Makin Lists

Hey.

Help me remember all the stuff I have to get done this week before heading out on the road with Michelle for a week.

Today I did all the laundry that I had around the house. I went shopping for another pair of shorts (I have a few that are pretty old and ratty and need to be disposed of). I cleaned out the car, took out all the crap that was laying in the trunk, re-packed only the stuff I’ll need, and I started a list of things I need to take so I can pack tomorrow.

I was pretty pissed at the end of the Brewers game today. Seems to me that there are certain areas where the team is obviously falling short, and if don’t pick it up, or make a move or three to turn things around, the season’s gonna be a wash. It seems weird, though, to be thinking about being all upset that the Brewers are falling behind in the playoff race.

Anyway, my GF is on the phone, so I better take this. Talk to you tomorrow.

These Speakers Sound Like Crap

I had a different word in the title at first, but I decided to make it more TV-friendly, for whatever reason.

Yeah, so I bought these speakers on Amazon:
shitty RCA speakers

And yeah, the reviews on them were lukewarm, but I figure that I paid less than 60 bucks when all was said and done, and there are much more expensive ways you can go. I wanted to use them as the rears in the home theater setup, cuz it would be difficult to string the speaker wire in my new place.

Yeah, for that application, they are ass. These were clearly designed for sucking as much as possible, and in a “wall-sharing” environment where your neighbor *probably* has some device working on a 900 mhz frequency, suckitude is maximized.

I don’t think I’m gonna send em back or get rid of em, though, cuz they’ll probably work OK for something else, like maybe I could put em down in the garage and use have tunes outside if I want. I dunno.

But it’s back to the rear-channel drawing board, that’s for sure.

In unrelated news, it’s still hot, but not as.

I Don't Mean to Go On

I’d like to have as much variety as possible in the daily blogging, but I have to just mention the heat again. It is soooo blasted hot around here. I didn’t walk to work this morning, because I got home from MKE too late to be ready in time, but then I was going to walk back from lunch.

Forget that, my thermometer was telling me it “feels like” 102 out there. This is Wis-damn-sconsin. I hope it cools off in time for the fair in a couple weeks. It has the potential to smell very bad in those barns…

I re-read the post I did at midnight on Sunday (or Saturday night, depending on how you look at it). It was kind of funny. It’s evident to me that I’d been drinking, and that my language skills had been influenced a bit. I didn’t feel too “influenced” when we got home, though. So I dunno.

The Brewers finally won a game, so that’s something. Do you think there’s any chance we can sweep San Francisco? The Giants suck this year, right? You’re right, it doesn’t seem likely.

I don’t know how I managed to drag myself in to work this morning. I was dead tired when I got home at 7. I really can’t wait for vacation next week. I guess I’ll have to keep an off-line record of what we do, in case I lack the Internet access at night, eh? I suppose there will be at least a day or two (in Yellowstone for sure) when we’re out of ‘tech’ contact.

This entry is really, really random and poorly constructed.

Yesterday afternoon Michelle and I went shopping for some clothes we need for the vay-kay. We both lacked adequate shorts. Michelle took care of that yesterday, but I still need one more pair. I tried some on that were really lightweight and seemed like they would be comfortable, but what’s with men’s shorts going halfway down your calf and ballooning out like you’re about to jump out of a plane? Maybe I’m just too fat or something, but I don’t seem to have this issue with regular pants. I guess I’m gonna need to pack some jeans for this trip, too.

Shit, I’m gonna have to pack for this trip pretty soon.

After we got done shopping, we met Joe @ Nice Ash (formerly Ambassador) to play Golden Tee. It was Michelle’s first time; she did really well. She’s also gotten very very good at driving my car. I think if she only had a manual to drive for about a week or two, she’d be a pro.

I need to balance my checkbook again, too. And I have to do laundry today. I really need to go make a list.

Talk to you later if you haven’t melted from the heat.

I Said I Would Do This Every Day

Hey.

I told you I would try to blog daily, so even though I’m a little drunk, here I am.

I got up late this AM (around 10) and I had waffles for breakfast at noon. I was impressed that Michelle and I got up around the same time (although she was at home at her place, and me at mine).

But I got not a lot done around here during the day; I haven’t had much time in the last… oh… year and change to have a day of doing diddly around my house. So I watched a whole mess of History Channel and moved some things around in the apartment. Christy got here around 4:30, and we’ve been doing some misc being out and drinking drinks since then. Just got home from Oblio’s, and I think we’ll play some Atari.

I have to get up in time to head down to MKE to get camping equip. from Joe tomorrow, so I better remember to take my vitamin.

Lookin more and more like the Crew’s gonna have to trade Carlos, which is a M-F’in shame.

Talk to ya tomorrow.

Televangelists Are Insane

Don’t you think? The people that go to these rallies (or whatever they call them)– have they, y’know… er–read books? Can they? Do they not have time to think about things around them, or do they maybe have too much?

I didn’t really show up here to talk about that, but I’m watchin a show on History about the Book of Revelation.

Uh, quite different topic here– wanted you to know that my record is almost ready to come out:

All I need to do now is form a band, learn to play, and cut an album.

Had peanut butter for dinner today. Didn’t want to make more dirty dishes. I should probably wash the ones in the sink. I really, really, really wanna get done with putting all the crap away in the apartment here, but I *just barely* feel like getting up out of my chair. Yeah, it’s hard to get up for this crap.

Oh, damn– the Brewers are on. See ya later. More tomorrow.

I Did NOT Walk in to Work Today

As you will notice, given the weather radar image below:
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But I also didn’t blog yesterday; I got caught up in a little project of trying to squeeze more music on to a CD for the walking (in case it works out in the long run). My player can play mp3 discs, so I can theoretically have 700 MB or so of music on one CD.

The first one I whipped up the other day only ended up with about 6 or 7 albums on it. Not that many to choose from. I was also working with a slightly lower-capacity CD. So what I did is I went through my tunes on the server and pulled out about 20 or 25 that I thought would be nice to walk with, and I’m re-encoding copies of them at a lower bit rate. I think 96 should be OK. Mundschau would tell you I should have gone with 64, but that seems really low. Considering that I’ve done a bunch of these over time at 256 or higher, going to 96 will make a big diff.

Then I was watching this show on the History channel about salty snacks. That’s right, I watched an hour-long program about how popcorn, potato chips, and corn chips are made and became popular in America (part of a series called ‘America Eats’). Mid-way through, I felt like quite a dork, but I also felt like popcorn, so I made a bowl. Stupid shows about food…

I’ll pretty much be at home this weekend, but y’know who won’t? Joe Knitt. That dude is workin two part-time jobs on top of going to class right now. He’s frickin nuts.

But anyway, I gave you the shaft on the blogging yesterday, so I’m sure I’ll be back as the day wears on…

2-a-Day's

Yeah, it’s that time of year again. Time for a morning and afternoon shower. This wouldn’t be necessary if I had a pool. But, if I had a pool, that would mean a bunch of other shit is probably all taken care of, too, so…

But have you seen the forecast for the next few days? My ma said it might get up OVER A HUNDRED in E.R. That is nuts. They’re forecasting 90s over the weekend here and advising everyone who’s sick, dying, young, too fat, too thin, or ugly to stay indoors or drink plenty of non-alcoholic fluids.

When there is a week every summer that we break all the all-time heat records from the previous summer, it really makes you feel more like this global warming shit is the real deal. I think that I mentioned I went to An Inconvenient Truth over the 4th weekend, and I would definitely recommend it to everyone I know. If you’re a neo-conservative of any kind, you’re going to think it’s just a lot of liberal propaganda, but… in that case, you were probably gonna keep being a dick about global warming anyway. So why not see the movie and pick up some fresh ammo for tearing liberals/Al Gore/hippies to pieces?

Even if not everything in Al’s movie is scientifically 100% true (and really, when you talk about scientific theory, how can anybody know 100% for sure), there are truths within it that we should all probably think about.

Anyway.

Bloggin early this eve because I plan to see the pirate movie with BryGuy? in a bit. Michelle didn’t wanna see this one, and that’s fair, because I flat-out refused to see The Devil Wears Prada. The reviews on Johnny & The Pirate Hoard have not been stellar this time around, but if it’s fun, that’s all I’m looking for. I will let you know.

Meanwhile, I just got a message that my student loans are all consolimadated, so, WHOO-HOO don’t have to pay Great Lakes or D-Loans? this month…

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I walked in to work this morning, for the first time since I moved. One of the things I knew I would like about the new place is the garage/free parking, because it means I don’t have to park in a damned city-owned lot anymore. However, today was the first time I actually got out of bed and got ready fast enough to have time to walk.

Or so I thought.

Turns out that walking takes all of 5 minutes more than driving from where I live now, so really I don’t have an excuse. Good to keep in mind for the future (when I will undoubtedly run late again).

But I thought this would be a good idea – wear my Nike cross-trainers on the walk, and carry my dressier shoes with me. I have a couple pair that I only wear to work, so I’m thinkin it’ll work just as well to leave my shoes here and change when I get in. Sitting at my desk changing my shoes at the start of the day does make me feel like Mr. Rogers, of course. Maybe I should start wearing sweaters every day, too. Hmm…

Something else that goes along with this walking in: I am a member of a culture that seems to require a soundtrack at all times, so like everyone else that walks anywhere these days, I packed my CD player (most of you have an iPod, this I know) and earbuds so I could listen to tunes during the walk. Really didn’t seem to be worth it to me. Maybe it’s the short length of the walk, or the fact that I never really was one of those people, but I walking in silence seems just as agreeable to me.

If you ask me, there’s an extent to which being plugged in to your music player all the time is a way of saying, “Hey world, piss off—I’m busy…” But hey, whatever you wanna do… I give myself three days or so of this walking with music before I tire of it.

However, if you do need to walk somewhere and must have music to do it, I would highly recommend Wilco’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.’ Seems quite conducive to an average walking pace…

Oh, and I googled my route-by-foot to work to see if the Googlators would do the same thing as me. They’re going all the way up to Algoma for some damn reason, but I changed it a little with a highlighter. In case you’re interested.

image

firing from the hip since 2002