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.