I waited for inspiration to come to me all month long, and I couldn’t think of anything to write. I think it’s that fact that has led me to lose sleep last month. I didn’t use this outlet that I set up to get things off my chest.
Up until last night, Heroes was getting a little dull. Last night was probably the best episode so far. There was a little continuity error in there, but all-in-all it was great.
There have been some great strides in solid-state hard drives over the past few months. Having a history in hard drive data recovery, it looks like that industry may be taking a turn for the worse once these solid-state drives become the standard. At the rate that the size increases, the odds are that they will be the standard is good within the next 4-5 years. Instead of physical defects in the platters, our primary worry will be bad currents of electricity.
I got a new phone a few weeks ago. Christle did, too. They are pretty cool, and if we can keep from dropping them too often, I doubt that we’ll get tired of them very soon.
A friend of mine from high school passed away on April 21. Joey grew up down the street from me. We moved in to that house in April of 1989. We hadn’t really kept in touch over the years, but it is heartbreaking to see someone I grew up with pass away. While at the funeral, I found out another classmate of mine died in a car wreck about 7 years ago. I didn’t know him very well, but I remember that he was the kind of guy who always seemed to be happy. I remember playing football over at his house with Joey, Chad, Bobby, and a few other guys. I also found out that a girl I used to “date” in Junior High committed suicide a few months ago. I don’t like thinking about this.
Christle’s been going over to her parents house a lot this month to get things done for her sister’s wedding. The knot-tying ceremony is coming up rather quickly, so they’ve been working very hard lately.
I’m excited to finally have the opportunity to visit Schlitterbahn in Galveston in a few weeks. I’ve almost gotten the park map memorized.
So, I guess April wasn’t so boring. I wish I had less to write about. I just need to remember to write when I need to so that I can get it out instead of bottling it all in.
Randy Jackson
“Yo, Dawg, check it out… that was good, I mean, I’m not jumpin’ up and down or anything, but that was pretty good… a little pitchy in the middle there, but ya know what I mean?…”
Has anyone ever heard the following phrase out of Randy’s mouth? “…I’m jumpin’ up and down…”
Has anyone ever seen Randy Jackson jumping up and down? I’d love to see I guess I’d like to see proof that there’s a point to his usual comments.
I couldn’t find a compilation of that phrase on YouTube for some weird reason, but I did find this one. It’s pretty funny.
Randy, if you never jump up and down, stop telling us that you’re not doing it. For crying out loud, I hear you say that at least twice a night, and I can almost predict when it’s about to stumble out of your mouth. Build up your vocabulary and come up with a few different phrases that have the same basic meaning.
You know what’d be funny? Say it to all but one of them next week. Make sure they all know that you’re not jumping up and down. Maybe they can’t see you very well because of the lights. Then the following week, jump up and down for all but one of them. I insist that you actually stand and jump up and down for them. It’d be an interesting experiment to see if the one person you don’t jump up and down for is eliminated that week.
Heck, if you’re going to overuse the phrase, at least have some fun with it.
Online Television Shows
News Corp. and NBC Universal have signed a deal to create a web site, or ‘YouTube Killer’, that they will use to allow users to view selected television shows free of charge. This is one step I have been looking forward to for some time. They have already posted a number of television shows that will be on the site, such as 24, Heroes, House, and The Simpsons. I highly doubt that they will be available until the day after they’ve aired, but to have a centralized location for all of the content will give them an edge.
I wouldn’t doubt that whatever bandwidth they expect to get in the first few weeks of start up will be too little. If they surprise me there, it only makes the experience that much better. Although, streaming content has been around for a while, so we may have some people with experience on the launch team.
They have also stated that movies will be available on the site for free, including the Bourne Movies (Identity & Supremacy), Borat, and The Devil Wears Prada.
Post-launch plans are to acquire access to more content once the site has been established. The site will be ad-supported… I’ve found myself at a loss for words. The best part is that they will be launching the site this summer.
Many of these shows have been available online already. However, to watch 24, you’d have to go to fox.com and go to their myspace page to be able to view the content. If you wanted to watch Heroes, you’d have to go to nbc.com and find it in the videos section. Once all of the networks have taken the plunge to create centralized viewing sites, the problems with unauthorized media distribution will take a natural plunge. When I only have to visit 2 or 3 sites that each have easily accessible content, the networks should be able to make more money than they ever could have on television, and therefore be able to produce better/more content.
One more thing before I shut up… they’re going to allow you to insert the media from their site on your myspace or other web pages. This apparently means that the advertising will be embedded in the content. ABC does this with the content they have. They include 4 commercials in each episode of Lost. I don’t know about the other shows, but I’m fairly sure they do the same with them.
On ABC, you can watch a 42 minute show with 18 minutes of commercials in 1 hour. On their web site, you can watch a 42 minute show with 2-3 minutes of commercials in 45 minutes. CBS has 5 commercials on each 42 minute show, but the time to watch it is about the same. If they’d just release the content with the same amount of commercials for free on iTunes, they could make a killing on that advertising income.
This announcement is exciting news for me. I’ve been looking forward to this type of announcement from one of the major networks for a few years now. I can’t wait to test it out… wouldn’t it be neat if they just went with a content provider that’s already in development, like Joost?
Blurb
I saw a video podcast today that had a short segment about the site blurb.com. This site provides software called BookSmart to download and install on your computer. BookSmart will allow you to create a book in a number of different sizes. Once you have finished creating your book, you can actually have it published and printed in hard-cover of soft-cover.Â
There is the option to keep it private and only for you, or for anyone to purchase. Blurb sets their price, then you name the customer’s price and keep anything higher than Blurb’s minimum. In other words, if Blurb sets a minimum price of $21.95, I could set the price at anything higher than that. If I set it at $28.95, I would be making $7.00 per book sold.
From what I’ve seen, the quality of the book is high. You can actually configure how each photo or text looks on each individual page, as well as the entire cover. I plan to have something published by the end of the year for my family. It will be for us only, but I will definitely post my reaction to the final product when that time comes. Check out blurb.com and let me know what you think.
I Have a New Phone Number
But you can’t have it… call me here…
One Week Down
So I completed the first week of classes on Sunday. It took a little more time than I had planned on. I’m having trouble distinguishing one class from the other right now. I guess it’s not surprising that the Business Communications class requires much more writing than the Principles of Management course. As a matter of fact, the management class seems like the easiest of the two.
Prepared to Start
I have just finished cleaning my desk and my PC so that everything will be nice and tidy for school. Despite my intentions to do that back in December, I have continued the habit of letting my desk get out of hand. So for now, I have remedied that problem, and my goal is to have a clean desk throughout the semester. If I can do it for 11 weeks, I should be able to maintain it for good.
I had not realized how cluttered my desktop had gotten. It’s amazing how often I’d save stuff there simply because it was something I thought I might use frequently. If it wasn’t for that reason, I would save it to the desktop so that I would remember to do something with whatever the file was. Now I’ve got my Quick Launch bar loaded with all the shortcuts that the Start menu takes to long to access, and my desktop looks like I have a fresh Windows XP install.
The best part of the communications class is that it might promote some better writing on here.
Merry March
Well, March has arrived quickly this year. I didn’t post much last month, but we all deserve a little break every now and then. I plan to post more often, although I know that’s always what I’ve planned to do.
The family’s been sick for the past few weeks. It’s been pretty rough suffering with illness. I thank God that it is not what it could be. These things are temporary, but could be far worse.
I’m trying to kill a opossum that’s been sneaking around my house. Everytime I see it, I have forgotten my gun, and every time I bring my gun, I can’t seem to find it.
My new classes start in two days. I am looking forward to the new challenges that will come with them. I plan to get my coursework done early so that I will not have to struggle with due dates.
Back to School
I’m going back to NAU in March. I’m taking two classes – Introduction to Management & Business Communications. My paperwork didn’t get through in time to get into LIT this semester, so I had to enroll at NAU to avoid having to pay my student loans prematurely.
I’m looking forward to the classes, though. It feels as if they might help me out before I graduate. At least that’s what I’m planning on. I’m anxious to get started.
Commercials During the “Big Game”
I’ll have to say that the game ended just how I figured it would, even though I didn’t expect the game to start that way. I’m glad Peyton got the MVP award as well… he’s worked hard for a long time for it.
Now is time to get to the main point of last night. Where were all the commercials? I was expecting much more. There were only four companies that stuck out, and those weren’t all that much. Budweiser was expected and it looked like they spent some money on the game, but they didn’t spend as much in production of the ads. It wasn’t as special as it used to be. Pepsi had their spot while Coca-Cola had a bigger spot. GoDaddy.com looked like they had the most thought out commercial of all, and even that wasn’t that great.
Many people look forward to the advertisements during the “Big Game“, but it looks like the time for commercials has actually been devalued. If the cost of commercials goes down next year, I wouldn’t be surprised. The only thing I could suggest is that CBS require those who purchase commercial time slots during the “Big Game” to have new original material. If they don’t, the amount CBS charges for time will have to decrease. Once that happens, the “Big Game” experience will never be the same, because there will not be anyone to pay for the huge production that goes into the event.