Caught In The Whirlwind
Archive for March, 2007
The People Are Listening!
01877 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Last night was my Mom's birthday, so the whole family got together to go out to dinner and then we went over to my place to play some Wii type stuff.
At dinner I discovered several surprising things:
- After 2-3 years of having nothing in my AIM Profile, most of my family actually still checks on what appears to be a daily basis to see if I've decided to put something in there.
- My family reads this Blog (Hi!)
- Pretty much every amusing story I brought up was followed by "Oh yeah, we saw that on the blog"
I got my sister to sign up for an account on Vox as well.
Back at my place, we quickly discovered that one of my Wii remotes was non functional. The buttons worked, but the motion sensing is all broken. I put in a warranty repair request to Nintendo to try and fix it. We shall see. It's a good thing I borrowed another remote from my friends. I had intended on having 4 remotes, but…at least we had 3. We did some Wii Sports bowling and a little Tiger Woods golf.
And we had pie! Lemon Meringue, specifically.
Another Strange Little Song
01878 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Earlier this week, they asked about songs with weird titles in the QoTD.
Last night, I found another one that I simply must mention. I recently purchased Say Anything's …Is a Real Boy and there's one song on it called "Chia-Like, I Shall Grow".
Now if that's not weird, I don't know what is.
Anyway, This album rocks. I'm playing it nonstop on a loop right now on my trusty iPod. I bought it because I hard Yellow Cat/Red Cat on Pandora and I immediately downloaded it due to the quirky sense of humor in the lyrics.
The Audacity of Hope
01879 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I try not to get political on here. It's not that I'm not interested in political type things…it's just that I prefer to keep my views to myself (and a small circle of close friends and even then…not so much). I'm registered as an independent as I don't believe that political party should influence my vote. I'll never really understand why some people vote straight ticket without even thinking about it…but that's another topic. Recently, I find myself identifying more with the viewpoints of the Democrats than the Republicans though.
So when Barack Obama announced that he was going to be running for president in 2008, I figured I should pick up his latest book The Audacity of Hope(which I was thinking about grabbing earlier anyway) and see if I can learn a little more about him and what his stand on the issues is. I had also heard really good reviews of it, and I was looking for something a little more…non-fictiony.
I read through the whole thing in about a week. It would have been a lot quicker, except that I was in Washington DC for most of that week and was largely too tired to really read. Obama is an incredibly articulate writer. The book was interesting, well organized and well written. I particularly enjoyed the way he brought in real life people and situations to help back up his points instead of attempting to discuss the issues in abstract and in a vacuum.
I'm not sure if I'm stuck in some sort of Obama reality distortion field or something, but after reading the book, I came away with a feeling that the author was a genuine. He admitted his biases up front, as well as bringing up several examples of when he was wrong in how he thought, or lucky. I came away thinking that he was just a regular guy, trying to do the best he can and help out where he could. I'm usually fairly good these days on picking out something that's insincere. Like I said, not sure if it was some sort of distortion field clouding my judgment there or anything.
It also helped that I agreed with a lot of what he had to say. His thoughts on the state of the political debate are refreshing, about how it's become less about the issues at hand and more about how electable somebody is, or what small thing they may have done in the past.
If you're at all interested in finding out more about Barack Obama or just want a good read on the political situation of the country (from the Democrat perspective obviously), you can't go wrong with this. You might not agree with everything he has to say, but I'd be fairly surprised if you didn't take something away from reading this book.
Agents Are…GOOOOOOO!
01879 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I have been completely and totally sucked into Elite Beat Agents for the nintendo DS.
I bought it last week, they day after I got home from the DC trip after being told that Wassy purchased it as well. All she had to say to convince me was "It has multi player" really. I was interested in it before, but that pushed me over the edge. There's wayyy too many good DS games.
Anyway, I'm glad I did. This game is addictive, with a quirky sense of humor and some really, really random storyline elements.
Right now I'm on the last two songs on the third difficulty level. I'm really trying to get to the 4th because that unlocks the divas. I hear they're a good reason to play on the 4th setting all the time.
I knew I was playing it way too much when, the day after I bought it, I closed my eyes and saw lots of contracting circles with numbers in them, as if I was still playing the game. It's…eerie.
Two thumbs up and I can't wait for the sequel.
Vox Hunt: Shopping List
01879 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Show us your shopping list.
Here's half my grocery list from last night's shopping trip. The other half is stuff I normally buy every week. This was just the stuff on sale.
QotD: Strange Little Songs
01880 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
What are the weirdest song titles in your playlist or music collection?
Submitted by Charline.
I listen to a lot of progressive rock type stuff which, by definition, can have some crazy song titles.
The first one that comes to mind is Spock's Beard's epic off of their Feel Euphoria album, A Guy Named Sid. As you might guess, this song is a story about…a guy. Named Sid. Spock's Beard also has, on an early cd Snow two songs named Freak Boy, and Freak Boy: Part 2.
Porcupine Tree is also a good source of odd song names. Baby Dream in Cellophane, for example.
James LaBrie's Millmuzzler project has Beelzebubba which is a really weird song to go along with it's title. Speaking of solo projects, Jordan Rudess' latest solo CD has a couple of gems on it. Bar Hopping With Mr. Picky and Insectsamongus specifically.
And who can forget, the Arrogant Worms' I Am Cow.
I could keep on going…but I don't really feel like looking through my entire music collection this morning.
From The "Just Give Me My Diploma And Let Me Go" Department
01882 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
It's been a little while since I've posted anything about school so I think it's time for a little update on my progression past red tape and arbitrary hurdles that are being thrown in my path simply to cause me to spend more money.
If you recall (which you probably don't, but I won't fault you for that), I need one more computer related course before my tech requirements are met for graduation. This class is Software Engineering. A class all about learning how to do a complete software project from beginning to end. You know…the stuff I'm ALREADY DOING. Anyway…They never offer it at night, but I've been working with the department head and we've got a plan. I'm going to take the graudate version of the class (sigh) and that'll count for my undergrad requirement.
I just need to get over there and file a petition.
I also need to contact my high school and get them to send a copy of my transcript to my school so that I can petition to get them to give me credit for my high(ish) final grade in my high school French class. I need to get an answer to the question of if that'll give me the credits for taking French or if it'll just say I satisfied the requirement but I still need to take another random course in order to get enough credits to graduate.
In short, this whole setup is stupid, give me my piece of paper and let me move on with my life.
QotD: Just Skimming
01882 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
When skimming a magazine (or book or newspaper) do you flip through the pages from front to back or back to front?
Submitted by enSue.
If I have to pick a direction, Front to Back. However my usually skimming habits are more "random access". For example, picking a story out of the middle and skimming that and then doing some more random flipping, picking something else.
It's…weird.
QotD: Hoop Dreams
01884 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Who's going to be in the Final Four?
Certainly not the teams I picked to be in the Final Four, that's for certain.
I had Wisconsin, UCLA, North Carolina and Ohio State. Wisconsin got knocked out and with my luck, the other three are going to get knocked out as well.
Things are not going well in bracketsville this year…not well at all.
QotD: I Dunno, Where Do You Want To Go?
01885 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
When you go out to eat, how do you pick where to go?
Submitted by Kristine.
Very painfully. Usually when I go out to eat, it's with my friends. None of us can really make a decision. We're too concerned with what the other people in the group want. Let me tell you, if everybody wants to do what everybody else wants to do, then you end up doing nothing quite often 
I'm happy going pretty much anywhere as long as it's not Chinese or something, so I really have no preferences usually. Sometimes I really feel like going somewhere, but that's pretty rare.
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