Midterm Music Report 2007 For the past few years, San Chonino and I have been doing end of the year article wrap ups.  They are a lot of fun, but they often prove to be quite difficult to write, due to trying to remember a full 12 months of musical goodness (and sometimes badness) and compress it into a few paragraphs.  Plus, with quite a few highly anticipated albums coming out this year, 2007 had the possibility of being one of the best years in music in a while.  So her...

1998.  Real-time strategy games were no new commodity.  Dune, Command and Conquer, Total Annihilation, Age of Empires and Warcraft were all well known, well regarded and loved titles.  But Blizzard wasn't content to sit on the success of Warcraft and Diablo.  After exploring the world of fantasy, they were ready to tap the wells of sci-fi. Enter Starcraft. Other RTS games have come and gone.  I have loved many, but none quite so dearly as Starcraft.  You see, ...

I can't help it.  I laugh out loud. I realize that when one is just getting into acting, he/she has to take the jobs they can get, but imagine the look on good old mom and dad's faces when you sit down with them and pop the tape/disc in.  "Here is my big debut!" "I have genital herpes." "And I don't." "And we want to keep it that way." Oh, the smiles, the joy, the tears.  They must be so proud!  "Our son just smiled and told the world he has genital herpes!  ...

I am a closet comic book fan.  I had a subscription to both The Amazing Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk when I was much younger (back when a single issue was $0.65!).  I tried to follow them, particularly Spiderman.  It was my favorite comic book and I watched the old movie regularly.  After my subscription ran out, I still cherry picked the issues and story lines that interested me.  But, it became too much to really keep up on.    The years passed, ...

Christmas morning.  The anticipation is palpable.  Rushing into the room, gazing at the spread, tearing the paper off, and then getting down and playing with the new toys.  It is a great feeling. To be honest, when a great, new Windowblind skin shows up on Wincustomize.com, the feeling is much the same.  I see the new preview, check out the full screenshot, download the blind, then apply and start putting the blind through its paces.  I just love checking the Star...

Pain is an interesting thing.  Even more interesting is how different people react to pain.  Somewhere along the way, someone decided that pain should be considered the fifth vital sign, that we need to regularly ask our patients to "rate" their pain on the wonderful 10 point pain scale, and then treat them accordingly. Even better is the fact that this whole "pain as the fifth vital sign" thing has been demonstrated to be useless. But we still stick with it, so you get patients ...

6 inches.  Snow that is.  We had six inches this morning after having had it all melt.  In fact, I mowed my lawn on Saturday.  Then it snows six stinkin' inches.  I'm not entirely surprised.  I knew it would snow again.  I just didn't think it would be as much as it was, nor stick like it did.  But I am confident it will melt before too long. Yes, I mowed my lawn.  Just the front lawn.  The previous owner hadn't mowed the lawn the entire ...

I have to admit, I just don't get it. I tried GTA III (Grand Theft Auto).  Didn't do much for me.  Tried GTA Vice City.  Same thing.  I liked the sandbox nature of the game, but I guess I just don't really like playing the anti-hero.  I guess I am just too much of a goody-two-shoes.  Probably the same reason I maxed out my Light Side nature in KotOR I and II and swung all the way to the Open Palm style in Jade Empire. Despite that all, though, I still don't se...

You know, Google just keeps amazing.  Their most recent announcement is probably the biggest yet: Free wireless broadband for everyone. Just go check it out and sign up today! I know I have.

I just have to say, San Chonino is a stud.  For his spring break, he booked a flight and came out to visit us. He spent about a week with us, and it was great.  He is one of the funniest guys around, is great with the little kids, and is just a lot of fun all around.  He got down on the ground and played with our little ones.  He joked with them, read them stories, did puzzles, and just basically let them abuse him.  There aren't too many college kids who would choos...

  Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain Year: 2006 Desolation.  Skeletal trees, reaching their barren limbs to gray, bleak sky.  A chill in the air, snow blanketing the ground, muffling the sounds, smothering life.  Picture this scene, and you will see the bleak majesty that is Ashes Against the Grain . Ashes Against the Grain is the latest magnum opus from the Oregon band Agalloch.  After several listens, I have no hesitation calling it a masterpiece. ...

/begin whine As I sit here in the hospital, answering moronic pages about stupid things, my wife is home, sick herself, taking care of a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old who are both puking. Thank goodness for parents who just happened to be out here visiting. Sometimes this whole call thing really sucks. /end whine

Over the course of your intern year, you really learn how to work with nurses.  Some nurse you know will call with the most stupid things.  It just seems they can't think for themselves.  Others, however, only call when it is important.  And when they call in the middle of the night, you better get your butt out of bed. I got one of those calls 1 am Tuesday morning. It was from a nurse on one of the surgical floors who has been doing this for years.  He is fantasti...

The days are like weeks, the weeks are like days. We used to say that in the mission field all the time.  Some days just crawled past, seeming unterminable.  Yet before we knew it, 4 weeks had passed and it was time for yet another round of transfers.  Lately, it hasn't been any different.  It isn't really that the days seem to go by so slowly, there just seems to be so much that fills them that it is a wonder they are only 24 hours long.  Get up, exercise, head t...

I understand that with everything going on at Stardock right now, this little old site simply can't be high priority.  But I just thought I would toss this out there as it ends up affecting some of your commercial software (which some of us have probably purchased). The RSS feeds here at JU are way behind.  We are talking almost a month and a half behind.  So in the end, this makes using BlogNavigator Pro useless in terms of actually reading anything here.  It is a shame, ...