Sometimes it’s good to flip through old photos in Flickr.
February 2008
Who’s The Fool.
Earl and I are watching the Top 24 “ladies night” on American Idol. So far the first two performers have done their thing, the crowd is going wild for lackluster, mundane, uninspired performances.
I feel like I’m wasting my time.
And this trend of the audience booing anything that’s a remotely negative comment from the judges is absolutely ridiculous. American Idol needs to get back to their roots and let these folks sing with little in the way of accompaniment and no audience for this stage of the game.
And while I’m cranking on this show, they made a mistake keeping the “plus-sized model” (who keeps reminding us that she is a “plus-sized model”, what’s that got to do with her singing voice? She’s no Martha Wash!) and getting rid of the other girl that could really sing.
I really am wasting my time and your time with this blog entry.
Time to click through the TiVo. Maybe the chipmunk version will be more entertaining.
Random.
Sometimes you just get lucky, even with the little things. As I’ve mentioned several times I’m taking Calculus this semester. I can’t really wrap my head around the subject yet, even though Professor Frightful and his voices in the blackboard urge me to do so. I never took the subject in high school; my experience with “Course III” (trigonometry) was harrowing enough that it made me lose interest in “Course IV” (calculus). Looking back I find that surprising because the Course IV teacher was Mr. Kotschevar who was a little bundle of über woofy. He probably still is.
I digress.
We had our first full-blown exam in Calculus on Friday and yesterday we found out the results. I didn’t do as badly as I thought. It wasn’t an A by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a B when curved the right way and that I could deal with. When I took the test on Friday there was one question that completely confounded me. I had no idea how to approach the problem: “find all the roots of the number (cube root of 8i).” Or something like that; I don’t pay attention to the petty details when the numbers get imaginary. I know that it has something to do with adding 360 degrees three times and some sines and cosines but other than that I was lost. So I grabbed a number out of the sky and wrote down “-2”.
I was right! Well, at least for one of the roots. There were two more that I completely missed but I got me some partial credit on a problem I had no idea how to do. 1
Sometimes it’s the little things.
1I’ve since restudied the problem and I know how to do it now.
Betamax.
Back in the early and mid 1980s I used to trade music videos on videotape with my friend Scott. I’d record them off of “Friday Night Videos” while he recorded them off of MTV (the cable TV didn’t come up the road until 1988, Scott lived closer to town). The big chore was the actual trading; my father had bought us a VHS recorder when they first came out, Scott had a Betamax machine. Of course the two tapes would never mingle so you had to jimmy up wiring to record between the two. We’d have an occasional discussion about VHS vs Betamax. VHS eventually won. It’s still winning up in my Dad’s neck of the woods.
In this round of another Betamax versus VHS fight, Sony won out today with their Blu-ray format of high definition DVDs. So Earl and I are on the Betamax side of the line this time with the HD-DVD player sitting in our living room. Anyone want to buy an HD-DVD drive for cheap? Hell, you can buy the whole tricked out Xbox 360, just drop me a line for details. We want a Wii.
Sleigh Beds Ring.
With the tax returns burning a hole in our pockets, Earl and I decided to make the final purchase necessary for the house. After searching several stores yesterday, we purchased a queen-sized sleigh bed for the “back bedroom”, which is the official guest room here at The JPnEarl Manor.
It’s interesting that I refer to that room as the back bedroom. It’s not really in the back of the house. It’s actually my old office. I suppose it’s the furthest away from the master bedroom so it gets dubbed the “back bedroom”. Grandma and Grandpa City had a “back bedroom”, I guess that’s where I picked the term up from.
Anyway, with the purchase of this sleigh bed (which is to be delivered on Wednesday, let’s hope for ‘woof’ points), our house is now full of furniture. Not bad for 4+ years of living here. We also now have two spare bedrooms, the aforementioned “back bedroom” and the closer bedroom that we call the “boy bedroom”, which is where our fantasy houseboy will sleep. He gets the older full-sized bed.
Groove Is In The Mix.
To get you in the mood for a holiday weekend (in the States), here’s a little video to get you moving.
Deee-lite, “Groove Is In The Heart”
There’s also a new DJ SuperCub mix available, presenting House of Cub.
Thoughts.
As I drove back and forth from school today I had several random thoughts singing around in this active head of mine. I thought I would share. I might get a little ranty.
1. Heads up to people that are not familiar with winter driving. You can not dodge the snowflakes and it’s o.k. for them to hit your car. In addition, it is not wise to slam on the breaks when you find yourself in a whiteout (blowing/drifting snow or snow that’s falling down really hard). The person behind you will slam into you and to make the occasion more joyous they can’t see you because you’ve stopped in the middle of the whiteout. Note to New Jersey drivers – for some reason you folks feel that putting your sunglasses on in the middle of a whiteout helps your visibility. It doesn’t. It makes you look stupid.
2. While we’re in the car, you want FRESH air from OUTSIDE blowing into your car so that the windows don’t get all foggy. If you’re driving around with foggy windows and you can’t figure out how to fix the problem (don’t use RECIRCULATE on your heater), you’re a dumb ass.
3. Professors that announce at the beginning of the semester that all tests, quizzes, etc. are open book and then announce two hours before said exam that it’s NOT open book deserve the flu they are suffering with.
4. I was listening to a Mac podcast on the way to school this morning and decided to shut it off and delete it off my iPod. I am a rabid user of all things Apple but quite frankly the stereotypical Mac fanboy makes me want to vomit. It’s a company, not a religion. I hold nothing against those that choose to use Linux or Windows and would gladly help anyone. It’s a little more painful to help Windows users but I can deal with it. Apple bollocks their software just as much as Microsoft does so come down off the cross.
5. I am not going to get into the habit of playing hip hop and rap during my DJ gigs (there’s a very few customers that request it) and if they want that kind of music I’m not the guy for the job.
6. I am sick of the snow. I used to love winter. But that love has been lost. I’d rather deal with rain than with snow. Give me between 60 and 75 degrees fahrenheit, no matter the precipitation and I’d be quite content.
7. Apparently the writer’s strike is over. I find myself not giving a damn, though I don’t know why I even mention it since our current television line up includes only three programs: “Las Vegas”, “Private Practice” and “American Idol”. I gave up on “Heroes” halfway through the second season and nothing else really holds my interest.
8. I’ve decided that I want to go to a rugby game, though I know little about the sport. I also want to play on a gay football team. I don’t know what makes the team gay because all football players pat each others’ arses, but there you are.
St. Valentine’s Day.
My sweetheart is south of the Mason-Dixon line on business. He gets to run around in shirt sleeves, I bundle up on this St. Valentine’s Day. He wines and dines with customers, I sine and cosine with tests. Tonight we’ll be snuggled naked under the covers but hundreds of miles apart; one on a Nokia, the other on an iPhone. Even though we have nearly a dozen Valentine’s Day under our belt I still got choked up when I left a handmade card on the kitchen counter, so he would be surprised at 4:30 this morning as he made his way to the airport.
I think I feel a little melancholy. Perhaps I’ll make popcorn.
Lickety Split.
Wednesdays are my day off from college. I know most college students would like to get their hands on a three day weekend but I wasn’t that fortunate when I was putting my schedule together, so I compromised with Wednesdays off. It divides the week up nicely.
I had many plans for the things I was going to accomplish today but the day flew by too quickly. I was going to finish up the laundry, vacuum the house from top to bottom, dust, clean out the driveway and get all my homework done for the week. I’ve accomplished some of it; I’m currently drying my last load of clothes, the driveway has been cleaned out once and my homework is relatively up to date (I still have to do an assignment for Friday). All in all I’m pleased though the dust bunnies are starting to roar a bit. I guess I’ll have to tackle them this weekend.
I took a walk to the neighbours and gave them their mail that has been accumulating here at the house for the past couple of days. I spoke with them and everything. I think he appreciated the neighbourly gesture. My conscience wouldn’t let me do anything other than deliver their mail. It looked important.
Other than that it has been a utility sort of day. Tonight we are going to watch American Idol. I hate to admit it but I’m starting to enjoy this season. The auditions weren’t nearly as rude as previous seasons (which I appreciated) and there doesn’t seem to be as many performers (and I use that term loosely) that lack the ability to hold a note and cover by “runs” – singing six ways from Sunday every note around the actual note that should musically be sung. I’ve never been a fan of those that do “runs” and I think it shows a complete lack of talent when a singer resorts to that. I say this with confidence as a somewhat schooled vocalist.
I have to admit that I’m also digging Paula Abdul this season. I even like her new single. I find her fairly amusing and doing her best to boost the confidence of the American Idol contestants. So she might seem drunk once in a while. I say “big deal”, life is to short to worry about trivial things such as sobriety.
Speaking of all things trivial, I think I’m the only person in the world that prefers the jazzy version of the “Leave It To Beaver” theme that played during the last season of the show. I find that it matches Mrs. Cleaver’s kicky hairstyle well. And am I the only one that finds Tony Dow somewhat hunky that final year of the show? I think he was of a legal age at that time.
