Relaxation

That is the definition of my next 12 days. I have quite literally close to nothing I need to do. We're staying in Nashville for New Years, so no road trips. The only thing I have scheduled is interning at Showdown on Monday the 8th. Glory.

My trip back to Nashville was uneventful. I got a coat rack, a shoe rack, and some pots at Ikea as I left the Cities. I stopped in Arcola, IL, for the night, and arrived back here a little after noon yesterday, after dealing with stupid Music City Bowl traffic from Kentucky.

Last night I made lasagna, which turned out really well. It's amazing how little technical work has to go in to making that; just kind of mix and layer and it comes together. We saw "The Good Shepherd" with Matt Damon last night too. I thought it was decent enough, extremely long, and I'm pretty sure if I was watching it on DVD at home I would have maybe fallen asleep at times. Good acting, maybe a bit too serious. They really covered a lot of material, some of which I thought was kind of obvious and unnecessary. There was really so much there it's hard to process whether it was good or not. And I think that fact should indicate to me that it wasn't great. For a movie to be great, it should contain enough information to be able to be processed in at most two viewings, and I highly doubt that I could do that with this one. It's not that I didn't understand what happened or the main ideas of the movie, those were simple enough. I think they just tried to have about a dozen too many themes going at once, and it came across as too thick and a bit too self-aware. But that's just me, Jon absolutely loved it. So maybe it's for you, you never know.

I've been hanging around this town

This post is mainly to make sure people know I haven't forgotten this thing over the break.

So I've been working a bunch. I'm up to 40 hours since coming home, which is just about the right amount. Another 7 hours tomorrow, maybe 5 on Saturday, and a few more next Tues/Wed. I will, barring my dad getting a really big job for Thursday or bad weather, be coming back to Nashvile on the 28th, maybe breaking the trip in half. Either way, I will be ready for whatever action is in town on the 29th. Looking like I'll be in Memphis for New Years...

I officially bought my last present tonight. Feels pretty good. AND, we actually have snow now! And by snow, I mean maybe a quarter inch. I feel like I'm in Nashville, getting all excited over a flurry. But I haven't had a brown Christmas that I can remember, so as long as this doesn't melt by Monday I am content.

Another winter day has come and gone away

I am home!

The actual driving was around 15 hours, which is making good time. I think the biggest help there was not having to wait in line at the one toll in Illinois. I did stop at my sister Sarah's boyfriend's house to have dinner with them and watch the Office Christmas special, which was hilarious as usual.

I slept until 9:30 or so this morning, and worked for my dad for 5 1/2 hours this afternoon. Abby had a basketball game tonight in Little Falls, which they won 58-39, and she played very well. I was proud.

Grades are in.
Kudos: I got an A in Investments! I thought this was a possibility, but it never really hit me that I could get that until it happened. I'd actually had a dream where I scrolled down to my grades and saw a C+, and that was freaking me out. But, thankfully, not all dreams come true.
Catastrophes: An A fricking minus in Intel Prop? What's up with that? Thanks for ruining my chances at a 3.95 Moser.

Tomorrow I will be working again, getting the oil changed in my car, and buying a coat at Steve and Barry's because I forget mine, along with all of my hanging clothes, in Nashville. Smooth, I know.

I listened to 8 hours of Christmas music on the road yesterday. It almost reached the point where I was sick of it. Not quite, but almost.

I was going to post about the Golden Globe nominees, but my sister needs the computer, so that will happen at a later date!

I picked Gibraltar Industries if anyone cares

Good Lord, it's 1:30 and the investments paper is complete (at least textually)! Now I just have to get up tomorrow and make sure I get my citations right and proof-read. And maybe study for my international business final, which is at 11.

But now it's time for sleep.

Is it Friday? Really?

It definitely does not feel like Friday. Much more of a Saturday feel, if anything.

My finals so far have been pretty predictable. The only possible exception is that my Intellectual Properties final was a bit more technical and specific than I anticipated, hence it was a bit harder than anticipated. I'm not worried though, so you shouldn't either.

Last night was a lot of fun, I went to Brown's Diner with Ben, Kendra, Wade, and Julie before my final and had a decent cheeseburger and good conversation. Then the IP final. Finally, Dave and Julie Hunt had college students over to hang out and have a study break, so Ryan and I went over a bit before 9 and we were the first ones there for the first bit. Somehow the topic of "Die Hard" came up, and I was forced to admit that I had never seen any of them. This just could not stand for Dave, so I saw Die Hard for the first time last night, and it was so much fun to sit there and read subtitles as more and more people came and the room got louder and louder, and laughing at the ridiculous dialog and crazy explosions and everything about it. Overall, a great time, I'm glad I went.

Today was... good. Yeah, I think that's the right word. I woke up around 9 and watched an episode of Alias from season 4 (I am now on disc 4). It has become much better and more interesting as the season has progressed. Then I got to talk to Italian Jess briefly before she headed off on another crazy Euro adventure or something like that. It was at this point that a decision needed to be made: I could work on my investments paper, which needed to happen at some point, or I could watch Die Hard 2: Die Harder, which Dave was kind enough to loan me last night (along with Die Hard With Avengeance). Obviously, I chose Die Hard. The second one was almost as entertaining as the first, the only thing missing was the great European accents.

I had a meeting with Sara at Gotee at 1, which went really well. We talked about their Grammy noms from yesterday (they had two as a label), and what worked for my schedule next semester. Then she said, "So when was the last time we gave you new music?" I mentioned Sonshine, and she started throwing CDs at me. When all was said and done, I walked away with 8 new albums, most of which should be excellent. I have been telling myself for months that I should get the House of Heroes album "Say No More," and it's bomb. Period. I was listening to it as I worked on my investments paper tonight. (I am done with 2 of 4 sections, and over half the work is done I think!)

Tomorrow will be great, with Reverb and writing in the morning and early afternoon, followed by cleaning the house and getting ready for the party at 7 tomorrow night that will be awesome. If you're around, come on over to Christmas at the Beech, it'll be loads of fun. And there'll be food. FREE food. And Home Alone. Can you pass on that? I doubt it.

Another one bites the dust

One week of finals. That's all I have to get through.

My last day of classes was about as thrilling as the first. I started out with our final group presentation in management communications, which went as well as I could have hoped. My group was extremely good at making crap up on the fly. I also had one of the guest critics say that one of my ideas was brilliant, which felt really good, not gonna lie.

I also received my favorite news of the week today: the due date for my investments paper got switched from Friday to Monday, changing it's status from nearly impossible to extremely doable. I've got the first section basically done, and I think the rest of the paper will be much easier.

Tomorrow I get to have free lunch with the Showdown crew as a thank-you for my semester. I'll be going down to Gotee on Friday to meet with Sara and get next semester set up.

I have no motivation. None at all. I'm ready for something fun.

The Final Countdown

Well I'm back in Nashville for the last two weeks of the semester. Seriously, two weeks from today I will have taken my last final and will be down to one semester until I join the real world. Unreal.

The rest of my time at home was good, pretty typical break-type stuff. Friday night I went to the Nisswa City of Lights Festival where they turn on all the Christmas lights in town and shoot off a bunch of fireworks. We missed the lighting, but the fireworks were pretty sweet. Then I hung out with Jenny for the rest of the night, which included chilling in the upstairs library at Adirondack with Abby and her friends, then watching Nacho Libre at my parents' house, which I did my best to stay awake during, but I'd been up since 4:30, so it was excusable.

Saturday I slept in until 10:30! So incredibly nice. My family went to Abby's first scrimmage of the year that afternoon, which they won pretty easily. That night we went to Grizzly's, where I had a nice pulled pork sandwich, and at night I went to Nikki's house to hang out with her and Maria, which included eating cookies and watching part of The Wedding Singer and all of The Break-Up (which was decent enough, not worth buying by any means).

Sunday we went to church, followed by pot roast and watching the Vikings actually win a game, as hard as they tried to lose it. Then, Abby, Sarah, John, and I went to the casino, since Abby is now old enough to do such things. I wasn't about to spend my own money there, so Sarah gave me $10, which I promptly put into a machine and turned into $49 on my second bet. I should have just cashed out that ticket, given Sarah her $10, kept $29, and spent the remaining $10, but for some reason that thought didn't cross my mind. I worked it all the way down to under $2 before eventually cashing out at $23, which I gave Sarah her $10 back from and spent the rest on a box of cookie dough that Abby was selling for a basketball fund-raiser. The girls both left with nothing, while John turned $20 into $53, so the boys made out just fine that night.

Monday was my travel day, which began with leaving the house at 5:45 to get to the airport for my 9:50 flight. I got to the Humphrey terminal around 8:30, and went right through security, so I watched a few episodes of Friends in the terminal. The flight to Milwaukee was great; if you ever get the chance to fly Midwest take it! Their seats are amazingly comfortable and roomy and they serve warm chocolate chip cookies for the snack! I loved it. Unfortunately, I had a 3 hour layover in Milwaukee, where I purchased the nastiest airport pizza ever, watched more Friends, and worked on the PowerPoint presentation for my principles of management class on Wednesday. Once back in Nashville, I worked at Reverb, picked Jon up from the airport, and pretty much went to bed.

The thought that I only have to go to the classes I had today twice more before their respective finals was so amazingly great, I loved it. My big projects left:

Wednesday - Group presentation in princ. of mgmt
Tuesday 12/5 - Group presentation in mgmt comm
Wednesday 12/6 - Princ of mgmt final
Thursday 12/7 - Business ethics final, Intellectual properties final
Friday 12/8 - Final paper for investments due (this will kill me. seriously)

I'm not exactly sure when my int'l business final is, I should find that out. And I have to go to class on Tuesday the 12th, even though my group isn't presenting, which I am completely fine with. After that, I'll probably head home on Wednesday or Thursday. So, I'm about two weeks from my return trip. Awesome.

I Heart Black Friday

A bit of an overview on my break so far:

Wednesday - My flights home were both pretty uneventful, as was the drive to Brainerd. We went to the Thanksgiving Eve service at Lakewood, and then Abby and I went with a bunch of people to Deja Vu. I had heard of, but not seen any real previews for, this film, so that was kind of fun to have no idea what the movie was about going in. Overall, a decent movie, worth the $7 it costs here, not sure I would pay $9 in Nashville though.

Thursday - I was able to sleep in until 9:15, when Abby was yelling for me to wake up from upstairs. We played a game of Spades before heading down to my cousins' place, a bit over 2 hours southeast of home. We were there before everyone else, and since it was so nice (over 50 anyway), we played Pounce/Nerts on their deck for an hour. We all got a little cold, so we retired to the basement to play DDR. Now I'm decent enough at DDR, and can rock it up on light mode. My cousins, on the other hand, are ridiculous. They were getting perfect scores on heavy mode. I would need to practice for quite a long time before I could be decent at standard, let alone heavy. A little humbling, not gonna lie. It was still fun though, and that's all I care about.

The rest of the family began arriving shortly after we finished, and the rest of the day was kind of a blur. I know it involved some good food, and I remember something about a bunch of first graders running around and piling on top of me, Abby, and Jess.

Friday - This day began at 4:45. It's become a bit of a family tradition to go shopping early on Black Friday, and we have perfected our system. We began at Best Buy, where apparently people had begun waiting in line at 3 PM the previous day. When we enter the store, Sarah automatically gets in line, which is already 30-40 people deep. Abby and I fan out in the store at this point, searching for the cheap DVDs we are looking for. This year we had the added bonus of Sarah's boyfriend John. He was looking for a microwave, and we lost him early on in the process. By the time Abby and I were ready to go, Sarah was at the front of the line, but John was nowhere to be seen. We searched around for a bit, and he eventually appeared out of the mass and started making his way up to Sarah's spot in line. This seemed to piss off a bunch of people in line, and probably rightfully so, but it doesn't really matter, because he got to her and they checked out. We were in and out of there in roughly 15 minutes, not bad at all.

Next up was Wal-Mart. Abby and I were the only ones who wanted anything there, so we walked around and Sarah and John went over to Kohls. The search for cheap DVDs in Wal-Mart seemed to be going nowhere; we looked in every potential place that they would normally put cheap movies and found nothing. As we were about to give up, Abby found an employee map of the store and we realized where the DVDs were: Frozen foods. I don't know why we didn't think to look there first, but we headed over and, sure enough, that's what we found. We picked through them, then got out of there.

By now it was 5:50 (we wasted far too much time at Wal-Mart). Abby needed to get some sleep before basketball practice, so she dropped me of at Kohls, where Sarah and John were waiting in line. That line took about 20 minutes to get through, so Target had been open for 20 minutes before we finally got there. I walked straight to the movies and picked up a few great deals, then found the couple finding toys for John's nieces and nephews. Checkout lines at Target were relatively short, and we got out of there by 7.

Next up was a quick stop at Fleet Farm, where I bought a Lasso Golf set (Polish Lawn Darts). I'm hoping it will fit in my luggage so I can bring it back with me now. After Fleet, we moved to Herbergers, where Sarah was going to get me part of my Christmas present, a 4-piece Pyrex bakeware set. Instead, we left with two 19-piece Pyrex sets, which we will be giving each other on Christmas. Then we met my parents at Burger King for a nice break of Croissan'wichs and bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits.

Having already shopped for 3 hours, we headed home to get ready for the day. I took a shower, and then my mom and I headed back to Herbergers around 9. I got my hair cut at 10 (much needed), and then we went back to Herbergers and hit the rest of the mall, followed by stops at Kohls, Bethany Bookstore, and the bank. We finally got back to the house at 12:30.

In the 3 hours since, I had lunch and went back to Target to get a few more gifts. At this point, I am finished with Sarah and Katie, and need to pick up a few more things for Abby and my parents. Beyond Lasso Golf, I got the following items for myself:

The Simpsons Season 5 ($16)
Friends Season 1 (14.99)
Friends Season 2 (14.88)
Arrested Development Season 3 (9.99)
You've Got Mail (3.88)
Dumb and Dumber (3.88)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (3.44)

So not a bad deal on the whole. My shopping is not complete, for sure not for presents, and possibly not for myself. I guess we'll find out.

Homeward bound

The past few days have been odd. And good.

Saturday, after Reverb, I went to Susan's to watch Ohio State beat up on Michigan (I kind of hope they have a rematch for the national championship and Michigan wins). We also ate a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. It was absolutely delicious, and we watched A Christmas Story afterwards, which I was reminded has one of the lamest endings in cinematic history. Still good overall, but it falls flat at the end. It should really just end with the duck having its head chopped off. That would be perfect.

Sunday was a typical Sunday. I had one of my worst Fantasy weeks ever, and yet still beat Doug by some miracle. That keeps me in second place behind Tyler, who I need to lose at some point because there is no way I can catch him in points. And Donovan McNabb had to go and get hurt, so I will rely on the newly-acquired Philip Rivers to guide my team to victory.

Community group on Sunday night was a good time too. That group is so different from my group last year, it's practically night and day. Yet both are good. This one has definitely grown on me as time has passed.

Yesterday was kind of pointless. I went running in the morning but my ankles started hurting quite a bit halfway through, so I walked the second half. I should maybe get some actual running shoes. Showdown was Showdown, as always. Then Reverb struck, followed by a session of watching the Office at the Gazebo, which was supposed to turn into Nerts at some point but never did.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving break is destined to be a weird day for school. I had three of my four classes canceled, so I attempted to sleep in until 10, which apparently will never happen again. I did make it to 9 though, so I guess I can live with that. The rest of my morning consisted of hanging out at the house until class at 12:30, which was followed by more hanging out at the house until 3, when I went to take Ben to the airport. Then, Reverb. Apparently no one worked today, but I figured I was going to do nothing at home, I might as well get paid to do nothing. I even finished my last quiz for Principles of Management, so I guess you could say I was productive.

Now I sit in my living room, after eating Tony's pizza for dinner, and I'm kind of bored/slightly contented. Jon got the Beatles' new Love album, which I had streamed off their website and am pretty fond of. A nice new take on their stuff, although some may see it as an abomination. That's their opinion, I guess.

Tomorrow I will leave my house around 7 and arrive in Minneapolis at approximately 12:30. That should put me in Brainerd at 3:30 or so. Should be great to be home.

Two academic notes:
1. I have to brag on my little sister, who rocked it up and got a 30 on the ACT! She's pretty good at stuff.

2. I changed my schedule for next semester. I dropped Legal Issues in the Music Industry, which means that I don't have to be in class on Tues/Thurs until 12:30. I will now be taking Music Supervision in Film and TV Mondays from 5:30-8:15. This class is at a much better time and seems a billion times more interesting. I just hope it doesn't end up sucking. We'll find out come January, I guess!

Moulin Rouge on ice

So I thought I had this brilliant beyond brilliant idea: I was going to wait in line all day on Thursday and get at least one and hopefully two Playstation 3's, then re-sell them on e-Bay for inflated prices and make a fortune. The plan was fool-proof, it was going to work.

And then I found out there are a ton of people in Nashville without lives, or at least less of lives than me. Apparently there were more people in line by Wednesday night than systems available at every store in Nashville, so I was stuck trying to find one online at midnight, which also turned out to be hopeless.

Depressing.

I'm not exactly sure what I did all day yesterday. I know it involved a lot of driving around with Matt and stuff, but the specifics are all blurry. Last night, however, was great.

We went to see "Happy Feet" last nigth for Tracy's birthday, and it was not what I expected at all. It was kind of like "Moulin Rouge" on ice. The music was really really good, exceptional even. They took a bunch of songs, both old and new, and did some mashing, some remixing, and some updating. The story was ok, nothing spectacular, but that was really secondary to the music. I would definitely recommend seeing this movie if you want to have a good time or want to feel happy coming out of the movie. Hence the name.

I finally got to play Nerts for the first time this semester last night too. I bascially dominated (which will happen when Jess is off in Italy).

I have a few pieces of work I need to finish for classes before Thanksgiving, but half of my classes on Tuesday are canceled, so I only have two classes until a long weekend of freedom.

Tower is down to 40% off of everything now. Thus, I now own a volume of the Brak Show on DVD and the soundtrack for Avenue Q.

It's like looking into the face of God and seeing him smiling back at you, saying, "You are my most wondrous creation."

Sunday night, Ben and I went to the greatest show on Earth: Mute Math.

They were playing at City Hall, and the show started at 8, so we got there at 8 in order to minimize the down time. They surprised us with not 2 but 3 openers, so we were stuck listening to some crap band for a half hour that included a DJ that wore a koala mask and stroked fake birds during the set. Never did catch their name.

Next up was Jonezetta, who did a fine job with their dance/pop/rock, which we decided was The Killers meets Brandtson. The final warm-up was The Whigs, who were pretty disappointing overall.

But none of that really mattered once Mute Math took the stage. Musically, they were just as spectacular as last spring. Production-wise, though, they took it to another level. They had three banks of 10 sets of florescent bulbs that blinked during specific songs, they had strobes in the back, and a massive bare bulb that hung from the back of the stage. It was dang good. In the encore, Paul weant around and smashed the florescent bulbs with mallets, and it was so rock and roll it was great. That's pretty impressive when a techno/arena rock band can be rock and roll.

And then Monday happened. And by happened, I mean just kind of hung there. I got up early (6:45) to register for classes. After 20 minutes of fiddling with BIC and Classfinder, I was able to get in the classes I need, which means I have the following schedule this spring, all on Tuesday and Thursday:

9:30-10:45 - Legal Issues in the Music Business
12:30-1:45 - Strategic Management
2:00- 3:15 - Record Company Operations
3:30- 4:45 - Artist Management

And that's all she wrote. I will now be able to intern with, most likely, Showdown on Monday and Gotee on Wednesday and Friday. It's gonna be dang sweet, I can hardly stand it.

I was unable to go back to sleep after registering, so I went running, which I've been doing MWF for a couple weeks now. The difference this time is it was cold. Not Minnesota cold, by any means, but in the 30s nonetheless. I made it through the three miles in record time, mostly because I was cold and wanted to get inside but also cuz I was just numb.

Showdown was Showdown as usual, and I took a quick nap before my Reverb shift last night. Once home, I made my first ever attempt at meatballs. They turned out ok, but nothing to write home about. I need to add more salt, use a little more oatmeal, and I would love to try them in a crockpot sometime. That means, however, that I need a crockpot. Maybe I should add that to my Christmas list.

Did you know you can buy/sell e-mail adresses on eBay?

I go home a week from tomorrow, which is extremely weird to think about but will also be extremely fun, so I'm excited. I also have a secret plan I am hatching for Thursday night that may be the most ridiculous/lucrative thing I've ever done. I'm trying my hardest not to get my hopes up about this, but it has all the potential in the world to be amazing. I guess we'll find out by Friday!

Adventures in video rental

I am watching Mission Impossible 3 again, reminding me of how good that movie is.

Last night we had a bit of an adventure. Matt, Jon, and I went to get Chinese and rent a movie. So, we get our food to go (which was excellent) and head over to the Movie Gallery on 8th right before it becomes Franklin Road.

This place was ghetto.

We decided on a movie remarkably quickly (Inside Man, which was as good as the Chinese), and get in line. Well, the one lady working the store spent the first 10 minutes we were in line going through some paperwork and forms with a woman for some reason. The next guy, she spent about 5 mintues with and then he got frustrated and left without anything. Now there's just one more customer between me and freedom. She has coupons and gift cards and all sorts of things. The cashier never really seemed to know exactly what she was doing. She got kind of flustered and had to ring the woman up twice. So, after 20 minutes waiting to rent this movie, I got the front of the line. Our initial exchange went like this:

Cashier: Do you have a membership with us?
Me: No
Cashier: Would you like to start an account with us?
Me: Not really.
Cashier: Well we can't rent to people who don't have an account with us...
Me: Ok then, I'll get an account.

We spent the next 5 minutes going over my address and how I heard about the store and all of the special offers they had (Did you know they recently raised the rates on new releases from $3.89 to $3.99? But it's OK, because they now offer oone free new release with the rental of three others). She eventually got around to ringing up the movie, and I walked out of there at least a half hour later than I should have. Matt and Jon spent most of the time laughing at the situation. And I concluded that, once I return this movie by Wednesday, I will never step foot in that store unless it is an emergency. Blockbuster.com all the way.

My day at Reverb has consisted of hanging out with Ben for a few hours watching the Office, watching MI:III, and making a preliminary Christmas list because my sister apparently wants to get her shopping done early.

Tonight will include Country Music Showcase (please don't suck) and a long-overdue Nertz party at Julie's. Let the games begin!

'Twas the best of times

Things in Nashville today are quite amazing. I'm not just referring to the fact that it is 5 PM and my desktop weather guide still says 74 degrees either.

I remembered last night as I was reading before bed that I had an appointment with Tina Dishman, resident expert on all things graduation requirement related in the music business department, at 9 this morning. I knew going into the meeting that there was the potential, if everything went my way, that I could come out of this meeting only needing 14 credits this spring. Lo and behold, Belmont did not screw me over, and I will be taking 4 3-credit classes and a 2-credit internship this spring. That is approx. 4 credits fewer than any semester I've had since fall of freshman year, and by far my lightest schedule ever.

It will be very easy to fit these classes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, possibly all in a row even. That allows me to intern at Gotee (which is a for-sure thing now) two days a week and spend a day at Showdown helping with publishing. That place is connected to so many places in the industry, and they're really nice and the work has kind of grown on me, so I figure why not right?

My regular class schedule today consisted of a test in Mgmt Comm, which was rather easy, followed by lectures and discussions in Intl Business and Investments. I skipped Business Ethics for the first time this afternoon, and I feel no remorse whatsoever. I also found out last night that I convinced my ethics prof that one of his test questions was wrong, giving me an extra 2 points on my last test and keeping my hopes of an A in that class alive. That's really the only grade I'm mildly worried about, besides my grade from Gonas, and that will essentially come down to the 15-20 page final paper he's having us write. Should be a grand time.

My mom told me yesterday that they're dropping the price on our house (it's still for sale, in case you've forgotten), and the new price is so low that if someone doesn't buy it they're an idiot. That means that I may be doing some packing when I go home for Thanksgiving, and there's a better chance at Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I've been listening to Christmas music since September (although when do I really stop during the year?), and it just can't be topped. Even on a sunny day like today when I wore shorts and was feeling quite warm in a long-sleeve button up, I can still listen to my "Best of Christmas" playlist on iTunes and not feel stupid. Good times.

And now tonight I get to watch "The Office." I'm not sure what's going to happen though, this episode is called "Branch Closing." So unless a miracle happens, I have a feeling we're gonna see some major changes in the next few weeks. The best aspect of this whole turn of events is that it makes the chances of a Pam/Jim reunion infinitely better in the near future. Guess we'll wait and see!

And a side note: I like the fact that "Lost" isn't going to just show reruns mixed in with new episodes, but three months is far too long to wait for new episodes, even if the ending of this last one wasn't spectacular, as much as they tried to make it a cliff-hanger.

The most shocking news. Ever!

This post was going to be all cool and crap, because I was going to do a print screen on the cnn.com front page, but I can't find it on this stupid Reverb keyboard. Anyway...

Britney Spears filed for divorce from Kevin Federline, citing irreconcilable differences.

I like how, on the day that the future of our country is shaped, THAT is the breaking news on CNN.

Behold My Heart

Its another Saturday evening at the Beech House. Being filled with three college students and one recent college grad, you'd think that everyone would be going crazy, off to parties, and in a general state of excitement and adventure, right? Not so much. It's 9:30, and as I write this all three of my housemates are in various stages of getting ready for bed. I, being at least one year younger than all of them and of a stubborn will, am being as defiant in the face of fatigue as possible. I am in my room, but the door is open, and I am listening to a rather enchanting album, Paul McCartney's "Ecce Cor Meum" (Behold My Heart), a classical-style disc with five lengthy tracks that is very serene, relaxing, and well done. Apparently Sir Paul has done several classical works, some even award-winning at that.

My journey to get this disc begins in July, when I enrolled in Investment Portfolio Management as an exploratory endeavor. Once in the class in August, Dr. Gonas told us that we needed to have access to the Wall Street Journal every day, and since I didn't want to have to go online through the Belmont library every day, I bought the 15-week subscription. I do a spotty job of actually the newspaper now, however, so it was by sheer coincidence that I ended up looking in the "My Journal" section in late September, where they included an article on said disc and McCartney's classical work. I made a mental note to find that someday, and today happened to be that day.

I worked at Reverb from 10-3 (again, a few customers, no sales). Around 1, Ryan called asking if I wanted to go to an electronics liquidation sale downtown at Municipal Auditorium, and I thought that sounded like a great idea, so we piled six of us into my Taurus and drove through Nashville until we found a parking space, which ended up about 3 blocks from the auditorium. We walk around the entire auditorium trying to find this sale and only seeing throngs of pre-pubescent cheerleaders wearing too much make-up and traveling in packs. Eventually we find the entrance and discover that there's a $7 entrance fee, and since none of us had cash or wanted to pay, I suggested we go to Tower Records, which is closing soon and is having a huge clearance sale to get rid of inventory. We wandered around the store for 45 minutes and I found nothing that was at a price that made it a must-buy, so I was ready to leave. Then, as Tim was buying his stuff, I remembered "Ecce", and so I went on a whim to the composer section. Lo and behold, it was there!

And that is the story of how I came to own Paul McCartney's new album. Quite exciting if you ask me.

Time goes by so slowly

Another week has come and gone. I got my investments mid-term back, which I got a 96 on! I had a hard time believing it, but it happened. The class average was 80, and Gonas said that the scores were pretty divided between high scores and low scores, so I rocked a test that a bunch of finance majors got D's on. It doesn't make me want to add the major, but it did kind of make my day.

Jim missed his chance on The Office last night, and it pissed me off. Pam better not move back to Roy.

I'm going into the studio tonight to record vocals for Matt's second project, which is a cover of "Over My Head" by The Fray. Hopefully it turns out good, I think we might try some weird harmonies or something just for fun, which probably won't get used but will still be fun to try.

I'm not looking forward to Reverb tomorrow. Not that I ever do, but more so than usual for some reason. Just have to suck it up, I guess.

I think I'm gonna buy MI:III today. Such a good movie.

This year, for the first time in a while, I bought jeans that I don't like how they fit. I typically end up getting the same kind every year, and they worked great, but I decided to try something else this time, and I really only like how one pair fits right now. That pair, however, fits amazingly. It's kind of disappointing though, I think I might have to buy another pair, hopefully like the good pair I got at Aeropostale. I might have to wait until I go home, I haven't shopped at a mall since I got down here.

Trying to decide if I want to see Borat or not. Do I go to that now or wait until next week and see Stranger Than Fiction, which I know I want to see. Such a dilemma.

AND, I'm trying to justify buying a Post Secret book, which I realistically can't so I have to wait until Christmas for that.

Winning is a good deodorant

Thank you, John Madden, for the above quote from the Cowboys/Panthers game tonight.

Another lazy Saturday

My gosh. This has been, quite possibly, the slowest shift I've ever had. I've been here for 5 hours and had four people come in, one of whom was Ben, another thought we sold clothes for some reason, and a couple who walked in, looked around for 2 minutes, and walked out. Simply stunning.

And, while I type this, I've had two more couples come in, bringing my total to 8. Just when I thought I could whine for awhile, things get better. And, I'm winning at SimGolf, so life is good.

It's happening. Slowly.

I'm switching up the format, I think I'm pretty close. Trying to get rid of the blue line along the sidebar, let me know if you don't see it. I'm also gonna try and find a better picture for the sidebar. Any other suggestion on things that need to change or could look better, let me know!

Oh, gravity, why can't we seem to keep it together?

I am now in Blogger Beta. I’m hoping this doesn’t make too much of a difference, but it will let me label stuff and eventually do other cool things too, so I figured I should just go for it.

Facebook added a “share” feature today, which I’m not exactly sure how it works, but I posted the America We Stand As One video on there, and I think other people can see that now. Possibly. Kind of confusing to start off with.

I had my investments mid-term yesterday, which went decently well. I know that I was wrong on part of one question, but I felt really good about the rest of it. Plus, Gonas likes to put things on a curve, so I’m not worried. All I have left for that class now is a massive out-of-class final paper that I think he expects to be 15-20 pages. Huh.

This weekend will include a little more Reverb than normal. I’m covering a few hours today and a few extra hours tomorrow, which should be loads and loads of fun. I've decided that, between my 18 hours of class and roughly 12 hours at Reverb, I spend at least 30 hours a week just kind of suffering through waiting for the event to pass. Kind of crappy way to spend 4 and a half months, but I need the credits and I need the money, so I will suffer through.

I officially applied for graduation today, which I didn't even know I had to do until yesterday but is completely done now. Weird.

The rest of my weekend, beyond Reverbage, is pretty wide open. I'm going to catch up on season 3 of Lost, go to the UM Harvest Party, and watch Nacho Libre, among other things. If that doesn't sound fun-filled, I don't know what does.

Mountain men on the run

Not much time to post right now, I NEED to study for my Investments midterm on Thursday. I don't think this will kick my butt, but it should be pretty difficult.

Camping this weekend was great, we all had a great time. I put some pictures on flickr, but if you want to see all of them, check out the facebook album here.

I have been working on this sheet music puzzle for 10 days now. I'm probably 2/3 done. I think I'm that far anyway. While doing this, I've been listening, at least for the last few days, to my iTunes library ordered by track number, then alphabetically by album, starting at the 7's. It's a really interesting way to listen to music, I must say. Worth trying.

Now I need to go learn about mutual funds. My great victory of the weekend was finally understanding the difference between a call option and put option and how they work. It only took 2 months.

Smells like fall

Well this weekend was a very welcome respite. I saw a great movie (The Departed)and a great concert (House of Heroes/ Family Force 5 @ 12th and Porter). I proved my (and Ben's) supremacy at Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Vol. 2. I began what will be one of the most difficult puzzles of my life (intricate, four-part sheet music). I put up Christmas lights in the Nintendo fort, too.

And all that doesn't include the large amounts of nothing that I did, like watching football, surfing the net, eating Little Caesar's, etc...

Now I'm back to the grind tomorrow, but it shouldn't be too bad. Most of my classes had big things due right before break, so I don't have too much to do. Which is great, because my investments mid-term is next Thursday, and I need to start prepping for that soon.

The guys and I are going camping this weekend at Doug's house. It's gonna be cold. It's gonna be wild.

The end of an era

And, the pictures of the Nintendo Fort:

Maybe I'm crazy but...

Is anyone else mesmerized/creeped out by the two shadows dancing back and forth across the mortgage ads on the net? The girl's dreads kind of flail about, and they just dance back and forth, back and forth, with no real reason for even being there. I mean, what does dancing have to do with mortgage rates? Especially the type of dancing they do? It's just weird, and freaks me out every time I see it.

Breakage

My half-week of too much class officially ended 40 minutes ago with the completion of my principles of management mid-term (which was really easy). On the whole this past week has had a lot of assignments and tests, but it was much easier than anticipated. Lovely.

I feel like I should do something productive with this fall break. So far, my to-do list includes:
1. Buy a bed (as usual).
2. Make Funfetti cake cookies
3. Finish Ted Dekker's "Obsessed" so I can maybe think about buying the new Grisham.
4. Do the other puzzle my parents got me for my birthday.
5. Finish season 2 of Lost (2 episodes to go)
6. Catch up on season 3 with streaming episodes on abc.com
7. See FF5 (again) on Saturday
8. Enjoy the cool weather we're going to have (nothing like home, where it snowed today and temps tonight are supposed to get into the single digits)
9. Try out the bacon-wrapped pork I bought today. (it looks soooo good)

Other things I'm contemplating:
1. Writing a bad techno song with Ben.
2. Making a post card to send to postsecret.blogspot.com
3. Outlining what I would write if I wrote a book.
4. Winning every tournament on Tiger Woods for GameCube.

Does that seem like much? Oh, I want to clean the house too, since I'm going to be the only one here for long periods of time so it will be easier to get things done. Once I list it all out, I think it sounds relatively productive, I guess.

Apparently I'm going to see The Departed tomorrow a few guys. This movie looks quite good, I think it'll be a winner. And I might just go and buy "Prarie Home Companion" tomorrow too, since it's good and on sale.

If anyone has any great and wonderful ideas for me to do, I am all ears.

At the behest of my sister

Sorry Katie, I've been kind of busy lately. But I have some free time now, so here we go!

This past weekend was busy, long, and quite good. I spent Friday working on some homework and hanging out at the house. Friday night the Harrell's had all of Jess' friends over for an Italian dinner, even though she is in Italy, and it was a ton of fun. The food was great, and we got to just hang out in their backyard on the coolest night of the fall so far.

At some point, I think it might have been Thursday night, I found out there is a hole someplace in my air mattress. Suck. I WILL be buying a bed this week, mark my words.

I spent Saturday morning at Reverb, and the whole time was spent on homework, thus I didn't have time to post on here. After work I went over to the Gazebo and watched a few episodes of "Lost", which ended with one of the most ridiculous events thus far. And then Ben had to go to the Christian Showcase. I won't have time to find out what happens next until at least tomorrow night. It hurts. Pete and I went to the showcase, which was much better than Ben made it sound like it was going to be, and then I went home and went to bed early. Like 10. That was crazy.

I got up on Sunday and went to Rolling Hills, where I hung out with 3 and 4 year olds at the 9 AM service. Those kids are so much fun, it's one of my favorite parts of the week. After church my community group went out to lunch at Otters. I love the chicken strips there, and the Texas toast is great too. So great, in fact, that I bought two extra pieces after I finished my meal, and waited up front a good 15 minutes until I asked them where it was and they brought it to me. So I missed out on most of the social time, and that was unfortunate.

Last night was great! Two words: John Mayer.

Jon got free tickets to see him and Sheryl Crow at Starwood. We were pleasantly surprised, albeit confused, to see John open for Sheryl. This allowed us to get out of there with minimal traffic and at a sensible hour, since none of us really cared to see her perform. Mayer played an amazing set, he is so good on electric guitar. It's scary, really. I was mildly disappointed that he didn't play "Bold As Love", since I figured he would have rocked it so much. Alas, it was still a great show.

Although, we did end up sitting in front of four high school girls. At a John Mayer show. We knew it was a bad sign when they were playing their John Mayer ringtones for each other before the show and talking about cheerleading practice (they seriously did this, no joke). As soon as he started his set, they stood up behind us and started screaming out lyrics as loud as they could and shrieking in ecstasy anytime he dang falsetto. They also made sure to sing out extra loud any time he cursed, which was an added bonus. Needless to say, I spent the first several songs laughing hysterically at their antics. It was like having "Nashville's Best" live in your ear. Splendid indeed.

This morning I wrote a paper for business ethics that turned out much less painful than I imagined. I headed over to Showdown for an hour, which was good, and I was actually productive the entire time.

Dr. Gonas got our investments class involved in this University Stock Challenge at the Loew's Vanderbilt hotel. It was actually pretty fun, since it wasn't worth anything and my team did decently well, considering 2 of the 4 of us didn't show up, so we were at a complete disadvantage and still finished up over 100%.

Now I'm here at Reverb, finishing this up and watching The Office before I head back to the house to finish up prep for my International Business debate tomorrow and maybe even some investments homework. There is far too much happening tomorrow, I won't even get into it. Wednesday brings Showdown during the day and a management mid-term in the evening.

Then, freedom.

My fall break will be spent, most likely, doing a whole lot of nothing. I will buy a bed, and I've almost convinced myself to buy a twin instead of a full, since it's not only cheaper, but I also wouldn't have to pay them to deliver it, it could be transported in a friend's SUV. We'll see how this all shakes down.

And now, I'm out.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky as gray (probably at home anyway)

It's the end of September. Huh.

My stereo installation will finally be complete this afternoon. Yay. I may also buy Fargo this afternoon too.

I get to go to a free show tonight featuring Paramore and Family Force Five because they're both with Showdown. It shoud be extremely entertaining, and I think I'll be able to see some of the people from Gotee there too, since FF5 is on Gotee.

I came as close as ever to buying a bed yesterday. It's gonna happen soon. I can feel it.

Last night I went to "Jet Li's Fearless" with a bunch of the guys. It was rather entertaining, but it mostly made me want to see his far superior movie, "Hero", again. That is on the buy list now too, which currently looks like this:

1. Good Burger - It's available on DVD, and it's only 6.99 on bestbuy.com, but it's not one of those movies you send away for. I need to find it in a store.
2. Babe - Now that I've resigned myself to buying it in pre-packaged with Babe 2, I can't find it anywhere.
3. Fargo - Just because.
4. Hero - Amazing.

Additionally, here's a list of upcoming releases that I'm looking forward to:

Oct 3 - X-Men: The Last Stand - probably won't buy this until it's significantly cheaper, but I'll complete the trilogy eventually.
Oct 10 - Prarie Home Companion - A great movie with lots of commentary on Minnesota life.
Oct 31 - MI3 - So much better than MI2, almost on par with the first.
Nov 7 - Cars - Another classic from Pixar.
Nov 14 - Family Guy Vol 4 - Still not sure if I want this yet. Loved the first three season, first half of season 4 was a bit weak. And they better not be skimping on episodes and over-pricing them again.
Nov 21 - Seinfeld season 7 - I love this show.
Dec 8 - PotC2: Dead Man's Chest - Kind of the same category as X3.
Dec 8 - Mission Impossible Season 1 - This was such a great show, I might just do it.

I took the previous post off so it doesn't mess up the margins anymore, but if you want to see pictures of the house, click on the flickr badge.

Mario Bros meets Prehistoric Man

Guess what Ryan and I made yesterday?

If you guessed homemade cheese, you're wrong. We made a Nintendo fort!

The process began by going to the Goodwill Superstore down the street and buying an assortment of blankets. We then returned home and made suspension ropes out of packing tape and draped the blankets across them. A rather simple set-up, but it turned out fantastically! I'm going to try and remember to buy a cord to attach my camera to my computer and then I'll get some pictures up here of the whole house, not just the Nintendo fort.

I'll have the opportunity to buy said cord when I'm down at the Cool Springs Best Buy getting my stereo installed this afternoon. I've got another 2 hours at Reverb, and my appointment with them is at 4, so I'll have plenty of time.

Tonight is also the Pop/Rock Showcase here at Belmont, which is always interesting and almost always entertaining. Benji Stein will be rockin' the bass for Brett McLaughlin, so if you're in town you should go and cheer him on (Ben, not Brett). The other acts are Sarah Silva, who I hear is real good, Lorien, who I also hear is pretty good, and Sophia, who I hear are weird and screamo. Gotta love it.

If you're on Facebook and haven't checked out the Friend Game under "My Friends", you should. It's rather addicting, and an easy way to pass the time.

My first tests of the year took place this week. Management Comm was easy, 54/50. My Business Ethics and Int'l Business tests aren't graded yet, but I think they went OK. I don't have the books for either of the latter classes, so this is the litmus test to see if I need to buy them or not. I'm leaning towards no.

Finally, the new season of The Office premiered on Thursday! I won't give anything away for those who have it TiVo'd, but I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit and it contained one of the most gauche kisses ever (In an effort to keep from using awkward as much, I'm going to try and apply multiple synonyms in its stead). Definitely worth seeing, and opens up a whole new world of story lines for new installments.

Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

Again, I'm at Reverb. Shocking, I know.

I'm listening to the new John Mayer right now, and I have to say it is quite good. There are some songs on here that I might even call fantastic. So far, favorites are The Heart of Life, Stop this Train (even though Ben says they shouldn't both be on the same album, I appreciate the fact they are), and the Bold as Love cover. The new Jars of Clay is quite good too, although it's taking a while to get used to the second half of the disc, it's quite different from the first.

I might be in a music video this weekend... Kurt and Tyler are shooting one for a new country artist and they want me to be a businessman. I would say completely for sure yes if I didn't have community group that day already, but I think I'm gonna do it anyway.

All of my homework is done as far as I can remember. At least the stuff that's due tomorrow. That never happens with me.

I decided to try a little experiment today: I was walking through the grocery store and saw that Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets were on sale. I couldn't decide which to buy, so I bought one box of each, both Pepperoni subs, and made one of each tonight, with Tim knowing which one was which so I was unbiased. First, I could definitely taste a difference between the two. And second, the Hot Pocket was much better. The cheese in the lean pocket is a bit too... something. Blobby? I think that might be the best way to put it. Anyway, the result of this is that I will not be buying either Hot Pockets or Lean Pockets again, since Hot Pockets are terrible for you and Lean Pockets don't taste good.

Speaking of things that aren't good for you: Sara Lee French Silk Pie for $2.50.

Heck yeah.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm recording with a bunch of the guys "Africa" by Toto? Well we are. And it's gonna be hilarious.

Waiting on the World to Change

Times are getting better.

Yesterday I came home from class to find the last of my birthday presents from my parents had arrived. This included the new Jars of Clay, Leigh Nash, and John Mayer CDs, as well as the second season of The Office! Life is always good when you've got the guys from Dunder Mifflin around. Most of the episodes are even better this time around, plus the delted scenes are hilarious.

Today I came one step closer to ending the whole car break-in debacle: I bought a new CD player at Best Buy. This ended up costing a bit more than I expected because they're going to have to do some re-wiring, and the plate that has the air controls on it costs $80 rather than the $30 I thought it did. That's no fun.

I really don't want to work at Reverb tonight. Or tomorrow.

But I am.

I have a driver's side window.

Bitterness abounding

So, hm, this weekend was not the best I've ever had.

After my 5 mindless hours at Reverb on Saturday morning, I hung out at the house for awhile, basically watching college football the whole time. I also made my first batch of corned beef hotdish for the year, which has provided 4 meals so far, and should provide that much more when all is said and done. Jon and I went over to the Gazebo to hang out with the boys and watch "SWAT" (that's right, we watched SWAT).

So we go home, and I wake up in the morning to go to church, get out to my car, and find that some creep had thrown a massive rock through the driver's side window of my car and taken my CD player. Yeah.

Metro came and filed a report, but I don't plan on them ever finding my stereo. And, frankly, it's not the stereo that pisses me off so much as the window. It's currently Saran-wrapped and sitting in my driveway, waiting for me to make an appointment to get it fixed, which I was waiting to do until I found out whether insurance was going to cover any of it. And today word came down that they aren't, which wasn't a total surprise, but still sucks anyway.

That was really the only thing that sucked about this weekend, but it's sizable. Beyond that, we started community groups for church on Sunday night, and mine is about 25 minutes away. It is also with Ryan and Susan, completely by chance on all three of our counts, which saves on gas and is great to have people there I'm already comfortable with.

Yesterday I walked to my internship, which took about 20 minutes. While there I did a lot of randomly connected things that took a bit longer than planned, so I got home at 4:45 and had Jon take me to Reverb for work at 5. While there I learned that they apparently tried to get someone to take the shift that I didn't want, but they thought it was Mondays instead of Tuesdays, so I still work 4-10 on Tuesdays and now share a shift on Mondays from 7-10. This did, however, allow me to leave at 8:30 with Ben to watch the end of the Vikings' opening-game victory. I had originally planned to stay up with Ben and go to Wal-Mart at midnight to buy Lucky Number Sle7in and John Mayer, but I hit a wall around 10:30 and he went by himself, which I hear turned out quite interestingly since Wally World didn't have Continuum.

That all leads to today, where I spent 9:30-3:15 in class, had dinner/lunch at the Curb, and now am at work. I did decide today while in investment portfolio management that I'm leaning towards not adding a finance major. Gonas was up front, talking about all of this stuff in the Wall Street Journal and these futures contracts and such, and I looked around the room and most of the people looked genuinely interested. I, on the other hand, hardly understood a word that came out of his mouth, let alone cared about it. I'm gonna actually try and buckle down in this class for a bit and see if I can force myself to enjoy it, but it's looking less like a possibility by the day. Maybe it's just the stuff we're talking about now, but I am supremely confused by it. I've even (gasp!) tried reading it, and it's not happening.

So, again, I'm hoping the rest of this week is a bit better. Maybe I'll find a good deal on a driver's side window for a '96 Taurus. Maybe I'll find a cheap CD player, or at least a cheap way to control the A/C. Maybe investments will come alive to me. Maybe I'll even bite the bullet and buy a bed, as much as I hate to in light of the car situation.

Or maybe not.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

I've just had an apostrophe

These are the amazing realizations I have had during my 5 hour shift this morning. They will be mostly random, due to the fact that I'm keeping this window open and posting it all when I'm done at 3.

Did you know you can buy a Bo Bice calendar for 2007 on allposters.com for only 12.99?!? Here's what it looks like:


Amazing, I know.

Have you ever noticed that Gwyneth Paltrow is in Hook? She plays Wendy's daughter. Which reminds me that I saw the other day on VH1 that Misha Barton plays the creepy dead girl in The Sixth Sense who pukes because her mom poisoned her. Totally weird.

Monday should be an interesting day with the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Pretty much every news outlet is devoting at least the morning to it. Not really any comment from me, just more of an observation.

Why can I not bring myself to do my investment portfolio management homework right now? And why can I not motivate myself to get a bed?

Bangarang!

Last night some people threw a birthday party for me, which I had a great time at. We played Pop 5, a gift from my parents, and Ben's game called Signs, both of which were thoroughly enjoyable. Additionally, Pete showed up with his girlfriend Alyson, who is town for the weekend and it was good to see her again.

I'll keep a running tally of the number of visitors I have to the store. So far, at 11:55, I am at 0.

The trailer for The Covenant makes this movie look like a good candidate for worst movie of the year. I sincerely hope I never have to watch it.

Here's a look at the next three Will Ferrell movies (thanks to imdb):

Stranger than Fiction (Nov 10)
Plot: An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death.

Someone who saw a test-screening of the film said this:

It is a cult film with Will Farrell being at his absolute brilliance at what he does in a quirky but funny way. The film is a cross between Big Fish and The Truman Show with an amazing cast.

I think this has the potential to give Will Ferrell some actual acting cred, kind of what Melinda and Melinda was supposed to do. I'm pretty excited for this one, should be excellent.

Blades of Glory (Finished production today)
Plot: In 2002, two rival Olympic ice skaters were stripped of their gold medals and permanently banned from men's single competition. Presently, however, they've found a loophole that will allow them to qualify as a pairs team.

In case you hadn't heard yet, the rival skater will be played by Jon Heder. I'm not completely sure if this is going to work, but the mere idea of Ron Burgundy and Napoleon Dynamite doing pairs figure skating is crazy enough to be hilarious. Let's hope they don't mess it up.

Also, the imdb page for the movie lists Jenna Fisher of NBC's The Office on the cast. That bumps it up a notch for me already.

Step-Brothers (In Pre-production)
Plot: Two spoiled guys (Ferrell and Reilly) become competitive stepbrothers after their single parents get hitched.

OK, there's not enough information about this one yet to make any guesses. Pairing Ferrell and John C Reilly worked fairly well for Talladega Nights, we'll see if they can pull off the same chemistry in this one.

Hey, that was fun.

It is now 12:30. I have watched Hook, and have now moved on to Star Wars: A New Hope. Total people to walk through the door besides me: 0.

The new John Mayer album, Continuum, comes out this Tuesday, and Entertainment Weekly had some interesting criticisms in their review of it (they gave it an overall grade of B, I think). They said the album was "too perfect" and that it was too bad Mayer was "too classy" or something to that effect. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to learn from that type of criticism, other than that Continuum will be well-produced, well-played, and well-written. That's all I ever ask for. Those songs should make for a good live set on Oct 8th too!

At 12:52, after 2 hours and 53 minutes, my first customer walked in the door. She looked around for minute, asked if we had the new Ray Lamontagne album that we have posters up for (which we don't) and then left at 12:53. So much activity, I can hardly stand it.

I'm pretty pleased with the changes they made to the Facebook News Feed and Mini-feed. It's still a little annoying, but much better than before. I think they changed it enough that they're not going to do much more, it placated most people's problems with it.

Yesterday my little sister sent me my birthday present:

I love it.

Besides Continuum, I'm also looking forward to several new albums this fall:
1. Sam's Town - The Killers
2. James Taylor at Christmas - James Taylor
Hmm, maybe that list isn't as long as I imagined it would be. I'm sure I'll find some new stuff I want, plus I'll have a good chance to pick up some albums I otherwise wouldn't have, like Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere. Christmas music is just around the corner, and I can't wait.

I wonder if anyone is still reading at this point, or if I've simply rambled for so long that I've driven everyone away.

Wow, I now have three people in here at once! I can hardly believe it. They came in at 1:19, and have been in here for 5 whole minutes. I feel so loved.

Star Wars is great background noise, I've decided.

The group left at 1:30, after feasting on the free stickers and posters and purchasing nothing.

I just won 8 games of Free Cell in a row. Gotta love minor accomplishments.

My goodness, the people are coming in droves all of a sudden. I now have two people in the store, bringing my grand total to 6 for the morning. And now they just left, so my sales remain at $0.00.

Have I mentioned yet that I started a fantasy football league on ESPN.com? Well I did. It's really addicting, none of my players have stepped on the field yet, and I could spend an hour just looking through profiles and opposing teams. This week, my matchup is against the Dover Hooded Seals, who already have 18 points from the Miami/Pittsburgh game. My plan for vicotry includes my QB, Donovan McNabb, doing better form y Djibouti Miners than Daunte Culpepper did for the Seals. I think that can happen

Less than an hour to go, and still no sales. Star Wars is almost over, and there's not enough time to watch The Last Crusade, so I'll probably be switching to season 4 of Friends in a few minutes.

Is this as boring to read as it is to write? I hope not. Otherwise I will have wasted quite a bit of your valuable time.

One of the managers of the store just stopped in to see how things were going. In an effort to inflate my numbers, I'm adding him to my tally.

Random quotes from overheardinnewtork.com:

Mother: So, if you could be any animal, which do you think would represent you the best? I think a horse fits you.
Daughter: What? A horse? No. I want to be a unicorn.
Mother: You're mentally ill.

Guy: You know, I never noticed she had an accent before.
Girl: Yeah, she's German.
Guy: Oh...I always thought she was slow.

And, from overheardintheoffice.com:

Engineer #1: If you flush the toilet, you lose water pressure?! So it's like, "Sorry, the dishwasher is running. We have no fire protection."

Pause.

Engineer #2: Who flushes the toilet if their house is on fire?

17 minutes left. I've moved on to the season 4 Thanksgiving episode of Friends, the one with Chandler in the box. Next up to finish off the shift will be the one with the embryos, where they have the contest to see who knows the most about each other.

I found one of the potentially coolest sites ever this week. It's www.bookfaced.com, a site where college students can get connected with others from their university to buy and sell used textbooks and save on shipping. Such a great idea, I might e-mail the webmaster and see if they have anything I can use to promote it on campus. Seriously, I spend an hour passing out fliers and putting up posters and save a ton on books! The service charges 8% of sale price, which isn't too bad.

OK, time is up. I had 7 people on my shift, no sales. Wow, what a waste.

Lonely and forgotten, never thought she'd look my way

Another weekend passes without the purchase of a bed. I am a complete dork.

Although sleeping on Ryan's air mattress hasn't been completely uncomfortable, and I am the only one to blame for the fact that I haven't picked one up yet.

The long weekend was good on the following counts:
1. They closed Reverb, so I didn't have to work until today (see below)

2. I did a sum total of nothing beyond:
a. make home-made ice cream
b. play sand volleyball in the park
c. play catch phrase at the basement after eating pizza
d. record "when she loved me" (Sarah McLachlan, Toy Story 2) with ben and tim
e. watch the sum total of close to a season of friends

3. I miraculously found the digital camera I thought I had lost back in April! It was hiding in a random pocket in my backpack. Now I just need to find the cord to connect it to my compuer...

Today was bad on the following counts:
1. Class + headache = annoying

2. Facebook and their "improvements" are ridiculous
I posted commments about how this hadn't happened yet in March:

Can I just say that facebook has yet to add a stupid feature since I've joined? Each one is very useful in its own way. I'm still not a fan of the whole "poking" thing. Kinda creeps me out.

Now poking is the least of my problems with news feed and mini-feed (more so the latter)

3. Reverb started today, and not on a good note. The schedule for this place fluctuates so much when it's getting set, I was supposed to work today from 5-10 originally, then had them switch it to 4-7. I thought this was all set til I got the most recent schedule, which I thought still had me on from 5-10, but I read it wrong and it was really 4-10. Suck. I was all ready to lounge for a bit between class and work when I get a call that I was supposed to be at work 15 minutes before.

So now I've been here for 2 and a half hours, and I'm not yet half done. I've listened to Brandtson's "Hello, Control" (amazing), and am now a bit over halfway through watching "Goblet of Fire". After that, I have no idea. Helping people with accounting or something I imagine. Maybe actually reading for class (a novel concept, I realize).

Tomorrow brings sleeping in, Showdown, and Principles of Management. I can hardly wait.

And I still have a headache.

and PS, why was I not surprised to see that Steve Irwin had died?

Why'd you make a shrimp slushy? 'Cuz I was hungry and thirsty...

Ok, it's already September. That's insane.

Matt, Doug, Ben, and I went to see "Accepted" a few days ago, and I must say it was hilarious. Definitely one of the funniest movies I've seen all year, I can't wait until it comes out on DVD. Afterward we played Settlers of Catan, a German strategy game. This game is tons of fun and pretty addicting. All of this leads me to believe that I have further solidified my nerdness.

I've been to my internship twice this week. Both days were kind of slow as I'm figuring out what they want me to do. I think things will come together eventually, and everyone there is really nice and friendly and stuff.

My classes are intriguing this semester. There's not a single teacher that I don't like, and several that I actually enjoy quite a bit. The stuff they teach, on the other hand, isn't quite so great. Investment Portfolio Management and International Business are pretty interesting so far, especially once I learn more what they're about. I haven't had enough experience with Management Communications so far to make a judgment, but the other three classes are uncommonly boring, particularly Business Ethics. Probably the least exciting two and a half hours of my week.

I will buy a bed this weekend. I will buy a bed this weekend. I will buy a bed this weekend.

We've got a party at the commons tonight. Should be a rousing good time.

And, besides work at Reverb tomorrow from 10-3, I have no commitments until Tuesday. Sweetness.

So much time and so little to do! Strike that...

Wow, so quite a bit has happened since I posted on Tuesday.

1. I got my internship! It's with Showdown Management, a smaller company with three full time employees. I'll be working in their publishing department mainly, but there will be lots of other opportunities in different areas as the semester goes on. Should be good, and I'm there on Mondays and Wednesdays.

2. A group of us went to Little Miss Sunshine, which is at times awkward, at times hilarious, and on the whole an excellent movie. There are several things that you will not see coming until they're happening, and that made those events that much funnier.

3. Classes started on Wednesday, and between Wed and Thurs I had all of my classes once. Most of them will be extremely easy, just a bit time-consuming with weekly or daily assignments. This translates into me actually having to buy most of my books, a rather unfortunate turn of events. Whatever, I'll get over it.

4. I figured out my schedule for this semester at Reverb, which currently is Mon-Tues 5-10 and Saturday 10-3. I may revise this a bit, probably try and get Tuesday down to 4-7 or something like that, and if they want to add an hour to Saturday or something I guess I can do that.

5. All of this translates into a completely open Friday, with no responsibilities in the world. I spent yesterday getting the house ready for...

6. Jess' going away party. I was pleased with how it went; everyone seemed to have a good time. I met a couple of pretty cool people and hung out with a bunch of cool people I already knew, so that's always a good night. Jess leaves for Italy on Monday, and I hope the party wasn't painful or anything but that she was able to see her friends once more, play some cards, take some pictures, and say goodbye. She's only gone 'til Christmas, that's not that long anyway.

All of this leads up to today, and me sitting here at 9 when I wanted to sleep in until 10 and was unable to get past 8:30. Kind of stupid, but at least it wasn't 5:30 or something REALLY stupid like that. The rest of my day is pretty open. I'm playing Rummikub with Pete, Kurt, and Tyler at some point, and Ben and I are watching some Alias this afternoon too. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go to the Dave Barnes/Andy Davis/ David somebody show, which would normally be a no-brainer, but it costs $15, which is about $5 more than I want to spend on that.

Things on my current To-Do Eventually list:
1. Spend a late night over pancakes
2. See Snakes on a Plane
3. Finish reading the Ted Dekker book I started last month
4. BUY A BED!

Are you dead or asleep? Either way you're worthless to me

All right, I'm down here finally. Actually, I have been for a couple days now, but that doesn't make a difference. I've got everything moved into my room, and almost set up. Now all I need is a bed. A minor inconvenience.

My car continues its quest to break down as many times as possible, and quite successfully I might add. The new starter should be installed sometime today. I'm really hoping it's done in the morning so I'll have time to get groceries. Then a bed. That's kind of the hierarchy of importance: car - food - bed. It's a nice little progression.

Last night Jon, Matt, and I went to the Counting Crows/ Goo Goo Dolls show. Good things about it:
1. It was free (best thing)
2. Goo Goo Dolls sounded great as long as the bass player wasn't singing lead
3. Counting Crows were pretty dang sweet too

We didn't stay for the whole Crows set because we all got tired and they were in they slow part of their set, so we just left. But it was a good time anyway, I'm hoping I get to go to more of these this year.

Classes start tomorrow, I've just got one in the evening. I've got an interview for my internship today at 1.

Must... get... groceries.

Jigga What?

They made an arrest in the JonBenet Ramsey case? That's frickin ridiculous. Wow.

Well I've got another day of work and then I'm off to Nashville. That means 2 days. Again, ridiculous.

I was just watching America's Got Talent, and they've got this girl from Franklin, TN who yodels. In their little pre-performance video, they showed her in Franklin and tried to make it sound like a small hick town in the hills. And I laughed, because Franklin is so insanely rich it's sick.

Snakes on a Plane comes out this weekend. I'm going to see it, unless I don't. If not this weekend, then next. It just has to happen.

I did get to see Talladega Nights the other night, and it was quite good. Definitely, like most Ferrell movies, needs to be watched several times, because it's about the lines more than the plot.

I need to pack.

Greasy mullets and vengeful "teens"

Ok, so Miami Vice was quite a disappointment. It hardly had any good action scenes, let alone an interesting plot. And there were about 5 too many sex scenes, all pointless.

John Tucker Must Die, on the other hand, was quite entertaining. I would put it on the level of She's All That and 10 Things I Hate About You, at least in that vein. It had a pretty decent soundtrack too, if you're interested. Tomorrow night will bring what should be my favorite movie of the summer, Talladega Nights. (Please don't suck, please don't suck)

I now have 11 days until I head back to Nashville. I'm having a hard time thinking of things I need to get before heading back. Mostly I'll have to buy stuff when I get there.

One of the things I've done this summer to pass the time is fdoing and glueing together a bunch of jigsaw puzzles. I just completed my 12th puzzle, I think. The goal of this project is to cover one wall in my room with puzzles, which will hopefully look as good in real life as it does in my head. It has potential at least.

The Twins need to figure out some way to beat the Tigers if they're going to make the playoffs. Right now, not looking so good.

Work was 7:15-6 today. Tomorrow will start a bit later and hopefully end a bit earlier. And with that, I'm out.

Seven kinds of smoke

I was going to wait and post later this week, but then i realized that
A. That would be far too long between posts
2. this is my last chance to post in July of 2006
III. I need to warn people. Everyone.

This week, among work and other activities, I have seen and will be seeing several movies in the theater. Last night was "You, Me, and Dupree", a rather mindless comedy that I enjoyed somewhat. Probably won't buy it, but I don't regret seeing it in the theater anyway. Tomorrow night will be "Miami Vice", which, all indications say, should be excellent.

Tonight, however, was "Lady in the Water". Let me preface this by saying that I love "The Sixth Sense", I think it's a modern masterpiece, and that M. Night's movies since have been various shades of decent. This film, on the other hand, was rather disappointing. Shyamalan created this elaborate fairy tale, I'll give him a bit of credit for originality, but the story did not translate well to the screen, coming off as confusing and boring. Kevin and I decided that it probably would be better if you went into it as a comedy, there was so much ridiculousness. That's right, ridiculousness.

I'm not even sure I can recommend it as a rental. That's pretty sad.

24 days and counting

Last weekend was a ton and a half of fun, it felt so great to back down there. The parties on Friday and Saturday went very well, even if I did lose both Trivial Pursuit and Beyond Balderdash to Timmy and his various comrades. I mostly enjoyed playing any sort of game with those guys, most of the time it's so hard to get them to do something like that. I was so tempted to stick around for an extra day and see Susan and have dinner with the gang at Jess' parents, but that wouldn't have been very cool for my dad, so I had to go home as scheduled.

I begrudgingly left Nashville at 6 AM on Sunday, arriving home at 10 PM. My car ran great the whole time (minor miracle), and I pretty much zoned out the whole time. The stupidest thing was there is one toll booth between Nashville and home, and it took me 45 minutes to get through. Uber lame.

This fall has the potential to be incredible, and the potential to... not... be (incredible, that is). I applied for an internship with Showdown Management/ Productions, which is a small company about 5 minutes from my house that would be a great experience. Hopefully I can pull that out, should know sometime soon. It will be weird not being on campus, having friends within walking distance. Now we'll have to plan times to hang out and stuff. Looks like I'll be throwing more parties this fall (if that's OK with the boys).

So why, you may ask, since I've been home for 3 days, have I not posted on here? That would be because I've been working.

A lot.

Today was 7-8 (AM to PM). That's after an 11 1/2 hour Tuesday and 9 1/2 hour Monday. Tomorrow isn't looking much better, but I've got to pay off the car repairs somehow (besides the donation my parents made to the cause). I might seriously go to bed right now. It's 9:45. Wow.

Completely random: So, Lance Bass is gay, which makes all of the Family Guy jokes about N'Sync true. I can't decide if that makes them more or less funny. I'll let you know.

Hanging around

After a minor setback in Eau Claire, WI, I am finally in Nashville! I arrived last night around 1:00, which was loads of fun...

I've spent today getting all of the stuff I brought down situated around the house. the furniture I bought at Ikea looks great put together, I'm real happy with both pieces. I am soon off to the grocery store to get food for the weekend, including the two parties I am hosting at the house.

And that's it.

Oh, wait, I watched the first three webisodes of The Office today, and it was ok. Not great, not bad, just ok. Kevin has a great moment in the second episode, but the show just really loses a lot of its impact without everybody else. Oh well, worth checking out anyway.

Nobody dances anymore

Hey everybody, pardon my absense, it's been a semi-busy week and a half. Although, really that's no excuse. Oh well.

This past weekend I spent at Sonshine in Willmar, working at the Gotee Records booth. The weather was crazy hot all weekend, and rainy the first day, but otherwise it was a good time. Not much else to say there.

I'm leaving in about 30 minutes for Nashville! Today was a short work day, wo I'm gonna drive half-way tonight and the rest tomorrow, hopefully arriving mid-afternoon at the Beech house. I'll update from TN sometime soon!

September 12 can't get here soon enough

Yes, that's right! Season 2 of the Office is releasing in only 2 short months (right around my birthday... Convenient? I think so!) Until that comes out, the summer webisodes begin next Thursday and should be an excellent way to get me through until the DVD and then the new season.

In other news, I saw Superman Returns the other night. It was decent enough, worth seeing at least as a rental, if not in theaters. It did get quite long towards the end, since it is 2 and a half hours, so make sure oyu go with entertaining friends (i.e. Hannah, Frei, and Seth ("Because he's your baby's daddy")). I was hoping to see Pirates tonight but it was sold out and my parents and didn't feel like going back an hour and a half later to sit in a packed theater for 2 and a half hours (another long one! crap!).

The Home of the Brave

Well today was yet another moment in the grand tradition of Brainerd Fourth of July. I spent most of today doing nothing, then went to the parade. I've decided that someone needs to do a documentary on how a small town like Brainerd celebrates the Fourth. Seriously, PBS would eat that crap up! I'll have to convince Kurt and Tyler that they should jump on this ship.

Anyway, the fireworks tonight were great as usual. Good times were had by all, at least as far as I could tell.

Back to work tomorrow, and I'll be taking Katie to the airport tomorrow night. Action-packed and fun-filled, I can hardly wait!

On a random note, I picked up season 4 of Friends, X-Men 1, Donnie Darko, and Hook recently. Loads of fun.

But you don't want to know, you take much more than I'd ever ask for

Things that I'm happy about:

1. My sister being home from Arizona for a week.
2. Having the 4th off.
3. The new Keane album.
4. That Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties has made less than $20 million domestically so far, meaning there's a decent chance they won't make a third. (Side note: How on Earth did they get Bill Murray to do the voice for that movie again? Even Jennifer Love Hewitt was smart enough to stay away from this one.)

When at work, we usually listen to Oldies radio because the songs are almost always good and they don't repeat during the day (although they play the same songs day after day, so that gets a bit annoying). Anyway, there are a few commercials on there that stand out to me whenever I hear them:

A. The first is for the town of Pine River, about 30 minutes of Brainerd with like 500 people. The slogan is, "Pine River: Still a real town!" And they say it all excited and crap. I'm glad they remind me that they're real though, because most of the time I just think Pine River's a myth, some Lake Wobegon of central Minnesota. Er something.

B. Stellas list.com is a local website where some chick named Stella recommends everything from dates to bras to houses. It's quite ridiculous for several reasons:
1. No one in northern Minnesota is named Stella. A good Scandinavian just wouldn't do such a thing.
2. The woman basically gets her money from the site by advertising stores in the area to unsuspecting women. And I was just the 11,977th visitor to the site, so thats quite a few of them.
3. Stella does her own radio ads, and she has the thickest Minnesota accent I've heard in a while. She says "The search is oh-ver", and I laugh every time.
4. They have this other ad that parodies "We didn't start the Fire", and is possibly the worst case of trying too hard I've heard in radio. Straight up.

C. The stupid people at Mentadent have a campaign going right now that centers around the question "Are you a teeth people?" I cringe every time I hear this ad, because it makes no sense: they could've said "Are you a teeth person?" and I understand. Maybe even address to a larger audience and ask "are you teeth people?" But no, they did some lame hybrid of the two and came up with "Are you a teeth people?". Real lame guys.

With that, I'm off to bed, as I have work and a wedding tomorrow. Loads of fun had by all.

Get that corn out of my face!

I'm tired. The last two days have both been 11 hours of work starting at 6:30. Tomorrow starts at 8ish, though, so I'll hopefully be able to rest up a bit tonight.

So I saw Nacho Libre this weekend, and I think I need to see it again before I make a final judgement. It was a lot like Napoleon Dynamite in that it was really odd to watch it, but talking about it afterward we were laughing at all the random things that happened. Best line?

The other brothers don't think I know a buttload of crap about the Gospels... but I do.

I've now seen the following movies on my summer list:
X Men United
Cars
Prarie Home Companion
The da Vinci Code
Mission Impossible III
Nacho Libre

Not bad so far, this weekend looks to be The Breakup, then I'm getting more excited for Superman Returns with each promo I see for it, so I'll be hitting that opening weekend most likely.

I added The Jerk, Waterworld, and The Phantom to my DVD collection today. The first because it's funny, the second because it's funny if you go into it with the mindset that it is, and the third because a. Billy Zane is ridiculously cool b. I loved this movie when I was a kid c. it was only $5.50.

While looking for the Gotee Records tribute album to DC Talk's Jesus Freak (which I didn't find), I picked up the new Keane album. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but it has a lot of potential. I think it will be a good car disc.

I'm gonna get back to watching the NBA Finals, which have really been a great capstone on the whole playoffs this season. Game 5 in Miami was just plain sick, and at this point I don't think I care who wins. It's all good.

I've tried and tried to forget you girl, but it's just so hard to do...

So, final total on work hours last week: 70. Seriously, over a 6 day period I spent almost as much time working as I did everythnig else combined, including sleeping. Some of the most exhausted I've ever been in my life. But I survived to work another day, and this week should be a bit lighter, more in the 50 hour range, and Saturday off.

I decided to spend a bit of the cash I made last week at Best Buy tonight. I complained I needed some new music, so I bought some old music: The Mamas and the Papas Gold Collection. And I picked up one of the movies that I promised myself to buy this summer: That Thing You Do. Such a great movie, I love it. Next up on that list I think is Babe. Unfortunately I've only found it packaged with Babe: Pig in the City, which I have no deisre to see, let alone own, but may be good for a laugh or two based on just how dumb it is. For some reason I don't see that happening though.

I need to find something to do.

A day like any other

One thing about work that I like but don't is the whole dichotomy of it all. I don't necessarily want to work, but I need money so I work. And when I work, I am happy because I have money, but sad that I have to spend all day everyday working. When I don't work, I'm happy because I can do whatever I want, but I have no money, so that list is rather limited.

This week is one of the former weeks. It is Tuesday, and I have put in 22 1/2 hours so far. Each of the next four days should be at least 10 hours each. Great for the bank account, not great for the social life. Oh well, what can you do?

My parents and I are now close to 2/3 done with season 1 of Lost, and it's getting pretty intense/weird, but in a good way. Can't wait to finish it up and hopefully watch season 2 with Ashley and Jackie this summer so I can watch season 3 as it happens in the fall.

I am in the mood for a good new CD. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

My DVD binge has continued this week, with the purchase of Oceans 12 and the 7th season of Friends. Good Night and Good Luck is looking really tempting at Target this week for $10, as are the $5 movies at Best Buy. This is why I work; so I can buy movies. Splendid.

I blog because I care

I really have no idea what to post about. I'm more posting to post than anything else.

This past week has been a bit more restful than my first. I only worked a little under 40 hours, and got to hang out with some family and see The da Vinci Code, which was not amazing, but better than the critics made it out to be. Sometime this week I'll go to X-Men, I just need to find a night for it. It's looking like a busier work week again, so I might be in the mood for a good relaxing time at some point.

Oh, I did have a fun Friday. Abby was going to visit her friend Jess in CO, so I drove her to the airport at 2:30 in the morning, since Minneapolis is 2 and a half hours south of us and her flight was supposed to leave at 6:15. That got changed to 9:15, which meant she would miss her connecting flight, so we waited in line for an hour before she talked to someone who told her the best bet was to just fly to Denver at 9:15 and try and get on a connecting flight on standby. After waiting all day in Denver, she finally got on at 5:30. Me, on the other hand, drove back to Brainerd and hung out with my cousins for a bit, so I didn't sleep. Then I worked, then hung out with Aana and Seth, so I went to bed at 11, 21 hours after waking up. Glorious.

Tomorrow night I'm gonna try making Bourbon Chicken. If it turns out ok, I'll add it to my regular list at school. I hope it's good.

This will most likely be a movie summer for me. I have picked up six movies since arriving home, and that will only continue as I plan to buy at least one season of Friends this week, on sale for 16.99 each at Best Buy. Which one is still a mystery, but will most likely be season 7, for whatever reason.

My parents and I watched the first disk of season 1 of Lost tonight, and I had a really hard time stopping, but my parents want to spread it out a bit. I might cheat and watch some without them...

I think I've rambled sufficiently about nothing at all, check you later.

Living the high life

Man, time flies when you're... not doing anything.

I've spent the last week working basically, which is cool with me because even though I've been really sore and pretty tired most of the time, it's still worth it for the money, and my dad is being plenty generous right about now.

Today I begin living the immaculate life. You see, our house goes up for sale tomorrow, which means that people will be touring it until it sells, which I personally don't think will be too long, but until that happens I can't be messy, not even in my own room. Rather unfortunate on the whole. I have been able to look at the house plans for the new place and I looked at the land it will be on and it should be a pretty sweet set up. I might recruit a few people to help us move in, depending on when it's done. I smell a Fall Break road trip...

I should really start doing stuff with the few people that are in town this summer. No parties at my place (again with the whole immaculate thing), but movies, Applebees, Whipple, etc. should start going down.

In some of the lamest news of the year, Belmont has increased tuition another $550/ semester for next year. Yahoo for more loans!

17 hours later

So I made it home last night around 11:30, which gave me a grand total of 17 hours on the road. Special thanks go out to Yahoo Maps for getting me lost trying to get out of Minneapolis, and the wreck on I-39 in southern Wisconsin that had me move 5 miles in an hour and a half.

Today's agenda:
11:00 - hair cut
11:30ish - change oil
12:00 - lunch with sister sarah
1:00 til whenever - um.... no clue, except that 24's on at 8. That's all I need to remember.

Just need to get through Illinois...

I am leaving tomorrow morning at 6 AM. I should be home by 10 at the latest.

Loads of fun... er something.

Free as a bird

I am officially no longer under the restrictions of Belmont Dept. of Residence Life.

Last night was my first night in the house, and it was nice, except that the futon broke during the night, so I slept on an incline. Gonna try and fix that before tonight.

Today has been the most useless day ever. I've loved it. I just got out of my pajamas about an hour ago, and I've been up since 8. That's saying something.

This week will consist of very little on the whole. It WILL, however, consist of seeing M:I 3, because I still haven't seen it. Everyone else is slowly going to it without me. Rather frustrating on the whole, if I do say so.

I need to get food. But only 4 days worth...

Celebrate good times

My last final of the year was this morning, and it went fine. Now I get to hang out here for a week and then head home.

So I've been thinking about adding a second major, finance. It would only be an extra semester, I could totally do it. Then I could be out of Belmont after 3 and a half years with two degrees, both in business administration, one in music business and one in finance. Hopefully I could then find a job down here that would be in the music industry with something to do with finance. Plus, if I don't find anything in the music biz, there's lots of opportunities in finance, and they'll pay better. So kind of a win-win. I just need to decide if I want to put myself through 18 credits of high-level finance... Maybe I should look for the win-win-win, as Michael Scott would say.

We're having the Soccer Mom formal tonight, which means I get to wear my amazing new sport coat that I got at Southern Thrift on Tuesday. Should be fun.

M:I 3 is getting decent reviews, mostly that Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing and the movie is nothing spectacular but entertaining nonetheless. Works for me. Might have to wait until Sunday to see it though, I'm running low on funds. And I'm making cookies this afternoon. Yep.

The voice of experience can change history

Things I love:

1. Pulling out gems like this title during an in-class essay final.

2. The new house, even though I've hardly moved anything in.

3. The new Elms album, The Chess Hotel. Bought it yesterday morning, probably on my 7th listening right now. Great rock and roll.

4. Knowing that in just over 24 hours I will be sitting in a movie theater watching M:I 3. And it's not going to suck.

5. Sweet thunderstorms.

Things I'm cool with:

1. Getting low on food right around the time I'll be moving.

2. Wanting to take a nap.

3. My finance final this afternoon.

Things that I'm not down with:

1. Running out of gas because of a stupid gas gauge. (Thanks to Tim, Kim, Susan, and Ryan for the help)

2. Humidity.

3. Spending $42 to fill up my tank yesterday.

4. Wanting to make cookies and realizing all of the cooking stuff was my roommate's and is now at his new condo.

Blogging Katrina and a new setup

Finally, my 10 page paper on blogs and Hurricane Katrina is complete! I turned it in about 15 minutes ago, and that felt great. I was hoping to get to around 12 pages, but after several hours of wokr and research I realized that was not going to happen, at least not now. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out though, so I hope she likes it.

The rest of my classes today should be uneventful. Accounting will be short, since she'll give back our tests and I'll decide I don't need to take the final and leave. Marketing will be review for the final, which I found out is on Friday instead of Thursday. Finance, we'll go over some new material and prep for the final. Loads of fun.

We got to move into our house yesterday! Well, I guess I should say we can move into the house, but nobody spent the night there last night. Tim should be in on Wednesday. I'm going to try and be in sometime this weekend, probably Sunday, though I most likely won't stay there until Tuesday, as I don't have a bed yet. Doug is basically staying in my spot for the summer, he just needs to confirm a few things, but I'm planning on him.

The place is really cool, I like it alot! The thing I might be most excited about is the basement, which is currently filled with crap, but that's getting cleaned out and I'm going to make it a sweet hang out/card game area. A chillax lounge, if you will. I'll try and post some pictures of the place sometime soon. First I need to find my digital camera that disappeared sometime in the last month...