Over on the CTA Tattler, they're announced that the Feds have come through and approved funding for the impending doom that will be the Brown Line expansion. I just moved closer to the Brown Line, so that's cool...
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July 2005 Archives
Today and for the rest of the week, it will be quite warm and humid in Chicago. This summer has been crazy compared to last summer; I think it only hit 90 degrees twice (or slightly more) last year.
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Tonight, we're grilling out some turkey burgers. Add some corn on the cob and fruit salad, and you've got yourself a BBQ.
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Yesterday at work, I was building MS Access queries and paying slight attention to Cubs vs. Diamondbacks game on Gamecast, and I definitely thought it was over. It was bottom of the eighth inning when Mark Prior loaded the bases and gave up a two run single to give the D-backs the lead in the game. I thought it was over.
Fast forward to this morning: CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! (say it like Harry Carrey)
What a way to end it! They've shown significant improvement over the past fifteen games or so. I'm thinking they still have a decent chance for the wildcard. Please!!$%@%^$^@!
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Rob's Light Hat
Originally uploaded by justinpward.
It's amazing what people will do when left to their own devices while I'm sleeping...
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So, last night I planned on attending a show at The Empty Bottle--Chin Up Chin Up with Euphone. Uhm, I was asleep at 10:30 p.m.
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Needless to say, I was slightly disappointed with myself.
I just have no energy by the time the weekend comes. Yes, I'm usually caught up on Saturday and I can begin to live a normal life. But, Friday night is just impossible for me. I think that's a consensus among some of my friends and family, too. After slaving away all week in the office, everyone is just left drained by the time Friday night rolls around...
Even though I wanted to go and I thought it could have been really cool, I'm slightly weary about committing to see a show by a band that I've never seen before. Not to mention a band that hardly plays out. Not to mention a band that would have serious challenges to creating their sound live. I think in the back of my mind, I never really wanted to go but I thought that I should. Silly Justin and your stupid mind tricks.
My mind's gotta mind of its own...
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TomCruiseIsNuts.com
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Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Cruise has tossed off the shackles of Hollywood oppression and is piloting his Scientology-fueled funny car straight towards you. The tires are smoking and he's screaming to the stands about Katie, psychiatry, sex, space aliens, and Brooke Shields. We invite you to grab some popcorn and watch for a few minutes before the crash...Onfolio.com This is a product to basically organize everything you read on the web, including blogs. However, this takes it a step or two further by actually archiving web content for you, allowing you do whatever you want with that content--post to a blog, create a report with citations, etc. It looks pretty cool, but can anyone justify the cost? Is it worth it? I haven't installed the trial yet, but I was thinking about it...
This is Radio Clash: A Manifesto for Creating a Meaningful Radio Experience
Hopefully, this will give me some insight for my podcasts.
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Maddux got his 3000th career strikeout yesterday.
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I'm glad that he's part of the Cubs now. I hope they start making some crazy trades before the deadline hits. Or, did the Cubs already make the last-minute trade deadline?
Whatever they do, don't take Corey Patterson back. That would suck...
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After yesterday's wonderful boost of traffic by Forbes.com, I've felt a lot more motivation towards blogging in general. When I had the idea to start a blog a year ago, that idea turned into starting a music blog. That idea turned into focusing on live music, one of my absolute favorite things. It just made sense, but I never really believed that I would garner any attention for what I was working on.
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I'm proud. Happy. Remotivated. Still unorganized. It can only get better from here, though...
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I have to say that I'm proud of the following achievement. My other blog, Live Music Blog, was named by Forbes as one of the "Best of the Web: Music Blog."
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I'm glad to see that the navigation and disorganized-ness are really only the crappy parts.
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Bring Back the Couch - a blog devoted to ridiculing everything The Daily Show does, written from their ejected couch's perspective from their recent set redesign.
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I have to say that I agree. I'm sorry, but it's true...
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Lately, I know I've been pushing my "I'm Busy" agenda. I don't know what the hell it is, but I think this article might go some lengths to help me figure it out.
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Time to switch off and slow down
I think this has been a huge problem for me lately--at work and at home. I start a blog that takes about a year to ramp up and build some traffic and immediately I'm feeling the pressure of information overload. I get busy at my job and immediately I cry wolf that I have too much information and responsibility flowing my way. I know that part of this truth is the abundance of information I'm absorbing everyday that is probably completely irrelevant to me. Yes, the other half of that is my pessemistic tendencies, but that's the subject of a totally different post.
My point is that this is definitely a hard thing to consciously understand. Do you know what information you're currently assuming you cannot do without? Think about that same piece of information and think about it again. Is this information making your life easier? More enjoyable? Funnier? Jammier? I think in a lot of situations I'll be learning the opposite. And that's cool...
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New Harry Potter adventure flies off the shelves - Yahoo! News
And, this comes as a surprise to anyone? That's ridiculous. The new Harry Potter was easily going to put any previous record to shame, except maybe one of their own previous records.
I've never read a Harry Potter book but I've seen about a half hour of one of the movies. Therefore, I will try to speak even more intelligently about it considering I know so little about the books. Or reading or writing in general.
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This week, Tuesday to be specific, I celebrated my 24th birthday. While not totally uneventful, it really was. It's hard to celebrate a birthday on a Tuesday, so I've decided to extend my birthday four and half days. Tomorrow night, I'm thinking we might head over to Martyrs to see the Fareed Haque Group play. I've never actually heard them, but I'm sure they're sweet. I mean, he plays with Umphrey's McGee all the time? That automatically makes him awesome.
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But seriously, tomorrow night will mark the end of the my 24th birthday celebration. Bummer.
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So, Katie and I are about twenty minutes into Team American: World Police when I felt a small tickle on my foot. I looked down, and Katie switched on the light.
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The carpet was moving. Dynamic.
Ants.
Disgusting.
Okay, so that might be a small exaggeration. And, I really mean a large exaggeration.
We've decided to hire a cleaning lady. Or cleaning person. Whatever. It's clearly the right decision.
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So, this week has been tough for me because I've been super busy at work. Whenever I'm busier at work I find it nearly impossible to keep up with my blog. I know that's a similar problem that other bloggers have, so I'm surely not unique in my issue...
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I'm planning on writing some more this weekend. Also, I always try to improve on what I've got, so I plan on getting updated feeds out, etc. Feedburner is just TOO solid to not use. Plus, their feedtracking stats are pretty important. I need them. Now.
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We've come to the decision that we will order HBO. We are missing out on too many good series before they get to DVD. It's fine and dandy that I can rent them from Netflix, but I want them now. Current. Fresh. New. Crispy.
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Today, Katie and I are headed to the land of the IKEA and the Flyers, Schaumburg. We're going to see the Big Summer Classic tour, featuring String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Umphrey's McGee, Michael Franti and Spearhead, New Monsoon, and Yonder Mountain String Band.
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Oh...my...Big...Summer...Classic...
It's going to be sweet. We're planning on taking of in about an hour and half, so I should probably start moving and getting ready. Yeah, probably is the keyword in that sentence. Watch. I'll post a couple more blog posts. You dare me? Okay.
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I'm so pleased that I'm now interested in coming back to Blogger and getting some serious writing done. I believe that everything looks fixed. Blogger Images is pretty cool, too.
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Yay Blogger!
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A Japanese psychiatric counselor has unofficially broken the Guinness world record for reciting Pi to over 80,000 digits, using only a piece of paper, a writing untensil, and his memory.
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Uhm, what!?!? I think this guy might want to consider attending one of his own sessions; he might have some psychological issues of his own to contend with...
I actually remember in school when we learned to calculate Pi. I remember understanding that I would never need to know this information again because modern calculators will be able to compute it for us. This is just insanely impressive, though.
I think I'm going to try and break the Guinness world record today for laziness. Well, "laziness". I'm actually going to be working on stuff for the site, so we'll see if I can get it done or not. That will dictate the record holder anyway...
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So, Katie found Google Earth before me. It's amazing.
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There's really so many things that can be done that it's scary. It's basically a program that allows you to play with Google Maps with the satellite view turned on. It's slightly system intensive, but I think that my 512MB of RAM should be enough.
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