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Although it doesn’t officially go on sale until next week, I hear that some places are already selling the Serenity DVD. I think I’ll go ahead and order it as a Christmas present to myself. Since a friend was nice enough to buy me Firefly as an early birthday present, I think I’ll start watching the series again soon.

Another sign that I have moved into the 21st century is the fact that I did all of my Christmas shopping online this year. Each of the past couple of years I said that I was going to do that, but I always waited too late and didn’t want to risk not getting my items on time. About 2 or 3 AM on the morning of December 1, I ordered my last gift. I don’t think I’ve ever finished that early before.

So last week was Thanksgiving week. I pretty much had the whole week off. I did as little real work as I could get away with. After pouring more money into my car, I drove it to Jackson and didn’t have any major problems. Whenever I started hearing noises, I just turned my music up louder so I wouldn’t hear them.

Some of the highlights and lowlights of the week:

The week after I saw Serenity I started watching Firefly and when I finished I was left wanting more. Too bad there are only 14 episodes. I want to watch the whole series over again. I need to buy the box set so I’ll have my own copy. I checked Amazon.com and it looks like Serenity will be out in time for Christmas. That’s pretty good turnaround considering the movie just came out in September. This week I hope to begin watching season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hear that it’s not the best season, but I have to start somewhere. If I like it I may watch Angel.

The new book in the George R.R. Martin series “A Song of Ice and Fire” came out last week. I hear that it’s only about half the story it was originally intended to be. I’m not in any hurry to buy it. I have enough books that I need to read first.

Gas prices are dropping.

It looks like I’m going to have more free time beginning now. I’ll have to find some way to pass the time. You know what they say about idle hands. It’s weird because when I was a student this would probably be the most stressful time of the semester.

I started on Mercenaries for the second time the other night. Maybe I’ll finish it this time. No, I am not getting an Xbox 360 when they first come out. It can wait.

I’m looking forward to the new Harry Potter, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, and something else I can’t think of right now.

If you own a PS2, you might want to look here.

I went down to Jackson over the weekend with a friend of mine. This was the first time I’ve been to Jackson since the first week of May. It was nice to get out of Starkville for the weekend. We went to the fair with another friend on Saturday night. I think that was the first time I had been to the fair since I was in junior high. On Sunday, we did a little shopping. Some of my clothes are looking raggedy. I also picked up a copy of the new Wheel of Time book. We went to see a movie at the theater in Clinton later on. My mom cooked a huge meal. I haven’t had any home cooking in a while. I finally got to see my diploma which doesn’t even have my major listed on it. I just got back a little while ago and plan on relaxing the rest of the day.

It was nothing too exciting, but the best part was getting out of Starkville.

The new Wheel of Time book had been out for 2 whole days before I realized it last night. In the past I would have snatched up the newest book on the day it was released. I knew it was coming out in October, but I had forgotten the exact date. I’ve just been so busy lately. Supposedly, this book will please fans who have been upset with the pacing of the past few books. I couldn’t find a copy of it at Sam Goody. Maybe I’ll get a chance to look for it when I’m in Jackson this weekend.

Almost halfway through the semester.

Knowing that midterms were coming up, I decided to fix my Excel spreadsheet so that it would automatically calculate the averages of my students. It’s something I had been meaning to do for a while, but I kept putting it off. I decided to go ahead and fill in 0’s for all the assignments that hadn’t been turned in. When I started putting in those 0’s, some of the students’ averages starting going down pretty drastically.

Oh well. It’s their fault for not doing their work. It was interesting seeing the new averages take shape. I’m not saying it was fun. I’m just saying it was interesting the way the math worked out. Surprisingly, I felt no remorse for doing that.

I went to see Serenity tonight and I thought it was pretty good. There were some funny parts and the action was good. I have a feeling that I would have been more into it if I had seen the series. Maybe I’ll rent it from Netflix.

I’ve become a Joss Whedon fan all of sudden. I have seen a few episodes of Buffy and Angel, but I never got into them that much. I plan on checking out the first season of Buffy in the near future. And I hear there are plans to make a Spike movie…

Nothing much to see here. I just thought I’d make an update. One of these days I’m actually going to update this site. I’ll add more content and maybe even change the design a little.

I’m working hard for pennies it seems. Shouldn’t I be able to retire at 26? When I do get a little free time, I like to read a book or watch a DVD or play a video game. Does anyone use Netflix and want to be my friend? I actually started back playing games on my PC recently. You can click on the image below to see what I’ve been working on.

I have never been really close to my father. We rarely speak and at this point the thought of him rarely even comes up. I can’t say that I even know of very many people on his side of the family. I never had much exposure to them once I became old enough to actually remember things. The thought of them don’t often cross my mind either.

I am embarrassed to say that in the past 8 days the thought never popped into my head that my father had a sister that lived in New Orleans. Last night I found out that she was a victim of Hurricane Katrina. I don’t have any details at the moment.

I never really knew my Aunt Rose. My mom had told me before that at one point we would drive to New Orleans almost every weekend to visit Rose. Those family trips down there ended when my parents divorced shortly before my third birthday. I’m pretty sure that was the last that Rose and I came in contact with each other.

When I was about to start my co-op in New Orleans, my mom told me that I should get in touch with Rose if I ever needed anything. I never had any major problems and never went to see my aunt. In the 15 months that I lived in New Orleans, I was so close but never took the opportunity to go meet her again. It was one of those things that I kept saying that I would do but never took the time to actually do.

My mom says that Rose was a very nice woman who never did or said anything bad to anybody. Even though I never really knew her, I feel saddened right now and I could tell over the phone that my mom felt the same way. I’m sure I’ll be learning more about her in the coming days.