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Tue, Dec. 7th, 2010
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Dec. 7th, 2010, 04:46 pm]
Fun with Language

I've been missing foreign languages lately. I haven't really spoken French since my last class at BSC. I wish I could get back into it, but it's entirely very difficult not being around anyone that speaks it. Watching movies in French could probably help, but I don't watch a lot of movies more than once, and unless I'm already familiar enough with it, I'm not good enough to get it the first time. I've been trying to figure out a way to ease back into it a bit at a time.

A funny thing happened the other day, though, that sparked some fun. Megan updated her iPhone to the newest firmware version, and a known issue is that your music library disappears. Looking up the solution, we found that it was to change your language, start your Music app, and change your language back. Well, Megan happens to have taken French in school as well, and we're both still passively interested in brushing up, so she decided to leave her iPhone in French. I did the same thing. After laughing about the cognates faux-cognates for a while, I realized I probably know my way around my phone well enough that I don't need to change it back.

Then, something else happened. The Facebook app detected that we were using French as our system language and changed its localization as well. Well, after using it for a while, it became kind of fun. So we switched our Twitter and Facebook accounts on the real internet to French as well. I've started changing all the social networks and apps I use one by one. I also found where you can change Firefox to "prefer" French language versions of web pages as a default, but after a little while with that, I decided I'm not ready yet.


But I'm learning some new verbs and vocab that in a familiar environment is not only fun, but probably more applicable to what I do day-to-day than the types of vocab we learned in school (train station jargon doesn't do a lot for you here in the states). I figure at some point I can start trying to read web pages such as news stories, but it'll be a while until I get back to that.

Of course this doesn't nothing for listening/speaking skills and there's a lot more I need to brush up on than vocab and phrases (tenses and moods, for example), but it's a start.



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Tue, Jul. 13th, 2010
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Jul. 13th, 2010, 11:53 am]
I Miss Livejournal

I just happened to come here yesterday and check my Add/Remove Friends page, and noticed that my friends Chris ([info]chris462) and Alex ([info]dododopoetry) have both deleted their accounts. Between that, Joe ([info]bjbass) and other AMRDEC friends being unable to reach it anymore, and the general fact that everybody else seems to have abandoned it for Facebook/Twitter/Dreamwidth/Tumblr/Blogspot, Livejournal's emptiness has made me incredibly sad. So I've come here to complain, wax nostalgic, and otherwise speak directly into the void.

Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: The Weakerthans, "Sun in an Empty Room"
Tags: /////

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Tue, Feb. 9th, 2010
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Feb. 9th, 2010, 12:10 pm]
Negative Calories

I hate it when people say things like "Celery has negative calories."

First off, nobody subtracts the calories it takes to chew their food from the calories contained in the food. If it takes 2 calories to eat a cheeseburger with 300 calories, you don't say it has 298 calories. So you shouldn't take celery, which has near 0 calories, and subtract the 2 calories it takes to eat it. It still just has 0 calories.

That is all.

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Mon, Dec. 21st, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Dec. 21st, 2009, 11:26 am]
Writer's Block: Holiday cheer

Do you tend to get nostalgic during the holidays? Depressed? Giddy? How do the winter holidays make you feel?

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This time of year always seems to bring a blanket of cheerfulness with a couple holes of stress. The winter season being my favorite season plays a large role in my feelings about this time of year. I've always loved bundling up and running from one oasis to another. I even like being outside perpetually, provided I'm dressed for it. The comfort of heat in the car is akin to being under the covers at home. There's something inherently pleasant about it. Aside from the cold, getting together with family brings me happiness. It used to be seeing my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins on each side of the family that I looked forward to, but now it's my immediate family that I "visit" since I don't live with them anymore. And at home, I have a wife that fully embraces the decorative and magical aspects of the season (tree, stockings, wreaths, lights, candles, food, and other various household seasonal knick-knacks :P). We even have stockings for the dogs, which we usually fill with rawhide bones, canned food (a rare treat for them), etc.

The really stressful aspects of the season are few, as I don't have three kids to have to shop for like my parents did (do, actually; for some reason they still insist on buying things for us). Things get pretty busy, and making sure we have time to get everything done is tough: getting the tree early, but but for a decent price; getting it decorated; stringing the outside icicle lights (which I have failed to do this year unless I hurry); buying gifts; dropping off/mailing gifts; making it out to Galaxy of Lights; making it to any parties people have; etc.). And then there's the money aspects of the season. Between gift-giving and the charities that pick the worst time of year, financially, to ask for donations, it's hard to keep the bank account positive. But most of these things end up working out, and the good parts of the season overshadow them.

Current Music: The All-American Rejects, "The Last Song"
Current Location: The Trailer of Doom
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Mon, Dec. 7th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Dec. 7th, 2009, 03:39 pm]
Writer's Block: Top ten playlist

What is your top-ten song list? What was it when you were a kid? Is there any overlap?

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Hmm... well I cannot make a well-thought-out top-ten list right now; It would take me days and weeks of thinking about and listening to every 5-star song in my library. However, I can think of a few songs that, as a "kid" (middle/high school count?), I thought were some of the best songs ever written, and as an adult, I still somewhat agree. I don't necessarily think they'd end up in my Top 10 were I to make one today, but definitely in a Top 100.

Billy Joel, "We Didn't Start the Fire"
Foo Fighters, "Everlong"
Counting Crows, "Rain King"
R.E.M., "E-Bow the Letter"

Those are the ones that stick out in my head. I'll come back and edit if I think of any more.

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Sat, Nov. 21st, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Sat, Nov. 21st, 2009, 10:40 am]
Writer's Block: Play it again, Sam

If you could only listen to one CD for the rest of your life, what would you choose and why?

Submitted By [info]lexxyloser

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The Cure, Wish (1992). No question. Why? Because it is quite simply the best album ever conceived.

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Tue, Nov. 17th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Nov. 17th, 2009, 04:27 pm]
A Mystery!

North Carolina fugitive caught in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, AL - Sunday, Huntsville police arrested Kenneth Manning, 56, for driving under the influence after his vehicle was stopped for an expired license plate.

Sgt. Mark Roberts with Huntsville police said Manning had a warrant as a fugitive from justice from North Carolina.


Hmm.. how convenient that the only Mannings I know live in both Huntsville.. AND NORTH CAROLINA!

This one of you guys' relatives, [info]bjbass/[info]erdufylla?

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Thu, Nov. 5th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Thu, Nov. 5th, 2009, 12:33 am]
PC Gaming

I don't usually play PC games, for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is system requirements/compatibility problems. I recently got a copy of Fallout Trilogy from my good friend [info]alruff. I was very excited to play it and installed it on [info]inherentmalaise's laptop. Upon starting up the game, I got some color corruption and one time it froze on me. I reinstalled it (as it said to) and still the same problems. So I Google'd it and found a few things to try. It's late, and I don't have time to try them right now, but the point is I shouldn't have to go on a Google Scavenger Hunt every time I want to play a game. With Wii/360 games, I put it in, and I can play it. No crashes, no weird resolution problems, no color corruptions, no fucking with ini files. I mean, seriously. I can do this stuff because I'm a computer guy, but I don't WANT to have to.

From http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=948430

Read more... )

And from http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/8870-fallout-2-a.html#post109168

Read more... )

Just thought I'd throw that beautiful crap in here. Can't wait to them it out tomorrow when I'm better-rested and perhaps more patient.

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Wed, Oct. 7th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Oct. 7th, 2009, 11:55 pm]
My Tweets for Today

  • 09:57 >@BrianLynch: Heidi Klum is taking Seal's last name. Seal doesn't even take Seal's last name. #
  • 11:50 Libertarian Socialism has been making more and more sense lately... #
  • 16:00 I don't know why, but all of a sudden I'm in the mood for a burrito #
  • 16:01 What? Seriously, I mention "burrito" and Matt Lisk: Diet Guru starts following me.. WTF? #
  • 16:03 Now all I can think about is a Chapala Burrito with shredded beef, a warm tostada with sour cream, a flauta, and rice and beans... #
  • 23:19 Nooooooo you're being ignorant! That's ignorant! #




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Fri, Oct. 2nd, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Fri, Oct. 2nd, 2009, 11:22 am]
"The right words... in time..."

I'm getting a little bored of Facebook. I keep blocking all of the "What [X] Are YOU?!" apps, but the one-line status updates are just kinda boring me. I do enjoy Farmville, though. But I've always liked games where your numbers go up.

I'm attending the second and third of five weddings this weekend. Trent and Melanie's in TN tomorrow, then Jack and Lauren's in Tuscaloosa on Sunday. Then a big break. Then a friend of mine's little sister's in November, then my brother's in December. After that, everyone will be married, right? Right. Shit, I should be against gay marriage; it means more weddings to go to lol.

Last night I got sick off of something; I'm thinking it was some iceberg lettuce we had. I got home from work and I was hungry, so I made a salad. The lettuce was brown on the outside, but I peeled those leaves off and it was greenish-white in the middle, so I figured it was ok. I put a boiled egg and cheese on it (healthiest salad ever..) and ate it. It tasted fine, but almost immediately, my stomach started hurting. When Megan got home, we went to get Chapala (our now-only-once-a-month Chapala Thursday) and I ate my tostada and a bit of my flauta, but was still feeling queasy. On the way home, I started to feel incredibly nauseous. I made it home, popped some Pepto Bismol, and laid down for a bit. I started feeling ok after that, and I'm fine today. I'm throwing out the last bit of that lettuce, though. It's cheap stuff, anyway, and I'm not taking any chances.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Sunny Day Real Estate, "Seven"
Current Location: Work
Tags: ///////

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Wed, Jul. 29th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Jul. 29th, 2009, 12:32 am]
Water Saver

I finally decided to buy a water saver faucet tonight on a whim while I was looking around the bathroom area at Walmart, and found one for three dollars that was supposed to put out 2.5 gallons a minute. That sounded like a lot, but I remembered all the times I showered at hotels and other people's houses and how my shower always seemed like a higher pressure than that. There was another for 1.5 gallons per minute, but I thought I'd try the 2.5 first.

When I got home, I tested it out with a bucket, and our current shower head put out 9 quarts in 30 seconds (which comes out to 4.5 gallons per minute). Well, I didn't want to take the manufacturer's word for it, and I had the bucket and the stopwatch, so I threw on the new one and tested it. 5 quarts in 30 seconds (2.5 gallons per minute). Just as advertised.

This means that for every 10-minute shower, we'll be saving 20 gallons of water. That's close to 40 gallons per day, or 1200 gallons per month! That'll cut down our water bill, not to mention the electricity to heat less water in the winter. This thing will pay for itself in less than a month.

And maybe we won't run out of hot water in the winter anymore.

All this water talk is making me thirsty.

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Fri, Jul. 17th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Fri, Jul. 17th, 2009, 02:00 pm]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I enjoyed the sixth Harry Potter movie, but it was a shallow enjoyment, the type of enjoyment one gets out of an ice-cream cone rather than a magical evening of stargazing. I'm going to quickly throw out the obligatory "OMG they deviated from the book" and say that that really disappointed me. I do think it's possible to make a compelling and worthwhile movie based on a book that abridges it (even to a great extent), but this film doesn't back me up on that. I believe the changes I mention below stripped important meaning from the movie. There are other, more random, changes, as well, but these were just the big ones that bothered me.

Spoilers will abound from here on out )

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Sun, Jul. 12th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Sun, Jul. 12th, 2009, 09:44 pm]
Google Rant Beta

Google has been bothering me lately. The one thing that started their dynasty, the searching, is what is now making me want to find a better search engine altogether. I suppose I'm in the minority, because all of the things that I hate have stuck around for quite a while, and I see no options or preferences to change them. If anyone knows how to fix any of the issues I describe, I'd love for you to share. So here is a list of things about Google that annoy me.

  1. Automatically searching for different forms of the same word. Every now and then, this can be useful, but more often than not, I have to (re)search with a minus sign on one particular form of a word that is dominating the results. For example, when I'm searching for a little-known Starflyer 59 fan-made tribute album called Translations, I did a search for "starflyer 59" translations. (Now, of course, this brought up about 1,000,000 results for lyrics translation, but that couldn't be helped on the server-side). That muddied up the results enough on its own. The real problem is that they have a song called "the translator," and Google is pretty damn sure that's really what I was searching for. I appreciate the ingenuity of this "feature," but I just find it almost useless. "Did you mean...", on the other hand, is a great feature, and I'd love it if they just suggested other forms that were commonly found in these pages, instead of assuming and returning what it thinks was my intended query. Having to search twice (and sometimes three times) with new queries like "starflyer 59" translations -translator is unnecessary and annoying. Edit: There is a workaround for this. See the edited comment on #3.

  2. Correcting my "typing mistakes" for me. If I'm looking for the band mewithoutYou and I search verbatim for it, I'm gonna end up with pages that say "I had him give it to me without you knowing." Google didn't ask me if I meant "me without you," it just assumed. Once again, "Did you mean..." would've worked fine, but apparently most users are just plain too stupid to use that and need Google to babysit their search queries.

  3. Finding pages that don't contain all of my words so as not to return zero results. If I want to find pages that contain both "the smiths" and "the cure," I'm unsure how to do that. If I type "the smiths" "the cure," it will inevitably return pages that contain just one of those bands on it. This wouldn't be a problem if they owned up to it and I knew that I had to use the AND operator, but they don't. In fact, if you use the AND operator, Google thinks that you're an old 85-year-old who last used gopher:// and lets you know that Google searches for all words by default. No you don't. And not only do you not do that by default, I cannot even find a way to force you to. Edit: They have now changed this. Using AND or the plus operator is now the correct way to search for all words. Why this isn't the default is beyond me. And look, if you can't find any pages that contain both, just tell me. I think I can take it.



The biggest problem is that most other search engines are so bad that Google still wins even with these annoying flaws. I had high hopes for Wikia Saerch, but until it gets a much larger user base, the results are just not going to be good enough. I still use it from time to time, and try to rate results in order to help them, but most of the time I end up back at Google.

Anyone else have these problems, or other problems with searching the web these days?

Current Music: Mae, "Just Let Go"
Current Location: Home
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Tue, Jun. 23rd, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Jun. 23rd, 2009, 11:55 pm]
This Commenting Policy Should Apply Everywhere

PZ Meyers recently posted an amalgamation of advice fellow commenters have given noob commenters on his blog. I thought them funny:
  1. When you post, even if you intend to reply only to PZ or to one other comment on the thread, up to 200 people (or more) will read, and possibly respond to you. Keep this in mind.

  2. As this is a science blog, a greater proportion of the readers and commenters here well- educated, and, if not scientists, are reasonably well-versed in logic, observation, empiricism, debate, and rationality. As such, their responses will likely be pointed, eloquent, articulate, and highly opinionated.

  3. Any comments you make will be judged, and often judged harshly for grammar, intellectual consistency, knowledge of the subject addressed, and openness of tone. Get used it; this is the deep end, not a wading pool.

  4. Commenters who wish to make religious, spiritual, or other arguments are welcome to do so, provided they are willing to respond to the observations and criticisms of other posters, many of whom are experts in their fields. Commenters who argue without insulting other commenters personally or in whole, and who actually respond to counter-arguments will have a stimulating time.

  5. Commenters who begin their interaction on this blog with insults (you're a bunch of jerks), threats (you're all going to hell) or other poltroonery (atheists have no morals) will be responded to in kind by persons who generally have far more experience and education, and certainly a greater vocabulary in both insult and invective.

  6. People often say stuff on the Internets that they would never say to your face. You are strongly urged to get over it.


Current Music: Youth Group, "All This Will Pass"
Current Location: Home
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Mon, Jun. 8th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Jun. 8th, 2009, 11:36 am]
Nintendo and Its Fans' Abandonment Issues

It's a popular meme right now that Nintendo has abandoned its hardcore audience with all the casual gamers it's catering to. I'll be the first to admit that I was under that impression as well. The interesting thing is that I think confirmation bias is playing a large role here. Someone recently said that the number of first-party Nintendo games from their flagship franchises has already surpassed the Nintendo 64's total number, and rivals the Super Nintendo's number. I didn't initially think that was possible, but I decided to make chart and look at the side by side. Lo and behold, just over two years into the life cycle of the Wii and we've already met (and are about to exceed) the numbers of first-party games from the last 3 systems (I didn't include the NES in this list). Take a look for yourself:

Chart )

It's interesting, isn't it? All this "Nintendo is catering to the casual gamers" talk. The reality is that the reason they're able to produce this many quality first-party titles is the fact that they made so much money from Wii Sports and Wii Fit. The casual gamers made this all possible. I, for one, am ripe to quit my bitching.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Band of Horses, "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands"
Current Location: 5400, Redstone Arsenal, AL
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Fri, Jun. 5th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Fri, Jun. 5th, 2009, 03:05 pm]
IMAX

I just found out that IMAX does not necessarily imply a dome shape. The only IMAX I've ever seen has been the one at the S&RC here in HSV. I'm blown away now, thinking that every IMAX in the world was a dome. So I thought I hated IMAX, but I don't. I just hate ours.

I wonder how many other people have not known this.

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Wed, May. 27th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, May. 27th, 2009, 11:01 am]
See? This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things!

I like buying new things. I assume everybody likes buying new things, but I wonder if I enjoy it more than most people. Being the youngest of three brothers, I didn't get many new clothes until I was a teenager and my brothers had stopped growing faster than they could wear their clothes out.

When I went to college, I got the old fridge and microwave that Lee wasn't using once he graduated. When Megan and I bought our house, we got an old entertainment unit, my couch from college, an old futon from my mom's friend. We've been fighting the post-dorm-room-hand-me-down-furniture phase for quite some time, and we still have a good number of things like that left.

Our lawnmower came from the junkyard. I'm dead serious. My uncle found it at the junkyard, took it home and fixed it (turns out it just needed a new cord), and offered it to my dad (who had told him we needed a lawnmower), who gave it to us. It's lasted 4 years now, and I've done some very minor fixes to keep it going (I think I inherited this "Don't throw that away! That's still good!" mentality directly from my dad). My dad ordered a bag for it online and gave it to me for my birthday. Before that, I was using two pieces of wood and some tarp to divert the grass clippings. Sometimes I want to buy a new lawnmower, but I just can't justify it.

(Don't mistake this for a sob story, though; I've had a pretty privileged life.)

Anyway, all this to say that sometimes, it's just nice to have new things. My dad gave us a gas trimmer that didn't run, and said that maybe I could fix it. When the gas line broke as I tried to reconnect it, I said forget it. I went to Lowe's for something else, and saw they had cheap weed whackers (like $30), so I got one. It's not super-nice, but it's brand-new, and it's mine. I could've fixed (and still can) the other one for under $30, but I just didn't necessarily want to deal with it. And I feel a little guilty about that. I try to fix anything and everything before throwing it away, even if it's way beyond my level of expertise (for example, my Camry). But sometimes, I have to force myself to rationalize a new purchase. I also got a 100-foot extension cord for it (which hopefully will reach to all corners of the yard) and I'm very excited to try it out once this damn rain stops.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: The Doves, "Kingdom of Rust"
Current Location: 5400
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Tue, May. 26th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, May. 26th, 2009, 05:44 pm]
Random Thoughts

Is guilt necessarily bad?

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happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, May. 26th, 2009, 01:13 pm]
Prop 8 and Patriot Parkway

They upheld Prop 8. It was expected. At least they are letting the marriages stand, though. I would be more than livid if I had gotten married and then it had been nullified. The effect of this decision sucks. But I'm a bit torn in my ideology about how I feel about it. I definitely disagree with Prop 8, and I think they used horrible tactics to raise money from out of state to promote it. But at the same time, it's legal. They went through the proper channels and passed the initiative. But this is what sucks about it. It's arguably unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. Only 52% of those who voted agreed with the initiative, and only 79% of the population voted. This means that only around 41% of the population voted to ban gay marriage. Unfortunately, that's the way the system works. Democracy only works if you actually vote. Less than a majority of the state was able to enact a new law. This baffles me. I strongly encourage Californians not only to put another initiative in place to legalize it again, but also to begin to reform their ballot initiative process. You should need more than a simple majority to pass a ballot initiative.

This is older news (a month or so), but the Patriot Parkway that's been planned to go over Redstone Arsenal and connect Madison to Southeast Huntsville has been blocked by the Army. Due to "post-9/11 security concerns", they're not going to allow it to be built. It never made sense to me how they were going to justify this anyway, but I was looking forward to it. I don't agree with the decision to block it, but I understand and kind of expected it. The worst part is that there is a tremendous amount of planning (they estimate 5-10 years' worth) that will need to take place again. Your tax dollars at work.

Current Music: Crooked Fingers, "What Never Comes"
Current Location: 5400
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Thu, May. 21st, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Thu, May. 21st, 2009, 05:28 pm]
Laptops I am Considering

Model			Processor		RAM	Hard Drive	Screen	Price	Shipping
Gateway T-6345U		Pentium Dual-core T3400	2GB	250GB		14.1"	$399	$0
Dell Vostro A860	Core 2 Duo T5470	2GB	160GB		15.6"	$419	$0
Lenovo IdeaPad Y450	Pentium Dual Core T4200	3GB	250GB		14.0"	$469	$0


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Wed, May. 20th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, May. 20th, 2009, 12:45 pm]
TV, Music, Random Other Crap

Disappointing TV News

I'm sad to hear that NBC has canceled My Name Is Earl. In addition, ABC is not bringing back Samantha Who? after they initially claimed they were.

Fox's new animated show Sit Down, Shut Up got canned by put on hiatus by Fox after only 4 episodes (There were apparently 9 more unaired). Due to racy content, Fox decided to wait to air the rest until the summer, after which it may or may not be picked up again. I don't know why airing it in the summer will make it better, but ok, then. It's actually a pretty funny show, and has a stellar voice cast: Will Forte, Kenan Thompson, Kristen Chenowith, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Cheri Oteri, and Henry Winkler. That's a lot of talent for one series.

On the the good news front, Chuck is coming back in the fall! I'm very excited about that. Especially due to the development in the season finale.


Music

Megs and I went to see Coldplay/Pete Yorn on Monday! It was a great show. I wished we had better seats, but it turned out fun nonetheless. They played a whopping 24 songs (Pete Yorn only got around 9), and only a couple that we wanted to hear but didn't. It was Viva-heavy, but I expected it to be. We missed the first opener, Howling Bells, due to forgetting how bad Birmingham traffic is when events are taking place. We got to go to Al's for like the fourth time in three weeks. I fucking love Al's.

Been listening to Barcelona this morning. Just as good as I remembered from the Mae show where they opened. Dreamy pop rock à la Remy Zero or mid-career U2, but a little less anthemic musically and a little more personal lyrically.


Random Other Crap

Donato's rocks. Had some for dinner, and brought some leftover for lunch today.

If you're into Twitter, our dog now have Twitter accounts (http://www.twitter.com/murrayboy http://www.twitter.com/missmaddiegirl). Yeah, it's awesome.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: The Boy Least Likely To, "Saddle Up"
Current Location: 5400
Tags: ////

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Wed, Apr. 29th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Apr. 29th, 2009, 09:55 am]
Transformers II: More Than Meets the Fans

This just in: "Transformers movie now has more ties to the cartoon"

Current Music: Cursive, "Caveman"
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Wed, Apr. 8th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Apr. 8th, 2009, 12:02 pm]
Things I Don't Feel That Strongly About

  1. Coffee: I don't like really strong, bitter coffee, and I don't like watered-down coffee, but I also probably couldn't tell you the difference between coffee from Dunkin' Donuts and beans imported from Switzerland that you ground five minutes before you brewed it. Maybe I haven't been into coffee long enough (5-6 years), but I just can't bring myself to be that passionate about it.
  2. Cars: Safety and fuel efficiency are my primary concerns when it comes to cars. Horsepower, style, make/model (unless it is strongly correlated to my primary criteria), even features don't appeal to me much. Give me a car that gets 30 miles a gallon and will not leave me permanently injured should I have a wreck, and at least a tape deck so that I can plug in my iPod. Entire magazines devoted to custom cars just leave me wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
  3. Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux: Seriously.


There are more, I'm sure, but those were on my mind.

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Mon, Apr. 6th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Apr. 6th, 2009, 11:24 am]
I Had a Pretty Good Weekend

I finished Super Paper Mario Saturday morning. That was an enjoyable game, if a bit too verbose at times. Now the last major Wii game on my list to finish is Super Mario Galaxy. But first, back to the Xbox for Dead Rising. I gotta admit, though, right now I'm addicted to School of Magic on Facebook. It's a simple watch-your-numbers-go-up game with a just-enough-Harry-Potter-to-just-avoid-copyright-infringement theme. As addictive as Progress Quest, but with actual clicking, and multiplayer! There are hundreds of games like this. I dunno why this one happened to grip me.

You perform certain tasks (quests in this theme) to earn experience and gold by clicking on them. You spend mana to do this, and it regenerates over time at a fixed rate. You can battle others using stamina, which regenerates the same way. You invest money (in this game, to buy Familiars) to earn recurring income. The only downside is that in order to play more than 5-10 minutes at a time, you have to complete advertising offers. You can get gold, refill your mana/stamina, etc. by doing this. This isn't required to play, but if you don't want to wait for these things, you can spend waste money. I did a free auto insurance quote a couple times to get some offers (using bogus information). It's pretty mindless, so I started doing the math to determine what quests give you the most gold/xp per mana point, and which familiars give you the most recurring gold per unit of gold spent. This way at least I can maximize my progress and minimize the amount of time I have to spend on it.

Megan and I have started Maddie and Murray on a more regular eating schedule. We feed them a fixed amount once in the morning, watch them eat out of separate bowls, and then let them out. We've also cut down to almost no human food at all. The occasional piece of popcorn, but no more licking plates of spaghetti sauce. This came to pass after the vet told us that both of them were slightly overweight for their size. They're already all but house-trained now, but this should have the latent effect of stopping even the occasional accident. They're also starting to shed, since the weather's warming up, we need to start brushing them.

Speaking of the weather, I had a rare motivational spurt on Saturday to mow, since it rained on Friday, so I mowed both yards. It clouded up afterward, raining again Saturday night and Sunday. Quite a lucky break. I've been looking into maybe sodding our yard with some new grass that requires less mowing, but so far I can't find anything that I like enough. I think planting a few more trees might be enough to keep me from going too crazy with the mowing. As much as I hate it (and I abhor it), there's something endorphin-related about the combination of exercise and the feeling I get when I look out over the lawn and it's just so neat and organized. In a week, a rowdy few will start pushing and shoving to try to get more sun, but for now, all the blades are just standing at attention, awaiting my command.

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Wed, Mar. 18th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Mar. 18th, 2009, 10:16 pm]
Megan's Volvo

Megan (and I, tentatively) are headed up to NC this weekend, and so I was getting all the little things on her car checked out/fixed. Yesterday, there was a Check Engine Light, a Service Light, a Coolant Level light (this one is periodic), and a Lamp light all on. As of right now, there are none.

Yesterday, I noticed, when filling the radiator, that the radiator cap was cracked pretty badly (It's a plastic one, and it looks like over-tightening is the culprit). Today I got a new cap for about 9 bucks (9 bucks!) and put it on. The light's still off, and I hope it stays that way this time.

For the easy one, I picked up a bulb for the driver's side door (the only light I could find) at O'Reilly's. Replaced it, and the indicator light stayed on. Went to the back, and one of the tail lights was out. I checked it like seven times last week and didn't see it, so it may have come on while the other one was out. Got that bulb replaced, and the indicator light went off. Two for two.

While I was there, I picked up the Haynes manual (I should've already had this). Looking through the book, trying to figure out how to get the Service light to turn off (it's just an oil change reminder), I found a section for Engine Management System faults. Put the lead in A6, push the test button, do some voodoo chanting, and bam! Engine codes. Well, I got a 1-1-1. No fault detected. (edit: I should have noted here that this isn't an alarm-clock display. I was "reading" a series of blinks on a single LED. 1 blink. Pause. 1 blink. Pause. 1 blink. Long pause. Next code, etc.)

I was kinda pissed, so I looked through the book some more to find that Service light, and a stumbled upon another fault diagnostic, this one was called Fenix 5.2 system. Turns out there are SIX different diagnostic systems, at SIX different sections of the Haynes manual! Why wouldn't they put them all in the same place? Or at least have an index listing for "diagnostics", "faults", "engine codes", "codes", I checked ALL these.

Anyway, they span everything from Power Seat system to Fuel Injection. Next to the Fenix 5.2 system (that's not an audio system, mind you), there were two more charts. These are other Fuel Injection systems, and the only one applicable to you is the one your car is equipped with. Since there were three, I found mine in the owner's manual (for the hell of it, it's an LH Jetronic 3.2), and I wrote all these sockets and page numbers in a text document, and put it in my Reference folder. While trying to find my Fuel Injection system, there there on the page was "Resetting the Service Reminder Light". I wrote that down, too, and then went to check my codes.

All of these systems yielded 1-1-1, except for the Jetronic system. It gave me a 1-2-1, MAF sensor fault. Mass Air Flow sensor. So I disconnected the air intake hose, disconnected the sensor, held it up in the air to examine it, and then put it back. After all, it was 9:45, and nothing was open anymore. Re-attached everything and reset the Service Light. Started the car. The Check Engine light was off. Drove around the block. Came home. Tested all the systems again. 1-1-1 on everything. I guess it was loose or something.

For once, messing with a car yielded four (count em!) positive results, and I didn't once make something worse than it was before. Yay.

Current Music: Band of Horses
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Tue, Mar. 10th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Mar. 10th, 2009, 11:46 pm]
Health Update

Went to a walk-in clinic, as no doctors that were accepting new patients could see me for three weeks. I got a recommendation for Phoenix Emergency Care, off of Cecil Ashburn, so I went there at 4:15, when they said they had an opening. I got home at around 8.

Needless to say, there was a lot of waiting around. They swapped my throat and my nostrils (that one's new to me) and did a strep test. Then they swabbed my throat again to do a send-off strep test. Then they did a blood test for mononucleosis. The two in-house tests came back negative. When the doctor came to see me, she looked in my throat for about two seconds. I told her there was a spot on my right tonsil (and Megan could confirm this), but without a mirror, I couldn't seem to get my tongue in the right place quick enough for her to be able to see it. She said something like "They come and go" or something, except this one's been there for twelve days. There was a slightly whiter inflamed section behind the tonsil, but it kind of went away, so I didn't bother trying to get her to see that.

The nurse was rather curt, and the doctor didn't seem to listen to me well enough. She gave me an antibiotic and a pain-reliever, because that's all they can really do about a mystery infection. If you don't have the most common thing people are coming in for, those doc-in-a-boxes really aren't worth much for diagnoses.

But here is the really interesting thing. She looked in my ears, and when she looked in my left ear, she told me it looked like there was a perforation on my eardrum. She is setting me up an appointment with an ENT to have him take a look at it. I've been having a strange auditory sensation in that ear for around a year and a half, so if this is true, she may have found something I hadn't gotten around to getting checked out yet. That alone might've been worth the $25 co-pay.

The auditory sensation is a kind of static when I hear higher-pitched frequencies. I had chalked it up to hearing loss due to a gun that I fired around the time that it happened, but now I'm wondering if it's actually something more. And if it can be fixed somehow, I will be beyond happy. It annoyed me for months, but I finally got used to it. Being a musician, my hearing is probably more important to me than most (especially if I want to enjoy it into old age).

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Mon, Mar. 9th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Mar. 9th, 2009, 03:52 pm]
Doctor?

Who, of those who live in Huntsville, has a doctor that they like or would recommend? And preferably, if you know they are taking new patients, that's a plus. I need one, if not for my current ailment, at some point in the future I will need regular one. I'm looking for a General Practitioner. I'd rather ask my own friends than a community of strangers or picking blind out of the phonebook. My parents' doctor is edging towards retirement, so he's probably not going to be a good choice.

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Circa Survive, "Wish Resign"
Current Location: 5400
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happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Mar. 9th, 2009, 11:35 am]
The SF Blog and Being Sick

I'm determined not to give up on the SF Blog. Wrote a new entry today, even. Check it out.

In other news, I have been self-diagnosed with tonsillitis. It's likely not serious, or necessitating surgery, but it is an infection of the tonsils, so, in the technical sense, it's tonsillitis. I have a canker sore on my right tonsil.

I was sick two weeks ago Monday-Wednesday (Feb 23rd-25th), and had a normal sore throat. I also had sinus congestion, aching, etc., basically just a normal cold. By Wednesday, I was fine, but by Thursday night, my throat had started hurting again, this time with no other symptoms, and only on the right side. I just kept waiting on it to go away, but when it didn't, I took a flashlight and a mirror and finally caught a glimpse of the fucker. It looks like it's almost a full centimeter in diameter.

I've been taking ibuprofen, acetaminophen, naproxen sodium, aspirin, and even some hydrocodone that we had lying around from something, I can't remember what. Nothing seems to do anything about the pain (The hydrocodone made me not think about it as much, though). All I can do is not eat anything too harsh, rinse with mouthwash/saltwater regularly, and squirt Chloroseptic back there. It sucks. Pity me, dammit!

Current Music: Tokyo Police Club, "Your English Is Good"
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Mon, Mar. 2nd, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Mar. 2nd, 2009, 10:54 am]
Cursive Selling New Album for Cheap!

Cursive's new album, Mama, I'm Swollen, is selling for $2.00 digitally today at the Saddle Creek store. It was $1.00 yesterday, and it's going to increase $1.00 a day until the physical release date on the 10th. I just bought it (even though I'm buying the physical one) so that I can hear it early legally. Sweet deal. Awesome band.

For those of you not into Cursive, a good entry point is probably The Ugly Organ, as it's the album that got me into them.

Current Music: Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's, "Oh, What a Nighmare!"
Current Location: 5400
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Wed, Feb. 4th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Feb. 4th, 2009, 01:13 am]
Reasons to attend Bonnaroo (Everyone Else Is Doing It)

Main Attractions:
Band of Horses
Coheed & Cambria
MGMT
The Mars Volta
Portugal. The Man

I Might Check Out:
Al Green
Andrew Bird
Bon Iver
The Boss
The Decemberists
Elvis Costello
Gomez
Grizzly Bear
Jenny Lewis
Moe
Nine Inch Nails
Neko Case
Of Montreal
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Snoop Dogg
St. Vincent
The Ting Tings
TV on the Radio
Wilco
Yeasayer

I Will Surely Skip:
A.A. Bondy
Beastie Boys
Bela Fleck
Ben Harper
Crystal Castles
Erykah Badu
Girl Talk
Phish
Santogold
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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Fri, Jan. 30th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Fri, Jan. 30th, 2009, 01:03 pm]
Partial Quote

I have a strange habit, I've only recently noticed, of guessing the context of partial quotations. Put another way, if I read an article which quotes somebody, and the author integrates part of that quotation into their sentence, I try to figure out what the original sentence might've said.

An example (in fact, the one that prompted this discovery) is the following sentence:
[A game developer is] prepared to be held up to “internet ridicule if that’s not the case”
My initial guess was that the developer actually said "I'm prepared to be held up to internet ridicule if that’s not the case," but, if so, why wouldn't the author have quoted all possible words? I try to imagine that the author quoted as much of the original as possible given the sentence structure he'd decided on. So then I imagined the interview, and the developer saying "Commence the internet ridicule if that's not the case!" That fits, and it makes the words quoted the only words that could've been quoted given that sentence structure.

It's a weird little game. Does anyone else do this, or is my diversion unusual?


(For your potential curiosity's sake, the article I was reading was about Overlord: Dark Legend, an upcoming title for the Wii, about which I'm cautiously optimistic.)

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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Wed, Jan. 28th, 2009, 02:35 pm]
Cave Story

A potentially great new game is coming to WiiWare. Cave Story. It's a 2D side-scrolling adventure. The graphics are classic and beautiful, and they talked about using sound synthesis instead of samples. It looks right up my alley.

Take a look )

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Tue, Jan. 20th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Jan. 20th, 2009, 02:22 pm]
Awesome

My fellow citizens: ) We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. )

--Barack Obama, January 20, 2009


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Tue, Jan. 13th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Tue, Jan. 13th, 2009, 04:51 pm]
Wow

I just dropped our cable bill $25 basically by getting rid of long distance...No, I know. We don't need long distance, and we rarely use it, but it was included in our package last year, and it was a good deal the best deal available at the time. It was like $135 (+ taxes) or so for the Phone/HD DVR Cable/Internet with free long-distance. The 2009 bundle is $105 for Phone/Cable/Internet, and HD usually costs $9.95 and HD DVR costs $12.95, so I had figured it at $128 or so, just a little lower than before. Well, somehow the lady on the phone said that HD DVR cost $10. So I'm looking at $115 for everything. I even made it very clear to her that the only difference in my previous service and the new service is the lack of long distance, and she said yes. It came out to $122 including taxes. WTF?

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Mon, Jan. 12th, 2009
happinessiseasy's userpic [Mon, Jan. 12th, 2009, 03:13 pm]
Windows 7 beta 1 performance


Windows 7 beta 1 performance - How does the OS compare to Vista and XP? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

This is a good sign. It beat XP. That's awesome. I'm liking 7 a lot so far. I could tell it was faster than Vista just in the GUI department, but the fact that my old machine can run it with the Aero theme and all the animations turned on just as smoothly as it runs XP says a lot. Makes me wish the full version were coming out sooner. The beta expires in August, so I have no choice but to revert back to XP until it releases. Microsoft has said they could release it as early as December, but we'll see.

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