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Katrina didn’t do a whole lot of damage in Starkville. My power went in and out for about a couple of hours, but that was the main effect she had on me. I’ve heard that many parts of the Jackson area don’t have power or water. In Starkville there are trees down and some buildings and vehicles were damaged, but it’s nothing compared to what happened on the coast. I feel bad for the people that were affected by the hurricane.

No, I’m not ignoring anyone. I’ve just been a little busy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get caught up with everything this weekend.

They’re saying that the weather is going to get really bad in northeast Mississippi. Katrina may still be a category 1 hurricance with it reaches.

I’ve got some preparations to make just in case the electricity gets knocked out. Better to be safe than sorry.

I hope that everybody makes it through ok.

I figured I should give an update on my situation. The job hunt has not gone as well as I would have liked. I got lots of nibbles. For a while the phone was ringing off the hook. However, I wasn’t getting any bites. It seemed like all the companies I spoke to didn’t want someone fresh out of college. Or maybe they just didn’t like me.

I hate to have to settle for something but a man’s got to pay the bills. Going home and living off my mother wasn’t an option. My brother-in-law and a former professor had suggested that I look into teaching. I heard about an opening, so I applied for and was offered a part-time position teaching computer science classes at the local community college. A few days later I was offered a position tutoring at the university. All of this happened less than 2 weeks ago. Both of these positions last until December.

Maybe better opportunities will open up later. I just hope I don’t miss anything because I am locked into these jobs until December. They’re pretty much throwing me to the wolves and expecting me to figure out a lot on my own. It’ll be ok though. I start tomorrow.

Life has been ok other than the frustrating job search. Other than searching for a job I haven’t been doing much other than reading (Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia) and watching DVD’s. I beat X-Men Legends a second time and now I’m trying to figure out what game to work on next. I also plan on redoing the assignments I did for the Advanced Computer Graphics class I took last semester.

If gas doesn’t stop going up, I might be riding my bike everywhere from now on.

My cell phone number and primary email address have changed. I’ll get that out information out later.

I’ve lost about 25 lbs over the past 3-4 months. Here’s the key to success.

First you need to lose your appetite for no apparent reason. You won’t even be able to finish small meals for some reason. You’ll feel hungry about as much as you normally do, but once you start eating your desire to eat will disappear.

While this is going on you need to start exercising. Exercise is important. Even if you can’t go to a gym, you need to exercise.

After about a month you will gradually start back eating at normal levels. Again, there should be no logical explanation for this.

A few weeks later you need to come down with food poisoning and get so sick that you don’t want to eat much. Once again, you’ll be hungry, but the idea of eating will not be appealing. It’s okay to stop exercising while you are recovering from the food poisoning.

While you are sick from food poisoning, you need to go through a stressful event like a master’s defense. Hopefully, you’ll be so busy that you won’t have time to eat well.

After this is over you need to start back exercising. That’s really important. You can go back to eating the things you like, but do so in moderation. Moderation is important.

If your appetite suddenly starts playing tricks on you again, then that can be very helpful to weight loss.

Well, that’s how I did it. Whatever you do, don’t follow my lead. It was mostly random for me. Do it the right way.

So I went to Sam Goody a little before midnight Friday night to get the new Harry Potter book. There was hardly anybody there. They opened the doors and started letting people in at 11:52 according to the time I had. The whole time I was in the store, I saw around 10 other customers. I guess most people went to the Books-A-Million in Columbus or Tupelo. They had a party at the BAM in Tupelo.

I finished the book this morning. I would’ve finished it sooner had I not forced myself to stop reading a few times to other things. I figured I should spread out the fun some.

I thought it was a good book, though I didn’t like it as much as the last one. I think I liked the last one more because there was more interesting stuff going down. Like one of my friends said, “Did they even go to school that year?” Though I was not really surprised by the ending of this book, I was still a little shocked when the book ended. I kept thinking they were going to say that it wasn’t true, but that never happened.

I wonder how it all will end.

I’m just sitting here watching a bad movie waiting for midnight to get here.

Fantastic Four is a pretty good movie. I just wish there was more action. They saved most of it until the end of the movie. I think that Dr. Doom was quite a bit different he is in the comics. Oh well.

Hurricane Dennis was a dud. Everybody got worked up over nothing.

I’m out for now.

So I was wrong. It’s coming out sooner than I estimated: Feb. 2006.

8 days until Harry Potter…

After being deluged with good games last fall, there doesn’t seem to be anything really interested being released these days. I may actually have to finish some of the games that I started. Maybe I’ll start back playing Star Wars Galaxies or Final Fantasy XI.

I guess it won’t be official until August, but I have now finished my master’s degree. Now I need work!

For the 17th weekend in a row, the Hollywood box office has been down. They were hoping Star Wars would change things, but it didn’t. They were hoping Batman Begins would change things, but it didn’t either.

A poll came out last week showing that most Americans prefer to watch movies at home. Currently, I am one of those people. There are several reasons I like to watch movies at home. I don’t have to worry about obnoxious people. I don’t have to buy expensive movie theater food. I can stop the movie anytime I want to and do whatever I need to do. I hate missing parts of the movie. I bought a Samsung DVD changer with surround sound last year and I really enjoy watching movies on it. I also bought a larger TV, so it’s easier to see what’s going on.

Watching at home can’t beat the movie theater experience. If a really big movie is released, it can be a lot of fun going to see it on opening night. Something about watching a movie with a group of people makes it more fun than watching it alone. I like it when the crowd is rowdy and excited, as long as they know when to be quiet. The crowds at opening night of the Star Wars re-releases were great. I also liked the crowds at the Star Wars prequels and the ones at The Lord of Rings movies.

To get me out to the movies, there has to be something out there that I’m interested in. These days I don’t go to the theater just to go. If I’m really bored, I’d rather pick up a DVD and watch it. There just aren’t that many movies coming out this summer that I’m interested in paying $7 ($5 at midnight) to see. Other than War of the Worlds, The Fantastic Four, and possibly Bewitched, I think everything that I want to see has already been released. Compare that to past summers, when there was something I wanted to see coming out almost every weekend. I’m sure there will be a surprise hit or two, but who knows? Until they start releasing better movies, I’ll just stay at home and watch DVD’s…in 5.1 surround sound.