I buy songs from iTunes every once in a while. Sometimes a band that I like will release songs exclusively on iTunes. Sometimes I’m at work and I get an urge to hear a song right away and iTunes seemed like the best option in that situation. Now I think I’m going to start using Amazon MP3 when I want to download a song if it’s available there. Why? Because it has no DRM. With iTunes I can only listen to it on one of the 5 computers that are authorized on my account. I don’t even have an iPod. If I get it from Amazon MP3, I can listen to it on any device I want to that plays MP3s. Also, I don’t really like the iTunes software. I REALLY don’t like it.
Amazon just came out with a new widget that you can put on your website that allows people to preview songs. The owner of the website gets a small percentage of each sale. I decided to try it out.
I bought a set of CUTCO knives last summer and I’m so glad that I did. I’ve never had good cutlery like this. They are so sharp. I get a little nervous about hurting myself sometimes because of how sharp they are. If I did accidentally cut something off, I’m sure it would be such a clean cut that it could easily be reattached. Just having the knives around makes me want to cook more. Hopefully in the near future I’ll get back in the habit of cooking on a regular basis (I’ve been saying that since last summer). Maybe I’ll get some forks and spoons next.
Back to my ever-growing reading list. This time I read The Appeal by John Grisham. This is another one of his legal thrillers. The man knows how to write legal thrillers, so I’m glad he’s back to what he does best. What is The Appeal about? A company with a factory in Mississippi has just had a huge verdict returned against them. They were dumping harmful chemicals into the ground and the people in the area started getting sick. They are going to be appeal the case before the Mississippi Supreme Court and the company wants to get a friendly justice elected to the court. I saw an interview where Grisham said that this is the most political book that he’s written. He makes a good argument for appointing state Supreme Court justices instead of electing them. He gets Mississippi, its people, and their attitudes right so the book felt very familiar. It’s a pretty good book and I enjoyed reading it.
It seems like I get a lot of emails at work that fall into the following catergories:
A is leaving for a new job. If you would like to make a contribution toward a gift…
B has had a death in the family. If you would like to contribute toward a plant…
We’re having a baby shower for C. If you like to buy a gift or contribute toward a group gift…
I like doing it for the most part. It’s a nice and thoughtful thing to do. I’m sure they would do the same for me. Of course it’s always optional, but I used to feel like I needed to contribute something for each one. However, it started to get on my nerves after a while especially when a bunch come up around the same time. Now I’m a little more selective about which ones I contribute to. Is that mean? If it’s someone I don’t know and never see I don’t usually make a contribution. It’s not as bad now as it was when I first started here, but I work with a lot of people so it still happens a lot.
I talked to my sister about this a few months ago and she has the same complaint about where she works. And she’s got a good 10 years on me in the work force. I think part of the reason I started to get annoyed is that I hardly ever carry cash on me and when I do it’s for a specific reason. I always have to go out of my way to get money each time I get one of those emails. Another part of it is that I’m tired of giving away money when there’s stuff that I want need to be doing with it. How selfish!
It’s been about a year and a half, but I remember being upset that I didn’t get the “free” portable DVD player that I was promised for signing up for DirecTV. Instead I got a crappy DVD player and then a second one. I didn’t think about calling in and complaining. I guess I just figured that DirecTV changed their deal sometime after I made the call to order service and something in the fine print gave them a right to do that. Every time I see portable DVD players in stores I kinda want one, but not enough to actually buy one myself.
Last week I got an interesting letter. There’s been a class-action lawsuit filed against DirecTV for not coming through on those portable DVD players. I had no idea. So there are others who got screwed like me. That must be why those two posts I made about the DirecTV gift received a lot of page views back then. It seems like a lot of people didn’t get DVD players at all. It’s great that I’ll finally be getting that portable DVD player. That’s all I want.
This letter about the lawsuit came on the same day that my DirecTV bill came. Is that a coincedence?
I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 when it came out in late March/early April or whenever. I liked it, but there were problems. I kept getting JavaScript errors and I would loose formatting when I edited certain pages.
When WordPress 2.5.1 came out a few weeks ago I immediately upgraded. This update is such a drastic improvement visually and I haven’t had any problems using it so far.
Of course, people that just come here to read the entries won’t see any difference. However, if you use WordPress on your site and haven’t upgraded to 2.5.1, don’t wait any longer.
Today, my roommate and friend John is leaving Starkville. He got a new job in Jackson and will be living in Brandon. His first day is on Monday. I’m glad that he’s starting on a career and that he’ll be getting out of Starkville, but I’m going to miss having him around. The good thing is that he’s not that far away and we’ll probably be able to meet up from time to time. Just reminiscing right now.
I’m seriously annoyed with my desktop computer at home. The computer, which is only about a year old, recently started shutting down on its own. I noticed after the big April Windows Update, my icons weren’t showing up in taskbar. Maybe I should’ve done a system restore then, but I didn’t. The shutdown problems started soon after that, so I figured the update might have been causing my computer to act crazy. Now I’m not so sure about that.
Using software that came with the motherboard, I checked the CPU temperature. Mostly it runs around 180° F, but if I open up a browser or start playing music, I’ll see the temperature jump to a cool 220° F. Ouch! So, I think that may be why my computer is shutting down. All the fans inside are still working, so I don’t know what could have changed.
I have also noticed that some of the decorative lights on the computer case are no longer working. Maybe this weekend I’ll take the time to look at it more closely. I’m not really a hardware person, but maybe I can figure something out.
I can’t do anything intensive on it without it shutting down, so for now it’s mostly just a really large mp3 player.
Any suggestions?
Update, 5/10
I replaced the CPU fan and heatsink and I also added a second case fan. Now the system temperature is around 75°F and the CPU temperature is around 100°F. It’s a little louder than before, but at least it’s cool. A cool computer is a happy computer.
When I picked The Taking by Dean Koontz as my next book, I had no idea there would be similarties to my last book, Childhood’s End. There’s an alien invasion, but this time they appear to be hostile. The adult characters in this book have read a lot of science fiction books and watched a lot of science fiction movies, and that kind of annoyed me at times. The way that they talked didn’t seem like the way that real people talk, but maybe I just don’t know how real people talk. SPOILER: In the end the aliens leave and the survivors are left to rebuild society. You end up wondering if it was truly aliens that caused the catastrophe in the first place.
I keep hearing good things about Koontz, so I’m going to assume that I just picked the wrong book by him to try first. I’m not sure how I came to across this book in the first place. Next time I want to read one of his books, I’ll ask for recommendations from my friend John the Dean Koontz expert.
I’m glad that Battlestar Galactica is back on. A lot of us BSG fans are eager to find out the identity of the last Cylon, who is signified by the empty spot in the left part of the picture above. I’m throwing in my guess.
They’ve pretty much ruled out most of the remaining major characters. I guess they could’ve lied about certain characters not being Cylons, but I doubt that. As much as I like characters like Dee, it won’t be that big of a deal if it turns out to be her. I think it makes sense to bring in somebody completely new.
I remember hearing a story last summer. I may be getting some of this wrong, but I’m too lazy to look it up now. Billy Campbell, who played Jordan Collier on The 4400, met Ron Moore (executive producer of Galactica) and was practically begging to be given on role on the show. He’s a fan and offered to be on Galactica for free. The head of SciFi Network was there. She said she was going to Campbell to what he said.
Later on I heard that Ron Moore had actually had an idea in mind for Campbell and he was going to be on the show. My guess is that he’ll be the last Cylon. Of course, I’m probably wrong. I just hope they don’t make us wait the entire season to find out.
Update, 4/28
I guess my theory isn’t really new and a Google search would’ve shown me that. I didn’t watch the Season 3 finale until about 6 months after it aired. When the story about Billy Campbell came out last summer, 4 of the final 5 Cylons had already been revealed and at the time people were already wondering if he was a Cylon. At the time I hadn’t realized that they had revealed any new Cylons.
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