I make things way more complicated than they need to be sometimes. I've always known this, and lately I've been searching for the simple solutions. Why did I have four different email addresses? I only need two: one for work and one for my personal life. And that's what I'm working toward now - I started up a new GMail account that's going to be with me for a long, long time. And I'm in the process of shutting down my old personal email accounts.

I'm late to the party; it turns out GMail now supports IMAP (i.e. mail synching with a third party application) and so does Mozilla Thunderbird, my email client of choice. So I created this new one email address(to rule them all...?) and I've been sorting my old email and then moving it to the new address. Sure it might be easier to start fresh, but what can I say? I am, after all, a digital hoarder. :) Right now I'm moving almost 9,000 LiveJournal notification emails into my new GMail LiveJournal tag, which is what prompted me to make this post. 9,000!? Wow, the good ol' days! This import is a slow process, though - at the current rate, it'll take about 5 hours.

So yes, simplicity... I look for it everywhere now. Take my eyes, or rather, my contact lenses. They're two-week soft lenses and I have always had the worst time keeping track of when I'm supposed to switch them out. I used to write it down but that seemed excessive. I should be able to remember whether or not I've been wearing these lenses for two weeks! My new rule? I change lenses on the 1st of the month. And then again on the 16th. Yeah there will be a couple extra days here and there, but so what? They aren't going to kill me. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Just a simple little rule that makes life easier... I know that there are more out there; I've just got to keep looking.

...You are now MINE! Farewell to rageistruth, a username that served me well for over a decade. But the simple truth is that I'm not nearly as angry as I once was and I'd been wanting a change for quite some time.

You all remember where "Why so serious?" comes from, right?



I've always been a big Batman fan. And The Dark Knight is by far my favorite Batman movie. I tried to get this username WAY back in 2008 - maybe even in 2007. And it was available too, but I procrastinated and when I went back an hour later to snag it, it was gone. Some guy registered it and then proceeded to never update the journal - not once - over the course of the 4-5 years that followed. It was annoying and I always regretted not grabbing the name while it was available... But I'm glad I have it now!

More coming soon...

Change has been on my mind a lot lately. For this journal in particular, I think it's time I gave it a new name. There's a specific username that I really want (no reveal yet; don't want to jinx it) and I had the opportunity to get it a few years ago, but I was too slow. Instead someone else swooped in and got it, and then never even posted a single entry with it. Frustrating.

Earlier this month I checked on it and lo and behold, the owner had deleted the journal! So it's currently in the "deleted but not purged" stage. Once it's purged, I can take ownership of the name. I've been checking it daily but so far it's still waiting to be purged - the note says it should be available within 30 days of the journal being deleted. I set up a notification and LiveJournal is supposed to email me when that happens, but let's face it... This place doesn't really have the best technical track record ever since the Russians took over. So I check it myself... And wait.

I'm not sure if it's really LiveJournal that I've been missing lately... But I know I definitely miss writing. So stay tuned! I've got more to say.

Remember back in 2010 how I gave up eating chips for Lent? I decided to try and do the same thing, but for a full year this time. So on December 31, 2010, I had some Combos with my dinner (a Publix sub). And that was it... The challenge was on at midnight!

I made it! One full year without eating chips. And it was tough, because I'm a damn chipaholic. Now, just how do I define "chips"? Potato chips, Doritos, etc. are a given, obviously. What about Cheez-Its and Combos? Well, I decided to define a chip as anything that I have gone into the kitchen for, poured into a bowl, and snacked on. So all those snacks I listed above were out.

It was tough. You don't realize it, but chips are everywhere! Tortilla chips they give you for free at various Mexican restaurants. Potato chips that came with your meal at other restaurants. Side item chips at Subway, Jimmy John's, and Jersey Mike's... Whew! Chips had become such a standard part of my diet that I started to have freaking dreams where I would be eating chips and suddenly remember my resolution, then it would dawn on me that I had broken it and I'd be so pissed at myself... And then I'd wake up. Good lord!

But hey... It's January 1, 2012 and I made it. :) I didn't have the same success with weight loss that I had during Lent, unfortunately... But other factors went into that. I'm proud of myself for making it a full year here. It shows that I do have willpower and if I put my mind to it, I can accomplish anything. 2012 is going to be an awesome year!

Wait! The billboards, and thus renowned nutjob Harold Camping, were WRONG!?


Oops.

These kinds of predictions always intrigue me because I like to sit back and watch how the believers react after nothing happens. Of course, this story is pretty sad because I've been reading profiles on Camping's followers, many of whom had been living their lives so that they would have nothing left by May 21. It's hard - but not impossible - to feel sorry for them. I hope they can pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives; this time a little bit wiser. Camping, predictably, has gone into hiding. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he resurfaces, proclaiming that we were all simply "spared" thanks to his efforts. Or something to that effect. "Ah, turns out I forgot to carry the one! The Rapture will be on November 22, 2016... So please keep sending in those donations."

Ugh.

I checked out the new trailer for Green Lantern over on Yahoo! Movies earlier today. Here's the video from YouTube:


Yahoo! Movies link if the above video doesn't work.

Impressive! I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Green Lantern is a solid #3 on the list of DC Comics' superheroes for me (behind #2 Superman and of course, #1 Batman), and it's nice to see him get a decent theatrical updating. I only have a few Green Lantern comics from when I was a kid... I started reading DC Comics right around the time they did their Death of Superman storyline. In that, Hal Jordan's home base of Coast City was destroyed and as such, there was some slight Green Lantern crossover. The event led to Jordan going insane, becoming a villain, and a new GL taking over, Kyle Rayner. That's when I read the first few issues of the "new" Green Lantern but I soon stopped. I was but a kid who usually got $5-$10/week in allowance. Between Supes, Bats, and GL I just couldn't stretch it that far; the former two took precedence.

The concept of Green Lantern always fascinated me, though. In my 8th grade junior high English class we did a project where each student was assigned a different God from Greek mythology and we had to create something based on them. I was assigned Ares, the god of war, and eventually ended up writing a short story about it. My story was about a normal guy who had no idea he was the last surviving descendent of Ares. Because of this, he's abducted by aliens and outfitted with a bionic glove that gave him powers similar to that of Green Lantern. Then he's taken to the aliens' home galaxy, to help them fight their war against a neighboring planet. I think I got a B on it. :-P "Not enough about Ares! - Ms. Spell" Oh well... But the influence was definitely there.

My favorite Green Lantern remains John Stewart, from the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited DC Animated universe. I remember fanboys bitching about Stewart being included over Hal Jordan, but they really did a good job with that character! In fact, I'd say he was the most flushed out character on the show.

Anyway, yeah, I'm psyched for this movie! One more month to go...

I built my current desktop computer back in January of 2008, and you know that for us geeks, any system over three years old is obsolete. Though this PC might be an exception; it's been the best one I've ever built... Of course, it could just seem that way because before I built it, I used an incredibly crappy Compaq.

So what do I want to do? Well, right now here's what I've figured out.

1) A solid state OS drive of at LEAST 128GB. I only have experience with SSDs on portable products (iPad, etc.), but I hear they're the way to go these days. What I'd like to do is partition it to where I would be able to dual boot into both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It's been SO long since I used a Mac operating system... Mid-90s, I'd say. The old Performa 6200! Man, that thing sucked. But Macs have come a long way since then, and I'd like to give them another try. Still, the dual boot is important to me... Gotta have Windows 7 on there.

2) 4TB RAID5 Hard Drive Configuration. This is why I don't care if my SSD is small or not (pause while mid-90s me laughs at 2011 me considering 128GB to be small). I'll have 4TB of hard drive space. RAID5 is pretty cool, and I've been learning more about it lately. Basically, I'll have three 2TB hard drives networked together. RAID5 ensures that data is written in such a way that if one drive ever fails, all you'll need to do is switch it out and you won't lose any data. The sacrifice is that you lose hard drive space - even though I'll have 6TB of space, I'll only be able to use 4TB. But come on... 4TB!? More than enough space! (Pause while future me laughs at 2011 me).

3) Intel processor. I've done the AMD thing for my past three computer builds. They're good, cheap processors. But this time, I want the best. And I've heard it's much easier to do the Mac/PC dual boot with an Intel processor - something about the kernel for AMD processors being a bit buggy. I definitely want to go quad-core this time around, but I don't want to go crazy and drop $1,000 for the latest and greatest. I looked at NewEgg and they have some Intel quad-core i7's for around $300 or so.

That's all I have for now... Not much, I know. But I do need to plan and budget accordingly. In the meantime, I have a bunch of Amazon.com gift certificates and was thinking about going ahead and picking up the three 2TB hard drives. My current computer's motherboard actually supports RAID5, so it would be nice to get that configuration going. If anyone has any suggestions for what I might need for this new super-PC, please tell me! I feel a little blind at the moment.

Linkin Park has always been somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine. I know technically, they're classified as hard rock or even nu-metal. But really, I think of them as pop metal. True metalheads would probably laugh at us for listening, then go back to headbanging to their Slayer or whatever... But hell, they write catchy songs and I dig 'em!

As with most music I like, I'm able to link them to certain parts of my life. In Linkin Park's case, I'll always remember my 21st birthday. Most people get to have a big, drunken blowout when they turn 21. I went to a movie by myself (American Pie 2) and then sat on the beach for a couple hours because none of my friends were in town (I was home for the summer from FSU) and my family was busy. My best friend at the time, Misti, was over 2,000 miles away and life was just, well... Depressing. I was driving around listening to Linkin Park's debut album, Hybrid Theory, when "Pushing Me Away" came on. And I dunno... It just spoke to me. I connected with it, and it made me feel better. Alive. And suddenly, things weren't so bad.

So, yeah... I'll always have a soft spot for these guys. I loved Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Collision Course, their collaboration with Jay-Z, is an album I avoided for some time. But now it's one of my favorites. Minutes to Midnight... Eh... Didn't care for it. There were only two songs, "Given Up" and "Bleed It Out", that had that distinct Linkin Park hook. The rest came across (in my opinion) as emo political bullshit. I checked out Dead By Sunrise, Chester's solo project, and dug that a lot more than Minutes to Midnight. And then I heard about A Thousand Suns...

I was really hoping for more Hybrid Theory/Meteora than Minutes to Midnight, but... Well, this album is weird, lame, and rarely awesome. Here's how it breaks down to me...

1) The Requiem - Obligatory introduction track. Heavily synthesized. Weird.
2) The Radiance - Filler track. Synthesized junk.
3) Burning in the Skies - A bit soft, but it has a nice beat, good melody, and has grown on me. Haunting vocals. Cool.
4) Empty Spaces - Filler track. It's freaking crickets. Bullshit.
5) When They Come For Me - It's basically Mike rapping. Would've worked better as Fort Minor.
6) Robot Boy - Sounds like a reject from Minutes to Midnight.
7) Jornada Del Muerto - Filler track. 90 seconds of experimental bullshit.
8) Waiting For The End - Just... SOFT! Again, sounds like a reject from Minutes to Midnight.
9) Blackout - Whoa. An awesome song! This is more what I was expecting. F'n rocks!
10) Wretches and Kings - Ugh, no. Four minutes of overly synthesized junk.
11) Wisdom, Justice, And Love - Yet ANOTHER filler track. WTF! 90 seconds of an overly synthesized voice saying the same thing over and over.
12) Iridescent - Another M2M reject. Getting old.
13) Fallout - Filler. Synthesized voice. Bullshit. Next.
14) The Catalyst - Oh, the single... Okay I guess. WAY too electronic but it grows on you.
15) The Messenger - Just Chester wailing for 3 minutes. His answer to Mike's Track 5 I guess.

That was it? I waited HOW long for this!? Were they trying to go for a record for filler tracks on an album or something? Sigh... Yet again, there are only 2 or 3 songs on a Linkin Park album that I want to listen to more than once. Sad.

Final rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I've been away from LiveJournal for a little over a month now. I can't really explain it... I just felt the need to unplug for a little bit. With all the other social networking stuff permeating the Net these days (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), I was becoming overloaded. Just needed a little break!

I also have to admit that leanasidhe's passing hit me pretty hard - particularly on LiveJournal. She was one of my closest friends on here and it sucks that I'm never going to get another comment from her. Or see another post from her. But... Such is life, I suppose.

Things are happening. Lots of things, actually. I have a ton of stuff to write about! And I'm sure that in time, I will. I just need to start somewhere, and that's where this post comes in. I'm looking forward to reconnecting! :)

A brief update on how I spent the Fourth of July holiday: I went down south to my parents' house. And for the first time in five years, I got to see the fireworks show at Cocoa Beach. There's nothing quite like watching fireworks over the ocean. :)


Happy birthday, America!

That's all for now. See ya soon.

Well the Take It Off, Tallahassee weight loss challenge ended last Friday - I just haven't been in the proper mood to update this journal since then. But I did well! Thanks to a final push (and the fact that I was able to do my last weigh-in naked), I lost a total of 19 pounds over the ten weeks. My family, Heather and her family, and a bunch of people from work sponsored me. When all's said and counted, I'll have raised over $300 for Jimmy Everett, a local guy who's battling Lou Gehrig's disease.

Something strange happened this week, though. I was preparing to turn in the money on Friday night and I went on the website the other night to see if I needed to do anything special when I dropped it off (turns out it has to be put in a sealed envelope). That’s when I saw that the money was due on May 18. They even had the awards presentation last night! I missed it. :-/ Here’s the weird thing... I went on the website a couple of weeks ago and put all the dates that were listed in my phone's calendar. I had 5/14 – competition ends, 5/21 – sponsor form/money due, and 5/27 – awards ceremony. I really think they went in after I looked at them and changed the dates. :( I hunted around online this morning and it looks like the winner raised about $3,000 or so. So I wouldn’t have won anyway, but still... It's very odd! I wouldn’t have gotten THREE dates wrong in my phone! I’m going to talk to the people at my gym tonight – I want to make sure the money I raised will still go to Jimmy if I give it to them. If not, I'll just donate it myself.

I'm currently trying to refocus myself. I've lost over 70 pounds, but lately I can feel my drive and willpower fading somewhat. I need to remember what I'm fighting for AND I need to stay out of the dreaded rut. I've been doing some research and have some pretty good ideas for different exercises that I can incorporate into my routine. I'm intrigued by free weights... I've used them some in the past (mainly for bicep curls) but I've always been more of a fan of the machines. Still, I'm looking forward to switching things up. :)

The journey continues...

I've held off on writing about this, because... Well, to be honest, I still can't wrap my head around it. :-/ My friend Erin, known here on LiveJournal as leanasidhe, passed away suddenly on Tuesday. She had a severe asthma attack that morning, which stopped her breathing and eventually her heart. Although the paramedics did everything they could, they weren't able to bring her back. She was only 30 years old and man, this just doesn't seem fair at all. These types of things never do, I suppose.

I could tell you that Erin was a very special person; a person with one of the kindest souls I've ever encountered. But most of you already know this. That's because SO many of my LiveJournal friends - armadillo_lover, billzy, jamesofdoom, nanbolein, and paradox528 - I met only because I was friends with Erin on this site. And I remember how I met her.

LiveJournal had just introduced a new Schools feature, and I signed up. Not many other people did, though. And the journals I visited, well... They just didn't seem all the interesting to me. Until I got to leanasidhe's. It turned out we went to the same elementary school (Terraset) in second grade. Should I add this person? I thought, No... She probably wouldn't want some stranger adding her out of the blue. My shyness got the better of me, I closed my browser, and I thought that would be that. But a week later, she replied to one of my journal posts.

i found you via the "schools" feature. we went to terraset around the same time, but i don't know if we ever knew each other. i was only there one year. anyway, you seem interesting... mind if i add you?

How about that? Of course I didn't mind! And we were off and running. Over the years I got to know Erin quite well, and I was fortunate enough to meet her in 2005. We were both visiting New York City and met up for lunch at a restaurant called Little Poland.



Erin was a shy person. But once she got to know and trust you, you became friends for life. I know how deeply she valued her friendships, even the ones that were online-only. A couple of years ago, I got this email from her...

hey you,

i thought i'd send an email just b/c i'm a silly person and well... i've been feeling like i'm reading people wrong. and i just want to make sure that we're ok. i feel like i haven't been as good a friend to people as i should be, and well... you're one of my good friends. i hope i haven't been a bad friend to you, what with my self-centeredness as of late. ok, ok, i know it's not really self-centeredness, but i feel like i haven't had energy for my friends and i regret that. we should talk soon, aim or phone...

love,
erin

I, of course, had no clue what she was talking about. Erin had always been a great friend, and I told her so. She was relieved. :)

Recently Erin hadn't been posting on LiveJournal much. She went through a divorce about a year and a half ago, and since then she just hadn't posted like she used to. I think this place reminded her of where she used to be, and she was trying her best to focus on the future. We still kept in touch though, through Facebook and Twitter. And she still read - it was always nice to receive a comment for her. Particularly when I desperately needed advice!

Tomorrow, Erin will be laid to rest. And I take comfort from knowing that she's finally at peace. I still don't understand why she left this world so early, but I do believe that things happen for a reason. I learned tonight that Erin's organs will be used to save the lives of four people - Erin's last gift to the world.

Rest in peace, Erin. I will never forget you.

Hey guys. I am SO behind on LiveJournal-related stuff! I can't believe it's been almost three weeks since I last made a post! :-/ Life has just been busy lately and with the steady competition of Facebook and Twitter, well... I just haven't been on LiveJournal much. So if you get some comments on older entries today or during the weekend, I hope you don't mind. :)

Things are going well with me! Heather and I are getting ready for our trip to Las Vegas. We fly out of Tallahassee next Tuesday and will get to Vegas that night. I can't wait! I got an awesome deal on Penn & Teller tickets for Wednesday night. $45 a seat and we'll be in the seventh row. I can't wait for that - love those guys! "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" is one of my favorite shows on TV right now. :) We want to see one other show while we're out there, and right now it looks like that's going to be Cirque du Soleil's "O"... Heather is going to call the Bellagio box office today to see about tickets.

The weight loss is still going well. I yo-yo'd a bit after Easter and was up four pounds at my weigh-in. :-/ Then the next week, I was down four pounds. Even Stephen! This week I was down another 3 pounds. And that was important to me, because I passed a personal milestone. I now weigh less than I did when I first arrived at Florida State in 1998. It's freakin' awesome. I'm totally on-track with my goal to lose 60 pounds this year. The year is about 1/3 over and I've lost just over 20 pounds - I'm doing it!

Tonight Heather and I are going over to our friends Becky and John's house for a poker night. It's close to Eric's (another friend of ours) 40th birthday, so the plan is to throw him a little birthday party. :) We went to a store called Party City a few days again and picked up a bunch of decorations - Heather was in HEAVEN! If she ever gets tired of being a paralegal, I really think she should be a party planner. She'd be awesome at it! :) Anyway, I'm hoping to win some money tonight. ;-) And then this weekend I'm going to be packing and prepping for Vegas. Gotta clean the house up, too. AND I may have to go into work for a bit. Sigh...

That's all for now... Good to see ya again, LJ. :)

Lent ended on Sunday and with that came a victory in a personal challenge I set for myself. :) For 40 days and 40 nights (well, 46 if you count Sundays), I gave up chips! It might not seem like much, but I was having chips with practically ever meal I ate... Not to mention all the late night snacks! There's nothing better than a bowl of Cheez-Its when you're surfing the 'net at night.

It was actually easier than I thought it would be! I just substituted something else - usually an apple or some other fruit - for the chips that I'd been having with my meals. The scale definitely moved in the right direction... I've lost 12 1/2 pounds since Lent began. Now, I was still working to lose weight! I get to the gym four or five times each week. So the scale probably would have moved regardless, but I don't think I would have been so successful if I were still downing a bag of baked Cheetos every few days.

I did have one major temptation... Last week I won a free plate of BBQ pulled pork nachos from Piggy's BBQ, one of my favorite restaurants here in Tallahassee. Those guys posted a picture of them on Facebook and they looked AMAZING. It was VERY hard to turn them down, but at that point I wasn't going to allow myself to fail.

So where do I go from here...? Well, I'm used to not eating chips now. I don't feel the need to buy them every week when I go grocery shopping, and I like the way the scale moves when I'm not eating them. :) So I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing! I've come a long way... In fact, the other day I was looking at old pictures of myself and couldn't believe how much I've changed. I'll probably do another post later this week and talk about where I was, where I am, and where I'm going. One thing's for sure: there's no turning back. :)

1) Which of your country's leaders (past or present) would you like to have a chance to sit down and talk to? Teddy Roosevelt. He's always been one of my favorite presidents and I still remember reading about his life in my junior high American History class. I think it would be VERY cool to sit a spell with him. :)

2) What job would you never want to have to do? Any job where I constantly have to work out in the sweltering Florida sun. One of the worst jobs I ever had was being a bagboy at Publix... The bagging part was fine. So was the cleaning the bathroom part (although that pushed it at times). But I would constantly have to go outside in the 98-degree, 99% humidity weather to collect the shopping carts from the parking lot. And that SUCKED.

3) How many kids do you have and what are their ages? If you don't have kids, do you think you want any down the road? If so, how many? I don't have kids right now, but I'd like some down the road. One or two. A boy and a girl would be ideal; to get a bit of both worlds. :)

4) Do you have a "blankie" or a favorite stuffed animal? What is it/what does it look like? LOL no, no "blankie" at the moment. :-P When I was a kid, my favorite stuffed animal was a lion who my parents named Leo. He was also the first stuffed animal I ever had - they bought him right after (or maybe even before) I was born! Leo's still around somewhere in my parents' house... Probably in a bag up in the attic. I should dig him out the next time I'm down!

5) What is your favorite flower? I've always liked roses. The look, the smell, being a symbol of the Dark Tower... Pretty cool. :)

My brother Brian texted me this morning to let me know that Conan O'Brien officially announced a theater tour and that tickets were already on sale! I looked through the dates and, of course, he's not coming to Florida. :( Damn this state! I got even more frustrated when I saw that Conan was going to be in Phoenix on April 30th and in Las Vegas on May 1. Heather and I are going to be in Vegas from April 27 through April 30, and out flight back goes through Phoenix! So not only do I miss Conan in Vegas by ONE DAY, I'm also in the city he's actually performing in for a night, but stuck at the airport!

So much for that... But all was not lost. :) The closest Conan is coming to Florida is Atlanta on June 14, which also happens to be the last night of the tour. Atlanta's about a 4-hour drive or so from Tallahassee, and I've made it a couple times in the past for Metallica concerts. Hey... This is CONAN! I gotta go! So I worked it out with Brian and Chris and the three of us bought tickets. :-D I tried to get the cheapest tickets ($55), but Ticketmaster literally put us in the last row of the theater. :-/ Screw that! I bumped it up to the mid-level tickets ($75) and suddenly we were in the orchestra section, 30 rows from the stage. SOLD!

I'm so excited about this...! Conan has always been one of my favorite comedians and I'm really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with for this stage show. :) In typical Conan fashion, he described it on his Twitter page as "a half-assed comedy & music tour." In all seriousness though, this guy could read the phone book up there for two hours and I'd still probably laugh my ass off. :-P

Does anyone out there have any good cleaning tips - or really, tips for reducing clutter? It seems like every weekend, my goal is to finally make headway on the clutter in my house. And every weekend, I fail! There's just so much of the stuff that I'm intimidated before I even start. This isn't a recent problem, either... It's something that I've struggled with my entire life. I don't understand why I accumulate so much clutter!

To give you an example, I'll describe by home office. I've got a nice computer L-desk, a German storage bed (twin size), and two bookcases full of books. Under the desk is a nightmare. I've just got piles of junk sitting there. Everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, Voltron toys, an Office Space kit, about 50 comic books, various computer and electronic manuals, and even old camera film from 10-15 years ago can be found under there. It depresses me every time I walk into the room! But that's just under the desk... There's also a huge pile of stuff right in the middle of the room; stuff that I moved out of my guest room when my brother moved in there back in August. The closet is full, containing my first "ancient" (i.e. from 1998) computer, boxes of comics and magazines, and bins of cables, gamepads, and other computer-related junk.

It's so freaking disorganized! I'm at the end of my rope and just don't want to put up with it anymore. I want to be organized. But for some reason, I have an extremely hard time getting rid of stuff. Why do I need a Gravis Gamepad Pro? My computer doesn't even have a gameport anymore; everything is USB now. But do I just throw it out? Maybe I should give it to Goodwill... Or sell it on eBay? Hmmm... And then I end up not even taking it out of the bin because I have no idea what to do with it!

I think I'm just going to have to let this stuff go... Just toss it. It's hard, but I want a fresh start. I've also got to stop trying to make this a "weekend project." It's WAY too much to handle on one weekend. I think what I'd like to start doing is take 30 minutes every night to just clean and sort. Toss what I don't use and keep the stuff I do. If I do that, eventually I should start seeing results.

Man, it feels like it's been forever since I did one of these! I checked and the last time I did a Friday Five was for August 29, 2008. So yeah, that IS a while ago! Here we go...

1) What's your favorite magazine? I don't really have one at the moment. The answer used to be easy: Maxim. But Maxim has really gone downhill lately and I won't be renewing my subscription when it expires. There's really not any one magazine out there that interests me enough to have a subscription to it... Usually if I'm in the bookstore and see something that interests me, I'll take it off the rack and just read it right then and there.

2) What book are you currently reading? I'll probably finish Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven tonight. It's been an interesting, short read. I'm also reading A Lion's Tale, Chris Jericho's autobiography, but I had to stop for a while because I accidental left it at my parents' house when I visited. My brother just brought it back to me last weekend.

3) What's the worst book you ever read? One Gallant Rush, by Peter Burchard. It's the book that the movie Glory is based on. I didn't understand it... Glory is easily one of my favorite movies. But this book is the most boring thing I've EVER read. It was like I was reading my high school history textbook every night! It became somewhat of a personal quest to finish, and I was so glad that I did!

4) What makes a book perfect for you? The story. If the story can hook me, then I'll sit there and read for hours. I know it's a good book when even after I'm done reading it, I think about it.

5) If you could buy any book right now, which one would it be? My answer could probably be viewed as a bit of a cop out, but I would buy The Complete Far Side by Gary Larson. The Far Side is one of my favorite all-time comic strips; up there with Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. I would LOVE to own the complete collection, but I never seem to have a spare $95 lying around.

I was cleaning up my kitchen last night and came across a bunch of gift cards. Some of them I think I've had since Christmas of 2008!

- Best Buy: $40
- Garnet & Gold: $25
- Home Depot: $50
- Amazon.com: $30
- Borders: $10

I'm bad about these things, I guess... I got burned one time with Blockbuster gift cards. I had $40 worth and so one day I went into the store and picked out a bunch of used movies and some PS2 games. I got up to the register and when I went to pay, the guy told me that the gift cards weren't valid because it had been over two years since they were issued. WTF... The really crappy thing was that there was no expiration date printed on them! I know I have to take some of the blame for waiting so long, but still... Damn Blockbuster. I love my Netflix subscription. :-P

So I have no idea if any of these cards have an expiration date, but I really don't want to find out. I was thinking about maybe going on a little shopping spree on Saturday... I'm sure once I'm in the stores, I'll be able to find SOMEthing to buy. :-) Not sure what... Maybe a new router at Best Buy. I'm getting sick of my current Linksys router dropping my Internet connection over and over. Does anyone have a good book recommendation for when I go to Borders?

Okay, I'm impressed. If you have a PlayStation 3, and XBOX 360, or a Wii - and a high-speed Internet connection - you will want to check out PlayOn if you haven't already. I downloaded the trial version earlier this week and will happily shell out the $40 it costs when the trial expires! It's pretty cool - the media server runs on your computer and has a bunch of built-in channels. You get Hulu, ESPN, YouTube, Netflix, CNN, and more. All you do is click on them and the flash videos at each site are automatically refreshed and listed, right on your TV. The quality has been really good for me; what the program is doing (I think) is playing the video in the background on your PC and then streaming just the video part of it to your PS3/XBOX/Wii, which displays it on your TV.

There's also a bunch of unofficial plug-ins floating around out there... I got one they other day that lets me play any South Park episode I want to, courtesy of South Park Studios. Another one for Crackle has a ton of TV shows and movies on it - all free (and legal). On Wednesday night I watched a classic episode of Married... With Children that I hadn't seen in probably 15 or 16 years. :-P

I actually have a multimedia PC in my living room, but honestly, the quality through PlayOn is a LOT better! I'm not sure why that is - maybe it's the PS3's HDMI connection to my TV. In any case, it's very cool to be able to watch stuff like this on my TV. Shoot, Comcast doesn't have Comedy Central in Hi-Def but The Daily Show and Colbert Report are right there on Hulu in widescreen. Awesome!

Happy birthday, dkfan81! I love ya lots, don't ya know? Heather is off getting a pedicure right now with her mom and her sister, but once they get back we're gonna go and have some fun. :-) I can't wait!

Edited to add:

I think Heather liked the presents I got her! I gave her a Bluetooth headset for her phone, Super Mario Bros. Wii, a framed picture of Chief Osceola and Renegade, and a gift card to Yankee Candle. :-) We also went out for a birthday lunch at Roy's Hot Dogs and a birthday dinner at Bayou on the Beach. Fun day!

Lost came back on Tuesday and as usual, it managed to completely blow me away. I don't think I've EVER been so enthralled by a show before! The two-hour premiere seemed to fly by and was over before I knew it. I'm going to miss it when it goes off the air, but damn I have to admit that it's going to be nice to finally get some answers! I'm hoping that when everything's wrapped up, they release a special complete series BluRay set... I would definitely buy it because one way or another, I am going to rewatch this show from beginning to end!

So yes, kudos to ABC for giving that great show a chance and sticking with it until the end... But on the other side of the spectrum, you have NBC. After FOX cancelled a bunch of my favorite shows (Futurama, Family Guy, Arrested Development, Titus, etc.), I really didn't think another network would ever be able to come close to matching my disdain for them. But NBC has done it and then some... The way they handled the late night fiasco has left SUCH a bitter taste in my mouth.

I've been a Conan O'Brien fan since the 1990s. He's easily my favorite late night host! So when I heard he was getting The Tonight Show, I was thrilled. Jay Leno has never been funny to me... In fact, the guy downright annoys me. His signature bits, Headlines and Jaywalking, require absolutely NO comedic skill to present - other people do all the work! So Conan on TV an hour earlier was a definite plus, and I've seen every episode of The Tonight Show with him as the host. The fact that Conan is now off the air and that Leno is coming back in March, well... It makes me SO freaking angry. Leno HAD his chance! Conan got seven months and had to deal with Leno's crappy 10PM show sucking away viewers.

The only shows I watch on NBC are the Thursday night comedy shows, and even those are slowly starting to fade in my eyes. The Office hasn't been funny for a while now (their "ALL NEW" clip show a couple weeks back didn't help things) and the other shows just aren't established enough. Even 30 Rock is hit-or-miss these days, relying on guest stars to bring in the viewers. NBC is bringing back some shows for the vacated 10PM slot, but I won't be watching. And I will NEVER watch The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. EVER. I'm really just ready for the network to fold completely... I would laugh more at that than I have at any of their Thursday night comedy shows, I'm sure!

I finally solved the mystery of the thumb paper cuts! A small paper cut kept appearing (it's probably happened at least six times now, if not more) in the exact same spot on my thumb. I would always notice it in the morning, so I figured I was doing something in my sleep. Maybe adjusting my CPAP mask or something? But no...

It's from when I take a shower at night! When I do (usually after going to the gym), I use a different shampoo than in the morning. Selsun Blue - not that I have a dandruff problem, mind you, it's just preventative. I bought a new bottle a while back and have noticed that it's notoriously hard to pop the cap every time I use it. I really have to dig my thumb in there to get it open.

That's what I did tonight... And yeah, the cap popped open. That's when I noticed I was bleeding and saw the latest cut on my thumb. It's never been a paper cut after all - it's always been the damn shampoo bottle! I never noticed it was cutting me; I only noticed this time because the cut started bleeding right away. This is also the deepest cut yet... Ugh, stings.

Well, now I know at least. :-P Note to self: !@#$ the shampoo bottle cap. Just unscrew that sucker from now on!

It really couldn't have ended any better, in my opinion.



That was the scene I had been hoping to see for over a month now; Bobby Bowden carried out on the shoulders of his players, leaving college football the way he deserves - a winner. It didn't look like it was going to happen early on, when West Virginia jumped out to a 14-3 first quarter lead. Noel Devine looked unstoppable; like he was just toying with the much-maligned Seminole defense. But something happened in the second quarter, like some force was out there saying No, THIS is how it's going to go...

FSU battled back and was down just a point at halftime, then took the game over in the second half. Once WVU was forced to rely on its passing game to catch up, it was all over. It was pretty emotional to see Bowden, victory secured, take off his headset for the final time and begin shaking the hands of the people surrounding him on the sideline, many of them his former players like Warrick Dunn, Chris Weinke, and Deion Sanders.

Bobby now exits and Jimbo Fisher takes over. I'm excited... He's already begun making big coaching hires. Eddie Gran from Tennessee is going to take over the running backs. Greg Hudson from ECU is taking over the linebackers. Mark Stoops from Arizona is taking over as defensive coordinator. Recruiting is sky high at the moment. Just yesterday FSU secured a commitment from Matt Elam, the state of Florida's top prospect. It's notable because Elam grew up a huge Gator fan and had been committed to UF for nearly a year. Stealing UF's bell cow recruit is HUGE, and with the commitments of Jeff Luc and Lamarcus Joyner, FSU is now getting the top three players in the state. The future is very, very bright. :-)

But for today at least, it was a time to reflect on the past. Thank you, coach Bobby Bowden, for everything you have done for the university, the community, and heck college football in general! You are the reason I will always be proud to call myself a Seminole.

Happy New Year, LJ! I hope the new year - heck, the new decade is good to you all!

It's that time of year again... I put the finishing touches on my Christmas letter last night. :-) I think it turned out well!

If you'd like to receive a Christmas card from yours truly, please leave a comment with your address - the comments will be screened so only I'll be able to see them. :-)