Friday, September 09, 2005

It's been a while...

It's a decent song so stealing the title isn't that ridiculous and we all know I'm a thief when it comes to being online.

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. Man I think my brain finally exploded and everything will be a lot better now (kind of like Fight Club at the end where he just lets go of everything and eliminates the part of himself he dislikes). I didn't get rid of any bad habits but I guess I'm just beginning to realize that I'm only human and so I'll do as much as possible and make the rest up as I go along. The reading has been intense, this past week I've read nearly all of Part of Don Quijote (will be into Part 2 by Tuesday), I've read Night, Metamorphosis, The Dead, Paradise Lost Book 1, as well as a few poems and some introductory material/historical information on the Man from Stratford, Aka: Shakespeare. This is in addition to reading the interesting articles of The St. Pete Times, and the USF Oracle (where interestingly enough my response to the editor was published). I've also shot some pool inbetween classes, watched a few movies, Primer, Pi among them both interesting a far out, they really deserve second viewings for best understanding but time is money (especially with Blockbuster Online). However I have recently discovered the renewed power of Peer to Peer and so I decided to check out two shows I've heard a lot about but never seen. The first one, Lost is phenomonal, I've watched the first three episodes and I'm seriously thinking about buying the First Season DVD based on those three alone (see sharing causing folks to buy things they never would have before). The second show was Rome on HBO. I know get HBO as well as HBO on Demand so I can watch ROME whenever I wish, they are on episode 3 which I think I'll be watching later tonight (again file sharing caused me to buy something I would never have bought before, now having HBO I'll also checkout Entourage, also out on DVD First season), and Deadwood as well). Did I mention I've also managed to cram a few hours at work into all this mess? Well I somehow did.

More exciting and recently though. Fantasy football has begun. Last night in the first game of the season I had Deion Branch playing (Wide Receiver for New England) he was projected to post 8.88 points, instead my boy posted 17.65. The real deal is on Sunday (though I have a few players from Philly who play Monday night) I'm really excited about how well my team will hopefully do. A lot of thanks go to Matt Stites for helping me pick the team and stay on top of who should be played and such.

Anyways, check out Nathan's Blog for a great article about the impact of early dating life on marriage. Then stop in at Crystal's Blog for comments on the state of education and reform within our great nation. Both topics that I commented on then lost my train of thought as I've done with this post. Enjoy.

Edited In: Last thing for those who have ever noticed my scroll box in the sidebar. I've updated it so that you can follow my insane reading list, I also changed all the links from Amazon.com over to Barnes and Noble.com because Amazon lost a book of mine and didn't realize it until 8 days after it was supposed to be delivered, I had to call them, argue with their automated system in order to get a person (it wasn't an option I finally just started talking to the machine like I was giving it instructions, it said it couldn't understand finally and that it was connecting me with a person for future assistance). I will say that after five minutes he determined the package must be lost because after pickup on the 29th there were no future updates. The book now takes over 9 days to ship (when I ordered it, it shipped in 24-48 hours) so getting it shipped next day was out of the question. I got a refund and now have to go to the bookstore and buy the book like everyone else. Very upsetting. O well, guess I'll stick to Ecampus in the future and avoid amazon.

3 comments:

Crystal said...

Hrm yes so I will respong to all this backwards, because I can.

Personally I love half.com because well I own a shit load of books, and I can't afford my habbits otherwise. We get 2000lbs to move to Japan and well some how I am going to have to convince them I am persuing a literary degree and get them claimed as personal materials. But any way, used books are the way to go if your looking for affordable (plus they are just like new, well the ones I get any way. Nothing beats a 25$ hard back that some one read carefully and sold to you for 3$).

Thank you for the mention of me in your blog. Always nice to get a reference.

I have nothing to say about Fantasy football, because foosball is the devil. Go figure I went to FSU and I hate football...

I have a friend who watched the first season of Lost, I saw a few episodes and its interesting. Sometimes the plot gets a little out there but other than that the episodes I saw seemed pretty good. I am intrigued by this Rome series, as we do not have HBO I shall have to get Jason to download it. Much like all three seasons of Scrubs which if you do not watch, you must it is great stuff.

I enjoyed seeing Pi but unfortunalt no one else really did. I thought it was interesting, but I found I was in the minority. If your looking for cult classic movies scope out 'Four Rooms' which is also excellent.

So of these books what books would you recomend to read? I am always looking for books that people recomend as a good read, and now I write them down in a blog so that I actually get around to reading them some day.

and now I am done.

Matthew Robinson said...

Well Kafka's Metamorphosis is a must if you haven't read it already...nice and short about 38 pages or so depending on page size and print size. The Dead was another nice short (it is actually a stand alone chapter from Joyce's Dubliners). Paradise Lost is only interesting if you enjoy epic poetry that concerns the fall of mankind from the Garden of Eden (as one critic said a short time after it was published, circa 1660, "Everyone enjoys reading it but no one wishes it to be any longer than it already is." That is of course paraphrased and I believe it was Samuel Johnson who said it in about 17something. Night by Wiesel is a very depressing book because it is about a Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust while his mother, father, and sister did not, it runs about 110 pages or so but the subject matter is so heavy it is a bit longer of a read than you would expect. I'll keep in mind throwing out my recommendations. Thanks for the response Crystal and good luck with getting the books to Japan...I could of course store them at my house for cheap. Hehehe. You just might not get them back.

Crystal said...

Half.com also has people selling new books too. Its worth a shot next time your getting text books even, I have purchases a few of mine for half price on half.com brand new in plastic wrap.