Month: January 2005

Sidebar Links

I finally finished importing all the links from my older sites into del.icio.us. I left out some links that are dead and replaced a few “no longer available” news stories with similar articles from better publications. Right now I’m crudely importing the links, but I’m going to try to see if I can cache them using PHP and MySQL within the next month or two. But that’s a bigger project than I have time for right now.

After the long wait, I’ll begin posting new links tomorrow. And by “new links,” I mean dozens of links that I bookmarked in the past two months but never posted because I was in the middle of transfering the older links. Some of the “new” links might be old, but they’ll never get stale. Well, maybe they’ll be a little stale. Like day-old bread.

Sour Skittles Suck

It really surprised me just how disgustingly sour Sour Skittles happen to taste. I like a lot of sour candies like Warheads and Sour Patch Kids and I love Skittles so I thought that I’d also like Sour Skittles—the best of both worlds. But unfortunately, they’re disgusting. I ate half a pack and threw the rest away. Now if only I could rid myself of how sensitive the roof of my mouth feels right now from this sour rainbow.

A Perfect Democracy

I think H. L. Mencken (1880 — 1956) had it right when he wrote:

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Congratulations, America, you have someone you can relate to as your President. I just wish you weren’t dragging the rest of us down with you.

Another Season of 24

The fans of 24 received a nice little treat this season: four hours of 24 in two days! Those of you who know me or are familiar with this site already know that I’m a devoted fan of 24 so it should come as no surprise that I made plans a long time ago to see the premiere of the the fourth season.

What I didn’t know is that there would be two days in a row with two hours of the show. My guess is that Fox wanted to make sure that everyone who watches knows that 24 is moving to Monday night from it’s usual Tuesday night slot. I couldn’t be happier with the change; I thought I’d have to tape the show each week because I have a night class on Tuesday, but now everything works out nicely!

The first four hours of the new season look just as good as the first three in terms of plot and character development. It surprised me in the first episode that Jack Bauer wasn’t part of CTU, but the next three episodes alleviated any worries that Jack wouldn’t be a central player this season. I’m not going to spoil anything for you, so you’ll just have to tune in like the rest of us. You won’t regret it.

Dolphins and a Locksmith

Dolphins at the National Aquarium

Over the weekend, I drove to Baltimore to visit Annie for the weekend. It had only been a week since I had last seen her, but it seemed like a few weeks had passed. On Friday, Annie and I went with Veronica to visit the Aquarium and then to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I tried to take a few pictures at the dolphin show, but my digital camera is so slow that most of my shots were of the water or the dolphins’ tails as they re-entered the water. Veronica seemed to have the same problem with her brand new camera; I have to find one with a much quicker response once I have enough income to justify it. I uploaded a few photos from my weekend to Flickr.

Annie and I went to the Owings Mills Mall on Saturday for something different. Later, we went to Blockbuster to rent a DVD and I locked my keys in the car. Luckily, we weren’t far from Annie’s apartment where we waited for the locksmith because there was an icy wind that cut right through us. What amazed me is how fast the locksmith was able to get into my car; using simple tools that you could make in less than 15 minutes at home, he had my car open in under five minutes. That’s a bit alarming, considering that the guy was really taking his time walking to his truck and back to the car. If he needed to, I’m sure he could get into my car in less than a minute. So much for locking the doors.

Holiday Recap

Well, I’m back in Scranton after the whirlwind of holiday festivities that was my Christmas break. I meant to post several times to cover each little event, but time is rarely on my side. However, Annie and I managed—somehow, I’m still amazed by it—to do all of our Christmas shopping within 36 hours, much of those hours on Christmas Eve. Once we got past the stress of the shopping insanity, Christmas was relatively relaxing.

For Christmas, I received quite a few things that I had on my wishlist, but also a few things that I did not expect. I think that formula works well; I wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t get what I asked for, however, there was still some mystery when I opened my gifts. I received a new AFI’s Black Sails in the Sunset, Rammstein’s Reise Reise, Jim Gaffigan’s The Last Supper, O’Reilly’s MySQL Cookbook, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, and the 24 Season One DVD set which will have me set in the consumable media department. I also received a great Norelco electric shaver, a zip-up sweatshirt, a sweater, the 2004 Hess Truck (a tradition for me), a 256MB portable USB drive, a page-a-day calendar with recipies, as well as some wonderful monetary gifts.

Over the next couple of days, Annie and I went to see Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Aviator. Each one is very different from the other; both are highly recommended.

This New Year’s, Annie and I broke our tradition of coming to Scranton’s First Night celebration— as we have done for the past four years—and decided to head to Baltimore to ring in the New Year. The weather was unseasonably warm, especially when compared to how bitterly cold Scranton can be in December/January. However, I was a little disappointed that the fireworks at Inner Harbor were not any more impressive than Scranton’s. On New Year’s Day, the weather in Baltimore did not match the date: it was a bright and sunny 68 degrees. Which is wrong; very, very wrong… but nice!

And now, I’m back in Scranton, as I mentioned earlier. It seems strange to be back at college so soon after the holidays; usually, I stay home during Intersession, but I’m directing a play for the Playwright’s Festival and working at the CTLE this January. Hopefully, I’ll finally have the time I need to finish a few projects that I’ve been pushing to the side.