perpetual memory loss

I have consistently been a late adopter of technology.  The last time I jumped on the techno band wagon from the get go was when I bought an mp3 player back before there was such a thing as an iPod (it was the equivalent of the Zack Morris cell phone).  Needless to say I got burned and I learned my lesson.  Since that time I have always waited and waited for new technology to go through a few iterations before I buy it.  Last Friday I decided to finally jump on the iPhone band wagon, and although I wish I would have done it sooner I am glad that I waited for them to work out some of the bugs.

Anyways I have been trolling the app store looking for good apps and wanted to promote one of my favorite apps so far.  The app is from BeamItDown Software and it is a collection of 150 Great Books (and counting).  Usually I feel the same way about digital books as I do about new technology, I really don’t like it.   There’s really nothing that can beat reading a real book, as opposed to the digital incarnation, but the price was right so I figured what the hell I’ll give it a try.  Up until this point I have only really read research papers and the like in digital form, and those usually don’t exceed fifty pages or so, but even those few pages are taxing on my eyes.  Now with all my complaining and griping about digital books you might be asking “well I thought you liked this app?”  I do but I just had to get some minor complaints out of the way first.

Lately I have been packing–in preparation for my imminent move to somewhere, don’t know where just yet–and I filled up two twenty gallon plastic storage containers with my books.  And when I went to move them into the other room I almost gave myself a hernia.  Seriously books are fucking heavy and annoying to move.  I had forgotten about that.  So until the time comes where I settle down and have a room dedicated as my library I think I am going to calm down on buying books.  Secondly, I went to do my laundry the other day and usually along with my colossal bag of dirty laundry, detergent, softener, and bounce sheets, I usually take my phone, iPod, and a book to read.  Now instead I just grabbed my bag of laundry and my iPhone and I was off listening to my music during the long trek to the laundromat, and once there I dove into A Tale of Two Cities, which is a book I have been meaning to read for years.  Despite my aversion to digital books I really enjoyed it and so far I haven’t really felt that I am missing that much by reading it off of my phone.  Actually it’s pretty damn great, and bonus because there are so many choices of books to read I will never be without a book.  And besides it’s much better than carrying my satchel (it’s not a man purse it’s a satchel) into the city filled with books and what not.

By the way the app is now 50% off and is only $4.99–which when added to the price of a new iPhone is cheaper than the Kindle, and the Kindle doesn’t play music or make phone calls (suck on that amazon). That $4.99 price tag is also  cheaper than buying even one of the books on the list.  Speaking of the list here are some of the highlights of what books are included on the app: a collection of Dickens, Twain, Doyle, Dumas, Hardy, London, Poe, and Wells.  Oh but wait there’s more it also includes political tracts from Hamilton, Locke, Marx, Milton, Paine, and Plato.  And there is a ton of other stuff including Epic Poetry, regular poetry, and fables.  There is really a grip of worthwhile books on the list just begging to be read, and hey did I mention it’s really a phenomenal deal.  The app itself works smoothly and saves where you left off in every book that you are reading.  Instead of simulating a book and page turns this app works like a “teleprompter” which makes it easier to read.  You can set it to move automatically so that you don’t have to touch the screen and can just keep reading.  Personally I hate the mode because I either feel that I am being rushed or that it’s moving too slow–I haven’t found the “just right” speed yet–and besides I like to read well written passages over and over again so I can fully appreciate them.  So I’d rather move the script on my own, but the option is there which is nice.

However, there are a couple add-ons I would like to see.  One is a way to highlight, mark, or dog-ear certain passages.  I have the tendency to write notes and bracket particularly good passages, but the ability to write notes is probably asking for a bit much so I would settle for a way to just highlight passages for reference later on.  Secondly, I would like some kind of page reference that lets me know the approximate page number that I am currently reading.  One of the benefits of reading books is noting the progress you make each time you sit down and read for a few hours, and that is really lost on this format.  Other than those minor gripes the app is the tops and well worth the money.  I don’t think I’ll ever go completely digital but being able to have so many good books on hand at all times is priceless (cliche I know, but also true).

Thanks to crunchgear for the pic.

Today I drug myself to my computer to begin the process of writing more cover letters and to scour the internet for more jobs.  It never happened though because I made myself a pot of coffee and turned on the TV and as I was searching around I saw that G4 was having their E3 coverage.  Some days it is down right fantastic to be a nerd and today was one of those days.  I spent the better part of the day watching Microsoft’s XBOX 360 E3 presentation.  It was two hours chalk full of surprises that whetted my appetite for the fall releases.  So for those of you that are gainfully employed here are some of my favorites (in no particular order).

The Beatles Rock Band–even though I generally suck at Rock Band I will think about getting this game just because it looks great and I love The Beatles.  Besides how cool would it be to play Drive My Car in Shea Stadium in front of 50,000 screaming fans?

Modern Warfare 2–the first Modern Warfare was awesome and I didn’t even explore the multi-player features, a mistake I won’t make again.  It looks like Infinity Ward upped the ante on this version and the level displayed at E3 looked great–especially when you get to drive and fight on a snowmobile, which had a Bond feel to it.  The 360 version will also have two exclusive map packs.

Halo: ODST–Bungie is one of those developers that I will pretty much buy anything they make because they are one of the best out there.  The fact that this is a new Halo game, which plays differently than previous incarnations, and you can count me hyped and excited to play this game.  Also Bungie teased a prequel to the Halo series entitled Halo: Reach.

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Well it has been a dogs age since I have updated the ol’ blog.  I have been exceptionally busy over the last month or so trying to finish grad school.  I had a severe case of senioritis and finding the motivation to finish up my last few papers was problematic at best.  Lucky for me in lieu of motivation I turned to Rock Star energy drink and like always it did the trick.  So I’m happy to report that as of the 17th I am now finished with school, until I decide to go back again that is.  As of now though I’m having to adjust to the idea of not continuing on with school in the fall for my PhD. and instead with settling for entering the workforce again.  It’s a weird feeling and being unemployed sucks especially in this economy.  But as they say nothing good ever comes to you except through hard work and sacrifice, that is unless your parents are rich and they hook you up with a trust fund and a corner office in the family business, neither of which I am holding my breath for since my parents have neither.  Now it is time for me to put my nose to the grind stone and get myself a decent job.  So look forward to more regular posting, since I have loads of time on my hands, and more drunken posts and stories, since  I’ll inevitably be despondent at my lack of progress in finding a job.

So I have been hard at work on my paper this entire weekend. Actually, I was supposed to be working on this paper all weekend.  However, instead of doing actual work I have been procrastinating, well, like it’s my job.  So Sunday I turned on my XBOX 360 so I could listen to some music whilst writing, but before I started playing my writing music, I started looking at some of the new arcade games.  One game in particular caught my eye, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (and also check the developers blog).  I decided to check out the demo, and damn I was hooked with a quickness.  Although $10 can be a steep price for a broke ass student like myself I didn’t think twice about buying it.  This game is amazing and I spent the better part of my Sunday afternoon furiously killing some fools.

The game is about some dude who washes dishes–amazingly I don’t think he is Mexican haha–who dies or something and somehow lives and wants revenge.  Someone also kidnaps his sister and he needs to save her.  The cut scenes are done as comic strips and the whole style of the game is very comic booky.  The game does a very good job of feeling like a comic book come to life.  Each level feels like individual frames of a comic book that you are slowly progressing through.  Obviously this is all part of the design, but the fact that it comes through so clearly, and works so well, speaks highly of the designer not dropping the ball on his vision.  The actual gameplay though is kick ass and the closest approximation for it is Ninja Gaiden.  If you like Ninja Gaiden you’re going to like this game.  If you like the action of Ninja Gaiden, but your fingers aren’t nimble enough to hit the combos (coughneverbesocialcough), you will most likely enjoy this game.  It has all the cool action without the mind-numbing and finger contorting combos of Ninja Gaiden (although if you play for long enough your hands will cramp up like the caretakers).  Oh yah by the way did I mention that there are zombie in the game?  No?  Well there are, so bonus points for the zombie slayage, and you even get a chainsaw in the game to slash those zombies back to hell.  Also of note there are sweet executions that you can perform to finish off your enemies.  One of my favs is when the Dishwasher grabs the psuedo-FBI agents gun and uses it to splatter said agents brains onto the wall.

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Today I had a nice surprise waiting for me on my front porch.  It was a wrinkled, rain warped manila envelope, inside of which was my official Honorable Discharge certificate from the Marines.  I’d like to especially thank the postal service for doing everything in their power to make sure that I got this envelope in terrible condition.  So thanks guys you really earned your pay.

by Shep Sheperton

Port St. Loosey-Goosey, Fl.–Today was the last day of Spring Training for the World Champion Gotham Rats.  Tomorrow they will begin the move north and start preparing for their Opening Day series against the Good Griefs.  The atmosphere here this spring was drastically different from last year when they were considered the league under-dogs by many of the best baseball minds.  That won’t happen twice, however, as most analysts have jumped on the bandwagon and are predicting that the Rats will be strong contenders for the title this year.

Starting third basemen Evan Longoria noticed the change also, “You know, last year we just wanted to be competitive and show people that we can play ball, but this year we have a bit of a chip on our shoulders.  We know we can play and we plan on defending out title.”  His sentiments were mirrored by the trio of sluggers Howard, Teixeira, and Fielder.

“Ryan Howard likes the way this team looks.  Ryan Howard thinks that there are some real good players on this team, we will have good chemistry,” boasted Ryan Howard. When asked about his propensity to strikeout he replied, “Shit son, when Ryan Howard hits 45 homers and drives in 130 RBI’s every year, it doesn’t matter how many strikeouts Ryan Howard has.  Ryan Howard is a force to be reckoned with, like a tornado or something.”

“I’m just here to contribute to the team in anyway that I can,” droned Teixeira in one of his cliched statements.

Newcomer Prince Fielder was in good spirits today and remarked, “I think I’ll do much better this year.  New York has plenty of vegetarian restaurants so it won’t be so hard for me to find a tofu burger.  It was damn near impossible for me to find that shit in Milwaukee.  Every time I asked for one some joker would give me a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger.  Man that shit was whack!”  Prince then meandered off to the outfield apparently looking for some food.

Meanwhile the Manager, Pablo Rodriguez, summed up his team stating, “Well all I can say is that this is a top notch organization from the top to the bottom.  Our ownership puts us in a position to compete every year, and we picked up some good youngsters in the draft.  Once we bring up David Price, and add him to the already formidable Shields, Lester, and Liriano, well our pitching is going to be tits.  Offensively we are even better than last year with the additions of Dunn, Prince, and Tulo.  Honestly, we have a strong team that is well-balanced offensively and defensively.  We have some good vets and some promising youngsters, and I expect great things from all of them.”

One of the most upbeat players in camp was Ubaldo Jimenez who stated “Main, bodee bop fastball boodoop doop err good main, badop pop, yah you know, pa toop whoop.”  No one ever knows what Ulbaldo is saying but you can’t argue with his upside so most players have just learned to encourage him with lots of nodding and high-fives.

The Rats are chomping at the bit to get this season started and Opening Day seems more like a year away rather than just one week.  Regardless, this team does look formidable and unlike last year they have confidence in themselves.  That should help them get over the hump and back into the playoffs.  Rats fans are in for a treat this year as this team should hit the ground running firing on all cylinders from the get go.  When asked about expectations for the year Carl Crawford bluntly boasted, “To win it all again!”

Team Moves

The Rats sent P David Price down to Triple-A McKracken where he will sit around and play Xbox 360 for a month while the Rats try to squeeze another year of eligibility out of him.

Also Marco Scutaro will potentially be sent back to the Dominican Republic for a box of Puerto Rican rum, but negotiations are stuck because the Dominicans don’t think he is worth 5 bottles of Don Q.

Shep Sheperton is the beat reporter for the Gotham Rats, and when not begging for a quote can be found crying in the women’s bathroom because the whole entire organization hates him.

I woke up this morning seriously pissed off.  I didn’t really know why, but I figured after a nice cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal I would be good.  Unfortunately, I was out of milk so no cereal, and I drank way too much coffee on an empty stomach so I was feeling queasy by the time I got to school for work.  Things spiraled down from there as I had a new project waiting for me at work which pisses me off because I seem to be the only research assistant that actually does research.  The rest just sit around doing their homework.  So I stayed grumpy and became even more irritable as the day wore on.

Ugly Baby Exhibit A

By the time I got home around 5pm I was bristling with anger, and I told neverbesocial that if there was a baby in front of me I would punch it in the throat.  (I have to clarify that statement, however, as most babies would probably melt my heart–like the sap I am–but I would have seriously thought about punching an ugly baby in the throat.)  Be that as it may I kept getting more angry because I couldn’t figure out why I was so angry all day long.  Then I took a look at my calendar and saw what day it was.  Today is March 19th and it is–along with the 20th–the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  I quickly realized that that was why I was pissed all day, even though I didn’t realize the significance of the day until after about 9 hours of being a real grinch.  I guess my body is just on its own program.

Like I said everything started to make sense after that, but I ended up getting more pissed off because I was thinking about how I hate these wars and how I can’t wait for them to be over and for the troops to come home.  I also was pissed at myself for being such a whiny complaining bitch because someone had the audacity to ask me to do my job, whilst there are other people over in Iraq and Afghanistan separated from their families performing a thankless arduous job.  I decided that it was time to hit the gym and go for a run to burn off all of my anger.  I went to the gym and really killed myself.  Running whilst angry is great; anger is one of the best motivators out there.  After a good two hours at the gym I was feeling really good and as I was walking home and just as I was getting ready to cross the street I noticed that there was like 3 cars at each stop sign waiting for me.  I figured I’d be a nice guy and jog across the street so that these people could get on their way quicker.  Bad idea.  This is the first time something like this has ever happened to me.  I took two steps and both legs cramped up and locked themselves in a bent position.  I came crashing down in the middle of the street in absolute anguish.  I managed to get up and hop to the sidewalk where I laid on the ground writhing for the next 5 minutes as cars drove by staring at me like I was a circus freak.  To make matters worse some people on the other side of the street were walking by and had seen the whole thing and were laughing their asses off.  Salt in the wound.

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I have some big changes coming up in my life over the next few months and I have been planning it all out trying to make sure that my transition from school to the job market goes as smoothly as possible in this crazy economic climate.  However, things are quickly unraveling.  Today, for example, was my big comprehensive final that I need to pass in order to graduate.  Well I did a little research found out all the ins & outs and created a strategy.  I decided to pick the three classes that went together–Colonial America 1600-1690, Colonial America 1690-1765, and American Revolution.  I figured I would study for those three classes write one enormous essay split it into three parts and then BAM! I’d be pretty much done.  Sounds like a good idea right?  Nope total fail.  You see even though they told me I would have a choice from all the classes I had taken they lied.  They threw me a nasty 12-6 curve ball and gave me a partial list of classes.  Once I read the questions and saw that my plan had gone awry my mind went blank and I stared at the computer blinking for the next 10 minutes.  I then looked to see if any of my current classes were on there since they were still fresh in my mind–negative on that point too.  (Funny thing was that the other person from the history department that took the test at the same time had all three of the questions that we had studied for plus questions from all his current classes.)   In anguish I looked over the list of questions again and saw that there were two questions I had studied for and the rest I hadn’t.  Most of the remaining questions were terrible and way too ambitious–on the teachers part–for me to answer cogently in an essay with the limited time I had.  So I decided to answer the Civil War question even though I really don’t remember much from the class.  Well to make a long story less long I somehow grinded out an essay (not very good ones mind you) for each question.  Some of you may say well that’s your fault for not studying for all of your classes, but while that may be true, I had a good strategy and the thought of studying for 10 classes over the last 2 years didn’t sound very appealing or a productive use of my time.  I figured better to know a few really well than all of them not very well at all.  Oh well I’ll find out soon enough it I scraped by.  So that was the first plan that went wrong.

My next plan was to spend this next week holed up in my hovel working on homework in an attempt to get ahead on my semesters workload–I have three research essays that I don’t have topics for never mind the books.  Novel idea for me since I always procrastinate and end up slammed at the end of the semester and well that is starting to get really old.  Besides along with my regular workload I have extra research work to do for teachers, I have to find a job, and a new place to live.  So it would definitely be a good idea to take this break to get ahead on everything so I’m not living in a box in a few months.  Well as luck would have it JetBlue was having some kind of blow out on tickets to Vegas.  I found a round trip ticket for $225 (how crazy cheap is that?) and decided to take advantage of it.  So there goes my plan of not procrastinating and putting my nose to the grindstone and getting some much needed work done.  Now I guess I can look forward to a long stressful last couple months of this semester.  I’m sure this will be an epic week in Vegas, and it’s a break that I do need, but keep your fingers crossed that it all works out and you don’t see me teaming up with a midget and dancing to Thriller in the subway.

If I have said it once I have said it a million times YouTube is one of the biggest time vampires in my life.  Sometimes I really don’t know how I get anything done at all.  For instance, right now I should be wading my way through 70+ pages of notes and writing out practice essays for the big test on Friday, but instead I have been meandering my way through videos on YouTube.  I just can’t help it sometimes I hit a good thread and just keep going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.  Here now are a couple of the gems that I found today (incidently I got started on this topic by finding this website that tracks TWSS comments over twitter).  The first is every (almost) “That’s what she said” from The Office and the other one is some TWSS from the Star Wars trilogy.  Maybe  it’s just me but TWSS jokes never get old.  It’s now time to go back to (or start) studying.  It’s going to be hard, but I have to tear myself away from the interwebs.  Enjoy.

I have been wanting to change up the look of the site or awhile now as I was never really that down with the way it looked.  Since I am in the middle of a semester studying for a big test I figured now was not the time to start learning CSS.  So I spent most of yesterday scouring the internet for a new theme to use, and I have settled on this one.  Eventually I hope to learn some CSS so that I can tweak it a bit (still need to create a banner one of these days too), but other than that I think it is a pretty good fit.  But wait there’s more!  There are a lot of new functionalities on the site now.  Some are small and mundane while others are simple spectacular.  If you haven’t checked out the pics from the Jimmy Eat World or The Black Keys show then do so now as the new photo feature is awesome and makes it much easier to look at pics.  Also the threaded comments feature now works so take direct aim at those people who disagree with you.  There’s plenty more changes on the site and there will be more in the future, so have a looksy around the site and tell me what you think.