The Reminder

After getting home from work I warmed up a bowl of soup. While I waited
I looked out the windows, and as I watched it started to rain. "Ah,
rain…" I thought, "… we’ve been needing some rain. It is good to
see it raining." I then settled down with my soup, and watched some TV.

Two
and a half hours later I realized that I needed to pay some bills.
After writing the checks and filling out an envelope I remembered I was
out of stamps. So I went to my car, got in, and headed for the
apartment complex exit. When I got there I applied pressure to the
break petal to stop the car as usual. Only this time, as I looked out
into the dry, empty street ahead of me, a single tear rolled down the
windshield, to remind me it had rained and how thankful I was for that.

There are many things in life that are like that.

Dental Emergency

Ya know how ya brush your teeth and don’t really look. You do it all
the time and your teeth never change. Well my back bottom left molar is
totally hosed. With the crappy lighting I have in my bathroom it looks
like there is a crater that has hollowed out below the surface, forming
a mini-cave in my tooth. It doesn’t hurt at all unless I really chomp
down hard.

I noticed it tonight because I was eating some Twizzlers and the red
candy must’ve gotten lodged in this cave because it wasn’t brushing
away. Well I guess this is an excuse to find myself a dentist. Let me
express my joy… woo hoo.

Dickerson Says

Well I’m back from church. It turns out the Wednesday dinner and bible
study thing is only in the colder months, but they happened to be
having a dinner this Wednesday anyway to welcome their new Associate
Pastor. I didn’t get to introduce myself to him, but I did get to meet
a few members. Mostly families there which will be good for me now that
I’m a hefty distance away from my own family.

Pretty much every husband and wife couple I met had one of the two who
had always lived in Northern Kentucky and one who had come from
somewhere like Chicago or New York. I thought that was kinda crazy.
They had the Youth praise Band playing and while it was a bit fuzzy on
the edges I always like it when the youth perform because people
applaud at the end. No one applauds for the traditional choir.

Anyway, Dickerson wrote in and said he always knew I was a spiritual
guy. I don’t recall denying it, but I would admit to saying I didn’t
need church, and now I’d say I’ve changed my opinion of that. Elsie
pointed out to me that spirituality comes in many different forms, and
need not be at a church. Church has always struck me as a weird concept
because in The Bible, Jesus says it is okay for us to worship anywhere
and specifically mentions the home, a private setting. But we insist
upon getting together once a week to worship in a big expensive
building together. Other people like people too I guess.

I wonder if I can twist the GD’s arm enough to get him to write an entry about why he knew I was a spiritual kind of guy…

Bastards

They didn’t let me into their college but they still want to know what I know.

P.S. The temporarily offline BS with the results is totally weak. You’re at MIT, get a good computer, they’ve got ‘em I’m sure of that.

Triple Bite

Sometimes you just feel like biting something. Not that anything’s wrong or that you’re angry, but that your teeth just feel like they need the exercise.

Tonight I’m going to go to the church I said I’d go to on Sunday. They have a dinner and bible study thing that starts at 5:45 and runs till 7:30pm. So that’ll give me something to do with my evening. I really want to go to meet some good people in Florence that I might come to rely on. I’m also going to church because, well, my spiritual part of my life has been under attended for too long.

My freshman year I attended a seminar at college and the speaker said that you have four components of life, Self, Work, Family, and Spirituality. The amount each person needs is different, but regardless it will be a task to balance all four at once. The past two years I’ve done a decent job of balancing Family, Work, and Self at the cost of Spirituality. So now that family is a little further away, work is pretty stable, and self doesn’t consist of much since my local friends are limited and I’m not dating anyone, there’s a little more room. Room to grow in a new direction.

*shrug*

The following post was triggered by a post Brittany made.

Apparently the Supreme Court has ruled that music companies can sue other companies that encourage piracy of songs. Let me first say that I’ve recently taken to buying CDs and I’m using valid services like iTunes Music Store to get individual songs. What I’m about to say is along the lines of "This is nothing new." People have been stealing music for generations, just look at the cassette. Yeah you could record your own original music or voice, or whatever, but I know 99% of my tapes had music I ganked from the radio or someone else. So I think it is silly that they allow the internet to be a target and not other media forms in the past. I understand that regardless it is against the law, but double standards that detract from my beloved interweb get under my skin.

Britt then responded with this.

Oh Jesus

Sooo I’m looking around at the code that drives the Level 2 part of the Cold Mill (my level). And there’s like 1 billion hard coded IP addresses in the code. My boss reminds me that we’re going to be switching networks soon and all those IP’s will change. I hope I’m sick that year and can’t come in. It’s going to be a nightmare.

Batman Begins, I hope it never ends!

This movie kicks ass! DC is giving Marvel a run for their movie money
with this one. Ok, so no one liked the Hulk, and Dare Devil wasn’t
amazing, but they aren’t the poster children either. I’m talking about
Spiderman, the X-Men, Batman, Superman. These are the characters that
are the face of a franchise.

The reason I hate movie reviewers is well illustrated by the Florence Recorder.The
writer beats on this movie because it isn’t campy "comic book" fun. If
I’ve only learned one thing from anime, it is that cartoons can be just
as dramatic and far from funny as any TV show or movie. This particular
movie is all about darkness, about shadows, and about fear. If you want
to destroy an environment of fear, try laughter, works every time.

Of course you can’t argue with this cast, Liam, Morgan, and Katie are
well cast into their somewhat type-cast roles, which is ok, because,
well, they’re good at it.Bale is both a great Wayne and a great Bat.
He’s got the hair that Keaton, Clooney, or Kilmer never had. He’s also
got the ninja skills, and they do a good job of working in the gadgets.
Alfred is a constant reminder that our hero has no extraordinary
powers, but we find that Bruce takes his ordinary powers of wealth and
determination and puts them to good use.

Go see it, then go see it again because you want to. That’s how you
know something is great, when you want to go back a second time.

Upcoming Birthday

My birthday is in a month, July 24 to be exact. I have a short wish list that I’ll give to my parents since they usually ask for hints. All I really want is mail. I hate having a birthday come and go with only a card or two. So find something funny, something serious, or just break out a pen and some paper, but fill up my mail box! If you’re feeling tech-savvy even an e-card is great.

I’ll just be getting back from my trip to Colorado for fencing coach’s college on the 24th and so there’ll not be a party or gathering that weekend. Possibly the following weekend, details to come. Address below:

Will Read
7672 Catawba Ln
Apt 6
Florence (Y’All!), KY 41042

iTunes Experience

Last night I bought my first three songs off the internet. I went with the iTunes store because it has a good reputation among my peers and I’m kinda curious what all iTunes can do for me. I shelled out three bucks on "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" by Belinda Carlyle as well as? "Jealousy" another song by the Gin Blossoms. They’re songs that I’ve always liked, and didn’t need to make the same mistake I made with "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" and buy the whole CD hoping that there’d be other good songs.

So now I’ve got a way to get those songs that when I say "Hey, that’s a great song!" I can get it legally. I also like knowing that the artist and album information is going to be correct, and that I’m not downloading something that Joe Schmo decided was by Weird Al when it was really by Art McGee, jerk.

All in all I’m pleased with my experience. I will say that I hate not having my native windows buttons and boxes? in iTunes and on the Apple web site, but I’m not going to let it stop me from using a good product. I think the best/scary part is that you only have to put in your credit card info once, I can just see myself downloading away and $100 later I’m like "oh yeah, doh!"