Football!

I don't know how many of you watch football, but lately this year I've been keeping up and listening to Sports news, watching a few games etc., and I've come to the conclusion that I'm doing fairly alright at deciding who the winner is going to be! I'm not saying I can give a point spread, I just think that in terms of win to lose I think I'm good at deciding the winner. Then I thought about it and furthered my conclusion to: it isn't very hard to pick. If you keep up with football, watch a couple games every week, keep up with who has more wins than losses and home field advantage and stuff, you too can do a-ok.

We have a football point game that some people at work are participating in (not at work, just between coworkers). The general gist is, say there are 14 games in one week. First you pick who you think is going to win each of the 14 games... then you assign a point value to each game, from 14 down to 1. Your 14 is your most confident win (this year that would be ANY Patriots game, or ANY team playing against the Dolphins) and 1 is the one you're least confident in that win (say, that Patriots/Colts game). At the end of all the games of that week (Thursday, Sunday, and Monday) you add up the points from the games you picked correctly, and you compare them to everyone else. It gets interesting... even if you picked game-for-game the same as someone else, your point values were different, so you really have to choose carefully who you REALLY think will win or lose as far as points are concerned.

Aside from keeping totals of points, we're keeping totals of how many games people are picking correctly, that's more bragging rights to the winner you see. Even if you have the most games right, you might have done bad point-wise and someone who did badly on picks could have their points wisely chosen and pull the win. Whee :)

So far today here is a list of my picks. Yellow means I got that correct, and Grey means "damn". I'll admit I'm not the best in our coworker brawl, but I'm holding my own. Not bad for a guy who last year didn't seriously watch football at all.

huh? oh, sorry

I just had a thought. I barely remember when 12-packs of Coke and Dr. Pepper came in those 4x3 boxes, now they come in the 6x2 cartons and have the perforated (sp?) end for easy fridge storage goodness. I can remember before EVERYONE went to those oblong things though, the 4x3 boxes started having the same perforated end with the same concept in mind, it wasn't as easy though because peoples fridge shelves just weren't always that accommodating.

Firefox hit 400 MILLION mark!!

Yes, this title is true! Mozilla Firefox has accomplished an amazing feat: 400 Million downloads in a little less than 3 years. How cool :)

1300 unopened rebate forms found in trash!

Yeah you heard me right!! I just heard a report of 1300 unopened rebate forms found in the trash outside of Vastech, a company that apparently handles some of the rebate offers for Fry's Electronics. I don't think I'm going to stop shopping at Fry's but I dunno about using their rebate forms anymore!

I had a pretty easy day at work today! I did the redlines on some plansheets for a project I was working on, where they are going to do a little maintenance on a road going to Quintana Beach... that was before lunch. I reprinted some sheets and stuff. After lunch, I got all the paperwork together and took them up to Houston to get re-reviewed for their approval and signatures and then it's off to Austin for the final review process! I didn't get back until 10 minutes before 5 ;)

I hope it all works out good, because that road really needs it, and I love going to the beach and having a few beers :P

RSS and OPML

I'm just starting to get into RSS (as I already said). RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and basically its a way for websites and blogs to list their posts/stories/whatever information where you can read it without having to go through all the crap of visiting their website/seeing their ads/etc. It's great for slower connections, or people who just want to see it text only, with the occasional picture if the post has one.

http://rss.gregarius.net is a great place to go and look and kind of get a feel for what RSS feeds are all about. Gregarius is a php-based RSS aggregator (in short, a program that deciphers RSS feeds into where you can read them). Anyway, if you go to that website and look, you will see all the different feed names on the left, and a collective list of the posts on the right. If you click on a feed, it will show you only posts from THAT feed on the right...

There are some great online feed readers, such as Google or Bloglines. There are also some for your PC that let you download the feeds to your desktop, but since I don't do that I can't suggest any programs for it.

The next time you go to a website, look for the orange RSS symbol in the address bar of your web browser, or look for it somewhere on the page. A lot of websites offer this, you almost don't even have to go to websites anymore to get caught up in the information it provides, you just have to subscribe to their RSS feeds :)

OPML is a standard for importing/exporting your RSS feeds (so you can make a backup, or so you can change feed readers, or so you can share your feeds lists). (Well, really its original intent wasn't that at all, but oh well!) A great site for OPML/RSS sharing is http://share.opml.org :)

Edit: I forgot to mention, I installed Gregarius on my website... my OPML list is also online.

The "perfect" iTunes equalizer setting?

I just stumbled upon this article that describes how to set the "perfect" equalizer settings in iTunes. I wonder if this setting also applies to other media players? hmmmm...

That's all for now!

Nothing special

This blog isn't about anything special, just what's been going on to me lately.

I bought a new DVD-RW drive today, I just could not stand having a device in my computer that could not handle today's technologies. It's a LiteOn LH-20A1P whatever that means. It was $45 bucks at Wal*Mart what can I say. Stores don't sell 8x DVDs anymore! It's all 16x! And my old DVD burner couldn't handle.

I've been messing with my Cingular 8125 a lot more lately. Well, I guess not any more than I have been since I got it. Lately I've been delving into the world of RSS aggregates and Podcasting. That is, websites, news sites, blogs, technology sites, etc, make it easy for you to view their stories and articles without having to visit the actual site. Anyone with IE7 or Firefox is probably aware of that orange RSS button --> <-- you sometimes see. Just click on that button on any site and learn more about how things work! Google has a free RSS feed reader! Go there, sign up, hit Browse, and search for rss feeds :)

Not much else been going on. Working. I saw a few movies, like Number 23, Bourne Ultimatum, Harry Potter, some other ones too...nothing terribly thrilling I guess, because I can't remember what happened in most of them (thats what happens to me when I watch a movie anyway).

Dang I'm bored :P

A friend of mine tonight asked me a question. Well first a bit of background on her, she just got out of a relationship with her fiance.. like they both wanted to get married right? They postponed the wedding because he was going to go into the Army or whatever and they didn't know when or how long it was gonna be, or Something. ANY way, she dumped him because she found out he cheated on her with one of his old time friends, or ex-girlfriends, or something. The point is, he cheated on the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with. Our conversation starts here.

me: another boring day come and gone. yayy:)

her: sorry it was boring for you. I got to meet my ex-fiances new girlfriend...that was a blast

me: sheesh, that sounds anything but boring..i'm sorry! for the record, did you even like her? lol.

her: yeah she is ok. I am just hurt...that he treats me like some piece of shit....not like someone who he planned to spend the rest of his life with. So i have a question...why is it that guys seem to move on so fast after getting out of a serious relationship?

I thought about it for a while, and I came up with this response...

me: you know, i've had times when i broke up with her, but i was already getting bored with the relationship and knew eventually i was PROBABLY going to break up.. so that was easy to move on from. i really felt bad that the girl didn't feel the same way.

the only real serious relationship i had recently (engaged) she was the one that dumped me, and it took me about a month to get over it, and i realized she had fucked up and the only thing I could do was move on.

to really answer your question though.. and i REALLY feel bad that you asked me that because I realize it really is true. My answer is cause the guy started to fall out of love with her, the idea of spending the rest of his life with her wasn't that exciting anymore like it was at first, he started wondering what it would be like to spend time with other women and get that feeling back that you get when you first start going out with someone...and he started talking to other girls and was telling them how he was feeling about being with you, so when he broke up he had women already there to hang out with and of course they are nice to him "cause he had problems with his fiance". they are ditzy blondes because only an airhead would sympathize with an asshole like that, and the whole process makes it easier to get over YOU, the only person who did nothing wrong but want to give it your everything.

yes, it hurts me men would do that. I've seen women do it too so it doesn't make me feel AS bad that asshole guys ruin it for the rest of us, but yeah.

if I had to make a broad generalization, i'd say something like that happened for him.. he started having doubts, and he talked to women friends of his, and asked them for advice, and they gave him the advice that he wanted to hear.

sorry that is so long.. don't let him treat you like shit. and don't be dissuaded from being in relationships from fear of getting hurt again, and don't think that all guys are gonna just get bored someday with you and leave you.

haha I think I just figured out what keeps marriage going.

I mean.. am I wrong? This IS what guys (and girls) do, right? Plan on how to break up with someone, and usually talk it over with their "friends" first and wait for them to give you some advice, USUALLY its going to be exactly what you needed to hear to initiate the break up? Of course it is, because you already made up your mind that you wanted to break up. You just want to hear it, to confirm it, from someone else that it is a good idea. What the hell do they know what is a good decision for your best interests? They can tell you what they would do if it was them, for THEIR best interests...

Life is expensive.

I got my car out of the shop today! Yea!!!!!!! It runs great and stuff. Their invoice was detailed enough:

Checked transmission and shift point are ok;
never got vehicle to overheat, recommend
thermostat and coolant flush, power steering pump and
pressure hose are leaking and left front
outer tie-rod loose and needs to be aligned;
Flushed cooling system and replace thermostat,
replace power steering pump and pressure hose.
replace left front tie-rod and aligned front end.

Well cool! It runs better, steers better, is less prone to get clogged and overheat, and my wheel won't fall off if I hit the brakes too hard. Excellent! I'm broke for the rest of the month though...

I bought some blank DVDs from Best Buy and they wouldn't work in my computer. SO I took them back and bought some more and found the same problem, so I think my DVD burner is out of date or something! I need to buy another one but I kind of ran out of monies. haha. There goes my fun DVD copying for a while. But I guess since I ran out of money, I wasn't going to rent any movies to copy anyway. Thaaaaanks :)

Website is not coming along at all from last night, since I haven't had a chance to work on it. Maybe today, maybe.

Look who it is...

Well howdy :) isn't it about time for an update or two?

Update: At the end of June I moved back in to my parents in Angleton. I was pretty tired of having no money left at the end of the month. I do miss my apartment though, the privacy I got was immense. I do miss the neat drive to work too...usually I saw the same cars and stuff, that was fun--however, that was a 15 or so minute drive, and now I just drive 5 minutes to work. Yesssss! I'm gonna save up a lot of money and then see what happens with the living situation.

Update: I got a raise at work!! like 540 buck a month raise. Wow. After taxes it was about 350 a month but hey, score! I could have kept my apartment for this. haha.

Update: I got a new computer desk, chair, and even a nice 22" widescreen monitor. Dang this is nice to look at!

Update: My car's been in the shop since like, Tuesday or Wednesday...aaahhhhhhhh!! I took it because it overheated..once...but they (Performance Transmission) made me aware of the power steering pump leakage (already knew), and something to do with the tire rod (oops). So since I just got paid, I told them to fix those problems along with flushing out coolant and replacing thermostat, so hopefully my car will be running baaaaaaaaadass!

Work is going pretty much the same, so I don't guess that is an update...heh. I'll be working on divested.org in the next few days, making it all spiffy for my cause, which is the cure of boredom! Yesss!

Shameless plug of the day:
last.fm people, check it out. Their FAQ explains it better that I ever could...

Last.fm is a service that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then produces a large number of features personalized to you.

You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, other people with similar music taste, gigs in your local area, charts and quilts for your personal site, as well as much more.

Anyway it's really cool.

Hey guess what, I'm out of here. Catch you on the flip side. :)

Road Trip!

[mobile] Well Friday after work I made up my mind and drove off to see my friend Melinda in Nashville, Arkansas. I've been having tons of fun and more to come tomorrow :) I'll post some pictues later if i have time to take any. Anyway good night, I'm going to log.

Lars came to visit today...

[mobile] My 14 (almost 15) year old brother came to visit today. We went bowling, and then back to my apartment to play his Wii. He schooled me in Tennis and Baseball, even though he used his left hand. I like hanging out with him though, he's very unique and just a totally different person. My sister is a year younger so we understand each other, but hanging out with Lars is showing me a different side to the world of having a sibling. I'm proud to claim him :)

blog test!

[mobile] Carlos won man of the year lol.

Birthday!

My birthday was on January 30 and I hit 22. I really don't feel any different though. I hope I'm not getting to the point already where all the birthdays don't really matter. But I kind of am getting there. My age doesn't really matter right now, I'm just alive and living life everyday where my age isn't a boundary for too much anymore. I like it this way, much less drama :)

Brandy got me a book! THE INNOCENT MAN by John Grisham. I'm just starting to read it but it looks pretty good.

My sister Jessica was in town the day before so she bought me lunch at Subway, which was good. I like talking to her, we've kind of grown apart but it's cool, it's like having a life long friend that you know you'll be friends with no matter what. I've always wanted one of those but I never realized my sister would be it, when we were younger we just fought and didn't hang out much heh.

Someone at work took me on Wednesday to the new Chinese Buffet place in Angleton, where Golden Corral used to be. It was good I thought...

My grandparents got me a 50 dollar gift card to Starplex Cinemas so that was nice. They also took me out to lunch for my birthday, we went to Smithharts.

Brandy's dad, my future father-in-law! took us out to Parks Restaurant in Alvin, an all you can eat buffet place. It was good too, I ate a LOT.

Saturday Feb. 3 my parents took me, Brandy, my grandparents, little brother, and uncle to Kobe's Japanese Restaurant. It's in Spring (in the Woodlands) and it's kind of like a Benihana's but better they said. I thought it was ok. You sit around a hot plate stove-top and a Japanese looking dude cooks all your food for you there while talking to you and making jokes, it was enjoyable. I liked sitting around talking. My parents also gave me some money for my b-day lol.

So I'm another year older, whee :)