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I’m sure a lot of you have seen the big brawl that took place during the game between the University of Miami and Florida International University over the weekend. One of my fellow interns during the summer I spent in Ohio attended FIU. A total of 31 players were suspended because of the brawl and more punishment may be coming.

Mark Thomas, a former Miami player, lost his TV analyst job with Comcast Sports SouthEast because of comments he made during the fight. You’ll hear them if you watch the video below. I copied this from FOXSports.com.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” Thomas said as the brawl raged out of control. “You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into the OB playing that stuff. You’re across the ocean over there. You’re across the city. You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You’ll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing.”

Miami and Florida International have campuses 9 miles apart in Miami-Dade County. It was the first meeting between the two programs, and the Hurricanes went on to win 35-0.

“I say, why don’t they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don’t come into the OB, baby,” Thomas said. “We’ve had a down couple years but you don’t come in here talking smack. Not in our house.”

It can be exciting interesting when a fight breaks out during a sporting event or anywhere for that matter. A lot of Miami fans were probably thinking along the same lines as he was. I think it’s hilarious that he said that on TV. At the same time, I’m wondering: How could he say that on TV? Hilarious!

I got a copy of Tales of the Abyss for the PS2 yesterday. I only got to play it about an hour, but it looks like it’s going to be another highly addictive game. More on this another time.

I’m almost finished reading Wolves of the Calla, the 5th book in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. If I have to read the way of speaking that these people use much longer I might go crazy. I’ll get to move on to the next one soon, and I’ll say thankya. The story of the book is good, but it seems like it’s just a lot of filler material. To me it doesn’t seem like this book and that last one advanced the story of their quest to the tower that much.

I have to figure out something to cook and bring to work tomorrow. It’ll probably be a dessert. It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked anything major.

The laptop came from Dell on Wednesday. It came with lots of software that kept popping up notices and annoying me, so I wiped the whole thing and installed Windows XP Pro. I spent a great portion of the day yesterday installing drivers, Windows updates (there were a ton of these), media players, instant messaging programs that I rarely use, and other miscellaneous software. It’s has a 15.4 inch widescreen LCD so the view is nice. I haven’t used the sound much but it seems to be much better than the sound on my last one. I need to make a point to test out all the ports just so I’ll know that they work.

I think I’ve decided on a name.

The LCD on my Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop that I named Excelsior went black seemingly for good last week. The computer isn’t really dead, it’s just blind. I’m sure there’s a better analogy. I think I first started having problems with the LCD last year. Somehow, every time the monitor went black, the image always came back. Since I can barely make out some stuff on the screen, I think the back light might be out. Dell wants to charge me about $400 to replace the LCD. Buying a new LCD online is only a little cheaper on the sites that I checked out. There was also another spill on the keyboard, so some of the keys are messed up again. After much deliberation I decided that it would be better to stop delaying the inevitable and just buy new laptop. A laptop is one of those conveniences that you don’t really need, but once you have one it’s a pain when you don’t have it.

I’m a loyal person and I’m sticking with Dell since they have worked well for me. I now know that I’m not as up-to-date on the newest hardware as I was a few years ago. I’m looking at the Inspiron E1505, which Dell has dubbed as an “entertainment” notebook. It should be good enough for what I’ll use it for. I think I’ll still use a desktop as my primary gaming rig, so the basic configuration on the E1505 was fine for the most part. Those who know me know that I don’t normally buy top-of-the-line when it comes to anything. I could get a “basic” notebook and save some money, but I don’t want bottom-of-the-line either. Those have Celeron processors anyway, and I tend to gloss over computers with Celeron processors.

I remember that it was October 2001 when I got this laptop (my first) and October 2002 when I got my current desktop. Somehow October has unintentionally become a significant month for me in terms of computers.

I should be making my final decision over the weekend. Hopefully, it won’t take long to receive it. I’ll have to think of a name for my new one. I think I’ll wait until I’ve had it for a few days so I’ll get to know it better.

Getting a new computer is a big deal for me, so I’ve been thinking about the other computers I’ve had in recent years:
Battleship, desktop, 1999-2002
Excelsior, laptop, 2001-2006
Hawkwing, desktop, 2002-present

I’m sure I’ll write more about it once I have the new computer in my possession.

Last night my roommate and I finished the game Gladius for the Xbox. It’s not the kind of game that I would normally play, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. It’s a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements that’s similar to Final Fantasy Tactics if I remember that game correctly. The co-op multiplayer feature was one of the main reasons I decided to give it a try.

The graphics on the Xbox look great. I read somewhere that there are textures in this version that you won’t see on the PS2 or Gamecube. There was one problem that kept popping up. The game gives you the option to change the appearance of your fighters, everything from skin color to the color of their armor. During the cut scenes, sometimes the characters would have their customized appearances and sometimes the characters would look the way they originally looked when we first met them. So, sometimes Urlan (the brother of our hero) was black and sometimes he was white. It was more humorous than annoying, however.

The battles are the meat of the game. Preparing for and fighting the battles are how you will spend most of your time. For the first part of the game the battles are all insanely easy, but eventually you’ll have to do some real strategizing in order to survive. They change the opponent types, the locations, the conditions of each battle, and the requirements for victory just enough to prevent the game from getting too dull. Many of the attacks are really cool to see, even if you’ve seen it a countless number of times already. The strategy element of the game is really engaging. I love it when a good plan comes together.

There is a plot to the game, but it doesn’t seem that important until the end. The voice acting is pretty bad. The bad voice acting was also more humorous than annoying. The most unintentionally funny character in this department was Ursula (our hero). The grunts, groans, and battle verbiage are better, but can get on your nerves at times.

Overall, Gladius is a fun game to play. I recommend it if you enjoy this type of game.

Today is moving day at work and a lot of people are stressed/cranky/sick from the all the dust. One guy who was displaced had been in his office for 23 years. Poor guy. Some people are realizing today that they are going to have to get new furniture that will fit in their new offices or have work done on their offices.

I was one of the people who moved today and I will be moving again soon. I was also one of the people whose computers didn’t work at first after the move. The bad thing is that my new office is a shared office and my computer is facing the doorway. Not much space and not much privacy. The other occupant of this office is on maternity leave, so I get to be alone for a little while.

I knew that the office I had been in since I started was a temporary office, so I was kind of looking forward to moving to a place that I could settle into for a while because I had a feeling that I would be in this location for at least a little while. However, the lady who will be taking my place in this new office has already been in here today measuring things and trying to figure out how she’s going to arrange the place. She’s already put in a request to have the carpet redone, which is probably going to mean a disruption for me. The next move could actually be within the next couple of months and it won’t be soon enough.

Two good things:

• I actually have a key to this office so I don’t have to leave it unlocked and I don’t have to worry about the cleaners locking it in the mornings.
• For the first time in 5 years I have my own phone at work. For now I’ll ignore the fact that it doesn’t work yet.

I got my order from Contacts1st today. It’s been less than a week since I placed the order.

I’m still making my way through Battlestar Galactica. It’s nice to see GOOD sci-fi on TV in the post Star Trek era. I think I’ve even helped create 2 new fans. I ordered Season 2.5 over the weekend and it shipped yesterday. I can’t wait to watch it all.

I rented a game called Black today. I hope it’s worth the time. Since I got it for free it won’t be a big deal if it’s a bad game.

Today I wrote an OpenGL program for the first time in at least a year, probably closer to two years. Funny how the the little things can give you the most trouble sometimes.

I like the cooler weather.

I have astigmatism, so the contacts that are best for me cost a lot of money. I have worn toric lenses over the past few years, since they seem to help people like me the most. I had heard about a new brand called Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism, so I asked the doctor about them when I saw her a couple of weeks ago. She said that they would be better for me since I like to sleep in my contacts. From reading I learned that their shape was designed so they don’t move around on your eye as much as the toric lenses and they hold more moisture. I’ve been wearing a trial pair of Acuvue for Astigmatism and haven’t had any problems so I am switching to them. They are made of a different material, so handling them was a little weird at first. Other than that, everything has been okay.

Today it was time to order the new contacts. I usually go to the same site to order them each time, but this time I decided to shop around. One trend I noticed was that the more you order, the larger rebate you got back. I wasn’t planning on ordering more than a box for each eye, so that didn’t help me any. I also noticed that on most sites you had to spend a decent amount of money to qualify for free shipping.

After looking around I decided that I could get the best deal from Contasts1st.com. I looked at reviews of the site and the main complaint seemed to be that the shipping time could be a little long. I’m not in a big hurry though. I have one last pair of toric lenses that should last me until I get the new ones. I liked the fact that they allow you to fax or email a scanned copy of your prescription to them so they won’t have to call your doctor’s office. I was a little nervous about ordering from a company I had never heard of, but I think everything will be fine. As long as my contacts haven’t been opened when I receive them, I won’t complain. The total cost is about 25% cheaper on this site than they are on the site I normally go to. That’s good enough for me.

P.S. – I learned today that OD means right eye and OS means left eye. I’m sure there’s a reason for that, but I didn’t take the time to look it up.

I finally bought a copy of Terry Goodkind’s lastest book: Phantom. It’s book 10 of The Sword of Truth series and book 2 of The Chainfire Trilogy that will bring an end to The Sword of Truth series. Does that make any sense? Even though many elements of The Sword of Truth are similar to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, this series hasn’t become as boring and as full of fluff as The Wheel of Time. There hasn’t been a bad book in the series…except for book 7…book 7 was just annoying.

The only thing that bothered me about this book was all the technical jargon that wizards, witches, and sorceresses used when speaking of their craft. I never knew that spell casting was so math-oriented.

I did notice a trend that I liked. It seemed like whenever I was expected something tragic to happen, the good people usually turned out on top. It may have been an unrealistic string of good luck, but I can live with that. I’m tired of all the good guys falling on hard times in the books that I read. Of course, the good guys do have some bad luck, just not all the time. It wouldn’t be interesting if everything went their way.

I won’t give away the plot, but Phantom has a lot of the attributes that made me a fan of The Sword of Truth in the first place. Many incidents from the previous 9 books in the series tie directly into the plot of this one. Once I started I had trouble putting it down. After reading Phantom I’m really looking forward to reading the final book in the series. Currently, it’s expected to be released in 2008.

I moved in January and I decided then that cable TV would be something that I would do without. My roommate didn’t already have it in the apartment, so I decided that I could go without it. Since I could barely get two network channels clearly enough to see what was going on even with an antenna, I have been pretty much without TV since then. I did manage to get caught up on all the shows that I had previously been watching, but I was always behind.

Over time I got used to not having TV. I spent more time on other hobbies. There were times, however, that I couldn’t help but feel out of touch with things that were going on in the world (I like to watch the news) and new TV shows that everybody talked about.

With the start of the new TV season I figured it was a good time to jump back into TV. The DIRECTV guys came by today and installed our service. The guy who seemed to be in charge wasn’t the friendliest person in the world. The second guy who seemed okay, but he installed the dish outside so I didn’t see him much. The third guy didn’t seem to speak much English. The lead guy spoke to him using English and a few Spanish words. I tried to help the lead guy connect the receivers to the TVs since I know how to do it and I know our TVs better than him. He didn’t seem to like that and they handled all but the first TV. I can understand why they would want to be ones to do it. One guy went into my room and shut the door while I was helping the lead guy in the other bedroom. Somehow that made me slightly uncomfortable to have a complete stranger shut up in my room. I’m sure it was all innocent and all he was doing was connecting the receiver. The lead guy kept asking to use our phones to make calls. He made the calls in order to get the service up, but you would think he would have his own phone to use for that. He also asked to use our bathroom. I’m glad there wasn’t any major unpleasantness going on in there.

They had trouble getting the receiver activated at first. A few times the lead guy came back in, looked at the screen, and left without saying a word. At one point after he had been gone for a while, I looked outside and noticed that the truck was gone. I went out back and didn’t see anyone there. I didn’t know for sure if he was coming back or not. He had left his clipboard, so I assumed that he was coming back. When he finally came back he informed us that the guy installing the dish wasn’t doing something correctly and that was what caused the problem. At some point while he was on the phone, he handed me the phone to answer some questions. The lady on the other end tried to get me to sign up for some kind of special promotion, but I quickly stopped her. I signed up for exactly what I wanted when I signed up.

Overall, it wasn’t a whole lot of trouble getting DIRECTV up and going. They didn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary that would have cost me any kind of fee. It’ll be nice to get back into this form of entertainment. It was even fun to see TV commercials again. I enjoyed watching Cheat! and X-Play for the first time in a while and I spent some time watching ESPN (I won’t even comment on that game tonight). I started on my newly purchased Battlestar Galactica DVDs last night. I wonder if I can get caught up before the new season starts.