking "How much action can you put in?" As much as possible while squeaking by on as little plot as possible. That was the theme. Sure, it wasn't well edited. Riddick is on one planet, then another, then back to the first planet. We don't really know why he's running around, as long as he'd kicking ass and killing people in interesting ways. The special effects were good, and the one liners were abundant, so all in all the crowd was entertained. We'll leave the action film that has plot to Spiderman. Riddick, you're what every man longs to be: a kick ass dude the girls love, who also can see in the dark and pilot spaceships.

Mankato State (MSU) says I have a book missing. I know I turned it in (along with the 20 other books) before school ended. Hopefully my library hookups can help me out in this situation, or else its going to be a very unwelcome $45 fine. Or maybe I just won't ever go to MSU again. I could handle that.

Oh, once again, Futurama is awesome. I've watched through season 4, and am now starting on season 5. Thank you internet, for making my summer just a little bit less dull.

I've gotten flack recently for sleeping until 9 pm the last couple of evenings. This is all due to the fact that I didn't get in bed until around noon due to my job. So lets talk about my Film Processing job. Well, for the first 6-8 hours I take film out of those envelopes you send them off in, and stick it in a machine. Things get interesting when those disposable cameras come through, as I need to tare them apart in order to get to the film. The upside is I get to put on cool safety glasses. For the rest of my 12 hour shift I put processed film onto a conveyer belt. Its like shuffling cards, except they're packages of film. See this job has taken away the mystery of film development. Every time you take film into Wal-Mart or Target the film isn't being developed at that location. No sir. Its put on a truck and taken to a regional development place, like where I work. On an average night the Fuji Film place I work at does between 750,000 and 1 Million rolls of film. Gee, and you thought film processing would be fun.

I went to see the new Harry Potter film today... and really enjoyed it. I've never actually read any of the books, mostly out of spite for having to work in a bookstore while they were being released. Pure madness. So in response to me going to seethe film, I went and rented the second film, which I then sat down and watched at home. They were godo movies. Good long movies.

So I'm about ready to throw the new main page on. Maybe tomorrow when I'm not too busy. anyways, I've got to figure out what to do with all the other pages, what kind of template I should use with them. I don't think I want to be using the same sort of layout for all my sub-pages, but I want some overall coherent theme to go across all the pages. Well, I'm sure I'll figure it out. One thing at a time.

I was up at 7:30 in order to get to my job training by 9, which wasn't really necessary. I ended up watching a bunch of videos, which were mind numbing. I thought I had seen the worst video possible when working grocery, but no. These film-processing safety films blew, and sucked. All at the same time. In the end I found I'll be working film processing and development at $9 an hour for 36 hours a week, 11pm to 11am. The good news is I have gainful employment, and a job for this December. Plus I'll be in the proper sleep mode for Japan. The downside is that I'm only working three nights a week, which means the parents will be on my case to find another job. This schedule means I won't have a social life, but like that matters for me. Blah.

The guys and I have been watching two shows religiously lately. Futurama and Farscape, two shows that died before their time. I watched Farscape back in high school for a long time, and enjoyed it, but lost track of it after a season or two. We've been watching the show from the beginning every Sunday night at midnight (though my new job will stop that). It's a pity that the show ended before it complete its final season (damn you sci-fi channel!). But we're in luck, it looks like a Farscape mini-series is going to happen this fall to finish off the show. On a lighter side of things, Futurama is done by the some people that brought your the Simpsons, and I think is actually more funny. The joy! I'm actually kind of sad that I'm going to miss a bunch of really good shows while in Japan. StarGate Atlantis is starting this July, the Farscape Mini-serries, the return of Family Guy. So sad.... oh well. Screw up. Japan is cooler anyhow. Giant robots on every street corner beats American TV.

I should do a few things around here before getting some sleep before work tonight. The fun.

So I'm still alive after being home alone these two days. Amazing, some would think that I couldn't handle being by myself for a couple of days. Not that I don't take care of myself at school.

So I've managed to watch two movies, eat chinese food twice, and played way too much StarCraft. Ben, Zach, and I have been spending all of out time kicking other people's rear ends Its a simple life, even if Zach continuously gets frustrated with getting his own butt kicked. I'm happy because when he plays, it means that someone else besides me gets their butt kicked.

So I did rent and watch two movies. The first was Monster, which was really sad, depressing, and creepy. Not that it wasn't an amazing film, which it was, it was just really sad. In only the way that a true story about a prostitute turned serial killer could be. The second film was The Triplets of Belleville, which is an animated French film. The film has no dialogue at all. Seriously. It was more of a Blueman group meets crazy French animators on too much cheese sort of film. Lots of funky musical numbers, weird animation, and crazy humor. Good times.

I'm really getting annoyed with the recent rash of TV ads for the evils of stealing cable TV. But then again, its not just the anti-cable theft ads, its the anti-movie stealing ads in theaters, the anti-music stealing ads on the radio. Man, I don't feel bad for corporations. You can't make me feel bad about a multi-billion $ company who has get sympathy for the loss of a bit of money. This is in a world where we find out that CEOs are spending company money on frills, or big corporations are fleecing people or the government, or hell the fact that the music industry admits to screwing over their own musicians, or the fact that most DVD rips of movies (before they come out in theaters) are done by industry insiders. Don't ask for sympathy from me, you're doing enough to make things bad for yourself. Each time the music industry sues some 14 year old for downloading a song, you're doing a good enough job for yourself.

I've made some progress on the whole webpage switchover. My new personal domain is up and running, though all it does is take you to my seenoevil page. I need to put in some time and move everything over. make a template in Dreamweaver, finish my layout, move my pages over to the new template. Lost of work I can do while I'm awake from 10 pm to 10 am. Yeah, thats right, I'm starting work tomorrow night. Whooo. Money and work, and late nights. If my father has it his way I'll be working another job those other nights. Only time will tell.

So the only news I have today is that I got the job working overnight shifts at the film place. 10 pm to 10 am. Wonderful. I start Monday, which means I'm not going to Missouri with the family. As sad as I am about not being able to take tons of cool photos, its going to be a fun weekend home alone.

Zach thinks my Falls picture is kinda fake looking, even if it is real. I do enjoy the clouds.

I've almost got my new webpage to where I want it to be layout and style wise. You can see this work in progress preview if you'd like. The only thing I really have to do is figure out how I wish to layout the menu bar on the left, and then finish it up. I also want to move the entire site (and blog) to joshauzimmerman.com, but that requires going through all the backlog of my blog entries and changing all the links. Just because I'm anal that way.

The dogs are being boarded this weekend, which makes the house unusually quite. So quite, it makes me think of my cat. Of whom I'm missing very much these days. Sigh.... my mother wishes to get another cat, but I think she's waiting for our older dog Jessie to die off. She's been in the processing of passing away for the past three years now.

Lastly, its so nice to have wireless at home. Mmmmm... sweet sweet wireless all over the house, which makes me feel like I'm back at school. Watching Futurama on the couch, with my laptop. The fun.

So the only thing worth talking about is my trip down to the falls today with my parents. Notice the very cool picture displayed below for your viewing pleasure.

Anyhow, my room is rather warm these days with all the computer equipment I have running. Though the hum of hard drives and fans does put me to sleep at night. Then again, my room has never been well air conditioned. Oh well.

Oh, I'll probably be going to a family reunion in Missouri this weekend. A nice long drive. At least I'll have the Powerbook, and the iPod. I knew I should have invested in a Gameboy.

So I eventually got out and looking for a job. I went to the Express Personnel Office and filled out a ton of paperwork. Hopefully I'll be getting a job at a photo processing place, making $10 an hour. The downside of this is that I'll be working night shifts, up to 12 hours at a time. There is a good side to this though, my sleep schedule will be adjusted in such a way that it'll be easier for me to adjust to the Japanese day. I also followed up on the inventory job, but I won't know till the end of the week on that one.

My parents are going to a family reunion down in Kansas this weekend. I may go with, but I don't know. I'm rather lazy and all. If I do it'll be fun. Arg! I really could use some time to relax after moving, and some time to readjust to my being home.

I felt the joy that can only come from taking part in the democratic process today. There was a special election to fill Janklow's position. Stephanie Herseth won a very close election. But man were her supporters out in mass. I saw them on street corners, we got phone calls, and even someone came to the door. The fun!

So my Canon S400 camera came with some software that stitches photos together to make panoramics, and I finally loaded it into my computer and started making photos! Here are the super cool results. I'm very impressed, and so should you.

Here is one from some photos I took in January of 2003 of campus from the Arboretum.

This is from one of the courtyards in the Forbidden City. I'm surprised it turned out so well, seeing that there was a large moving crowd.

If you look on the back of the 20 Yuan bill you'll see this exact spot on the Li River Valley.

This is a shot off the top of Elephant Trunk mountain. Nice valley with a good golf course.

Lastly heres a shot of a valley in Minnesota. This is the only one where I used my S400 for the shots.

I also just paid $17.95 for a copy of ecto, the program I use to post my blogs. I figured I've been using it for the last year, I should actually pay for it. You know actually have a legal version of it, get real updates, real support. I figure I do need to buy software every now and then. Wow, this make three shareware apps I've paid for in the past year. Ecto, Synergy, and BetterHTML Export. I'm on a roll now.