Why is it...when I watch the game on TV, they end up losing?

Yep. Padres' game tonight was not too good. The odds were against the Diamondbacks, yet--they won. Why?

technorati tags:padres

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Much in the way of updates, time--not so much.

*Currently watching the Padres game (versus the Diamonbacks--tonight, they take the NL championship!)

Anyhow, there's been plenty of stuff happening in the past few days. A Hawk Nelson & Runkidrun concert, two days off work..., HP buying Voodoo PC, the Padres about to be NL Champs. If I hit a topic you want to discuss, see you in the comments.

So that's what's been going on in my neck of the woods.

technorati tags:padres, hawknelson, runkidrun

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Naprosyn rocks the house.

So I am running into my usual bi-monthly bouts with arthritic pain. My ankle and foot are swollen, so much so that the usually quite oversized and loose Crocs that adorn said foot actually is too tight.

I have lived with this pain for several years. I remember back in college, taking 18 Advil pills in one sitting while laying back at a friends house. His mom was looking at me like--whoa, you better not be overdosing and dying on my couch. Then sometime in 2004, my doctor introduced me to Naprosyn. 1 pill every so often, and I am good. Well, at least can tolerate it a little more. Sometimes I take two.

This morning, I took two and the pain is sort of going away. I fear, however, when my body begins to get used to it and I no longer feel the benefits of Naprosyn. What do I do? Vicodin doesn't seem to work as well on this. And all this presription drug try-outs seem to be messing around with el'kidney.

Any recommendations?

Spoiled kids suck.

If you read the other post, you can see what I did this past weekend.

Well, while preparing for the trip up to Murrieta, my fiancee and I decided that it would behoove us to use this time for working on our wedding website. As my entire design sit on the hard drive of my Mac Mini, I decided that it would be good to bring it along and work on it up there, tweaking the design and adding content and stuff. Since it was a generation 1 mini, which did not have Wifi built-in, I was trying to configure my 802.11b bridge to work with the Mac. After more than an hour, and needing to rush to hit up Costco for some gas, I had a total and absolutely crazed technology fit.

I was violent against that useless crappy networking bridge and on the fence about taking my Mac Mini with me. It was weird. I was about to throw away the bridge in a rage, but instead haphazardly took my Windows laptop and left my Mac disconnected at home. I drove away recklessly (for me, at least) sucking up extra gas to get to the Costco off Market. The entire way, I was complaining the ear off my fiancee about how I needed a Mac laptop. I actually felt that I needed it so I could design on the go. I felt better after I got more food in me (care of Ikea), bought some large picture frames and had my trusty woman at my side.

Well, after leaving San Diego for the weekend, I sat like a lazy slob in front of my parent's huge HDTV absorbing the Discovery channel, some food network, and VH1. Then I saw part of some show that pissed me off. It's about these stuck up little spoiled kids who get whatever their little heart desires. This one girl got this R&B singer for her birthday to attend her party as well as a large SUV and America's first Eclipse Spyder. I wasn't jealous--seriously--I just have this soapbox about what little kids really need and how spoiled youngsters grow up to be spoiled older pricks who get whatever their grown up plastic surgery if-you-can-even-call-it-one heart. You know the type. The ones you just want to punch in the face.

Then this morning, on the way to work, I had this weird thought. I actually saw parallels between my behavior and the little spoiled kids' behavior. It was disgusting. I was a little brat on Saturday. I threw a fit like a chubby kid who can't have another Oreo cookie.

In retrospect, I couldn't believe how insane it was for me to get all crazy about not having a Mac laptop. I mean, I am perhaps the poster boy for technological excess. I have a laptop dedicated to my HDTV, with a dual-tuner and a large hard drive hidden away in the cabinet. Then I have an old Dell laptop under my bed. Then there's the nice x64 red Ferrari laptop that has provided me with mobile computer PC happiness. Then there's the two laptops I have dedicate to some Stanford Folding. Not to mention the sweet PC setup with three LCD displays connected. And then there's the little Mac sitting, never giving me any problems, atop a RAID of external hard drives.

So now that I am simmered down from that whole thing, have my opinions on what I really need (technologically speaking) changed?

Not really. Well, sort of, but not really.

For now, sitting at my desk to get all my Mac needs catered to will have to do. No coffee and Mac laptop love while sitting like a bohemian at a Starbucks. No pleasing cool white apple logo illuminating my lap while kids are ringing the doorbell for some Halloween candy.

What will happen, however, is that I will delay my purchase. I can afford to get one right now, but I think this technological discipline is a step in the right direction for my techno-lust affliction.

Anyway, I have to wait until OSX Leopard comes out, not to mention the iLife 7 suite and the Core2Duo-based mobile processors.

I mean, can you imagine the fit I would throw if I buy one now only to have better tech stuffed into the matte aluminum laptop one month later?

It's what's for dinner.

Another nice weekend. Hung out with Billifer again on Friday after a quick jaunt to various Fashion Valley stores. I got to touch an actual Mitchell & Ness Cooperstown throwback Padres jersey. There was a wedding shower/luau that I went to on Saturday. I got to play a perverted toilet paper/fly swatter game in front of a large room of Filipinos. After that, I was preparing for a weekend up at my parent's house, where I could possibly learn how to cook Thai food and go for a bike ride.

I ended up not cooking Thai food or going on a bike ride. Instead, I watched development on the Bering Strait bridge and saw a group of A-list actors (Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Dylan McDermott, and possibly LL Cool J) screw up their career cache by partaking in a movie with Justin Timberlake. It's called Edison Force. The movie was straight to DVD and is possibly worth the rental just to see excellent actors mail their performances in. Also watched The Wild (eh) and Lucky Number Slevin (pretty good).

What I ate this weekend:

1. Banana Coconut Frappucino
2. Unlimited french fries
3. Bleu cheese hamburger
4. Chinese fried rice
5. Stir fry
6. Tons of filipino food at the luau
7. Clam chowder
8. Uno burger with cheddar and bacon
9. More french fries

Now I am just waiting for a nutritionist to leave a comment about wanting to do studies on my stomach.

This blog is brought to you by Costco

No, I am not looking into any type of subsidized blogging (though it would be cool).

Rather, I am talking about talking about my trash can. In it, after taking down my drink, I notice an empty soy milk carton, a few tissues, an empty carcass of a weight loss shake, and (ironically) next to it sits an empty bag of Cheetos. All of these products that I have purchased from Costco. The tissues, drink and soy milk are Kirkland (a Costco brand) and the chips are from that huge 50 pack of small chip bags purchased at Costco.

I wonder how Costco chips would taste like.

Membership socialist USSR Costco. It's kind of funny, if you think about it. We all get in line, by the same things made by the same people who also provide my gas.

Anyway, I still like Costco.

What's going down, my homies?

It appears to be a fairly slow day for me. I finally got my beta of Office 2007 Technical Refresh working with my PDA and running properly. After the first hour or so of slow performance, and--oh yeah--not being able to open any of my documents, I finally figured out what was up. It seems that my antivirus (circa 2002) does not support the technical refresh of beta office software supposedly coming out the first quarter of next year. Go figure.

Anyhow, I solved that simply by disabling the Office Protect feature.

What else, what else. Oh yeah, I had this dream where I was losing all this weight and I was having a hard time getting used to my look. I was goofy looking. Probably bouncing around in a bubblegum ball the size of a chair in a weird pink (pink, as in a comedic look inside a human's lungs kind of pink) didn't help. Anyhow, point is that I was skinny. That was strange.

I also watched the Padres game last night. I was bummed to see David Wells not win his first game back this season. We lost, yes, but are still first place in the NL West. The Dodger's lost, too--which was good.

OK. I'm about out of steam. Till the next time.

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iTunes 7.0 is nice and all, but...

...it's pretty damned buggy for the Windows release.

Last night, I was adding some music to a iPod nano. Since I wanted to clear the whole thing and just start fresh (as my fiancee was getting tired of the music), I decided to use the restore feature. I did this so I can move forward without any bias to the good times I've had with my current music selection and end up keeping everything on there anyway.

Well, while iTunes seemed to take eons to scan my music for gapless playback options and updating the album covers (which, by the way, hasn't finished after three hours), I decided to add music to the nano. I mean, I've got tons of memory, a decent multi-core processor, and a fresh install of everything (Windows, drivers, and friends).

Everything is running nicely--except iTunes.

OK, fine. So I fired up my Mac and did the restore there. It only has a G4 processor (a slow one, at that) and not much else, plus I haven't wiped it clean since I put Tiger on it the middle of last year. And it worked fine. Of course, it doesn't access my huge amount of music, so it didn't have to scan for gapless playback or album covers.

While many may think that--hey, that just shows the stability difference between the PC and the Mac. I see it differently.

I am not going to go so far as to call it a conspiracy, but I do think that the Windows version of iTunes was not programmed as nicely as the Mac's. It could be the relative inexperience the Apple x86 programmers have compared to the rest of the programming team, but the Windows version of iTunes just isn't up to snuff. And there's no reason it shouldn't be good. My 4200 64-bit x2 SLI PC is pristine. My computer is quick and has tons of resources. It's plugged into a good UPS and cleaned from dust regularly. Yet, iTunes much worse here than it does on the passively-cooled single core 1.25 GHz RISC PowerPC CPU.

I am not trying to start a flame war--I'm not. I am just saying that the company that stands behind it's mantra that it's the best OS (Apple) needs to NOT make crippled software for the other guys (Win x86).

technorati tags:apple, intel, amd, windows, osx, itunes, ipod

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What OS are you?

That's so weird. I have been wondering for a long time, if I were an OS, which one would I be? Now I can.

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Picasa 2 is no longer beta.

Sick! Check it out here.

A quick blurb on Picasa. It has become the center of my post-processing photography. Yes, I have Photoshop and Bibble. Those powerhouses just are overkill since Picasa even supports my RAW files. While it may not be multi-core capable, it does most things I need. And it's free. I was one of the few who actually paid for Picasa back in the day when it wasn't owned by Google.

Check out my pictures here.

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Broken Cake

My weekend report is coming in quite late this week. It's Tuesday and you poor folks probably need your Spencer-what-did-you-do-this-weekend fix.

Yeah. Hardly.

Anyhow, I'm going to tell you anyway, because it was a rather eventful weekend. It was one of those long off-Friday weekends, too.

This weekend started on Thursday. Right after work, I went up to Oceanside and enjoyed some comeradere during a bachelor party. Not mine, but David's. He was getting married on Saturday. So we went to a Hooters, then afterwards (more like, because they had no space for us), we went to Fuddruckers. I have never been to one, and now I can see what I have been mixing. You see, they have this magical device that, when pushed, this yellow elixir of goodness comes out. On the front of said device, it comes adorned with the letters "C H E E S E" and it goes great with my fries.

Friday, that was an interesting day. Let me say, on my laptop--Vista is awesome. Vista on my desktop, for the singular reason that I sync my entire life into Outlook, uhm, not so much. So that morning, I was to recover from an image I made on Wednesday and compute like I never even installed Vista on my desktop.

If only it were that easy. I'll spare you the details, but note that the whole image recovery hinged on updated Symantec software--software which Symantec seemed to turn off the update servers for. Let me just say, thanks goodness for Princeton University.

It didn't help that I had a podiatry appointment later that day and a crazy knee pain like I've never experienced. Thanks to my fiancee, I was able to survive the day.

Saturday came. Let's see. Dropped family off to the airport. Went to the beach for David's wedding, then hung out deep into San Diego's farmlands (yes, they exist) for the rest of the day. The reception was cool. It was understated and the food and air was good.

Sunday. Woke up super late. Made a late breakfast that finished cooking just in time for lunch. Then got stuck in front of the TV watching the Discovery Channel when a friend came over and got stuck in front of the TV watching the Charger game.

So there's the weekend play by play. Now you can go on living.

Peace out.

Spiderman 3 trailer

Yes. Oh yes. Here it is. Make sure you have Java.

Oh wow!!! A web version of Visio.

http://www.gliffy.com

So, let's see...what isn't available on the internet?

technorati tags:Gliffy, visio

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David Wells back in San Diego

You know, it feels kind of cool to have Wells back here. He's a good pitcher.

Anyway, the Padres are still one game back--and they play the number one team for the next three games. I hope they manage to beat the Dodgers.

OK. That's all for alpha-male talk. Back to normal Spencer.

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I am borg.

Yesterday was cool.

After work, I went home and played with the notion of putting MS Vista x64 on my home computer--the core of my computing when I am not at work. I already have it on my laptop, and it's awesome. But I don't sync my PDA with my laptop. I don't use my laptop as a file server, nor do I use it for the games. It is where I work on websites and where my research takes place. I have thought about putting x64 Vista on it all day. I wanted to backup my computer in case the bits hit the fan.

Then I panicked. I didn't even Ghost the drive yet and I freaked out about not being able to use my PDA. I mean, if I couldn't sync my PDA--my life would be a mess. I am not exaggerating in the least--my brain can be used for telling me when to breathe and when my heart should beat. My PDA does the rest. So, instead of the whole Vista movement, I decided to upload my latest images (including the kick boxing pictures) up to my Picasa web account.

Afterwards, I cleaned up my guinea pig's cage and put him in the car. He was going for a ride with me to Mission Valley. I was to meet up with my fiancée and Billy for some Wahoo food--which was not bad. A little on the pricey side, but good.

Now on to my friend Billy. My good friend Billy. He caters to my I-want-to-talk-about-technology side of my brain. I can do that with my other friends, yes, but not very many friends can I sit with and, instead of watching some cool DVD, sit back and watch the Apple keynote and clap hands and yell as if watching some type of football game. Geeky? Yes--you have a problem with that?

We also went on a mini journey through the maze that is his apartment complex to simmer in the jacuzzi and I listened to him discuss binaural sets of frequencies that the brain can use to do certain tasks. We topped the evening with some diet Pepsi with lime and some weird, 1970's spaceship hypnotism and meditation. (*Have a confused look on your face? I guess you just had to be there.*)

It was good, clean fun. I am a nerd that enjoys insightful tidbits of useless information and hanging out with good people.

Anyhow, the reason I write this "yesterday review" is because it dawned on me at work today that my life really doesn't begin until I clock out for the day. I am noticing the same sentiment from many of my colleagues. It's not that the jobs are bad. It's just that, regardless of how much school I went to to get to where I am at in my career, it doesn't define me. I guess it's good that way.

I am not some engineer toiling away at work even when I am at home (or should be home). I don't want to have those types of habits, either. It's not something I want to instill in my kids (when I have them in the future) and I don't want it to steal time away from the people I love and the things I enjoy.

If I could guess, the majority of the people in America would state their job and position when prompted with the question, "What are you?" It could be the way our society rears us. I mean, how many kids do you suppose say that, when they grow up, they want to be loving husband/wife and a great father/mother and go to church and be able to cook really good spaghetti? You'll usually hear, lawyer/astronaut/doctor/paleontologist. I would be amused when I hear "I don't know. Probably fat and hating my cubicle dwelling job."

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my job. I am just saying that many people seem to fall into that template. My job is cool. Yes, it does suck me into the cubicle-dimension. You have your bad days. But you also do have your good days. I have also had jobs where I've enjoyed every moment of it. It certainly didn't feel like work. But the career I have now pays the bills. And it's one of those jobs that can pay larger bills (read: it pays well). So I'll keep it for now. But there's no way that it's indicative of who I am.

So, what do you do and what do you want to be when you grow up?

technorati tags:weekend, career, job, apple, keynote

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Apple keynote...standing by.

AJAX and Apple keynote? http://www.macrumorslive.com/

I don't know about you, but I am waiting for the new iPod video announcement.

Update: New iTunes 7--and it runs on x64 Vista!!! I'm running it right now. Oh, and the new iPods are cool, but Jobs...give us our huge screen video iPod already.

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Weekend...good times.

Wow. I am having some good weekends.

Let's see...it started with a photo outing in Old Town. That was fun. Then I went up to Temecula with my fiancee to meet up with an old boss and friend, then to hang out with an old classmate from high school. Then we saw some kickboxing. Then we slept.

When we got up, we hung out with family, went to the pond and just chilled. We also saw a movie, and I got to work on our wedding website. Afterwards, I went to church where Mass was led by arguably the coolest priest ever. During the service, he brought out his iPod, his Pocket PC, and his bluetooth headset. The most connected man of the cloth, I asked him if he would be the officiant at our wedding. Hopefully it works out.

It was a great weekend.



Then I went to work on Monday.

We saw Phil Wickham

Zooomr :: DSC06295

technorati tags:philwichkam

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Actually...this is something I have wanted to write about for a while.

Rebates.

They make me think that I am getting a cheaper price on something. They have helped persuade me on a purchase before. When I do receive the rebate, it feels like that particular chapter in my purchasing book can end. I usually expect a large load of rebates around the February through April time frame from all the holiday spending.

But I really hate the whole rebate process.

I read somewhere that rebates are how business make more money. Something like less than half of the people fill out rebate forms for rebates worth $100 or more. It drops to something like 15% for purchases less than $50. So customers end up paying more, thinking that they will fill out this sheet, include a photo copy of the receipt, and mail it in. Many people forget about the rebates and sometimes, it feels like the rebate companies don't send out the check. Since the consumer forgets, there's no expectation there.

I'm religious about filling these out. I make sure I get my money. I even list it on my PDA to expect a check around a certain time.

I have found that some stores are cool about the whole rebate thing. Staples has got to be the best, as you can fill out the rebate online, even. Believe it or not, Fry's actually isn't too bad about the whole rebate thing, I have found. In my experience, stores such as CompUSA and Circuit City can suck about rebates. Best Buy has made efforts to stop doing the rebate thing all together.

When you buy online, however, it's different. Regardless of what store I buy from (Amazon, Dell, TigerDirect, CompUSA.com, Outpost.com), all my rebates seem to be processed by this administration called rebatesHQ. And rebatesHQ suck.

RebatesHQ suck hard.

The last two times I have mailed a form to them, they have been invalid--though I have successfully done my part in the rebate portion. It's getting to be that, not only do they make money from the customers that forget to fill out the form, they make money by denying those that do send them in.

I ordered this cool 3D fish screen saver for my computer (which I never use and it doesn't work with multiple monitors anyway). The shipping was free, and after rebate, the item would have been free as well. I dutifully sent it in. A little over a month later, I received a postcard that said I didn't send it in on time. Lame!!! I called up the number listed on the card, spoke to this guy named Jay and was put on hold several times. It was like this (paraphrase):

Jay: We have listed that you did not submit your form in time. Let me verify this.
- Hold -
Jay: What was your name again. I need to check it in my system.
Spencer: Spencer. Isn't it on your screen somewhere? I mean, you are looking at my issue.
Jay: Let me check.
- Hold -
Jay: It says that you have not submitted your form in time. I am going to check with our manager. Can you hold, please?
- Hold -
Jay: OK. Your rebate was invalid. But as a valued customer, I can honor your rebate. Can you spell your name?
Spencer: S P E N C E R.
Jay: OK. Hold on just a moment.
- Hold - *Sound of tapping on a keyboard in the background--but way too many characters than simply my name. More like replying to an email or chatting to someone online
Jay: OK. Your rebate was invalid. But I have changed it's status to valid. You should receive your rebate within 4 to 6 weeks. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Spencer: No. Thanks.

I was hoping to never have to go through rebatesHQ again.

Unfortunately, this was not the case.

I bought a hard drive from TigerDirect. It was an exceptional deal (yes, indeed, too good to be true). At the time, it was a 400GB hard drive for $70. Of course, that's after a huge rebate. This was the big one. This was the rebate that better work or I am going to bust down some buildings.

So I sent it off. This one was easy. In fact, when the hard drive came, I didn't even need to cut out the UPC. It was on a sheet that said something like "Use this sheet for the UPC." Again, I dutifully sent in the rebate. It was the middle of July. I checked pretty much every week, through July and August.

And then today--I checked it out. It was finally on the status page at rebatesHQ. Again, it said it was invalid.

Now buildings were about to be busted down.

I haven't even received my postcard telling me that the rebate was invalid. I wasn't going to wait. I looked around for a number to call. It wasn't listed on the page. I had to go to TigerDirect.com and pretend like I was buying another drive to get access to the rebate form, which hopefully had the phone number. It did, and I called them up.

It was pretty much the same process again. But this time I found out that the reason the drive rebate was invalid was because the UPC code was invalid. That was ridiculous as the product made it completely clear which UPC sheet to submit. It was an OEM drive. There was no box or manual. The only documentation was the UPC code. This could not be any clearer which UPC to submit. How on earth can this be invalid?

So I spent another 10 minutes on the phone. Again, I just had to say that I submitted the form. I didn't even have to prove the validity of the form. It was just explaining myself and my situation. I didn't call with a pissed off attitude. The person I spoke to wasn't impolite. But it felt like he was doing his job, as if he was part of a system of denied rebate handling.

The system was the following:

1. Wait for a customer to submit a rebate.
2. Mark the rebate invalid.
3. Update the rebatesHQ site indicating the unfortunate circumstance and some random reason as to why it was invalid.
4. Send out postcards for the issue.
5. Repeat for all rebates.
6. As the last obstacle between the customer and his rebate, wait until he calls--if at all.
   

When he calls, pretend to be typing to give the illusion of working hard on helping the customer when the truth is, the check box marked "Valid" simply needs to be clicked by the mouse. Put the customer on hold as if leaving my desk to speak with my manager. Bite into sandwich. Don't forget to click on the "Valid" check box. Then take the customer off hold and explain that, yes, the rebate was invalid. The customer did something wrong, but you have now come and made it all good by telling them they are a valued customer and that you will hook them up.

I checked after a few more minutes. The rebate is now valid and is processing.

So, from the customer who fills out the rebate, it seems that the new process is the following:

1. Buy product.
2. Fill out the rebate form.
3. Cut out the UPC code from the box or include the UPC sheet.
   
4. Make a copy of the receipt.
5. Make a photocopy of the entire package.
6. Put inside envelope and apply a stamp. Place in mailbox for the mailman to pick up.
7. Wait for the postcard in the mail telling the customer why the rebate is invalid.
8. Call up phone number on postcard.
9. Explain that you did everything you were supposed to do.
10. Get rebate validated.

Isn't that lame? Let's hope that we don't have to add an additional step about the rebate check being lost in the mail and calling up rebatesHQ again and explaining everything again.

technorati tags:rebates, rebatesHQ, tigerdirect

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OK. Now that I am at least able to write.

So the last blog blurb was done way past my bedtime.

Now that I have survived the weekend and am at least slightly more coherent, let's do a recap.

- Told everyone (those we wanted to know, but haven't told yet) about the engagement.
- Won free tickets to an excellent concert in October.
- It was my girlfriend's Birthday yesterday.
- I had (am still having) a nasty bout with tennis elbow--on both elbows.
- Experienced increased leg pain

Alright. Now for some further detail.

We told many people this past weekend about the engagement. The reaction? It was like they already knew. Many in fact, did already know. But some people seemed keen on that element already. Still, it was nice for people to actually see the pictures and the engagement ring.

I got an email from the INO Records street team administrator that said I won two tickets to MercyMe's concert in Anaheim in October. That's sweet! I already bought some upgraded seats anyway, but now this means that more people get to go. It's going to be awesome.

My fiancée and I had dinner at Humphrey's By The Bay yesterday and had two salmon specials. It was good, could use a little more salt, though. We celebrated her birthday together watching the sunset over the hill just past the private yacht dock. We also sort of celebrated her birthday in small episodes throughout the weekend, from the tiramisu at the british pub, small MySpace blurbs, and phone calls from friends and family. Again, if one day late in the ol"blog, Happy Birthday my shnookums. :)

So now we are over a week after the LAN party madness that was August 25-27, I am sitting, typing, with a Futuro Sport tennis elbow strap around one of my arms. Yes, I got tennis elbow in perhaps the least honorable way--not by actually participating in some agressive-good-for-you-sport, but by fragging away the whole weekend. Yep, and I got it bad. I couldn't put on or take off a shirt. I remember actually hunching over and sort of crying at Bible study last week. It was bad. Vicodin was barely doing its job.

Then, as the pain of the elbow began to very-slowly subside, I noticed some rapidly increasing stiffness in the knee. Then, to add to a weekend of walking in some flat sandals, swelling of the ankles. Am I beginning to become one of thoe obese motorized wheelchair bound 60-something's? I hope not.

Now...what did I forget while writing the original blog?

- Vault Zero goodness.

Yes, we discovered that Ralphs has a coupon for the Coke, Dr. Pepper, and various-not-interested-in-it brands. What I jokinly fantacized about with my fiancée, however, was, as my favorite soda--Vault Zero--was a Coke brand, wouldn't it be nice if Vault was included in the sale. Well, sure enough, it was. As we are finding that California seems to be in a Vault drought (making it that much harder to find the rarest of the rare, Vault Zero), we had to go to several Ralph's locations to acquire this magical elixir of flavor and energy--all for 5 calories per serving.

- Over 500 hours of recording Media Center space

In my life as a college student, I was not known to watch TV. Aside from the X-Files episodes (which I just bought several more seasons, thanks to Fry's), TV was simply a large, dark rectangular device which sat downstairs collecting dust. In recent years, however, thanks to a trusty laptop and Windows Media Center, I have been known to spend days watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and getting my fill of reality shows (which I still loathe, but cannot seem to stop watching). Well, I recently upgraded my system with a larger hard drive. I can now record the entire set of fall shows while I travel and see the world. Do some winter hibernating, then get up in the spring to begin watching all the shows I've missed (not to mention the shows that I begin to like, only to see them get canceled, ahem-NBC-ahem). Space is good.

- Taiko Drum Master

This game is SICK! Sick, in a good way. You essentially sit with a drum, hit it to the beat shown on screen, and the better you drum, the higher your score. Think Dance Dance Revolution meets drums. While my tennis elbow has forced me to refrain from going overboard with the whole thing, it proved itself to be remarkably addicting and allowed me to bounce around like I was in the band, Leeland. I totally looked like I could be a drummer. Unfortunately, I was holding the drumstick like it was a pen, and now have a blister on my middle finger covered in a Hello Kitty band-aid. Yes, I need to buy some more band-aids.

So that's about all the weekend recaps I can do for now. That's a ton of typing. I need to rest my little elbow.

Take care, folks.

technorati tags:weekend, engagement, taikodrummaster, vaultzero, mediacenter, tenniselbow, birthday, mercyme, anaheim, concert

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Some cool things!

OK.

Here's a list of a few things that have happened from my last entry.

Let's see, let's see. I won free tickets to the MercyMe concert in Anaheim. I now get to come up with some type of contest or something to give them out, as I already bought some tickets for the event. That is going to be fun.

What else. My girlfriend's birthday is this weekend. So it's cool.

My elbow pain has started to decrease. However, my knee is starting to kill me.

And now the big one. Now the whole world can now know that I am engaged. Yeah. Many of the blog readers here already know that I am engaged. However, some don't. This is for all y'all who don't know.

We are getting married. It'll happen next summer.

Yeah! So, for now, that's all.