cowboys

The Cowboys are having an amazing season so far. Today they went 4-0. I'm not a NFL fanatic, I don't keep up with all the stats or have my own fantasy team or anything like that but I can recognize an amazing team when I see it. Every single game I've watched this season has impressed me more and more. Tony Romo is making play after play and is dodging 9 out of 10 sacks and still making a first down out of it. At first it was just impressive because of how badly Drew Bledsoe was doing before he got pulled. Now it's been consistent enough that I'm beginning to think he'll be leading this team to another super bowl very soon.

On top of Romo, our defense is outstanding. We've just made every offensive team we've played against so far look stupid. The quarterbacks are throwing pick after pick, turn overs, sacks. I've felt bad for the quarterbacks of the last few games, having to live down a performance like that. Marc Bulger got taken out the last quarter because the defense was pounding him so much. Rex Grossman didn't even play this week after last week's performance against our defense (though I hear their second string QB didn't do so hot either).

I have a feeling our game against New England in two weeks will be a big one. We'll probably still be undefeated, they'll probably still be undefeated. I'm holding my breath.

moving

So there's a fundamental evil in life that I would like address and that is moving. Sure it's not a big deal when you're just that average college student with a laptop and a suitcase, but as you grow up the measure of frustration escalates.

It was always pretty easy for me to move to and from college since all I had was one duffel bag and my computer (which admittedly is much bigger than a laptop), that is, until I decided to take a year off school and get an apartment. I roomed with my best friend and after getting a 750sqft apartment realized just how little room my 'duffel bag and computer' took up. So I started to accumulate furniture, a couch here, desk there, twin beds, entertainment center, all hand outs from family. Then once I had the furniture I needed kitchen utensils, didn't have a cafeteria right down the way anymore. So I started to assemble my own kitchen inventory: kitchen appliances, utensils, plates, glasses, etc. Plus when you get your own apartment you just gotta get your own pet, so I got a cat (which I'll write more about later). It was fantastic, my own place full of my own stuff....then comes the move.

10 months later I moved to Austin for a summer job. It was my first move since accumulating all my stuff, and lemme tell you, it was a pain. A U-haul rental and two trips later, I had everything down at my new apartment for the summer in Austin. It took awhile to get settled and back to a point where everything was in a place where I felt comfortable calling it 'home' again. Well, as it turned out, the summer job (at least in Austin) didn't work out, and they transfered me to DC. Well, so time to pack everything up again. This time it was even more miserable because I had just gotten done not much earlier getting everything UNpacked. So miserable in fact that I procrastinated a week after I was supposed to leave simply because I didn't want to get everything packed up again. So then I drive back to Dallas on the way to DC, decide I don't want to lug all my furniture and kitchen inventory up there and revert back to mostly 'college standards', computer, clothes, and cat. Now that I think about it...I probably should have just left my cat with someone, anyone, to avoid taking him to and from DC for only 2 months.

So I drive up to DC with enough stuff still to fill up a lot of my car. At the end of the summer, my car breaks down and I end up having to fly home. Well now I can't take all my stuff home because I have too much to take on the plane. I ended up taking more than I should have on the plane and ship most of the rest (some of it I forgot to take to ship and then ran out of time and had to leave).

So now I end up back in Dallas but I'm going to school so I can't work and consequently can't afford to get another apartment so I end up living with my parents. So now I have all this furniture and kitchen stuff and no apartment to put it in. Like I said, fundamental evil....and I just moved again today...making it 5 times in a year. Hate....moving...never leaving Dallas again...

pandora

I'm not in my car much so I don't get the opportunity to listen to the radio to catch up with a lot of mainstream music. Even when I do get to listen to the radio I find myself disliking it more and more. I mean sure the music is great, but not when they have the same 10 songs on repeat. It's pretty unbearable. I heard about a website a few months ago that I didn't really get hooked on until just recently. http://www.pandora.com is the website and it's amazing in my opinion.

It uses the Music Genome Project which is a system that tags every song in its database with hundreds of distinct criterion. You put in a song or artist you like and it'll compile a commercial-free radio station of similar music. You can then rate the songs as 'like' or 'dislike' as you listen. Songs rated 'like' are more likely to appear next time you listen to that station and more likely to be repeated in extended listening. Songs rated 'dislike' won't show up again on that station. Creating an account with them is easy and free and allows them to save your station choices and you 'like' and 'dislike' song ratings.

Its a great way to get into a lot of non-mainstream music, which can be much better in my opinion. It's also available on a variety of special stereo systems and a variety of Sprint phones enabled for Power Vision. Everyone should bookmark this page in my opinion.

sleeping in

Sleeping in can be a great thing, however, for me, it can be one of my greatest weaknesses. Unless my life is operating on a regular morning deadline, it's exceptionally difficult for me to get myself out of bed. It's ridiculous. I have a 10am class this semester I've already missed like 4 times because I can't manage to get out of bed and go. And it's not like I'm not able to get up because I'm going to bed too late the previous night, nooo I'm definitely getting like 7-8 hours of sleep the night before. I really think my body is just broken. No matter how hard I try to get myself on an 8hr sleep schedule, it's never been easy for me to get up, not EVER. It's mornings like this where I can barely drag myself out of bed after 12 hours of sleep that I just want to punch a morning person in the face. They have such a (talent?) and probably never realize how nice it is.

The worst part is I don't know how to remedy this problem. All my life I'm going to be plagued by sleep. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to sleep in when I have no other responsibilities, but when I do have them the evil side of my brain is able to subconsciously downplay them without the responsible side of my brain having any input. If I get anything less than an A in this class I keep missing it'll be solely because of sleeping in. Ultimately it stems from my discipline problem, but I'll leave that for another post.

a tale as old as time

So once again, I've seen something that has sparked my interest and decided to give it a try. A friend of mine started a blog and it made me think about blogs when I never really had before. The concept of a public journal is quite interesting in a few ways:
1) My brain now has an audience, which will probably be a scary or strange place for most of you. I will have to consider your feelings in my posts and I may not always do a good job at it. You have been warned.
2) I can't write my secrets and really personal feelings in my 'public journal'. This somewhat limits my posting, or I will just have to devise cleverly deceptive anecdotes that allow me to catalog my feelings whilst throwing you off the scent!
3) While I may be screening certain material for my inteded audience, since it's a PUBLIC journal, my audience will be ever changing and I'll never know who reading. Some may be offended, surprised, or just down right mad. But if I stopping myself from doing things that offended, angered, or surprised people, I'd be a pretty boring person.

I'm worried that I'll attempt to cultivate a large audience and then get bored with it and give it up, it's happened once before. I started a web comic after seeing a friend do it (the same friend actually who made the blog) and only did like 6-7 comics which, now that I'm older, I realize were just plain terrible. However a blog involves less work (or does it?...) so hopefully you won't all be disappointed...or me, rather...I think I'm already focusing too much on the 'public' part and less on the 'journal' part.