Red Zeppelin
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Thursday: May 01, 2008 - Big Fat F
I give last night's episode a BIG, FAT F. I would have thought with all the downtime of the writers strike they would have, I don't know, made an episode where SOMETHING HAPPENS. I'm not sure what's with my new fascination with typing things all in caps but I blame that little girl at the Cubs game. I could not have been less happy about last night's episode had Charlie come back and we'd seen 40 minutes of Claire going "CHAW-LEE". Not only did nothing happen, but they didn't even really allude to anything that we couldn't have figured out on our own. I'm not talking about speculation on the smoke monster or anything even remotely debatable. What?! Kate is doing something for Sawyer! What?! There are people still on the island?! And just for the record, I would like to meet someone who can audible "hear" Morse Code like Bernard did in the last episode. Another thing that aggravates me is the devil-may-care attitude of the island when it comes to helping people. Boone died--remember Boone? And so did Shannon. And so did Mr. Eko. Time travel or not, why aren't they alive then? Jack surely does not have appendicitis. Didn't the smoke monster kill more of the mercenaries? Man, I'm pissed at last night's episode. I could written a better episode with only Jin, Sawyer, and Miker. It would have consisted solely of Jin saying "Miker!" and Sawyer replying "shut up Insult-Here". I guess I don't even need Miker at all.
They should have hired me during the writers strike. I would have killed off all the non-essential characters and given them a lot more to work with. On MY island we'd only have Ben, John, Sayid, Jin, Sawyer and Juliet. Oh, and Vincent the dog. I couldn't kill off the dog. [Comments: 3]· permalink ·
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Weekend: May 04, 2008 - Whole Lotta Music
This weekend I met up with Kathy for three recitals. On Friday we had dinner with Jamie and Anne first before Jamie left to go shopping and the three of us went to go hear a mezzo about a mile from my house. On Saturday we walked through the park back there for a clarinet recital and then into Georgetown for lunner before heading back for another voice recital in the evening. After the second recital we drove to my house where I learned that My dog will go on walks here. This is big news because Chompy is the queen of rearing back and making it well-known that she did was not going to be a part of any walk. On Sunday morning, to see if it was a fluke, I leashed her up and sure enough--we went for a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood without a single rear-back. Awesome.
I worked on scores most of the day Sunday with about a half-hour "off" to practice before Jamie and I had dinner and then build most of the wardrobe. There is something about building those things that brings out the angry side of me--I hate it when they don't pre-drill the screw holes or make it so the doors stay 100% closed (note: exactly 100%). Regardless it got 99% of the way done so the only thing I have left to do is put in the plastic drawer runners. That's not too bad. [Comments: 6]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 05, 2008 - Cinco De Mayo
I took my now-walking dog for a nice one yesterday. If she keeps it up she might earn a walk in the park by the weekend. The first ten minutes are pretty rough since she's so grossly out of practice and pulls constantly on the leash but she's getting better at getting past that point and relenting to my domination of where we go.
I hung out with Amy in the afternoon and we got a very quotable line but sadly that can't be repeated in a public forum. While we were out I picked up a copy of Wii MarioKart so for you Wii users--I'm ready for you to beat me anytime. Anywhere. Anyplace (but preferably from the comfort of our homes).
The Cubs lost again, most of which was documented in the new Cubs blog. That is tedious, I'm going to go ahead and say it now. Trying to pay that much attention to each out, while not at the game, is just gruelingly boring sometimes. I have a new appreciation for the role of Len Kasper having to fill minutes of just nothing. [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 06, 2008 - Prairie Home Companion @ Wolftrap
If you listen to NPR in the DC area then you know A Prairie Home Companion is coming to Wolftrap on Friday, May 23rd. I would like to go and I would like *you* to go with me. If you have any interest in seeing the pre-Whose-Line-Is-It-Anyway style "radio" show in person let me know ASAP. If you don't want to go, but have some nerdy friends who might like to go with other nerds tell them to read this entry so that they too can see A Prairie Home Companion when Garrison Keillor and company come to Wolftrap.
Now, that first paragraph is optimized to hopefully grab some search engine traffic so I might get some friends that way but if you (*you*) want to go (to A Prairie Home Companion at Wolftrap) leave me a comment, call, or email me.
In other news, Garrison Keillor doesn't look anything like how I expected him to. I'm not sure what I was expecting but this (see picture) was not it.
Finally, in the spirit of NPR, if you want *me* to leave your answering machine message, just let me know and I will happily do so. [Comments: 6]· permalink ·
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Thursday: May 08, 2008 - Another Big, Fat F
Warning: this entry is ALL LOST SPOILERS. I can only think of one explanation for this string of just abysmal episodes: that the writers are still on strike and that "Big Hollywood" has manipulated the media in such a way that we *think* they're actually back to work. Of course we'd figure this out after you keep airing HORRIBLE EPISODES OF LOST WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS. It's like you get our hopes all up during the commercials for the coming week and then the episode totally sucks. Yeah, it was cool to see young John Locke being given the Dalai Lama test but other than that...we already knew Miker wasn't going to die and that something bad was going to happen with the dudes on the ship. Admittedly, seeing Claire and her old man in the hut was a surprise but not like the good kind of surprise (Hey, I got you this Wii...) but the bad kind of surprise (Hey, the doctor just called and I guess it's a law or something that I have to call and tell you...). I did like Ben's line, "Destiny is a fickle b*tch". If I were the writers I would have said "fitch" and started that trend mainstream.
Since we know there are now problems with the flow of time on the island it might be nice to have a little more detail before things start happening out of order. We could obviously infer the doctor was going to die this week. I fear that all of these weeks of total and complete bullsh*t are going to come back to haunt us at the end when things aren't explained fully because there wasn't enough time to do it. Uh, you could have told us during Jack's tattoo episode! Or any of the episodes from the past month. You guys better unleash some serious main-character killings if you want me to keep watching the show. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 12, 2008 - May 12 of 12
6:00am: Chompy (and I) have to get up at 6am so she can get her 12-hour antibiotic pill for her paw infection. Neither of us are happy about it but we usually go back to bed afterwards.
6:05pm: The arsenal of medicines that are apparently required to fight a nail infection. I usually hide the pill in half a piece of summer sausage and then eat the other half (of the sausage).
10:30am: Marty, Chris and I play a game of MarioKart of the interwebs. I would usually win the first two races before Marty won the last two, taking the match. I like to play as either the ghost or "Mii"--where I have a bald version and a with-hair version depending on how I feel at the moment.
1:30pm: Chompy out mowing the lawn in between the torrential rains that we've had here for the past week.
2:30pm: Attempting to find the magical and hidden Chick-Fil-A on the AU campus. I didn't find it and God knows I spent a lot of time trying.
3:00pm: Reluctantly trying the soup from Balducci's and doing some general grocery shopping. Balducci's makes Whole Foods look like Aldi.
1:30pm: Oh my God, I'm on Lost because I got back from lunch and had TRAVELED BACK IN TIME TO 1:30PM! I have also been dead for twelve years and have a severe nose bleed.
7:00pm: Having a glass of wine (in a styrofoam cup) while writing out the chords of When you were young. I forgot that I was transposing as I went so that Ab- should in fact be an a-. Oops.
7:30pm: The yard is finally starting to drain. It was mostly a pool of mud for the past couple of days.
8:30pm: Playing with Chompy while watching the Cubs game. She was HYPER last night and was tearing across the house for no reason get mud everywhere.
10:00pm: I didn't see either Amy nor Steve at the game but I did see this big Lifelock sign and it made me smile.
12:00am: A MarioKart rematch! This time I didn't lose the second two races. Chris and I also took it to Marty on Coin Runner (granted it was 2v1).
BONUS: Trying out my $5 loaf of bread. $5 for a loaf of bread! That's just stupid.
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Tuesday: May 13, 2008 - Go Cubs!
The Cubs lost last night and I think this one is on Chris because he watched the game. The season thus far has ridden very squarely on the personal actions of Cubs fans and while we've done pretty well for the most part (the Cubs have the second-best record in baseball) last night we collectively dropped the ball. I was afraid to live-blog during the win streak since the Cubs lose every time I blog. I've also tried to stay as down as I could but there's only so much I can do. If you see the Cubs are losing though, it might be good to send me mean IM's; especially if it's late in the game.
I found a couple Cub-hating blogs last night and here's what I can tell you: only idiots root for the Cardinals, White Sox, and Brewers. This should come as a surprise to no one since the Cardinals suck, the White Sox suck, and the Brewers suck. In most sports, if your team isn't in first place you don't get to talk but apparently baseball is not like that since fans of the 2nd place Cardinals, 4th place Brewers, and (sub .500) 3rd place White Sox continue to run their mouths. I wouldn't worry about the Cubs you freaks, I'd worry about your crappy teams. [Comments: 8]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 14, 2008 - Slutbucks
Apparently there's a brewing controversy over Starbucks using their original logo (pictured). Since they're obviously trying to get back to their roots by bringing back all their old stuff I really don't see what the big deal is. Yes, there are boobs. Does it really merit a 3,000-store boycott? I don't think so. We don't boycott museums and there boobs there too. I can see how some groups could be upset if the logo were explicit in some way--like the Starbucks mermaid banging a sailor while holding an iced venti vanilla latte in its hand...fin-thing but I seriously doubt mermaids are concerned with covering themselves so frankly this likely an accurate depiction of a mermaid and therefore not overtly sexual. With all of the real problems going on in the world today is taking issue with the enlarged mammary glands of a cartoon drawing of a mermaid really something to take up arms over?
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Thursday: May 15, 2008 - Oceanic Five
So I'm looking for a pre-made picture of the Oceanic Six to save some time this morning and what do I find? I'll go ahead and field that--a TON of pictures with Jin. Ok--guys--JIN IS NOT IN THE OCEANIC SIX. The sixth one is the baby. Now, by my loose definitions here I wouldn't say the baby survived the crash and got himself rescued--he was born on the island. Sorry pro-lifers.
I didn't really care for the episode as a stand-alone but I think it did a great job setting up the two-hour finale in a couple weeks. Everyone is paired off with someone they'd probably prefer no to be with (Jack/Sawyer, Kate/Sayid, Sun/Aaron, Miker/Jin [ok, maybe these two are ok]). Speaking of Miker, I TOTALLY thought Jin was going to say it last night. Once I saw him get on the boat my first thought was "Holy sh*t, he's going to see Michael and scream 'Miker!'" but he didn't.
All spare judgment on this episode until after the season finale since they're obviously related. That leaves me with the question--who is having the huge Lost party to watch it? [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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Friday: May 16, 2008 - Fairfax Winds
Last night I ventured out to McLean to see Kathy play with the Fairfax Winds. Although I had good directions from Google, I misunderstood the winding area around the Chain Bridge and ultimately took it the wrong way into Virginia where an accident had brought traffic to one lane in the opposite direction I needed to go. By the time it got all straightened out I was able to arrive at 7:28 for the 7:30 concert and grabbed a seat next to Chris. I guess that's why you leave so early for things. The concert was by far the best band concert I'd been to in at least four years. They played a couple of pieces by David Maslanka, who just happened to be sitting in the row ahead of us. As the pre-eminent band composer of our generation he didn't really look like how I expected him to--I expected him to have bigger, rounder hair but he obviously did not. I don't particularly care for his music (and I think can safely say that as the pre-eminent steel band composer of our generation) but I think he writes well, if that makes sense--I think he has great craft in his orchestration...bandation; especially voicing the brass parts.
I think the main reason I don't care for band music is that all the high parts have to be played in the woodwinds and, with the exception of the flute, all sound awful up high. There's nothing like screeching clarinet/oboe/saxophone (gag) (Sorry Chris) in their upper registers while playing what should be a pleasant melody to make your stomach turn. I also still don't understand what a double bass is supposed to do in a band--isn't that what tubas are for? The double bass is of course preferable to the tuba 100% of the time but isn't the point of a band to give all of the most repugnant instruments (euphonium) a chance to play? [Comments: 1]· permalink ·
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Sunday: May 18, 2008 - Lock Your Deadbolt
This was a pretty exciting weekend. On Saturday, Brian had a poker game and, being the ultra-responsible person I now am, I left a good 90 minutes early so I could stop at Target to get a funnel and, more importantly, Chick-Fil-A to try to keep my monthly intake of their delicious nuggets in tact. Unfortunately, while I left with my Google Maps in hand, I did not have my keys in my other hand. Locked out (again)! I've now locked myself out here twice in three months; two more times than I've locked myself out the rest of my life combined. I think there are two reasons for this: this is the first time in my adult life I have two viable exits and I keep my keys by the one I use most frequently so it's not necessarily out of the question I could leave the house without visibly seeing them. Secondly, I have two key rings--my regular ones plus another set that I take with my when I go running that just has a car key and the back door key to my house; that way they're not all jingly in my pocket and slowing me down. Regardless, I'm locked out with my spare key woefully inaccessible in Jamie's coat but with her in Tallahassee and her landlord out of town I was pretty much resigned to the locksmith.
Except that I had my iPhone and quickly googled "open door credit card". I got to an article and spent 20 minutes on my new back door with no success at all before remembering that my old front door would be a better candidate. Sure enough--15 seconds later I was in. So yes, you CAN open a door with a credit card (I used my Safeway card) but only if it's an old door and if the deadbolt isn't locked. Like I told everyone at poker, for every ounce of awesome there are two ounces of "oh sh*t" now that I see how easy it is to open an outside door with a credit card. So, friends, lock your deadbolts.
I also finally won poker. Take that Virginia and weird Virginia Appendage; you've beaten me long enough. Everyone was kind enough to let me take a CFA break in the middle too. The $40 I won almost paid for my gas getting home too. [Comments: 3]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 19, 2008 - Preston Parker Unsuspended
This is a hard entry to write because I of course love FSU and, as an extension of that, FSU football. It was bad enough when half the team was caught cheating for their online music history class but they were officially doomed with last year's MVP, Preston Parker, was caught with drugs and a gun in his car. He was suspended from the team while the case worked itself out. Today it worked itself out and he's now unsuspended because he was able to get off with misdemeanors and a bucketful of apologies. This is of course great news for FSU football but it really makes a joke out of our whole criminal system. The fact of the matter is that he should have been convicted of at least one felony but by some adequate strings being pulled he was able to be reinstated by having very serious charges magically reduced.
All I know is that if it were me facing all of those counts, WITH a criminal record (as Preston Parker has), I'd be going to jail for sure and sadly giving up my rights to vote for Obama in a few months since as a felon I would have relinquished my right to vote. I'm just shocked he was able to skirt the system like this. What more can you really say other than "Go State!"? [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 20, 2008 - The Good Life
Jamie came back from Florida today which meant the end of Abfest 2008. Since Abby now has food allergies I cooked her dinner every night and Chompy was very sad to see her go since now there will be no extra half-bag of rice for her at dinner. They ran around enough over the past four days to hopefully last a while--my house is so muddy from them going nuts outside in the rain and then continuing on in the house that I'm not even sure the vaunted Dyson is going to be able to rip the dirt from the greedy carpets.
I fear that my new "favorite" music is Southern Rock. I haven't gone out of my way to listen to it but since the radio station up here purports to play "Classic Rock" I think I've officially moved to Southern Rock. Why wouldn't I trade the Doobie Brothers and Guns and Roses for 38 Special and the Allman Brothers? I like both the Doobies and GnR but come on, your dollar goes a lot further with the Allman Brothers. I could live without Skynyrd but I don't turn them off when they come on. [Comments: 4]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 21, 2008 - 90,000
Yesterday RZ finally eclipsed the 90,000 hits mark, with over 300 people checking in to see my cute pupple lounging within the pillows of my couch. Let's see, I found out that I'm #1 in the VPCSADBCF (Virginia Poker Championship Series As Determined By Chris' Forumla) because I've only played two games and one of them was a win. As always, it's better to be lucky than good. I had a nice breakfast at my diner before doing some shopping at Safeway, where the Safeway Starbucks naturally screwed up my order. It's bad enough you only put two shots in it but to leave on the vanilla is just plain mean. I played some tennis with Jamie after sitting in Ward Circle for thirty minutes while they decided to do road work in the middle of the day. I came home, took Chomp for a walk, then went back to Safeway so I could make myself some Japanese Chicken. I then watched most of the Cubs game before working on the band arrangement of my thesis. I went to bed and, for the first time in a long while, I couldn't sleep. I should have been adequately tired considering it was almost 1am and I had both played tennis and taken Chompy for such a long walk. Oh well. I finally fell asleep around 2 and, well, here I am.
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Weekend: May 25, 2008 - Prairie Home Companion @ Wolftrap
On Friday I met up with Brian and Rebecca, and Rebecca's friend Jessika for an evening with Prairie Home Companion. Brian and I met at this elementary school in McLean where I dropped off the Taurus and rode with Brian to Wolftrap. I had always assumed it was called "Wolftrap" because at some point wolves had been trapped there and the name had stuck. I think I'm wrong though because as I was looking for a picture for today's entry I came across a real wolf trap and the design of it is very similar the way this is set up so now I think I "get it".
Brian and I got there extra early to get a good place to sit on the lawn, which was good because there were like a billion other people also in the lawn section and apparently Virginians don't have the same hang-ups about plopping a blanket down overlapping yours to squeeze into a 3' x 3' square that Midwesterners do. By 6:30 the gang was all there and we had some beers (notice the plural; I'm in a Midwestern state of mind) and the show started with some patriotic singing. The show was really long and while I found the skits and some of the songs cute and clever there were just way too many songs. Sorry guys. When they play PHC on NPR (Enpee Argh) they lop off a lot of it. It had its boring bit but on the whole it was really fun and I'd highly recommend going if you have $20 to burn (about the cost of a bottle of water in DC). [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 26, 2008 - Memorial Day
Not surprisingly, it's hot here in our nation's capital for Memorial Day. I spent the day working, as I have the past week, on a piece to send down to South America. It's about 95% done and I have to say that it's a winner. Sometimes pieces suck and you grind them down and the suck less but ultimately still suck. Sometimes they just kind of come out and this one just came out. I had the entire first draft done in one ten-hour session. I forgot how fun it can be to write non-steel drum music since that's really been the bread and butter for so long.
I've been slowly upping Chompy's walks to about a mile but two days I tried to bring her up to two which was so grueling on her she slept from 7pm to 9am. For Memorial Day, I took her for just a mile then we drove around and enjoyed the nice day out on the Clara Barton Parkway. Unfortunately, driving without a destination got me a little bit lost and I tried to take the George Washington Parkway back. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. It was closed in both directions so we got a nice tour of NoVa while trying to navigate the backroads to the Chain Bridge. We made it back though despite what should have been a ten minute outing turning into an hour of degreening our environment.
Happy Memorial Day! [Comments: 1]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 27, 2008 - Clumps
It's no secret that my schedule isn't exactly scheduled minute by minute. That said, this week has been pretty busy, even for one of you 9-5ers. Between Lost parties, jazz concerts, piece deadlines, Greek cook-offs, etc, it has been/going to be a hectic week for me and Chompy. Last night I borrowed a charcoal grill and made a practice round of my "gourmet" food for Saturday. It turned out pretty well in the one-person size so I'm feeling good I won't be booed despite generally being out of practice in cooking. Speaking of practicing, I haven't really touched my guitar music this week and it shows. With a heavy composing schedule the last thing I want to do with my free time is more music so practicing for my lessons has been pushed to the back burner which is too bad because I like to have nice sounding pieces for my lessons. I've been on the other side of teaching lessons for ages so I can say with certainty it's way better to have a practicing student than a non-practicing one.
In sadder news, the plants Marty gave me when he moved to Texas are now completely dead. Sorry Martyr; I tried my best. Well, not really my "best" but you get the idea. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 28, 2008 - Custom MarioKart WFC Messages
I finally got around to making my custom MarioKart WFC messages. In case you don't own the game, when you play online you can "chat" with your friends but you're limited to about 30 pre-written messages which never really convey what you need to say. If I could have ten custom messages here are what they'd be. I can't speak for Brian, Chris, and Marty but I spend a good part of the game yelling at the TV so I think it would be handy if I had these messages available for after the game. [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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I give last night's episode a BIG, FAT F. I would have thought with all the downtime of the writers strike they would have, I don't know, made an episode where SOMETHING HAPPENS. I'm not sure what's with my new fascination with typing things all in caps but I blame that little girl at the Cubs game. I could not have been less happy about last night's episode had Charlie come back and we'd seen 40 minutes of Claire going "CHAW-LEE". Not only did nothing happen, but they didn't even really allude to anything that we couldn't have figured out on our own. I'm not talking about speculation on the smoke monster or anything even remotely debatable. What?! Kate is doing something for Sawyer! What?! There are people still on the island?! And just for the record, I would like to meet someone who can audible "hear" Morse Code like Bernard did in the last episode. Another thing that aggravates me is the devil-may-care attitude of the island when it comes to helping people. Boone died--remember Boone? And so did Shannon. And so did Mr. Eko. Time travel or not, why aren't they alive then? Jack surely does not have appendicitis. Didn't the smoke monster kill more of the mercenaries? Man, I'm pissed at last night's episode. I could written a better episode with only Jin, Sawyer, and Miker. It would have consisted solely of Jin saying "Miker!" and Sawyer replying "shut up Insult-Here". I guess I don't even need Miker at all.
They should have hired me during the writers strike. I would have killed off all the non-essential characters and given them a lot more to work with. On MY island we'd only have Ben, John, Sayid, Jin, Sawyer and Juliet. Oh, and Vincent the dog. I couldn't kill off the dog. [Comments: 3]· permalink ·
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Weekend: May 04, 2008 - Whole Lotta Music
This weekend I met up with Kathy for three recitals. On Friday we had dinner with Jamie and Anne first before Jamie left to go shopping and the three of us went to go hear a mezzo about a mile from my house. On Saturday we walked through the park back there for a clarinet recital and then into Georgetown for lunner before heading back for another voice recital in the evening. After the second recital we drove to my house where I learned that My dog will go on walks here. This is big news because Chompy is the queen of rearing back and making it well-known that she did was not going to be a part of any walk. On Sunday morning, to see if it was a fluke, I leashed her up and sure enough--we went for a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood without a single rear-back. Awesome.
I worked on scores most of the day Sunday with about a half-hour "off" to practice before Jamie and I had dinner and then build most of the wardrobe. There is something about building those things that brings out the angry side of me--I hate it when they don't pre-drill the screw holes or make it so the doors stay 100% closed (note: exactly 100%). Regardless it got 99% of the way done so the only thing I have left to do is put in the plastic drawer runners. That's not too bad. [Comments: 6]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 05, 2008 - Cinco De Mayo
I took my now-walking dog for a nice one yesterday. If she keeps it up she might earn a walk in the park by the weekend. The first ten minutes are pretty rough since she's so grossly out of practice and pulls constantly on the leash but she's getting better at getting past that point and relenting to my domination of where we go.
I hung out with Amy in the afternoon and we got a very quotable line but sadly that can't be repeated in a public forum. While we were out I picked up a copy of Wii MarioKart so for you Wii users--I'm ready for you to beat me anytime. Anywhere. Anyplace (but preferably from the comfort of our homes).
The Cubs lost again, most of which was documented in the new Cubs blog. That is tedious, I'm going to go ahead and say it now. Trying to pay that much attention to each out, while not at the game, is just gruelingly boring sometimes. I have a new appreciation for the role of Len Kasper having to fill minutes of just nothing. [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 06, 2008 - Prairie Home Companion @ Wolftrap
If you listen to NPR in the DC area then you know A Prairie Home Companion is coming to Wolftrap on Friday, May 23rd. I would like to go and I would like *you* to go with me. If you have any interest in seeing the pre-Whose-Line-Is-It-Anyway style "radio" show in person let me know ASAP. If you don't want to go, but have some nerdy friends who might like to go with other nerds tell them to read this entry so that they too can see A Prairie Home Companion when Garrison Keillor and company come to Wolftrap.
Now, that first paragraph is optimized to hopefully grab some search engine traffic so I might get some friends that way but if you (*you*) want to go (to A Prairie Home Companion at Wolftrap) leave me a comment, call, or email me.
In other news, Garrison Keillor doesn't look anything like how I expected him to. I'm not sure what I was expecting but this (see picture) was not it.
Finally, in the spirit of NPR, if you want *me* to leave your answering machine message, just let me know and I will happily do so. [Comments: 6]· permalink ·
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Thursday: May 08, 2008 - Another Big, Fat F
Warning: this entry is ALL LOST SPOILERS. I can only think of one explanation for this string of just abysmal episodes: that the writers are still on strike and that "Big Hollywood" has manipulated the media in such a way that we *think* they're actually back to work. Of course we'd figure this out after you keep airing HORRIBLE EPISODES OF LOST WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS. It's like you get our hopes all up during the commercials for the coming week and then the episode totally sucks. Yeah, it was cool to see young John Locke being given the Dalai Lama test but other than that...we already knew Miker wasn't going to die and that something bad was going to happen with the dudes on the ship. Admittedly, seeing Claire and her old man in the hut was a surprise but not like the good kind of surprise (Hey, I got you this Wii...) but the bad kind of surprise (Hey, the doctor just called and I guess it's a law or something that I have to call and tell you...). I did like Ben's line, "Destiny is a fickle b*tch". If I were the writers I would have said "fitch" and started that trend mainstream.
Since we know there are now problems with the flow of time on the island it might be nice to have a little more detail before things start happening out of order. We could obviously infer the doctor was going to die this week. I fear that all of these weeks of total and complete bullsh*t are going to come back to haunt us at the end when things aren't explained fully because there wasn't enough time to do it. Uh, you could have told us during Jack's tattoo episode! Or any of the episodes from the past month. You guys better unleash some serious main-character killings if you want me to keep watching the show. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 12, 2008 - May 12 of 12
6:00am: Chompy (and I) have to get up at 6am so she can get her 12-hour antibiotic pill for her paw infection. Neither of us are happy about it but we usually go back to bed afterwards.
6:05pm: The arsenal of medicines that are apparently required to fight a nail infection. I usually hide the pill in half a piece of summer sausage and then eat the other half (of the sausage).
10:30am: Marty, Chris and I play a game of MarioKart of the interwebs. I would usually win the first two races before Marty won the last two, taking the match. I like to play as either the ghost or "Mii"--where I have a bald version and a with-hair version depending on how I feel at the moment.
1:30pm: Chompy out mowing the lawn in between the torrential rains that we've had here for the past week.
2:30pm: Attempting to find the magical and hidden Chick-Fil-A on the AU campus. I didn't find it and God knows I spent a lot of time trying.
3:00pm: Reluctantly trying the soup from Balducci's and doing some general grocery shopping. Balducci's makes Whole Foods look like Aldi.
1:30pm: Oh my God, I'm on Lost because I got back from lunch and had TRAVELED BACK IN TIME TO 1:30PM! I have also been dead for twelve years and have a severe nose bleed.
7:00pm: Having a glass of wine (in a styrofoam cup) while writing out the chords of When you were young. I forgot that I was transposing as I went so that Ab- should in fact be an a-. Oops.
7:30pm: The yard is finally starting to drain. It was mostly a pool of mud for the past couple of days.
8:30pm: Playing with Chompy while watching the Cubs game. She was HYPER last night and was tearing across the house for no reason get mud everywhere.
10:00pm: I didn't see either Amy nor Steve at the game but I did see this big Lifelock sign and it made me smile.
12:00am: A MarioKart rematch! This time I didn't lose the second two races. Chris and I also took it to Marty on Coin Runner (granted it was 2v1).
BONUS: Trying out my $5 loaf of bread. $5 for a loaf of bread! That's just stupid.
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Tuesday: May 13, 2008 - Go Cubs!
The Cubs lost last night and I think this one is on Chris because he watched the game. The season thus far has ridden very squarely on the personal actions of Cubs fans and while we've done pretty well for the most part (the Cubs have the second-best record in baseball) last night we collectively dropped the ball. I was afraid to live-blog during the win streak since the Cubs lose every time I blog. I've also tried to stay as down as I could but there's only so much I can do. If you see the Cubs are losing though, it might be good to send me mean IM's; especially if it's late in the game.
I found a couple Cub-hating blogs last night and here's what I can tell you: only idiots root for the Cardinals, White Sox, and Brewers. This should come as a surprise to no one since the Cardinals suck, the White Sox suck, and the Brewers suck. In most sports, if your team isn't in first place you don't get to talk but apparently baseball is not like that since fans of the 2nd place Cardinals, 4th place Brewers, and (sub .500) 3rd place White Sox continue to run their mouths. I wouldn't worry about the Cubs you freaks, I'd worry about your crappy teams. [Comments: 8]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 14, 2008 - Slutbucks
Apparently there's a brewing controversy over Starbucks using their original logo (pictured). Since they're obviously trying to get back to their roots by bringing back all their old stuff I really don't see what the big deal is. Yes, there are boobs. Does it really merit a 3,000-store boycott? I don't think so. We don't boycott museums and there boobs there too. I can see how some groups could be upset if the logo were explicit in some way--like the Starbucks mermaid banging a sailor while holding an iced venti vanilla latte in its hand...fin-thing but I seriously doubt mermaids are concerned with covering themselves so frankly this likely an accurate depiction of a mermaid and therefore not overtly sexual. With all of the real problems going on in the world today is taking issue with the enlarged mammary glands of a cartoon drawing of a mermaid really something to take up arms over?
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Thursday: May 15, 2008 - Oceanic Five
So I'm looking for a pre-made picture of the Oceanic Six to save some time this morning and what do I find? I'll go ahead and field that--a TON of pictures with Jin. Ok--guys--JIN IS NOT IN THE OCEANIC SIX. The sixth one is the baby. Now, by my loose definitions here I wouldn't say the baby survived the crash and got himself rescued--he was born on the island. Sorry pro-lifers.
I didn't really care for the episode as a stand-alone but I think it did a great job setting up the two-hour finale in a couple weeks. Everyone is paired off with someone they'd probably prefer no to be with (Jack/Sawyer, Kate/Sayid, Sun/Aaron, Miker/Jin [ok, maybe these two are ok]). Speaking of Miker, I TOTALLY thought Jin was going to say it last night. Once I saw him get on the boat my first thought was "Holy sh*t, he's going to see Michael and scream 'Miker!'" but he didn't.
All spare judgment on this episode until after the season finale since they're obviously related. That leaves me with the question--who is having the huge Lost party to watch it? [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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Friday: May 16, 2008 - Fairfax Winds
Last night I ventured out to McLean to see Kathy play with the Fairfax Winds. Although I had good directions from Google, I misunderstood the winding area around the Chain Bridge and ultimately took it the wrong way into Virginia where an accident had brought traffic to one lane in the opposite direction I needed to go. By the time it got all straightened out I was able to arrive at 7:28 for the 7:30 concert and grabbed a seat next to Chris. I guess that's why you leave so early for things. The concert was by far the best band concert I'd been to in at least four years. They played a couple of pieces by David Maslanka, who just happened to be sitting in the row ahead of us. As the pre-eminent band composer of our generation he didn't really look like how I expected him to--I expected him to have bigger, rounder hair but he obviously did not. I don't particularly care for his music (and I think can safely say that as the pre-eminent steel band composer of our generation) but I think he writes well, if that makes sense--I think he has great craft in his orchestration...bandation; especially voicing the brass parts.
I think the main reason I don't care for band music is that all the high parts have to be played in the woodwinds and, with the exception of the flute, all sound awful up high. There's nothing like screeching clarinet/oboe/saxophone (gag) (Sorry Chris) in their upper registers while playing what should be a pleasant melody to make your stomach turn. I also still don't understand what a double bass is supposed to do in a band--isn't that what tubas are for? The double bass is of course preferable to the tuba 100% of the time but isn't the point of a band to give all of the most repugnant instruments (euphonium) a chance to play? [Comments: 1]· permalink ·
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Sunday: May 18, 2008 - Lock Your Deadbolt
This was a pretty exciting weekend. On Saturday, Brian had a poker game and, being the ultra-responsible person I now am, I left a good 90 minutes early so I could stop at Target to get a funnel and, more importantly, Chick-Fil-A to try to keep my monthly intake of their delicious nuggets in tact. Unfortunately, while I left with my Google Maps in hand, I did not have my keys in my other hand. Locked out (again)! I've now locked myself out here twice in three months; two more times than I've locked myself out the rest of my life combined. I think there are two reasons for this: this is the first time in my adult life I have two viable exits and I keep my keys by the one I use most frequently so it's not necessarily out of the question I could leave the house without visibly seeing them. Secondly, I have two key rings--my regular ones plus another set that I take with my when I go running that just has a car key and the back door key to my house; that way they're not all jingly in my pocket and slowing me down. Regardless, I'm locked out with my spare key woefully inaccessible in Jamie's coat but with her in Tallahassee and her landlord out of town I was pretty much resigned to the locksmith.
Except that I had my iPhone and quickly googled "open door credit card". I got to an article and spent 20 minutes on my new back door with no success at all before remembering that my old front door would be a better candidate. Sure enough--15 seconds later I was in. So yes, you CAN open a door with a credit card (I used my Safeway card) but only if it's an old door and if the deadbolt isn't locked. Like I told everyone at poker, for every ounce of awesome there are two ounces of "oh sh*t" now that I see how easy it is to open an outside door with a credit card. So, friends, lock your deadbolts.
I also finally won poker. Take that Virginia and weird Virginia Appendage; you've beaten me long enough. Everyone was kind enough to let me take a CFA break in the middle too. The $40 I won almost paid for my gas getting home too. [Comments: 3]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 19, 2008 - Preston Parker Unsuspended
This is a hard entry to write because I of course love FSU and, as an extension of that, FSU football. It was bad enough when half the team was caught cheating for their online music history class but they were officially doomed with last year's MVP, Preston Parker, was caught with drugs and a gun in his car. He was suspended from the team while the case worked itself out. Today it worked itself out and he's now unsuspended because he was able to get off with misdemeanors and a bucketful of apologies. This is of course great news for FSU football but it really makes a joke out of our whole criminal system. The fact of the matter is that he should have been convicted of at least one felony but by some adequate strings being pulled he was able to be reinstated by having very serious charges magically reduced.
All I know is that if it were me facing all of those counts, WITH a criminal record (as Preston Parker has), I'd be going to jail for sure and sadly giving up my rights to vote for Obama in a few months since as a felon I would have relinquished my right to vote. I'm just shocked he was able to skirt the system like this. What more can you really say other than "Go State!"? [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 20, 2008 - The Good Life
Jamie came back from Florida today which meant the end of Abfest 2008. Since Abby now has food allergies I cooked her dinner every night and Chompy was very sad to see her go since now there will be no extra half-bag of rice for her at dinner. They ran around enough over the past four days to hopefully last a while--my house is so muddy from them going nuts outside in the rain and then continuing on in the house that I'm not even sure the vaunted Dyson is going to be able to rip the dirt from the greedy carpets.
I fear that my new "favorite" music is Southern Rock. I haven't gone out of my way to listen to it but since the radio station up here purports to play "Classic Rock" I think I've officially moved to Southern Rock. Why wouldn't I trade the Doobie Brothers and Guns and Roses for 38 Special and the Allman Brothers? I like both the Doobies and GnR but come on, your dollar goes a lot further with the Allman Brothers. I could live without Skynyrd but I don't turn them off when they come on. [Comments: 4]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 21, 2008 - 90,000
Yesterday RZ finally eclipsed the 90,000 hits mark, with over 300 people checking in to see my cute pupple lounging within the pillows of my couch. Let's see, I found out that I'm #1 in the VPCSADBCF (Virginia Poker Championship Series As Determined By Chris' Forumla) because I've only played two games and one of them was a win. As always, it's better to be lucky than good. I had a nice breakfast at my diner before doing some shopping at Safeway, where the Safeway Starbucks naturally screwed up my order. It's bad enough you only put two shots in it but to leave on the vanilla is just plain mean. I played some tennis with Jamie after sitting in Ward Circle for thirty minutes while they decided to do road work in the middle of the day. I came home, took Chomp for a walk, then went back to Safeway so I could make myself some Japanese Chicken. I then watched most of the Cubs game before working on the band arrangement of my thesis. I went to bed and, for the first time in a long while, I couldn't sleep. I should have been adequately tired considering it was almost 1am and I had both played tennis and taken Chompy for such a long walk. Oh well. I finally fell asleep around 2 and, well, here I am.
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Weekend: May 25, 2008 - Prairie Home Companion @ Wolftrap
On Friday I met up with Brian and Rebecca, and Rebecca's friend Jessika for an evening with Prairie Home Companion. Brian and I met at this elementary school in McLean where I dropped off the Taurus and rode with Brian to Wolftrap. I had always assumed it was called "Wolftrap" because at some point wolves had been trapped there and the name had stuck. I think I'm wrong though because as I was looking for a picture for today's entry I came across a real wolf trap and the design of it is very similar the way this is set up so now I think I "get it".
Brian and I got there extra early to get a good place to sit on the lawn, which was good because there were like a billion other people also in the lawn section and apparently Virginians don't have the same hang-ups about plopping a blanket down overlapping yours to squeeze into a 3' x 3' square that Midwesterners do. By 6:30 the gang was all there and we had some beers (notice the plural; I'm in a Midwestern state of mind) and the show started with some patriotic singing. The show was really long and while I found the skits and some of the songs cute and clever there were just way too many songs. Sorry guys. When they play PHC on NPR (Enpee Argh) they lop off a lot of it. It had its boring bit but on the whole it was really fun and I'd highly recommend going if you have $20 to burn (about the cost of a bottle of water in DC). [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: May 26, 2008 - Memorial Day
Not surprisingly, it's hot here in our nation's capital for Memorial Day. I spent the day working, as I have the past week, on a piece to send down to South America. It's about 95% done and I have to say that it's a winner. Sometimes pieces suck and you grind them down and the suck less but ultimately still suck. Sometimes they just kind of come out and this one just came out. I had the entire first draft done in one ten-hour session. I forgot how fun it can be to write non-steel drum music since that's really been the bread and butter for so long.
I've been slowly upping Chompy's walks to about a mile but two days I tried to bring her up to two which was so grueling on her she slept from 7pm to 9am. For Memorial Day, I took her for just a mile then we drove around and enjoyed the nice day out on the Clara Barton Parkway. Unfortunately, driving without a destination got me a little bit lost and I tried to take the George Washington Parkway back. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. It was closed in both directions so we got a nice tour of NoVa while trying to navigate the backroads to the Chain Bridge. We made it back though despite what should have been a ten minute outing turning into an hour of degreening our environment.
Happy Memorial Day! [Comments: 1]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: May 27, 2008 - Clumps
It's no secret that my schedule isn't exactly scheduled minute by minute. That said, this week has been pretty busy, even for one of you 9-5ers. Between Lost parties, jazz concerts, piece deadlines, Greek cook-offs, etc, it has been/going to be a hectic week for me and Chompy. Last night I borrowed a charcoal grill and made a practice round of my "gourmet" food for Saturday. It turned out pretty well in the one-person size so I'm feeling good I won't be booed despite generally being out of practice in cooking. Speaking of practicing, I haven't really touched my guitar music this week and it shows. With a heavy composing schedule the last thing I want to do with my free time is more music so practicing for my lessons has been pushed to the back burner which is too bad because I like to have nice sounding pieces for my lessons. I've been on the other side of teaching lessons for ages so I can say with certainty it's way better to have a practicing student than a non-practicing one.
In sadder news, the plants Marty gave me when he moved to Texas are now completely dead. Sorry Martyr; I tried my best. Well, not really my "best" but you get the idea. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: May 28, 2008 - Custom MarioKart WFC Messages
I finally got around to making my custom MarioKart WFC messages. In case you don't own the game, when you play online you can "chat" with your friends but you're limited to about 30 pre-written messages which never really convey what you need to say. If I could have ten custom messages here are what they'd be. I can't speak for Brian, Chris, and Marty but I spend a good part of the game yelling at the TV so I think it would be handy if I had these messages available for after the game. [Comments: 2]· permalink ·
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Good Things Take Time...
-2 days until FSU Football (2010)
Random Picture...
This bird scared me too. They just kind of sneak up on you.
This bird scared me too. They just kind of sneak up on you.
Time Machine:
09-07-2009
· 09-07-2008
· 09-07-2007
· 09-07-2006
09-07-2009: I'll start with the good news: my death from the swine flu is no longer imminent. Now, onto the bad news.
WHERE THE HELL WAS FSU'S DEFENSE?! *I* could have been playing cornerback last night. I can easily ignore receivers as the blow past me or trip on my own two feet as a RUNNING BACK shoots past me for a catch in the end zone. Uggggggggh. On the bright side, the offense looked pretty good--at least Christian Ponder and the vaunted offensive line. The running game looked anemic when Jermaine was in there but his backup looked like a punisher. The fact our receivers c(w)ouldn't catch the ball made life rough. Fortson looked like the only guy who actually was willing to take one for the team and try to catch it, although Richard Goodman's catch on the two-point conversion ended with him getting blasted.
Anyway, where was the bloodthirsty FSU defense? Who were these cowards playing constant zone coverage? It doesn't take a PS2 NCAA Football expert very long to realize there's a time and a place for zone but if you want to win you need to MAN UP. Granted, the man coverage, when "utilized", made the secondary look absolutely stupid, with their coverage at least five yards behind the Miami receivers.
Whatever, we'll be good next year.09-07-2008: It looks like my vice-like grip over NCAA Pick 'Em is officially over. After tweaking "the algorithm" I still finished near the bottom of the picks because I clearly overweighed the section dedicated to "do they like to get upset?". The numbers correctly picked the ECU upset of WV but unfortunately they also picked three more upsets and, knowing that no more than three teams ever get upset in a week, I released WV out of a personal affinity towards the school. I also, until the game started, thought USM was in fact Mississippi State which they are clearly not. Oops.
I went out to Virginia to watch the FSU game with Kathy & Co. The bar had a lot of FSU fans but none that were particularly into the game. It didn't help that there was over two hours in combined rain delays. FSU looked good but I think anyone would look good against Western Carolina. They're not East Carolina, that's for sure. Catamounts, for the record, are mountain lions. They are not horses despite containing the word "mount". We'll know for sure how good FSU is when vaunted Chattanooga rolls into town next week. I took the day off blogging but only because I was thinking of you.09-07-2006: Although not as gratifying as some wins in the past, I was able to fend off tchris and jamie in a little three-way poker last night. At different points in the night we all had huge chip leads and somehow blew them. We're all big bettors so it was a lot of fun despite the low number of people.
I really need a new computer. Mine shuts off after about five minutes of use due to overheating and I still have not been able to find the right replacement fan. I'm hoping by the week after my birthday to have enough money to buy the new one from Dell, even though they won't let me get it without the video card. I talked to their retarded sales/tech guy and asked them simply if they could not charge/install a video card. They do not have dual-monitor options and I wasn't ordering any monitors so I didn't need the card. He replied that they could not and I was out of luck. I replied by asking him if the computers were really built by hand like they say in the commercials. He said yes. I then asked if they guy installing it could just "leave out" the video card (I'd be throwing it out the day I got it) and have the person hand-writing my bill leave off the cost of it. He said no. Oh well.
WHERE THE HELL WAS FSU'S DEFENSE?! *I* could have been playing cornerback last night. I can easily ignore receivers as the blow past me or trip on my own two feet as a RUNNING BACK shoots past me for a catch in the end zone. Uggggggggh. On the bright side, the offense looked pretty good--at least Christian Ponder and the vaunted offensive line. The running game looked anemic when Jermaine was in there but his backup looked like a punisher. The fact our receivers c(w)ouldn't catch the ball made life rough. Fortson looked like the only guy who actually was willing to take one for the team and try to catch it, although Richard Goodman's catch on the two-point conversion ended with him getting blasted.
Anyway, where was the bloodthirsty FSU defense? Who were these cowards playing constant zone coverage? It doesn't take a PS2 NCAA Football expert very long to realize there's a time and a place for zone but if you want to win you need to MAN UP. Granted, the man coverage, when "utilized", made the secondary look absolutely stupid, with their coverage at least five yards behind the Miami receivers.
Whatever, we'll be good next year.09-07-2008: It looks like my vice-like grip over NCAA Pick 'Em is officially over. After tweaking "the algorithm" I still finished near the bottom of the picks because I clearly overweighed the section dedicated to "do they like to get upset?". The numbers correctly picked the ECU upset of WV but unfortunately they also picked three more upsets and, knowing that no more than three teams ever get upset in a week, I released WV out of a personal affinity towards the school. I also, until the game started, thought USM was in fact Mississippi State which they are clearly not. Oops.
I went out to Virginia to watch the FSU game with Kathy & Co. The bar had a lot of FSU fans but none that were particularly into the game. It didn't help that there was over two hours in combined rain delays. FSU looked good but I think anyone would look good against Western Carolina. They're not East Carolina, that's for sure. Catamounts, for the record, are mountain lions. They are not horses despite containing the word "mount". We'll know for sure how good FSU is when vaunted Chattanooga rolls into town next week. I took the day off blogging but only because I was thinking of you.09-07-2006: Although not as gratifying as some wins in the past, I was able to fend off tchris and jamie in a little three-way poker last night. At different points in the night we all had huge chip leads and somehow blew them. We're all big bettors so it was a lot of fun despite the low number of people.
I really need a new computer. Mine shuts off after about five minutes of use due to overheating and I still have not been able to find the right replacement fan. I'm hoping by the week after my birthday to have enough money to buy the new one from Dell, even though they won't let me get it without the video card. I talked to their retarded sales/tech guy and asked them simply if they could not charge/install a video card. They do not have dual-monitor options and I wasn't ordering any monitors so I didn't need the card. He replied that they could not and I was out of luck. I replied by asking him if the computers were really built by hand like they say in the commercials. He said yes. I then asked if they guy installing it could just "leave out" the video card (I'd be throwing it out the day I got it) and have the person hand-writing my bill leave off the cost of it. He said no. Oh well.