For the Cubs fans out there

Two things:

...and second, some great video clips of the 2005 Cubs players from last year (to cheer you up if that last picture made you cry instead of laugh).

-Mark

2005 > 2004

Well I don't know how the Cubs will do on the field this season, but the ticket-buying process was much more fruitful this year than it was a year ago. Thanks to my 30+ open tabs in Firefox, I was able to get out of the dreaded virtual waiting room and into the ticket buying area three times, and I ended up getting tickets to two games. The first is bleacher tickets for April 24th against the Pirates, while the other is 100-level seats for the night game against Houston on May 24th (which happens to be the day after my birthday). All in all, I am quite satisfied with the outcome. Hopefully my sister can snag me some primo tickets for another game from work, too!

In other news, Trainspotting is a good movie but not one which I would watch again. It's also not one I would care to see before or after eating a meal.

Hmm, I had another thought but I lost it. Must be the old age hitting me. Oh well, I'm sure all my loyal readers will survive!

-Mark

Yuck

So this guy just came in to spray for roaches. Yeah, apparently they have been spotted elsewhere in the building. Neither my roommate nor I has seen any in our apartment—and we do keep it pretty clean—but now I will be looking out, nay, expecting them to show up. Lovely, isn't it?

-Mark

A quickie

The process of scribing my thoughts into blog entries usually takes twenty minutes or more and I have about five minutes before I leave for class, so let me quickly say a few things that are on my mind:

- MVP Baseball 2005 comes out today! I still have around 22 games (plus playoffs) left in my full 162-game season from 2004—and I will finish that—but it will be nice to have an updated version to play around with. Updated rosters, fewer (hopefully) bugs, and online play should make this one helluva game. I just hope my buddy Chris buys this so we can play some games over Xbox Live. (I need to get a return on the $50/year investment I have in Live, so this is a good way to start.)

- Speaking of MVP, Tim and I played our final game of the 2004 version last night. His Giants beat my Twins, 3-1. Johan Santana is understandably underrated in that game but I still pitched alright with him except for one inning. Tim got his changeup working though and that, when combined with the 2-seamer, kept me on my toes. I did manage to make contact but it was generally right at somebody. Oh well, as with the Cubs, I have high hopes for an improved 2005 season!

- Tim and I also played some Super Smash Brothers: Melee on the Gamecube. That is a classic game that was played for hours every day during our time rooming together but has been collecting dust recently. I tell you what, that is one fine game. It was such a blast to play... I really can't wait to get people together to play it again soon. (Dan, if you're reading this, you have to come over sometime with Tim to Smash it up!)

- Have I mentioned how cool it has been hanging out with Tim lately? For whatever reason, we never spent much time together after he moved into an apartment, but lately we've been getting together every week and it's great. Last night, in addition to playing those two games, we watched the Bulls' O.T. victory over the Heat and spent about an hour cruising Facebook. (That site is damn addicting, by the way.)

- Hmm, I was just thinking about how I haven't taken many pictures with my digital camera lately. I need to do that, so remind me to do so the next time you see me!

- Oh yeah, my younger sister got engaged to her longtime boyfriend Brad yesterday. Congrats you two! I can't wait to party at your wedding!!!

Well there is more stuff in my head but it's not coming to me at the moment. I don't have time to think about it, however, for I am off to class. Until later, peace!

(Wait, one last thing. I'm constantly curious who my audience is. So whether you are a frequent visitor, a first-time visitor, or just a random visitor, please leave a record of your visit with a nice comment—or a not-so-nice one if you feel so inclined!)

-Mark

What a day!

Well Saturday has now come and gone, and it was a lot of fun. I had a good time with Mike, Chris, and Ahmad hanging out at night. Mike's parents treated us, as well as his sister and her boyfriend, to dinner at Applebee's. Afterward we chilled by Chris' house.

Earlier in the day I went to go see Hitch with Melissa, and we got coffee afterwards. It was a lot of fun and the movie was hilarious. The only bad thing was the fire alarm that went off just as the movie was about to start. We had to go to the 1:45 show instead of the 1:00, but that's okay because it was just as fun.

Sorry for the really brief synopsis of the weekend but I'm bushed. I'm supposed to be up early to go to Church and then out to lunch with Nick and the aforementioned trio of Mike, Chris, and Ahmad. I will post here either later today or on Monday. Until then, take it easy!

-Mark

Kudos...

...to Mykey for being a man and taking responsibility. Even though it was kind of a B.S. situation and it sucks that he's out $50, I'm glad Mike handled this incident the way he did. He's a first class guy all the way and I know he's got a lot of good stuff coming his way in life!

And whoa, I just read through his earlier post from that day and he said a car ended up in the pond by Cole Hall here at NIU. Now I'm sure that was a sight to see! If I was still a Neptunite I would have taken a picture with my camera and put it up here, but unfortunately you guys aren't that lucky. :-P

The big weekend is nearly upon me. First up: the auto show on Friday. That's always fun, although I just realized that I can't get hot dogs from this kick-ass hot dog stand on the way home because it's Lent and it's a Friday so I can't eat meat! Oh well, if I can give up Seinfeld for all of Lent then I can make do without that oh-so-wonderful, greasy spoon hot dog on one day. (Of course now I'm making myself hungry... I have to remember to eat as much as I can before midnight tonight, now!) And yes, if you're wondering, I am NOT a fan of vegetarian food... except cheese pizza (minus the cheese, of course).

Yeah, I know... I'm weird! :-)

-Mark

Some random musings

Today has to be the first day in at least a week—probably longer—that I have woken up before 9 A.M. Is this a frightening sign of things to come?!

* * *

There’s a columnist for the Baltimore Sun named Peter Schmuck. Now there’s a terrible name to have. Imagine somebody with that name standing by his wife’s side as she gives birth to their child. “Wow, look at that little Schmuck... he's adorable!”

* * *

Pitchers and catchers report today for the Cubs. Let the 2005 baseball season officially begin!

-Mark

Drugs will do that to you

From a story about Puff Daddy or Piff Duddy or whatever the hell he calls himself...

"Combs is not the first musician who failed to meet the deadline for delivery of his life’s story. Years ago, Mick Jagger received a seven-figure advance to write his memoirs. He eventually returned the money, saying he couldn’t remember anything of significance."

I couldn't help but laugh at that last part.

-Mark

Boring times in the rearview mirror

Well this has been the most boring weekend in recent memory. I was here in DeKalb but nobody else was around to hang out with, so I ended up spending most of my time doing homework, watching "Friends" on DVD (Seinfeld has been given up for Lent), and chatting online. The coming week should be pretty interesting, though. I've got a job interview on Wednesday for a company called Software Architects, which has to be a good company because their domain name is also a character on "Alias," haha. So hopefully that goes well, and I think it will since I will have time to prepare and I'm usually pretty good at interviews.

The rest of the week is nothing special really—maybe a little Smash Brothers with Tim and Dan on Thursday—but this weekend should be great. I'll describe it in detail later, but suffice to say I have a lot to look forward to.

I'm not very interesting at the moment so I'll just stop there. Hopefully some more interesting posts are forthcoming, however. And please leave some comments... I haven't had any in forever, and I need them to liiiiiiive!

. . .

. . .

Okay, I'm done now.

-Mark

Billy!

Tuesday was the job fair and all, but that's not really important. (If you must know, it went alright but I wasn't terribly impressed by many of the companies looking for C.S. students.) What is important is that Mr Bass 43 signed onto AIM at midnight! I'm actually talking to Bill now. It's great, he seems to be in good spirits and I am relieved to be able to talk to him again. He told me his unit is setting up a network there so hopefully he'll be around to chat occasionally. Dan and I definitely need to send the DVD with the episodes of 24 up to this point over to him, though, because he's really looking forward to that. (And he deserves it, too... thanks for serving the country, Bill. We're all proud of you!)

-Mark

Poprocks & Coke

Well I haven't made a meaningful post in a few days so it's time for a brain dump.

I forgot to mention in my last update that I am likely to buy an Apple PowerBook laptop sometime before August. I don't really need a laptop but it'd be a nice complement to my desktop workhorse, and since I am using a computer frequently it'd be nice to plop down on a couch when I am doing so. (Of course, this means I will have to pick up a Wi-Fi for home, but it'll be worth it.)

So why am I getting an Apple? Well, it's not because of price, I assure you. I just have wanted to play around with a Mac ever since Apple released OS X and the PowerBooks are nice, sturdy, fully functional machines. My only gripes are incompatability problems with current software/hardware and price, but since it's a laptop and not my primary machine that's not too big of a sticking point for me. The only apps I am even considering buying are the educational versions of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop; everything else I will need comes with the machine or is freeware that I can easily download.

I was at a computer store yesterday with my dad and I inspected the 15" and 17" versions of the PowerBook. My conclusion is that, while the 17" screen is nice and big, it ends up making the laptop less portable than I'd like, so I'm leaning toward the slightly smaller 15". As a side benefit, I will save some money, which will be nice considering how much this damn thing will cost!

Okay, enough computer talk for now. I saw Meet the Fockers on Saturday and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The laughs weren't as big or fresh as with Meet the Parents and the writers were too reliant on risque humor, but overall I thought it was a good sequel. If you liked the first, I'd recommend it.

I didn't watch much of the Super Bowl yesterday, although I'm glad the Patriots won. I did play a lot of Resident Evil 4, however. Again, I have to emphasize that this game is just flat-out awesome and is devilishly hard to put down—something I can't say about many games, even ones I really like. I'm about 14 hours in, so that means another 6-10 hours of mayhem are left before it's over and I have to move on to the next game on my list.

One of the unfortunate side effects of playing that game (and chatting a lot on AIM) is that I keep going to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning. I did that yesterday and I'm paying for it today, I assure you. I've napped hardcore twice already and I'm still a little groggy. (Although it is 5:44 P.M. as I write this.) I think I'm going to give up going to bed late for Lent, in part because I feel like I'm actually making a sacrifice--I am a total night owl and not a morning person--and because I think it would do me good. That will start Wednesday, of course, so wish me luck.

Speaking of having to get enough sleep, the NIU spring job fair is tomorrow and I will be in bed by midnight tonight for that. Before then I have to quickly finalize my resume and visit the employer web sites, so hopefully I can get that done tonight.

Sigh, it's time to get ready to go to my night class now. The only thing that gets me through this class is the promise of a new episode of either 24 or Alias immediately afterward, depending on whether it's Monday or Wednesday. Tonight it's 24, which has been great this season and looks to be heating up with the return of my boy "Soul Patch," a.k.a. Tony Almeida. (Is it too much to ask for the return of the Chicago Cubs mug?) He is just the first of many characters from previous seasons to return. Who will be next, and when? Should be fun to follow! :-)

Alright, I'm out. Until next time, here's some advice: make sure not to wear your underwear on consecutive days. (And just so you know, turning it inside out does NOT make that any more acceptable.)

(By the way, if you are wondering what the title for this post means, the answer is nothing. I couldn't think of an intersting or relevant title, so I just used the name of the song that was currently playing in Winamp.)

-Mark

If I was emperor of the world...

...the first thing I would do is outlaw web sites with background music.

-Mark

The post about nothing

As you may or may not know, I am totally obsessed with Seinfeld. I've seen every episode more times than I can count and can whip out hundreds of quotes from the show. It's not a religion to me, but it's about as close as anything can get!

Anyway, the reason why I bring this up is because Tim came over Thursday night to hang out and we ended up ordering a pizza and watching the Seinfeld DVDs. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of our time together as roommates two years ago. Before he left we looked up Jerry Seinfeld on Ticketmaster.com to see if he has any shows in the Chicagoland area in the near future. Sure enough, there is a show in April in Waukegan and tickets go on sale next Friday. I plan to finagle tickets to that show because I have always wanted to see Jerry Seinfeld in person. Hopefully this will work out!

I'm going home today after class is through, so it should be a fun weekend ahead. Tune in later for more details and a look into my wacky mind!

-Mark

Sleep deprivation is the greatest

Well I always manage to find some way to stay on past 2 AM, so why am I always surprised when I look over at the clock and see how late it is?

On Tuesday I went for a meeting at Argonne National Laboratory for my research assistant job. That was a pretty interesting experience. I've been there a couple of times before so it wasn't anything new, but the guy I met with, Mike, was pretty cool. He's only a few years older than me and he's pretty smart and kind of reminds me of myself. After the meeting was over I decided to stop home for a visit since I didn't want to take the tollways back to DeKalb. My Dad was working but I saw my mom there and she made dinner and we just chatted about stuff. It was actually a really nice change of pace and it is always nice to visit with my parents. My mom seemed to be really happy to see me, too, since she was just planning on eating dinner by herself with my dad working at night. :-)

Today I had to fill out a questionnaire for my computer security class about how secure my computing practices are. Let's just say I need some work! Speaking of computers, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to buy an Apple PowerBook sometime before I graduate in August. I've always wanted a laptop and the PowerBooks are very slick. Plus I'd love a chance to play around with OS X to learn it and take advantage of some of the differences/improvements it has over Windows. Speaking of operating systems, when I replace my desktop next year with a new machine--after I get a job first, of course--the plan is to install Linux on the current box. That would give me 3 computers with 3 operating systems. Hopefully that will be a chance to diversify my computer skills and knowledge.

Well, Sammy Sosa's trade has become official. Since it's very late and I have so much to say, you'll have to wait for a future post for my take on the trade and on the current state of the Cubs. For now just know that, while I think the trade could have been better, I'm not as pessimistic as a lot of Cubs fans seem to be.

Hmm, it's 2:48... let's see if I can get into bed before 3 AM.

-Mark