January 2005 Archives

So Blade 3 sucks. The movie. It sucks a lot. At least it was at the $3 theater so I can say I didn't waste a lot of money on it. The plot sucked, the action was sub par, we have Dracula in this film but he is in no way scary or cool, and if nothing else the ending sucked. I mean come on now, using a bad voice over at the end of the film? Where did you go to film school man. If the movie was any more bad it may have become good. As in bad funny good. As opposed to bad bad bad. This is a bit of a disappointment because Blade 2 was actually quite good. It was dark, good action, and good bad guys to fight. The only thing worse would be Blade 4.

I love baked ham. I had hoped for one over New Years, but it never happened. My parents were nice enough to make one today. One with a nice glaze on it, with some rolls, a hot potato, and some sweet corn. Ahh... the lunch of kings. Then again I just ate a bag of it before going to bed. Leftovers. Arg... I could be paying for this tomorrow.

I'll be heading back to GAC tomorrow. Then its webserver fun time. Wish me luck peoples. A lot of it.

So I'm in Sioux Falls for the weekend, hanging with my parents, the cat, the dog, and Heidi. Who is enjoying the cat and dog way too much. For shame. Sioux Falls is the same as always. But what can I expect. Oddly enough the one thing I ultimately dreaded happened right away. While getting some digital photos turned into real photos at a local photo place one of the clerks looked quite familiar, and I looked familiar to her. Turns out she was a friend of a girl I kinda knew in youth sympathy. The awkwardness of meeting something who you only sorta kinda knew like 4 years ago is something I dread more then anything while being home. I'd rather meet new people then run into old one. Maybe I'm weird that way. Luckily I have Wilson around to relieve my stress by knocking all my stuff around. Silly silly silly big cat.

So my JET interview will probably be the 16th or 17th of next month. Which isn't very far away. I need to start preparing for the interview, reviewing some Japanese, and find a nice jacket to put on. 私はばかですね。 Its really that bad. Plus I have to drive all the way to Chicago for the interview. Luckily I can stay with my Dad who has taken up residence in Milwaukee while my parents find a house there. It won't be too bad.

I stopped over and talked to a my old friend Grant for a while today, who then mocked me for using iDVD and iMovie as opposed to using DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro. He then silently mocked me with his Bluetooth cell phone, which he used to control his computer. If only I wasn't leaving this country in 6 month... I'd get a cell phone. I miss my Japan-o-phone.... I'm so addicted.

We all went to see the movie Sideways this afternoon. I was surprised that it was showing locally, seeing how independent films don't make it to South Dakota too often. Its a great comedy/drama in every aspect, and the acting is good enough for it to grab a nomination for best supporting actor and actress. Oddly enough my father wanted to see this film... hmmm... could his taste in movies be improving?

I bought the full version of Moveabletype 3.15. Which means I now can now do my big clean install of the webserver sometime soon. I have a goal of getting it done this next week. I hope to achieve this goal. I mean how else will Jared Lee be able to use his jared-lee.com domain name? I mean, honestly, the boy breaks down and buys something I gotta make the effort to help him out. With any luck the new version should keep weblog comment spam down to a very very very low level.

In addition to redoing the webserver I need to: Redo links on a bunch of old weblog posts to match my joshuazimmerman.com domain. Make business cards. Redo some parts of my webpage. Make a DVD of my Japan photos. Sell a bunch of computer stuff on eBay. Put some more photo albums up on my webpage and redo all my China photo exports. I also need to figure out which photo I'm going to submit to the campus international photo conest. Plus I'm sure I'll find a few more things to do along the way.

I just got word that I have progressed to the interview stage for JET. Yes, I am one step closer to spending a full year in Japan. Wish me luck when my interview happens sometime in February. With any luck I can charm everyone with my whit, personality, and smile. If not that, well, then probably some free hats.

Yeah, J-term is over. Can't say I did much besides goofing off and trivia. Which is a good time all around. Now all I really need to do is get some posters up in my room to make it feel more like home. Or maybe some more action figure. Maybe an action figure party of some sorts. That would be cool. Unless someone spikes the punch. I'm heading to Sioux Falls tomorrow. I don't know if I'm going to shut down the webserver or not... depends on if I find the motivation to do all the clean installs or not. Motivation is a big part of it.

Monday was a crazy day. I went and played some volleyball with my team, which once again lost horribly. Don't ask. I mean, its fun and all, but we so suck. More then anything else in this world. Later Heidi and I went out bowling with Zach and Jolene. Thats right, bowling. The sport of kings. I was quite impressed by Heidi's super cool skills, that just come out of the blue. Maybe it was the $2 drinks. Maybe it was her good mood. Or maybe even still, it was her urge to crush Zach. No matter what I think we'll go bowling again. Maybe every Monday. Now all I gotta do is find a karaoke joint around here and I'm set.

Tuesday was my trying to get the roomies to play some video games. Which worked eventually. Even Jared shined for a game or two, as he wasted us all with a barrage of rocket fire as he leapt through the air. For one instance, he was a god. Or maybe he finally got his act together in a game of HALO. Its going to be sad, because Lee will finally be playing games at a reasonable level and then he'll leave. Lets hope he keeps himself in practice.

Wednesday my J-term class watched Dr. Strangelove. The best dark cold war comedy movie, ever. The entire class was laughing. In the afternoon John, Jared and I went into Mankato because Lee invested in a new car CD player and he needed it to be installed. About time he got it, though I think the value of his car audio equipment is now more then the value of the car itself. Tonight was also trivia night, in which our team shined. We won 4 of the 7 rounds, and tied one other. Our team only had 7 people, and had to battle one team of about 25 people. Thats right, we kicked ass. I plan on trying to get people to go to trivia night all next semester. I do enjoy getting free food in random amounts. Especially when we roomies share it all together. Although I don't know what we'll be doing with all this taco mix.

I'll be shutting down the webserver next week when I do the overhaul. I don't expect it to be down too long, though I won't rule out problems happening. You never know. I'll probably end up doing it for a day or so next week over break. Hopefully things will work out. If not, well, then this page won't be here. Will it?

Oh, the new Sci-Fi series Battle Star Galactica is really really really good. Which is why I watched almost all of the first season this week. I was sceptical of the remake, but its turned out really nicely. Its a show thats not driven by techno mumbo jumbo (like Star Trek), its driven by plot and my characters. Its a drama set in space. Not an 'alien of the week'/ 'recycled plot from another series' show. Just some good stuff.

So I've decided to go the long haul and reinstall my webserver software and buy the new weblog software. I'm currently backing up all my info before I do the reinstall sometime in the next few days. Its going to be really annoying but in the end I hope to have the webserver working like a greased monkey. If nothing else I hope to have it in good enough condition so that I can leave it at my parents house if I end up back in Japan. If nothing else I hope to have it working in such a way so that I won't have to mess with it. Or mess with it any more then I want to.

Speaking of software my favorite computer company released updates to all of its 'iApplications.' I was looking extra forward to the new version of iPhoto, which I use way too much. The new version is doing an even better job of handling my 5000 or so photos even better now. Clearly this is one of the coolest benefits of having a Macintosh. I'd also like to get my hands on the new version of iDVD. A project I'd like to do this next semester is to make a nice DVD of all my Japanese Photos as a gift to some relatives as well as something for myself. I make a custom DVD with picture slideshows for my host family in under half an hour, complete with menus and soundtrack. Thanks Apple.

All this snow makes me happy that I bought a bunch of soup this last week. Or enough soup that I can avoid going to the Caf for most of the weekend. Heidi was nice enough to make me dinner tonight, so I once again was able to cheat Gustavus out of my eating at the caf. And my belly thanks me for that.

Will someone buy me some of these shirts? I mean, they are so funny. Especially if you've ever been to Japan. Colin, I'm thinking of you on several of these. Although I don't know if I'd have the gull to put some of these on while I'm in Japan.

So long story short we got a lot of snow here in Minnesota. I mean, like 6 inches. Which is a lot. Enough snow that getting around is evil, especially when we get big gusts of wind. I enjoy snow and all, but good gravy, this is a damn lot of snow.

So the movie Garden State is an awesome movie. Just to let you all know. Its really really really really really really really really good. I mean, Natalie Portman actually acted in this film, as opposed to those Star Wars films she's been doing lately. Go rent it now.

Thats about it for me. Yeah. Snow and movies. Thats about it. Oh, and deleting large amounts of spam from my weblog every day. That as well. Need new software, moreover, need money for new software soon.

So I guess I had a really fun time on Wednesday. I actually did stuff all day long. Go figure. In class we finished up watching Thelma & Louise. Which, oddly enough, I had never seen before. A good movie, though I don't know, I felt like it was lacking appeal somehow. Maybe just appeal for me. Overall J-term has been rather easy on me, class wise. Very fun. If only I could watch movies for a living. Hmm... maybe.

I went to dinner over in Arbor View, for the viola section dinner. Zach and Jolene made dinner, and we all had fine sipping wine while making jokes about orchestra. Warren even showed up. Though the funny thing was though, when Zach tried to quickly blow out a candle and ended up blowing wax all over his face and everyone around him. That Zach, he is so full of air. Dinner was fun and the new freshmen violas are entertaining. Entertaining enough. For Freshmen, that is.

Anna and I went and joined a bunch of people in playing some volleyball. I came along to show off my super cool tallness skills. So the team consisted of Nate, John, Anna, Ben, Jared, Megan, Matt, and me. Though we vastly outnumbered the other team, we still lost. Hopefully we will win a game eventually. Especially with my tallness. Just call me stretch.

After the match we all headed over to trivia night. I had invited a bunch of people, thinking very few would actually show up. Well, to my luck, like everyone and their friends showed up. We actually had all the 202 members there, plus about 5 more people on our team. We managed to win two rounds again. The 'Random round' and the 'Video Game' round. Go figure on the video game round. We somehow lost the "Movie" round, mostly because of all the questions were about either The Big Lebowski or Napoleon Dynamite, both of which me knew, but not knew enough. Curse you trivia night. At least we got some free food and drink.

So I've made the most of my J-term weekend by playing a lot of video games and sleeping in. A lot of sleeping in. So I guess I'm making the most of my free time. I guess I'm also a bit under the weather due to some random sickness. I'm guessing that its a reaction to the bad food at school. Seriously. Its bad.

I went out with Heidi for dinner at AppleBees, and then off to a movie. We ended up seeing House of the Flying Daggers in Mankato. Its a movie by the director of the popular movie Hero, but unlike Hero this movie is a love story. I was actually surprised that it was showing in Mankato, you know, seeing how most movie theaters refuse to show foreign films. I personally enjoyed the movie for its fun fight scenes, compelling story, and epic scenes.

After the movie we came back to 202 and hung out. As usual it was a virtual party in our section. Well, a party of people hanging out. We all played some Catch Phrase for about an hour, and just had a few laughs. Good clean fun. Afterwards Jared showed a few of us his photos from Australia.

The big whola for today is a massive gathering to watch the super duper extended edition of Return of the King. The 4 and a half hour version. The one I'm sorta kinda watching now. Yeah, four and a half hours of Hobbit goodness. Yeah, Hobbit freak out time.

Still no solution to the comment spam issue on my weblog. No easy solution except to spend time deleting them each day. I hopefully will be able to gather money from the people still wanting to use the webserver and buy the new version of MoveableType which will help with the spam. At least to a certain degree. If nothing else will make the deleting of the spam about 100 times easier. Sigh......

I wacked my toe a week ago Monday and it turned my pinkie toe black and blue. It took a week to get over. This Tuesday I did the same damn thing. And it hurts. A lot.

I deleted about 50 spam comments from my blog yesterday. I need to delete about 50 more. I've got to find some way around this because its a major problem. I have avoided e-mail spam but yet now must face the horrible onslaught of weblog comment spam.

I went to trivia night in The Dive last night where my team kicked some wicked ass. The team of Cicket Lovers Anonymous consisted of myself, Lindsay Fox, Jared Lee, and his friend Erin. We won 2 of the 6 rounds, and oddly enough they were both of the literary categories. Though I was surprised we lost the geography category seeing how Jared is the geography wiz. We won fabulous prizes of bottled water and cookies, plus we got to be very loud and silly. My response to "What are clouds made of?" was a very exuberant "LOVE!". Yeah, it was funny.

I went to bed last night at 2:30 am and my roomie John was playing Alpha Centauri on the futon. I got up at 9:30 am and John was still sitting on the futon playing Alpha Centauri. I have created a monster! Its a fun game though. Nate, John, and I did attempt to play some multi-player games yesterday as well. Hopefully more will ensue.

Ben's now playing Metal Gear Solid 3 on his PS2. Its a game where Ben plays about 10% of the time and we watch cut scenes the other 90% of the time. Colin eat your heart out. Boo yeah. Its more fun watching Ben play then actually playing. Its like a interactive James Bond movie. Its that good looking and that silly and funny.

So I guess I should be blogging a bit. I mean, I wouldn't want to let my new shirt down. You know, the nice new shirt I got that says "I'm blogging this." Almost as cool as the "No, I will not fix your computer." shirt I also have. At least now I have a disclaimer shirt to warn people that I may be blogging their dumbass behavior. Oh you know who you are.

Heid I went out shopping for quite a while in Mankato on Sunday. We went to a thrift store where I bought some cute tins, for my mom, and Heidi bought some old shirts to make into artwork. She made a shirt bowl or something crazy like that. We had "All you can eat" chinese food at Hy-Vee, which actually has great Chinese food these days. I was super amazed by the selection of Asian food products that Hy-Vee was stockign these days. In addition to the new in store StarBucks, in case you need some extra power while you grocery shop. I also picked up some photo paper so that I could print off some Japan photos, and some sheets of business cards so I could make some up. I always felt out of place in Japan without cool looking business cards. Now I have a chance to be cool. Or something like that.

I've realized that I need to spend more time sleeping and less time watching my room mates play video games. Well that and eat better food. I don't want to fall back on my old 'Chicken Finger Only' diet. Between the two I feel a overwhelmed from my singular class. Maybe I just need more curry rice.

Apple released some cool new stuff today. A $500 headless Mac (called mac mini), which I wish they would turn into a media center! I guess now no one can complain about Macs being too expensive. If you're wondering, its the little computer next to the big computer in the photo, super sweet. Apple also released a flash iPod, called iPod Shuffle, which will secure their take over of the entire US MP3 player market. I'm looking forward to the updates to all the iApplications. iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, ect. They'll make my life easier.

So I must admit, Colin, you were right. The TV show 24 is really awesome. The best show ever. There were two episodes on Sunday night and another 2 on Monday. It is so badass good. Damn Colin and his knowing of American TV shows....

So I guess I haven't actually blogged in quite a while. I've been extra lazy this week, and before that the webserver was down. I'm now actually back at school and enjoying a rather leisurely January term. I'm only taking one class, which meets for one hour a day where we watch movies and talk about them. My kind of class. To quite my professor "I should have called this class bullshitting about movies, except I think more people would have tried to sign up." I'll be enjoying this class. So would you Colin.

So I'm attempting to acclimate myself to college life in the US, except its not going so well. I went out for Chinese food on Wednesday and when I saw the rice I just stared blankly at it. My first thought was "my god this rice is dry and unsticky." In reality it would have made my host mom cry, but yet it is about 10 times better then the rice I got Friday in the cafeteria. On that note the food here at school is just really bad. Not that I really liked it before, now its just really really bad. Then again I'm not the only one feeling the pains of abroad withdrawal. Talking with Lindsay Fox last night, who just spent a semester in India, we both kinda had the same feelings about being back on campus. Same old fights, same old pettiness, same old bullshit. At least I'm lucky about only being here one semester. (Please send big bowels of curry ASAP to my room)

Country to popular belief I am not in orchestra over January term. I am traveled out right now. Luckily I have an understanding conductor who after dragging me to orchestra one day, decided that he really didn't need me. Honestly, any more then 6 violas in orchestra at one time is just greedy. Also who really wants to go to Colorado? Really. I mean, theres not much there.

My room is rather bare this semester. I've yet to put up any posters, comics, or pictures on the walls. Heck I don't even really have a desk. I did move my refrigerator into my room, much to the complaints of my room mates. I decided to only bring a few action figures with me this term, which helped cut down on the clutter. Why theres not even enough action figures for an action figure party. Thank goodness Nate has a bunch in his room.

Oddly enough I've only been back a week and I've already been blacklisted from a party I wasn't intending on going to. This is why I love this college, and my roomies. Some things never change.

When your company makes a new product, and you stick an advertisement on your front page, please make sure that you're not using a competitors product in the advertisement. Silly Microsoft, Macintoshes are for smart people. Thank goodness I set my parents up with one before I left this summer.

Speaking of my parents they're moving to Wisconsin. So I guess I won't be visiting South Dakota any time soon. Not like it matters too much, not much in South Dakota worth returning for. A barren wasteland of flatness. Anyone who has been there knows this. Then again I hopefully won't be living at home for very long after college before heading back overseas.

I ran across this funny fake anti-drug poster that makes fun of comp sci majors. Looking at the recent job market and the move to push technology jobs overseas I think this is a very true statement. about the future of many comp sci majors in America. Not like we History majors have such a great outlook for our future, Gainful employment would be really nice eventually.

My outlook for this weekend will include a lot of movie watching and probably some video games. I do need to get off campus for a while and buy myself a soap hold. How could I forget that little item.