The hour has begun

Coverage of my last 5 days or so:

Friday night: Went and saw "Domino" at the theater. 3 word review -- Intense, different, acceptable.

Saturday: Got up at 7:00 (crazy...I know) and drove up to Ames with my brother for the football game. We met some friends of Nathan's at about 10:00 and tailgated till just before gametime. During this stretch the weather was clear and just warm enough. A little bit into the game it clouded over some and was a little chilly. The game was great, however, with ISU beating Okie State 37-10 in its homecoming game. I was reminded how much I liked to attend live sporting events.

Sunday: Pretty typical.

Monday: Drove to my mom's place in Cedar Falls. Spent most of the afternoon helping rake the back yard, cleaning the gutters, etc. I got a pretty good blister on the palm of my left hand. We went out to Carlos O'Kelly's for dinner.

Tuesday: Drove to Reinbeck to have lunch with my dad and pick up a couple things from the house before heading back to my place.

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Here is a fairly awe-inspiring picture for your viewing pleasure.

Oh, in case I didn't say.....I want the White Sox to win it all.

Current song: "Tremble For My Beloved" by Collective Soul

Must be those commie bastards...

When I was heating up a small amount of leftover mixed vegetables earlier tonight for dinner, mere moments after turning on the microwave I heard a strange hissing noise coming from it. I looked through the microwave window and much to my surprise saw a couple small, intense flames through the clear plastic container that the veggies were in. After quickly stopping the microwave (which caused the flames to immediately disappear) and cautiously opening the microwave door, I discovered it was the green beans (there were only two) that had tiny black burn marks on them. I decided against eating the voodoo vegetables and threw them out.

This is a new one on me. Ideas? Theories?

The second statement definitely isn't true...

This past Thursday through Monday was spend back in Ames visiting friends. Shortly after my arrival in the early evening I went out to eat with the trio that I would be staying with for the weekend. We ate at the new(ish) Old Chicago. I had a calzone and a pint of Harp lager. Chris picked me up from there and we went to Varsity Theater and saw "Waiting". Overall it was a fairly gross and disturbing movie. It's only redeeming values were some funny parts and Ryan Reynolds. I think that with the setting and cast that the movie had the writers should have come up with something a little better. Ryan Reynold's next film, Just Friends, looks more promising.

The other main event of the weekend was the Booze & Knives party on Saturday. Eight good friends and I got together late afternoon and drove out to a pumpkin farm about 15 minutes away. We each picked out and bought a pumpkin to carve up, looked around at the other goods, and took a short hayride (on straw) around the farm. We then drove back and spent the evening carving our pumpkins, drinking wine, eating chili, watching football, listening to "Halloween music", and chatting. It was a great time. We consumed all of the about 15 bottles of wine that we had. There may have been one leftover bottle. I honestly couldn't tell you because I don't remember the last little bit of the night after everybody had left. I'm told by Todd and Tonya that at this point we spent some time out on the balcony and watching TV. Apparently I was being quite humorous, making such outlandish claims as "There is no West Virgina", which I followed up with "I'M FROM WEST VIRGINA!" I closed out the night by forcefully ejecting some of The Evil from my body. Needless to say Sunday ended up being a low-key day of recovery for me.

My jack-o'-lantern was a tribute to this excellent Jack Handey-ism:
Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I’ll go over to the person’s house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I’m gone, but you know what I’ve left on the porch? A jack-o’-lantern with a knife in the side of its head with a note that says “You.” After that, I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done.

Current song: Be Like That -- 3 Doors Down

Mr. Woodchuck says "Hi" by the way

My bedroom window overlooks Morrison Park, with the pond taking up most of the view. With the vast numbers of Canadian geese and ducks, a few squirrels, and Mr. Woodchuck it's almost a mini wildlife refuge. It would be hard to find window and balcony views much better than ours.

I find today's dooce.com posting quite amusing.

Well my baseball picks were half right. I got the NL right, but whiffed on the AL.
World Series picks: Astros vs. White Sox

The phone interview today went alright. It seems like a pretty good gig. We'll see how it goes.

Current song: "Can't Get Enough of You" by Smash Mouth

Everything's going to change.

In a world that seems to be filled with tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and scary bird flus that kill so many, there are still glimmers of hope. I was watching CNN Headline News the other day when the anchor announced that a new beer coaster had been invented in Germany (got to love those Germans with their beer) that could sense when your beer was getting low by measuring its weight and would then signal the wait staff. Waving the coaster would also immediately send a signal as well. WHY was this not invented sooner? I mean come on.....how brilliant is that! Death may be coming for us in any number of horrible ways, but while we wait for its arrival at least we won't be waiting for our beer refills. Cause, hey, the refills always just show up right when you're finishing your current beer. THERE'S BEER HERE!

So I think I may be going to Ames each of the next four weekends:
October 15 - I think I'm gonna be coming to join the pumpkin carving festivities.
October 22 - At least coming up to go to the football game with my brother. Possible I may be there for more than just Saturday.
October 28 - Hello Dave is gonna be at People's on Friday. Everybody needs to plan to be there....take off work if you need to. :-)
November 5 - Got tickets to go to the OAR concert with the gang.

All these plans are subject to change if something career-oriented should arise and necessitate it.

I've got two interview type things this week for different companies. Both positions are in Chicago. Which lucky is one of the few big cities I'd like to live in.

Song playing as I post this: Bach - "Jesu Joy of Man's Desire"

One more thing (tonight)....

Here is a pretty sweet Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). Enjoy.

Nutritious and Delicious

So I made myself a little treat tonight. It's something that's popped into my head several times recently, but really got in there good during the season premiere of Lost. I am of course talking about.....a milk shake made with fresh fruit. Yay! So I had to run to Hy-vee today for milk and such things, so I went ahead and got some fresh raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries as well as vanilla ice cream. The only hitch in this story is that Mark and I don't have a blender. I have a little, cheap drink mixer machine thing, however. It kind of worked well enough (not all the fruit was mixed in....some of the blueberries were enough still whole), and it turned out pretty delicious. When I get a real blender I imagine it will be that much better.

Turns out that Mark is going back to Ames tomorrow till Saturday. He'll be back for the second half of the weekend though. I'm hoping to go see a movie or two the next few days. If I'm lucky someone might actually want to go with me. "Waiting" with Ryan Reynolds is obviously high on the list to see. Seems like there might be a couple other movies out that I want to see too.

Whoa.

That's it for now.

My Life. American Express free.

At this point I'm in a holding pattern. For a little over a month now my life has consisted of a (remarkably) low amount of activities. Other than the obvious ones like eating and sleeping, the significant items on the list includes watching tv, surfing the internet, running, and searching for a job. Other little things I do include walking down the street to Hy-vee to buy food when needed, and keeping the condo somewhat tidy. Oh....and Mark (my roommate) and I have been playing some games of Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. There are times when I venture out further (requiring the use of my car) to other destinations. These trips occur mostly on weekends. They typically involve going to visit one of the two other people I know here, or running some errand. I have been avoiding driving as gas prices are obviously high and I need to watch my pennies since I'm unemployed.

Last Friday night I went to see Serenity. I went alone as Mark was in Ames for the weekend (this coming weekend will be his first one not going to Ames since I moved in) and the other two people I know here were busy. The theater was quite full and the folks there seemed to mostly be The Faithful (easy to tell from the widespread laughter, clapping, and gasps during the course of the flick). I was turned onto Firefly a couple months ago, bought the DVDs of the series, and greatly enjoyed them. I am willing to say it is my all-time favorite cancelled in under one full season series. I know.....quite a statement. It's a shame it was cancelled. Back to the movie.....I enjoyed Serenity very much. It was almost everything the TV series was. In the same way that movies are never as good as the books they are based on it seems, having the TV series continue would have been better than having the movie. We must take what we can get though. Hopefully, despite the low box office totals for it so far, more sequels will someday be made.

"Hell with this! I'm gonna live!"

Desired ALCS matchup : Red Sox vs. Yankees
Desired NLCS matchup: Astros vs. Cardinals
Don't care too much after that really.

AL MVP choice: Easy.....A-Rod.
NL MVP choice: Well I want D-Lee, but that's unlikely. Of Jones and Pujols I'd WANT it to be Jones. It will probably be Pujols.

a sound of thunder

I have finally gotten around to joining the club and created a blog of my very own. It would seem I could have done this much sooner being a recently graduated but presently unemployed computer scientist. As they say....better late then never.

And now a word on the title of this blog. It is from a short story written by Ray Bradbury in the early fifties (which has been made into an apparently mediocre and soon to be released movie). Some more information about it is here. The last line of the story is "There was a sound of thunder." This could be referring to the sound of a character dying by a gunshot, or possibly the roar of a T-Rex. A deeper meaning of what the sound is, however, could be the death of the butterfly on the rest of society. Even the smallest choices or changes that you make will forever change your future (or history if you conveniently have a time machine). Such is life.