July 2004 Archives

So my drive down from Two Harbors to GAC was mostly uneventful. Except for the Friday afternoon traffic that caused me to inch along 494 and the rest of the Twin Cities for over an hour. I almost didn't make it back to GAC in time to pick up my broken computer form the Gustavus Post office. They were nice and waited for me. I also learned the importance of saving your Burger King cup, as I bought a large pop at BK at the start of my trip... only to refill it again towards the end of my trip. It was a large drink, I feel I had the right to refill it again. Even if it was at a completely different BK.

So Friday was Ben's 21st Birthday. This is how John, Anna, Nate, Ben, and myself spent it. We first hung out. Then played some StarCraft. Went to Mankato where we bought some drinks and went to Culvers. We then went to the movie theater where we found out that The Village was sold out. So we went back to Saint Peter. Played some more StarCraft. Then actually saw The Village, which wasn't that good. Went back to GAC. Had some drinks. Played more StarCraft. Talked to Zach via iChat. John and Anna fell asleep on the floor. That was about it. Not extremely exciting.

Nate was kind enough to give me his cool Japanese cell phone he got in Japan so I could use it. It runs off phone cards. Has a dancing Panda, and menus in Japanese. So I guess this means I should learn Japanese or else not be able to really use the phone. Speaking of cool Japanese electronics Nate showed me (again) his Song Clie that he got in Japan. Man has PDA technology moved light speeds since I bought one back before college. He even found a way to encode video and watch anime on it. On a very small screen. He mainly used it in Japan as an electronic dictionary, which is what I'll end up doing. Just need to find one with built in BlueTooth so it will have wireless fun with my Powerbook.

So my reaction to The Village is that the only thing scary about it was the preview. That and the fact that the entire soundtrack was made up of some violinist playing scales whenever something the least bit interesting happens. Which is about all that happens. If you didn't figure out the ending halfway through the film, then you must have been one of those dumb high school kids being dumb in the front three rows. My only question to this completely pointless film (which will probably be shown in every college Sociology Class from now on) is how did all these good actors get involved in the film? You'll ask yourself the same question if you so happen to have the misfortune of seeing this film.

I fixed the problems with IE 6 and my site. Damn IE 6. Only IE 6 had issues, nothing else. Oh well. It should be ok now for you sick people using IE. If you're a Windows person and are using IE switch right now to Mozilla. No more pop-ups, tabbed browsing, and no more problems with spyware. Life would be better.

Wilson had grown a lot in the past week. Poor little guy has not been feeling well all afternoon and evening, He got a bunch of shots today. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the standard cat shots a cat needs these days. I've been putting him on my lap while I watch James Bond, work on my webpage, and eventually watch anime. Good times.

I should put up some photo albums of this past week. I'll do that eventually.

So I can't say I did very much today. Hung out with Heidi, bought some flowers for her mother, took some photos of some more humming birds, went to a band concert. Yeah, thats about it. Heidi, her mother, and her sister all play in the community band which had a concert this last evening. Fun times. I felt a little young, seeing as how the crowd was mostly the 60+ age group. Go figure.

I'll be leaving for GAC in the morning. Ben is turning 21 Friday so it should be fun times. I'll be missing the niceness of Two Harbors, seeing as how the weather back in Sioux Falls will probably kill me (that and work). So goes the summer fun.

Check out these fun, and free, games for OS X. Sure, they may be about the Linux Penguin Tux, but they're fun games.

So I watched the Kerry speech at the Democratic National Convention tonight. I agreed with about 90% of the stuff he said, and then laughed my ass off when the CNN feed picked up someone from the Kerry staff yelling at other staff to make the balloons in the convention hall fall. Some nice on the air profanity to make the night go by faster. My question is will CNN be fined $40,000 for this? What didn't I agree with the Kerry speech? Well the whole issue with out sourcing of jobs. Its a very complex issue. We can't protect every American job. Sure its a bad deal when our markets get flooded with foreign steel (an example Kerry used), which happens to be cheaper. If someone can make a product cheaper, thats the nature of capitalism. America can not compete with the overly cheap labor found in Mexico and in China. Its impossible, unless US workers are willing to work for peanuts. As is the nature of capitalism cheaper materials, like steel, mean cheaper end products in other areas, such as cars. We all benefit from cheaper steel, which is why getting it from a foreign source is in this instance a better deal. The same goes with out sourcing of jobs. If someone can do it cheaper, at the same quality or better, so be it! We all benefit! Yes, I know that no one will ever win an election by campaigning for the loss of US jobs, but in the end everyone wins. How? Well if we're able to get cheaper steel (for instance) and that turns into cheaper end goods (like cars) then that means more people will end up buying that good because prices will fall OR the demand will increase and in either instance more jobs will be created because of the higher demand. What Kerry was right on was the fact that we need to create more high tech and skilled jobs in this country, something that is in high demand. They pay better, but require more education. Something that Kerry was also going for. America can not go around protecting its workers forever while still advocating free trade and world economics. This just won't work. Sadly most people only see things in the short run, and politicians often have a very short shelf life. At least Kerry is smart enough to know what economics is.

So the Heidi and I went down to Duluth for the day. To bad it was raining through most of it. We hit the Rose Garden, tried to hit the zoo (no cash, so we couldn't get in), went to the mall and got some small computer cables for Heidi's eMac, and eventually took a train ride (that served Pizza). Not bad for a really rainy day. And man, did it rain!

I put a bunch of photos on my photoblog, including one really cool shot of a humming bird that was zipping around Heidi's back yard. Trying to post these photos through the slow world of dial-up makes me long for my cable connection, and also feel Zach's pain. Poor poor Zach, having dial-up for an entire summer, whereas I've only had it for a day.

My stats page confuses me. What also confuses me are the people viewing my webpage. You people! Be useful! Post a comment to tell me if my blog page is messed up in IE 6! I need to know whats happening!

So I confessed my true feelings for Hugh Grant tonight. Or should I say, my urge kill him. I don't know why, but whenever I see his face I want to sucker punch him. Seriously. Nothing personal, its just this strong urge. Maybe its his Englishness, or his goofy hair, and that smile of his. But if I ever saw him in person I'd hit him good. Then I'd probably kick him when he's down if he starts talking with an accent.

So today Heidi and I biked to downtown Two Harbors, which isn't saying much. Two Harbors is about 4,000 people and reminds me of Saint Peter. We went and saw some really cool old trains that used to haul ore between Two Harbors and Duluth. Then we went over to the light house, where thanks to Heidi's small town connections, were able to get in free and take some photos. Once again, a fun day. I can't say I've biked in quite some time (I'm sure my bike back home is collecting dust) and it was good to spend some time walking along the water.

We did happen to be down at the beach while an ore tanker was unloading ore tanker was unloading ore at the docks. Quite the large ship. Hard to imagine the countless tons of ore that have passes through the docks here, and the countless ships that have traveled the Great Lakes. It would be cool to scuba-dive down to one of the many wreckage's on the lakes, though as I found out again today the lake water is a tad bit cold for my liking.

The bike ride concluded with a fun chocolate malt. A fun, and tasty way, to end the downtown experience.

Once again I've found that having a digital camera isn't all fun and games. No sir. Now that I'm able to take 20 shots of one thing, I really can't bring myself to delete any of them when I get back home. Thus I end up with about 50 shots of Murphy and Wilson on our deck. I really should go through the last three months worth of photos and thin the herd, so to speak. I've just hit 3,000 photos in my iPhoto library, and at that size not even a single blank DVD can back it all up. All the more reason to get those two 250 GIG HDs working, the ones that are still sitting in their boxes back home. Sigh... more work to do.

So I'm up here in Two Harbors having a blast. I can't say I've been this far North in a very long time, let alone ever being along the shores of Lake Superior. Driving up between Duluth and the Twin Cities I found that there really isn't anything. Its just like driving through the middle of South Dakota, except with tons of trees instead of grassland. Makes for some fun times I'll tell you. I'm enjoying the really nice lake effect happening here, which means no bugs, no heat, and no humidity. Yes sir, the kind of summer living that I can handle. If only poor Wilson was here to enjoy this fine weather.

So yesterday we drove further up the north shore and spent some time at the historic Split Rock Light House. Quite the scenic spot to hang out, and to take photos. We walked along the rocky shore, where I found out how truly cold the lake can be. Who would have figured. After that we went to another state park where we saw some lovely waterfalls. Gooseberry State Park has several sets of waterfalls, except that the water level is rather low right now I didn't get the full effect (its about at 10% of its normal water flow). None the less it was a very fun place to walk around. Now if only I could have killed the tourists or figured out some way to get them out of my photos I'd be complete. Tomorrow we plan on seeing another light house and some old trains and ships. Honestly, what more could a History Major with a flair for photography ask for?

Well I guess the only other thing would be some computers to play with, which is why I brought my laptop with. Oh yeah, and Heidi got her new eMac in yesterday. Talk about the fun. Nothing like the smell of a fresh Macintosh out of the box. So tasty, so good, so clean. Fun times around here I can tell you that.

The only downside is dial-up. Yes Zach, I know I am spoiled with my cable internet at home, and wireless, and a T1 line at school (and Zach's wireless). But I feel the pain now that Zach has felt all summer. Dial-up. I felt it even more as I re-uploaded my Stat Counting php script (yet again). I didn't reset everything all the way, and me being a neat freak, I had to do it again. Nothing like uploading a couple hundred super small files. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I just found my Stats Page a bit interesting, seeing that some people have visited my page from Spain, or from Canada, or very very random places. Maybe they too lack anything useful to do with their lives. Which must be true if they're viewing my LinkBlog and PhotoBlog in the numbers they were before I reset the counter. I should also make my counter track my Tutorial page. Just to see who's actually using my silly resources. Ahhh.. the complete Joy of Tech.

So I'm hanging at GAC right now. Watching Matt play Dragon Warrior 1. We all went to I, Robot. Still good the second time.

So I'm actually enjoying having this keyboard cover, made by iSkins, on my Powerbook. It provides a rubber cushion to type on, making my keyboard all the more springy. And squishy. How very very fun. It also keeps my keyboard clean. Fun.

I reset my stat counter and have set it up to track several pages. I believe that the problems encountered before were from actually due to firewalls people were behind, not my own ISP. Whatever. Its only there for my own sadistic amusement.

Nothing sucks more then trying to have your father restart your webserver over the phone. Kudos to him for doing so.

Lastly, Matt and I both agree, we're glad that Fowler isn't here to see Seth's hot Italian cousin. Seriously hot. Seriously Italian. Hot and Italian enough we feel bad for Seth because she's his cousin. Enough said.

Before I leave for Minnesota I thought I'd quickly talk about what i did last night, and the fun I had. Last week I called my old violin instructor, Doosook Kim, and yesterday we went out to dinner. I'd not seen for almost 3 years and it was good to catch up with her. Plus she bought me dinner. I can never pass up free dinner. After dinner we went over to her place where she showed me her super cool, and expensive, violin. Made in 1686 by Francesco Ruggeri it has a super sound that would probably make Zach drool. Its not a full sized violin, but a 'lady sized' one. Which made me feel even more awkward holding it after playing a viola for three years. Plus the thing is worth more then my life. She has tentatively named it 'Fred', but is looking for any suggestions.

Oh, Dad and I went to see I, Robot yesterday. Very good flick. I should probably see it again.

My stats page is kinda working. It shows most everything, but not Jared. No big loss.

Speaking of Jared, he did some under the table work for a game studio and his voice is going to be in an XBox game come this x-mas. He's voicing some generic characters, probably the ones that randomly say things all the time. Damn you Lee! But because of this I think we should give him a nickname. 'Wingman Hank,' after one of the guys he voiced.

I'm off to Minnesota. Wish me luck, seeing how my car apparently needs $2,500 worth of repairs. More then the car is worth.

The hidden word of iPod criminals, as they threaten our society, homes, family, and lives. I love reading Salon.com, a website devoted to independent journalism. There is some seriously good writing going on there every day, and I just got done reading a really good article about a new copyright bill thats trying to get passed. Maybe it would help if our elected officials would actually understand something before passing laws on it. I can't get my parents to understand our 6 year old iMac, let alone the issues surrounding DRM.

I'll be heading out on Friday for my week of fun. Even though I guess I really am cash strapped, and I guess I really should work. Blah, I'm not going to be seeing these people for an entire semester. Some things are more important than money. I think we forget that sometime.

So Wilson is super crazy, and growing. He constantly wants to play with Murphy, and Murphy is being the most friendly dog ever to the little guy. If we can teach a dog and cat to get along, why can't we teach each other?

Allergies suck. Right now the corn is pollenating, the dust level is high, and the cottonwood trees are being super evil. I had what some would call an asma attack the other night, but which was most likely an allergy attack. Honestly, I hate having allergies and the only relief I get is from a little yellow pill. That and my allergy medication. Badda bing. I'm sure having a cat in the house doesn't make things any better, but I've always handled with that. No big deal.

So I abandoned trying to use the EliteStats php script to monitor stats of my blog, and went with the BBClone php script. Which works, kinda. Its suffereing from the same problems that EliteStats was having. After much though I have concluded (with help from Zach and others) thats its probably my internet provider thats to blame for it. People using the same service show up, but not people outside that service. I think things will clear up once the server is moved back to campus. (Plus my parents iMac, running OS 9, shows up as XP running IE 6. Lame)

My credit card statement showed I had ordered ESPN Magazine. Right. Me and a sports magazine. I called the credit card company. I also apparently ordered Rolling Stone Magazine. Well, maybe. But not within the last month. So I called the magazine place to cancel and bitch at them. Turns out everything, and I mean everything, is done via an automated voice system. It took me half an hour to finally get ahold of someone real and then get them to stop the dumb ordering of magazines. A very dumb way of doing business, mainly used to confuse people (the elderly). I hate cooperate america.

Of which, someone was commenting on Americans and how they think about the world around them. If our society has highly blurred the lines between entertainment and news/history can people actually tell the difference? Do we believe what we see in movies more then the news, or maybe the news itself has started to stop being fact and is now something different. What about history? What do we as American's believe is the real deal? What facts show us, what books show us, or what movies show us? Heck, you can pick up some really good historical fiction these days, but which doesn't actually have any history behind it. So I guess the whole point is, what do we believe is real and what do we believe is false? More importantly, if we had the two side by side, could we tell the difference? Does the power of media trump the power of fact and truth? I'm starting to think so more and more.

So I now have a student VISA for Japan. Go me.

I'll be spending a week on the road visiting people starting Thursday, I think. Think of it as a road tour of Minnesota. Except no one is paying to see me.

So I'm torn. Do I get this little bag to hold my iSight, firewire cable, dongle thing, and mount for $25. Or do I get this flexy firewire cable and use the case that came with my iSight for $20

So in my link blog I quoted part of Alice's Restaurant, the famous anti-war song by Arlo Guthrie. So I go look at his webpage, and he's touring Minnesota during October! How lame! I know Zach would at least go with me to see it. Arlo is super hippy and super cool. Even today.

Ok, bedtime for me. I'm thinking of visiting Minnesota maybe this weekend. I don't know. Gotta weight me not working for a week (36 hours over a weekend) and visiting my friends. It'd be worth it.

Oh, its been annoying me also. I killed the auto refresh on my page. Problem with the way I had Kung-Tunes formatted.

Yeah, I played Lord of the Rings: Return of the King all night long. I took a nap from about 9 pm to 1:30 am, and I'm just not thinking of going to bed. So my brain is on Hobbit overload. Actually, if nothing else its on super bad-ass wizard overload. He does kick ass. I only stayed up so long in order to force myself back into my late night work shift sleep pattern. I hate working nights. But I love killing orcs. The stress.

I've been taking my laptop out onto our screened in deck this summer to enjoy the mild weather, some fun streaming of classical music, and the company of our cat and dog. But as nice as the weather and sun can be, there is a dark downside to it all. Sunlight shows the buildup of oils and dirt on my laptop, which is kind of gross. I have extra oily skin, which means things that my hands touch frequently suffer from its effects. I really don't want to spend all my time cleaning my Powerbook's keys, or worrying about its dust intake, so I broke down and ordered a keyboard cover form iSkins.com. What exactly is this? Its a thin cover that is put over the keyboard to prevent dust and my hands from ruining it over time. I figure its easier to clean that sucker every now and then, as compared to trying to clean the actual keys or take them off in order to clear out the dust. Especially since the rooms at GAC are so dusty, or at least mine has always been. I've also been looking at getting a case for my iSight. Something to protect it while in my backpack, seeing as how I'll be needing to use it somewhere besides my host family's home. To bad theres only one on the market.

Oh, my buddy Grant pointed me to the cover the the new Newsweek which features Steve Jobs holding a new iPod. Apple's webpage probably won't show any info on it until Monday, seeing as how they love surprises. Tie this together with a deal in the educational section of Apple's webpage where you buy a laptop and get $200 off an iPod, and you have a great deal. Too bad I bought my Powerbook a bit earlier. Sigh... No big deal, I really can't justifying getting a newer iPod when I have a perfectly functional one here, a case for it, a car adaptor for it, and an iTrip. 10 Gigs is enough for me right now, and probably in the future. The only time I'd think of getting a different one would be if Apple released a 10 GIG + iPod Mini. Only then. I'm hopeful that won't be for quite some time.

Well it looks like my parents will be getting my old 867 mhz G4 Tower when it gets fixed. Which is a big step up from their original iMac. See, they actually still love their little iMac, which will hit 8 years old this summer, and it works perfectly well for the majority of their means. But they can't run OS X, which leaves them out on a lot fo new software. They also want to get a digital camera, probably the Canon Rebel Digital, and their old iMac just can't handle the software needed to be run with the camera. My father also wants an iSight and an LCD screen for it, which will be nice when I'm overseas.

Grandma and Abby are now here for the weekend. Whoo. I guess.

Yeah, I was going to clean, but sleep got in the way. I was trying to make my bed, and ended up falling asleep in it. I woke up in time to watch Stargate: Atlantis (series premiere), but not before I found little Wilson sleeping next to me. H e's such a pal.

My father bought my sister an eMachine... from Best Buy. I thought I was going to be sick. Sigh... I guess my only consolation was the fact that I slipped in a retractable ethernet cable into the pile of electronics. Payment for me setting it up. Blah.... at least it wasn't a Dell. I did say that besides setting it up, I would not do any tech support on it. Ever. I don't do windows, unless its for pay. Too stressful on me.

I sent in all my documentation for getting a Student Visa to Japan. It cost about $50 to send it there, along with a return envelope. I guess thats the price you pay for secure mail. The last thing I need is for me to lose my passport or other official document in the mail, a month before I leave. Though the best part of the visit to the UPS store was the older clerk guy (like he was late 40's early 50's) throwing in a cool racial slur into the conversation. It went something like this:

Me: Yeah, I didn't really want to drive down to Kansas City to apply for a Visa.
Clerk: I can't say I really like Kansas City.
Me: Well, its not even the Kansas part of Kansas City, its the Missouri part, which makes it all the more worse.
Clerk: I know. Its always night there if you know what I mean. But you didn't hear me say that.
Me: Yeah, oh well, I guess thats why I live in the North.

I actually didn't catch it until I left the store. It didn't register with me at all when it happened. I just don't like the South in general. No racial reasons, more of a societal thing. That and their damn accents! Oh, and Mr. Clerk, I did hear you say that. I just don't get it. I figured Sioux Falls people were above such comments. I guess this changes my views on things a bit.

Oh, my new phrase of the day is "I'm not pirating software, I'm liberating it." I mean, hell, if Bush can wage a war for Oil, I can pirate some software now and then.

I just finished watching the most depressing Anime I've ever seen. Now & Then, Here & There is a really good 13 episode anime about a young boy who is thrown into a hellish future where a madman uses children for war. Its so sad and depressing, and expresses the futility of war and the effects it has on everyone. Its good, but man is it super sad.

I was fortunate to have some company last night, if even for just an hour. Megan E. and Nate K. (their last names have been removed to prevent me from being sued) stopped over to play with Wilson and talk of all things Asian. Megan just got back from Korea where she visited her sister, and Nate is going to spend the next year teaching english in Japan. Oddly enough, he'll be about an hour away from me. What ever will two white guys do in a Japanese city? (The answer is party down Japan style. Which means drink tea and spend $15 a ticket to see a movie) Anyhow they really loved Wilson, who fell asleep on Megan's lap. Gotta love that cat. Too bad they couldn't stay longer, but Megan works at a fruit stand (where people are not afraid to ask how much her melons are) and Nate was heading back to Minnesota in the morning.

Another photo of Wilson is up on my photoblog. Why? Because he's cute. He and Murphy are getting along quite well. They're finding new ways to chase each other around the house, and the deck, and the stairs. Those two.

Seeing as how I'm home during the day for half the week I end up taking phone calls for my parents. Half the time its my sister calling my Dad, or someone calling about golfing with my Dad. But occasionally I get lucky and its a fun tele-marketer, which is what happened to me today. I picked up the phone and got a fun talking New Yorker who was trying to sell me a subscription to The New York Times. Ok, thats not very funny. But what was funny was his horrible New York accent. I have never run across a real person with such a thick New York accent, something you'd only find in movies or bad daytime dramas. I had a very tough time keeping myself from laughing. Maybe it was when he called me 'sport' that really got me, but I can't be too sure. Call me an accent elitist, but being from the mid-west I always find it funny to hear the odd accents of this country. I guess theres a reason Tom Brokaw does the NBC Nightly News. He's from South Dakota.

So I experienced a Hobbit induced overload last night. I started playing the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King computer game, where you can play as everyone, and everyone had their own special skills. My brain was about to go into overload. Hobbit style. Man this game is fun, but tough. Even on easy mode. It plays beautifully at 800 x 600 on my 12in Powerbook with all the settings turned up. The controls take a while to get used to, but they're not too tough. The game follows the storyline of the movie, and you can follow three different paths, each path having different people. Voiceovers are done by the real actors, and there are cut scenes from the movies to help the story along (if you were somehow in a hole these past three years and did not see the movies). There is a mix of RPG in the game. As you kill stuff your 'cool factor' meter goes up, and the higher it is the more experience you get per kill. As you level up you can buy new skills and powers for your individual units or for the group as a whole. Its taking me a while to figure out all these combos, but they're very helpful in killing the hords of orcs you face. This is a game for both guys and girls. The guys will love the action and the adventures, and the girls will love Orlando Bloom. Or controlling the computer version of him. Either way.

Oh, this is really funny. I'm listening to some classical music via internet radio in iTunes and the only ads they ever do are 10 second spots for magnatune.com, and all the artists who do this blurb constantly rip on the music industry. Heck, under the webpages banner theres a line that says 'we are not evil.' I'm happy the little guy as a venue to show off their music, one where they actually get money from selling albums. Take that music industry. Now if only someone would make some anti-movie industry spots to run before movies (instead of those damn cry baby 'I'm a painter, I make movies' spots I usually see. Dude, you're union. Your paycheck doesn't depend on the success of the movie. You get paid 1% of what the big actors are being paid, and you probably do 10x as much work). So is the world.

Well, not anymore. I finally got around to using the $10 gift certificate that Dale Emmons gave me on my birthday... like 9 months ago. I'm so indecisive! I got the urge to buy some music when I popped in the latest MacAddict CD, which always has a few tracks from indi-bands. I occasionally love this music, but never wish to shell out money for it. Luckily enough I went to the website for Fooled By April, and found that it had music being sold on CDBaby.com. I then remembered that stuff off CDBaby can also be bought on the iTunes Music Store! So I went and spent $6 on their album, and it was only $1 a song! Quite worth it. Heres the blurb about the band from their webpage:

People, I'm not going to lie to you. Fooled By April is a fun band, but a pain in the ass to describe. Some people say that they're sort of like the bastard son of Cheap Trick and Fountains Of Wayne, while others compare them more to what the Clash might have been had they listened to a lot more KISS. Perhaps the most apt label that has been applied to them is "Hi-Fi Garage," acknowledging that as much as they bring a ragged rock-and-roll enthusiasm to their music, it is always tempered by the need to get those four-part harmonies just right.

In November, the band celebrated the self-release of its new six-song Ep, Nice to See You, produced by Mike Daly (Whiskeytown) and recorded with Tim Bright (Lisa Loeb). The CD has already turned some heads: it was the #1 seller on CDBaby.com in its first two weeks, and in its first week at radio it was one of the top ten most added records in the country. In January the disc broke into the CMJ Top 200. Not too shabby for an unsigned band doing it all on their own.

No off to do things! Urge to buy more music growing...

Murphy is hot. Makes for a title.

Still working on getting my PHP stats page to work. Which means I'm waiting for some e-mails.

Kinda have figured out the whole tuneblog thing. Kinda have not.

I think Nate and I should write a college students guide to Japan. Eventually. In the mean time I'll just be sarcastic, and maybe The Weekly will publish me. I mean, they publish everyone else./

Jared is having issues still with his internet. His school down under is like "you want to use that application with the outside world? Smack down!" I introduced him to the MacNN.com forums. He has some responses already.

I received 500 GIGs in the mail from Ben. Thanks Ben, though he never reads my blog. Who does? Well, I guess nothing says 'I love you' like the getting of two 250 Gig Western digital HDs. Probably me paying him back would be nice also.

Random thing before going to sleep. Murphy and Wilson love to play. My father let Murphy loose, and the two of them chase each other. Murphy only gets pissed when Wilson goes after his food. Almost took his head off. Wilson is allowed full access to play with his water, which he does. Then he spills it all over the place.

Oh, besides Adam West, David Ducovony (Fox Mulder) is also the voice of the main dude in XIII. The truth is out there.

I'm in the process of getting a student VISA. So I may take a road trip to Omaha, or send my stuff down to Kansas City.

Can't get Stat thing to work properly. I'm a failure as a person, and as a Geek. I will now take my own life with my Wirelss mouse. Damn, out of power. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm thinking of writing an article for The Weekly while in Japan. Something silly and sarcastic. Kinda like a long blog entry, except with a point.

Lastly, if you're using a PC with Internet Explorer 6, doe my right right sidebar look messed up? Dale Emmons had it appear screwed up (the entire right bar was at the very bottom of the page) on his PC. Let me know!

Picked up Murphy. He wasn't too happy about being boarded while my parents were away. Also, I've not said this before but its happened before, Murphy has figured out where to hit his paws in my fathers car to get the windows down. That dog is too smart for his own good.

Saw Anchorman. Very very very funny. Will Ferrell just being silly, along with everyone else. I'm sure I would have gotten more of the jokes had I lived in the 70's. I'm kind of interested in seeing what my parents thing about it. I also remembered why i hate going to the Carmike Theaters in town (trhe one I worked at for about 3 days last summer). So before the movie started, and before the previews started, I had to sit by and watch 10 minutes of commercials. Not just any commercials, but for the most crap products. The group of guys in my row (along with half the theater) laughed at the dumb men's body spry ads, of which they had to show 2. Can we just forgo the commercials? I just want to see the dumb movie people!

Mowed the lawn. Went to diner. Ground Round. Mmmmmm.

Had some fun at Sam's place. Hot tub and all. I need to get out more.

I'm trying to get my sleep schedule back on track for my work week, so I'm hanging out with Wilson (playing video games) and trying to keep him away from my headphone cords. Sure, I chew on them now and then, but I don't want the cat doing that. Now I can't chew on them. What a world. But he did help me put together a PHP script for my page that tracks fun webpage statistics! Ooooo! Now I can see who's doing what! I long abandoned the statistics webpage StatCounter.com, that Jared still uses. Its what I do for fun, and Wilson appears to enjoy sleeping on my lap.

A random thing I've come to notice in XIII is that one of the voice actors is Adam West (you know, old TV Batman? Pow! Wap!). His profile on IMDB.com says its so!. I'm liking this game more and more. Mostly for its very cool comic book look and feel. After reading the webpage for a while I found out that it actually is based on a real French comic book, and that the German game designers (who stormed into France and demanded the comic books) tried to stay as true to the story as possible. I find that to be very cool.

So long story short I did squat today. The highlight of my day was getting Kung-Tunes working, mostly, so that the songs I'm listening to in iTunes show up on my webpage (look below the Photoblog, its call Tuneblog). I really would love to get album art working, and so far it kinda is. As long as the mp3 in question actually has art, which I would say would be about 60% of all my albums. If an album isn't there, well, there appears a kind of strange rectangle. I need to make a PHP IF statement that says IF there is an album do THIS and IF there is not an ALBUM do THAT sort of thing. Maybe Sam can help. Blah, beats me. I also put a link that shows the past 20 (or so random number, I'll decide on that one later) songs I've played. I'm still learning, but on the bight side I'm finding cool iTunes scripts and apps to use!

I've started to play XIII, which is really just the number 13. Its an FPS, but as opposed to those other lame FPS games we keep seeing this one doesn't try and look as real as possible, it goes out of its way to look fake. Comic book fake. Its completely done in cell shading, like the stupid Zelda Wind-walker game. Except unlike Zelda, this works. The game is done in a very comic book fashion, which I enjoy. Which is why I probably liked Max Payne and Freedom Force (For Freedom!). The actual gameplay is nothing too out of the ordinary. It looks good, plays good, and is tough enough (even on easy). It even runs well on my 1.33 ghz Powerbook, which is always a plus for those of us without 2 ghz G5s at our desks.

Kittens are way too much fun, and very distracting. Being the only one home, how can I ignore the meows of such a cute little face?

I took the little guy to the vet today. he didn't appear to mind at all, just another new environment to play around in. Wilson checked out to be completely healthy and happy. Go figure. The vet was swooning over his obvious cute looks. You the man Wilson.

The two of us ended up taking a nap together this afternoon. He's a good cuddlier. He has also found that the computer screen is a good source of entertainment. No kitty, no paws on the keyboard. If nothing else he likes to sit on my lap and sleep.

For the past two nights I been trying to complete a task of epic proportions: Adding album covers to my mp3 collection. in iTunes 4.0 and up you can add album cover art to mp3s, which is nice, but I didn't have a use for it until now. I'm going to put a little thing on my webpage that displays a list of the songs I'm listening to in iTunes, and it can display an album cover. So I figured it was high time to actually do that. The problem is my mp3 collection is close to 13000 song, and I didn't want to find all the covers by hand on amazon.com, so I found a fun script to do it for me. Or most of the work. It still ended up taking a ton of time, but not like I'm doing anything else. I'll get around to recoding my front page sometime this weekend.

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight, because I have no life and all. Man, is that movie a downer, but something people should see. Sure, Michael Moore is kind of a liberal asshole at time, but he makes good points about our current situation and the stupidity of many post September 11th activities and policies. I'm not a war fan, though I think changing things in Iraq is important. The problem is the way we went about it, and the politics and business behind it. Sure, we claim to want to help the people of Iraq achieve Democracy, freedom. So why Iraq? What about all the other places being over run by warlords and evil dictators? Hell, Saudi Arabia is one bad place when you look at it. I guess it helps when you have tons of oil. Oh well. I can't say I like Bush any less because of this film, he really can't go any lower in my book.

So we now have a new kitty in the household. Meet Wilson. We were going to wait a week to get a cat, seeing as how my parents and I were planning on going to Iowa City this weekend, but the Humane Society wouldn't hold him for us. I guess this means I'm staying home this weekend, which isn't too much of a big deal. I can watch the Murphy and Wilson then. Of which I guess it'll be my job to get the two of them introduced. See one of the big reasons we ended up getting little Wilson here is that he was hand raised with two dogs in the house, and we also spoke to the former owner who had luckily come by to see the kittens while we were there. He's a healthy little guy, full of spunk. My father thought that Wilson would be a cute name for him, and I have to agree. Knowing my guy friends they probably thought that I would have named him something geeky, probably something Apple related. Hell no! I can just see what would have happened if my roomies had picked a name for a cat.

Its so true. You all know it.

I'll be working tonight, and tomorrow night. The fun. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to Iowa City this weekend, but you never know.

I finished C&C Generals, the GLA and American missions were not tough. Especially when I could play the game at full speed. For some reason the game only plays at full speed after a restart. No big deal. I should really inform Grant of this, he's been having the same issues as me. Or maybe not. What to play now.... Tron 2.0?

So in a nutshell this is what happened on my 4th of July. Nothing too exciting, but here it is.

Got fireworks with the parents. Helped make dinner. Ate dinner. Watched half of the movie Independence Day, then shot off some fireworks, then watch the rest of the movie. Played some more C&C Generals, then spent 2 hours working on my photos, which are now all updated and online.

Dad gave the green light on getting a kitten, only it appears as if its eventually going to be my burden. Apparently when i get my own place, the cat becomes my responsibility. Right....

It was hot, I mowed the law.

Went to a neighbor's to eat dinner. They had a funny little dog. Good food.

Exported all my photos into new albums, but have yet to actually link to them. I will do that later.

I've been playing too much C&C Generals. Tough game. Very tough.

So my mom and I went to the Sioux Falls Humane Society to look at kitties today. It made me so sad! All those cute cats, in cages. Brought back bad memories of cats at the Omaha Zoo, except these were cite and cuddly. I had to hold my mother back, she was about to buy one. See, we're both torn between a) not getting a cat b) getting an older cat with problem c) getting a kitten and having it form its own problems d) not suffering from allergies whenever I'm home. Plus I'm not too sure how our schnauzer Murphy would handle a cat. I'm sure he'd either a) love it b) eat it c) be scared of it, then eat it. Nah, he'd be fine, though he has been kinda depressed after the death of our other dog. Though I don't know about my mother either. She has my cat Sam and our dog Jessie sitting on our mantle (the ashes of both), and I really wonder about her....

My parents took me to see the movie Man on Fire. It was good. Nothing more to say about that one.

I got some of my digital photos turned into real photos. I was quite surprised at how nice they turned out, in a 4 x 6 sort of way. I especially like the one I got printed off of Zach, John, and I in the Forbidden City. The colors were just super. These shots were done with my old camera, and I wonder how well shots I'm taking with my new one will turn out. (Even more fun were the panoramic I had done. Super fly!)

Has anyone noticed my LinkBlog thats on the right hand edge of my blog? The super fun and funny links! Come on now, who doesn't like Colin Powell doing the YMCA. Want to see it? Look at the LinkBlog.

I keep meaning to do my list of things to do, except I'm being distracted by C&C Generals. A fun real time strategy game, that just kinda runs on my computer. Its been a while sense I've played a good engaging game. Sure, playing HALO with the guys is fun and all, but I its cool to play something different now and then. I'm still needing to export all those in the new template. Really I am... except I have so many more missions to get done....