TV Is Back!

Starting last week and continuing into this week, a good number of the shows we watch are beginning their new seasons. After the disaster that was the writer's strike last year, I'm hopeful that we'll get some nice, full length seasons this year that are a better overall.

Heroes started back last week with a two hour premier. It was good, but not as good as the show has been in the past. I thought last night's episode was better though, so maybe given a couple of weeks to get going, things will get better.

Chuck started back last night and was as good as it's ever been. I'm sure no one understands why I like a show about a nerd who gets a CIA database downloaded into his brain and then becomes a goof-ball spy would appeal to me, but, you know. I really do like Chuck and I think it's a good lead-in to Heroes since it's a little more light-hearted.

Two of DeAnne's favorites started back last week also. Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. I watched the first season or two of both of these, but they both reached a point where I just didn't care anymore. DeAnne has since taken to watching the shows with Adrienne since Bryan doesn't care anything about them either.

Other than that, for me, Pushing Dasies and the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars start this week and then for DeAnne, Private Practice comes back. Until 24 and Lost come back on in Janurary, we should be set. All I can say is thank goodness for the DVR.

Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

Week To Week

Last week I missed four posts and made one. It looks like this week is going to be the exact opposite. I'll make four and miss one. We're heading for Mobile on Friday. We're going down to see Courtney and Edwin and to go to Bayfest, the annual Mobile music festival. I also moved a doctor's appointment from later in the month up to Friday so that we could do that while we're there. It's the thyroid guy again. He wanted to see me back in six months and believe it or not, it's been almost six months.

While looking forward to the coming weekend, the past weekend wasn't terrible. Saturday was a bit rough football-wise. I know Auburn won, but the offense still looks as bad as it ever has this season. I had hoped by now that they would be showing some signs of improvement but I'm not even sure if they realize they're on the field when they go out there. A win is a win, but the defense can't win every game for us and I'm afraid we're going to run out of luck sooner rather than later.

Top that off with Alabama beating the snot out of Georgia and the only good football feeling from last week was USC loosing and that was on Thursday.

Other than that though, it was a pretty good weekend. Just the usual being lazy. The weather sure has been great though. I hope it holds out for this weekend. Have a good Monday.

--Paul

Business As Usual

I'm back from Hattiesburg, and glad for it. It was a good trip, but it's always good to come home. Hattiesburg wasn't a bad town. It's the home of the University of Southern Mississippi, so there's all the usual college type places. The class that we were going for was good. The new software we're getting is fairly complex and there was a lot to learn and I'm sure there's a lot I'm going to forget, but I'm glad I got to go.

One of the best things about business trips is the food. The Cresent City Grill was a New Orleans style restrauant and was so good we went twice. We also ate at a place called Chesterfield's and it was just as good. We also had an incredible, home cooked meal thanks to the parents of one of the guys that was on the trip with us. They live just north of Hattiesburg, outside of Laurel, and had invited us to come eat with them. They had grown everything themselves except the meat and you could tell.

So for the weekend, we don't have anything planned. We'll probably just watch football on Saturday and hang out. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've really been enjoying the weather the past week or two. It would be fine with me if would stay like this year round. We could use a little rain, but other than that, it's been a great week weather-wise.

Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here on Monday.

--Paul

Off And Running

Friday's off to a much better start than yesterday got off to. The alarm clock worked this morning. My lunch is still where it's supposed to be in the fridge. And, it's Friday, which just makes it a better day in general.

Not much going on this weekend. We'll probably just watch some football and play Rock Band. We're having a birthday party for DeAnne's Mom on Sunday at lunch.

That reminds me. I'm heading to Hattiesburg, MS for work on Sunday at 3:00. We've got some new software we're getting ready to put in and the coop in MS, SMEPA, went in and bought it at the same time we did. They're holding a training session next week at SMEPA, so there's a group of us from PowerSouth heading over there for that. I always have mixed emotions about work trips. I hate being gone, but at the same time, I usually have a good time while I'm gone. This is espically true if someone goes with me, as is the case this time.

So, being gone means no blog posts though. I'll be taking the PSP with me, but there's no way I would even think of trying to type out a blog post on that thing. It would take me all day. We'll be coming back on Thursday, so I'll probably post a trip report on Friday morning. I've never been to Hattiesburg before, so I'm looking forward to that aspect of it.

Have a good Friday, and have a good week next week. I'll see you in seven days.

--Paul

Guess What...

Yup.  I did it again.  The alarm clock failed to go off this morning.  I really think someone's conspiring against me this morning.  Either that, or I did some heavy sleep-walking last night.  I know I set the alarm clock last night.  I also know that after we ate dinner, I put the leftover hotdogs in the fridge.  When I went to get a couple to bring to work with me for lunch, they were gone.  Some crazy stuff happening around our house last night.  Anyway, don't feel to cheated.  I posted the video for Butch Walker's new song "Ships In A Bottle" last night, so scroll down and check that out.  It's a really good song, and the video's pretty good too.  Have a good Thursday.  I'm just going to try and survive mine and get to tomorrow.

--Paul

Ships In A Bottle

This is the video for Butch's new song "Ships In A Bottle". It's one of the songs I mentioned he had up on iTunes. It's a really great song. Enjoy.

-- Paul

Butch Walker "Ships in a Bottle" Music Video

I Don't Know

It's mid-week and the rock has continued without ceasing. DeAnne wouldn't join me last night, instead choosing to play "The Sims". I've opened up a little over half of the songs now and I'm starting to get into some more difficult stuff. I have to say, for the most part, the songs are awesome, but there are some that have had me wondering who picked them for the game.

I'll try not to talk about Rock Band tomorrow. I promise.

Butch Walker has put out two new songs from his upcoming album. They're on iTunes. Get them.

Also, I have a new musical obsession beside Rock Band. It's a band called Coheed and Cambria. They're a really interesting band and have a different sound that's hard to describe. Most people think of the band Rush when they first hear them because the lead singers voice is fairly high-pitched. The music is heavier than Rush though. They consider them selves to be progressive-rock and that's about the best category you can lump them in, I guess. They've put out four albums and they're all incredible. What got me into them was Rock Band. They had a song on RB1 and I really liked it. I started listening to some of their stuff and the more I listened, the better it got. The interesting thing about Coheed is that all of their albums fit together and tell an over-arching story that the lead singer wrote. They've also done some comic books that tie-in and fill in details of the story. Really cool stuff. Check it out.

Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Still Rockin'

I got DeAnne to join my band last night and rock the house with me for a bit. She was watching me play and decided that she wanted to create a character. All the characters start out with just a t-shirt and some denim shorts, so after she created her, she wanted to play some so she could get some money for some new clothes. We played for a bit and then stopped so that we could watch our shows that come on on Monday night.

DeAnne's favorite aspect of any game she plays is always character creation. Her favorite game of all time is "The Sims" series, mainly because a lot of the game is creating people and building houses. She does play the game, but she probably spends as much time building the houses, furnishing them, adding on and then remodeling them as she does actually playing the game. There's just a part of her that enjoys customizing something and making it her own. Being able to do that is a big part of a lot of games these days, so that really appeals to her.

Other than Rock Band 2, there's not much going on. Dad picked up a pretty nasty virus on his PC over the weekend, so we went over to his place yesterday afternoon and ate dinner with him and Sherry and I worked on his computer. It wasn't as bad as it sounded over the phone and it didn't take as long as I thought it was going to. I need to cut the grass, but I'm trying to put it off until at least Thursday. I'm going to be gone next week for work and I'm trying to work out the timing so that it'll need cutting a day or two after I get back.

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

For Those About To Rock...Again,

Rock Band 2 is...well, it's Rock Band, but slightly improved and refined. I love it. I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with it yesterday, but what I did get was pretty awesome. It's really not all that different from RB1 (Rock Band 1), but that's really not a bad thing. The gameplay is exactly the same. They've polished up the visuals some, but other than that, there's no real change in that area. The game modes is where they've done the most work. No matter if you're alone or playing with others, you go through the same tour. Characters can now be in multiple bands and they're not tied to any one instrument. There are now challenges that have certain parameters for you to play in. The more you do, the harder they get. I also tried out the new drum trainer. It just scrolls a beat down the screen and you can change the tempo and just keep practicing. They've got a ton of different beats to go through and some of them were pretty challenging.

But the music. The song list looked great on paper, but actually playing the songs, they're just incredible. I believe they've also ramped up the difficulty ever so slightly. Not a lot, but enough that there were parts of songs while playing on medium that I was a little surprised with.

So that was Sunday. Saturday we just laid around the house and were lazy until time for the Auburn game. I'm pretty disappointed with Auburn's offense at this point. Winning a game 3-2 is just pathetic. The players on offense should be made the defensive players slaves for a week in thanks for winning us Saturday's game. Without the defense, we wouldn't have the half of a team we do have. Let's hope they get their heads together in time for LSU this week.

Have a good Monday.

--Paul

Now That The Weekend's Here...

I'm really starting to get excited about Rock Band 2. I can't wait to go get it Sunday. As much as I'm excited for it though, I wish it wasn't coming out on a Sunday. By the time we get out of church and get to Enterprise, pick it up and come back, go to evening services, we won't have much time to play. I guess we'll just have to pick up on Monday and really dig into it.

I'm just getting the game this time around and I'm going to use the instruments from the first Rock Band. I'm hoping though, that eventually I'll be able to sell or trade in my drum set and get the Rock Band 2 set. It's wireless, which automatically makes it worth while in my book, but it also has the cymbal expansion slots, the pads are supposed to be quieter and the foot pedal is a little sturdier.

Other than Rock Band, there's not much going on this weekend. We've got an engagement party to go to. There's always football on Saturday night. And that's about it. I guess summer really has come to a close for us. It sure was a good one though.

Have a good Friday and a good weekend.

--Paul

150

Today marks post number 150 for the year. I know I talked about the numbers and all a while back, but it's still amazing to me that I've kept this up this long. I'm actually kind of proud of myself. For those that are still reading, thank you for coming here and reading this. I know I'm not the greatest writer in the world and I'm sure you don't always enjoy the topics I write about, but I appreciate your presence and look forward to the rest of the year.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention what everyone already knows. Today is the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. I know that we're all going to hear about it all day long, but it just can't be ignored. I remember in high school, teachers would talk about those moments in history that define a generation and that people remember where they were when those things happened. Things like the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination. September 11 is without a doubt that moment for my generation.

I was in my first semester at Troy and I had classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I was at home the day the attacks happened. I got up that morning and like I always did, I flipped on the TV, turned it to the Today show and started getting my breakfast ready. It was just before the first plane hit. I won't go into the details of my memories, but I can pretty much recreate that entire day in my mind. There are very few days I can say that about. My wedding, graduating from college and a few other major events in my life are about all that can claim that feat.

So say a little extra prayer today for the families of the victims of September 11 and say a prayer for the soldiers that are still fighting the war against those who would do us greater harm than was done on that day.

Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

Wednesday, Wednesday

Half-way through another week.

We finished painting the guest bathroom last night. I've got to do some touch-up work on the trim and then we've got to put all the accessories and mirror and everything else back up on the walls and put the toilet back together and we'll be done. This one's gone by a lot faster than the other rooms. I guess it helps that it's probably the smallest room in the house.

We also watched the movie "Baby Mama" last night. It was pretty funny. It had some of the standard chick-flick elements to it, but because of the story, it wasn't a total chick-flick. We both really liked it. The language was a little rough, as usual, but other than that, it was a good renter.

As you can tell from my afternoon post-via-email yesterday, Apple had an event yesterday. They brought out new Nanos that look pretty cool and they revised the Touch. I've always wanted an iPhone, but ATT doesn't have service in our area, so there's no way to get one around here and get a local number. The Touch is basically an iPhone without the phone part, so since the iPhone is out, I've naturally turned to wanting the Touch. The refresh yesterday just makes me want one even more. One can dream, cant' he?

Anyway, I've got to go wake DeAnne up. She's going in today. It was scheduled last week, so it's kind of nice in that she knows she's going and can get up and get ready and not be rushed at the last minute. She got called in yesterday also, so that's two days this week.

Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Drool...

Apple announced new iPods today.  Behold the second generation Touch.  (For those counting, this marks Christmas present possibility #2.  The first was The Tales of Beedle the Bard.)

--Paul

I'm Up!

I managed to turn my alarm clock on last night and this morning, I'm right on time.

We had a pretty uneventful weekend. Mom was in town on Saturday and stopped by to see us for a little while. After seeing her, I headed over to Bryan's to watch football and Adrienne came over here to help DeAnne prime the guest bathroom.

I don't think I've mentioned it, but we're re-doing the guest bath. It's going to be the same color as the living room and hallway and we're changing all the hardware out to be silver. DeAnne put the first coat of paint on yesterday. She should be able to finish up today if she doesn't get called to sub. I'm sure she'll post pictures on her blog when we're done.

Rock Band 2 is supposed to be released on Sunday. I guess we'll have to make a run over to Enterprise after church to pick up our copy from Gamestop. I really wish Andalusia had a Gamestop. There's a perfect place for one next to Maurice's over in front of Wal-Mart. Somebody just has to convince them to put a store in.

That's about all I've got. It was a slow weekend and it looks to be a slow week, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Have a good Tuesday.

--Paul

This Is Getting To Be A Habbit

And it's not one that I'm proud of either.  I failed to turn my alarm clock on last night.  Thankfully, this time, I managed to wake up about 6:20.  I had time to get a shower, get dressed, and get out the door and still be 5 minutes early even.  However, this means that this is all the blog you're getting this morning.  I apologize and I promise to make sure I set the alarm clock tomorrow so that I can give you a proper post and not have to email in an apology.

Have a good Monday, or at least one that's better than the way mine started.

--Paul

Wrapping Up The Week

Going back to topics I talked about earlier in the week:

I found a feature that Google's Chrome browser is lacking that I can't live without: a spellchecker. Firefox has a built-in spellchecker that works kind of like Microsoft Word. If you misspell a word in the browser, it underlines it in red. You can then right click on the word and get the correct spelling. It's an incredibly useful feature for blogging and it's enough to have brought me back to Firefox for now.

We caught about 2/3rds of McCain's speech last night. I don't know if he did as well as Sarah Palin, but I thought it was good. Towards the end he seemed to loosen up a bit and begin to really get into it. I think the protesters that tried to rush the stage also got him fired up. Probably the best part that we saw was when he talked about his time as a P.O.W. It was very moving and very inspiring. It's hard to imagine that anyone that's ever served in the military wouldn't vote for McCain, espically after hearing his speech last night. Heck, it's hard to imagine that anyone anywhere would rather vote for Obama than McCain after his speech last night.

That's the last of the politics for now. I promise.

We watched a great movie last night called "Son of Rambow". It's not what you're thinking based on the title. It's about two boys that become friends and begin making a home movie to enter into a film contest. It's was really funny and just a good movie. It had some language in it, but other than that it was well worth watching.

Have a good weekend and War Eagle!

--Paul

Let's Get Political

I guess that as you get older certain things happen that you can take as signs that your priorities have changed and that this shift in priorities is in turn a sign of getting older. Last night, one of those moments occurred for me and DeAnne. We watched about 2 hours of the Republican National Convention.

Now, dont' get me wrong. I've always enjoyed politics to some degree. I've voted in every major election and the majority of the minor elections that have occured since I turned 18. This, however, is new, uncharted waters. For DeAnne, who's never cared a thing about politics as far as I know, it's a whole new universe.

I should have seen it coming though. I tried last week to watch some of the DNC and after a few minutes, I couldn't take it anymore and turned the channel. This was different. I guess it's easier to watch people speak when they're saying things you agree with. We saw Mike Huckabee, the man I voted for in the primaries, give an excellent speech. I really think it's a shame that he's not the Presidential candidate. Next up was the current Govenor of Hawaii. She did a good job and had some good points, but she ran a little long and lost us towards the middle of her speech. Rudy Gulianni was next. I've never been a big fan of Rudy but I can see why he was mayor of New York and why he's still a player on the national scene. He gave a great speech, the best one we saw last night, and served as a great introduction to Sarah Palin. If Rudy was good, the Sarah Palin was incredible. I expected her to do a good job, but I think she really nailed it. She did a good job making a case for her experience and did a good job of telling the media to back off. I'm actually pretty excited about her now and I'm hoping that she'll be a major help in getting McCain elected.

I'm running late and I know it was a long post, but last night was just too interesting to not talk about. Have a good Thursday.

--Paul

Hmmm...

I'm having a hard time coming up with a title this morning.

I've failed to mention it so far, but I'll do so now.  DeAnne got called to sub for the first time last week.  She got called to Pleasant Home on Tuesday and Red Level on Wednesday.  She said that it went well and that she enjoyed being back in a classroom, she just wished it was her classroom.  Nobody's called since, but hopefully as the year goes on they'll start calling a little more often.  If she could work 2 or 3 days a week, I think we'd be in good shape.

If you'll bear with me on a little nerd tangent:  Google released a new web browser yesterday.  It's called Chrome and it's not too shabby.  It's still in beta, so there are some things that aren't quite there yet, but it's a very good start.  I'm using it right now, in fact.  The window is very minimilist so that more of the web page can be displayed.  It's also very fast.  It seems to run faster than either Firefox or Internet Explorer.  

It also has some other cool features.  You can make any webpage a desktop icon from the Chrome menu.  When you use the icon, it comes up, but without the address bar and back and forward buttons.  This makes the web page look more like a traditional desktop application.  It's great for web-based email programs like gmail or yahoo mail.  There are a couple of more features that I really like, but they all lean to the geekier side of life, so I won't bore you with those.  I'm going to keep using it for now and see how it goes.  Give it a shot yourself.  Internet Explorer isn't the only way to get to the internet anymore.  It's nice to have alternatives like firefox and now chrome.  It keeps Microsoft on their toes.

Have a good Wednesday.

--Paul

Short Weeks Are Your Friend

So today starts the short week thanks to the holiday yesterday.

Gustav was pretty much a non-event for us. We had a good breeze, but no rain. We did have one tornado warning for the very south-western most part of the county, but that was it. While it didn't have much bearing on us, our prayers are with all those that it did have a great effect on. Hopefully those hit hardest will be able to pick up and move on with their lives a little faster than was the case three years ago.

Hanna looks like it's going to be an issue for the Carolinas. Ike though, Ike could be one to watch out for. We'll just have to wait and see what happens as we get closer to the weekend.

Saturday was the kickoff of the college football season. War Eagle!! Auburn didn't look great (or at least from what I read, they didn't), but I don't think I can remember the last time we won a game 34-0 and put up just over 400 yards on offense. Hopefully they can work out some of the kinks this week and over the next few weeks so that we'll be ready for LSU. Alabama, as much as I hate to admit it, looked pretty good against Clemson. You never know how Alabama's going to do one week to the next though, so we'll have to wait and see if they can stay consistent. If they can, then they'll be a much greater threat this year than anyone thought they would be.

That's it for today. Have a great Tuesday.

--Paul