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Age of Empires 2

I used to play AOE2 in college a lot.  It was one of those games that you forgot to eat or play dinner once you start.  I lost my old copy, so I bought one on Amazon again.  It took me a little bit to get the hang of it again, but I think that I’ll really enjoy playing it again.

Club 66 Potluck

For anyone that doesn’t know, I play Sunday nights in band at my church.  It’s a thing called Club 66.  It’s pretty much a Sunday night school, but fun, with live music.  Anyway, it goes along with the school year, and now that we’re approaching the end of the year, we had our annual end of year potluck.  Everybody brings food, we play and the kids do all their songs with actions for their parents to see and take pictures of.

It’s always kind of bittersweet for me (this is my second).  I’m ready for a break by the end of the year–I really miss my Sunday afternoon naps.  But, I miss playing guitar, and more importantly, I miss the people that are leaving.  Ross and Ashley are both moving on next year to bigger and better things.  Ross does so much, and it’s going to be a lot more work for me next year.

We are in a couple parades coming up.  The Ofallon Mayfest Parade on May 17, and the Belleville Shriner’s Parade on May 30.  I really love the parades, because we get to play in front of people, and that’s always a lot of fun.  The Shriner’s parade has a competitive thing this year that floats can win for money.  We tend to win in competitive parades.  We are doing a patriotic theme (Memorial day is coming up).  That will probably help us win, and we’re going to try a rock arrangement of America the Beautiful (arranged by yours truly).  We’ll see how that goes.

You Know Hillary Clinton

I just wanted to point out to anyone that hasn’t noticed yet that I think Hillary Clinton starts her response to every question with “you know”.

While there could be worse things for a politician, that must be among the most annoying.  Every time that I see her on an interview, I just dread her response–”You know,”.

UPS Trademarks a Color

Most of us are pretty used to legal disclaimers everywhere we go. Today, while at work, I read some fine print on a UPS tracking email.

© 2008 United Parcel Service of America, Inc. UPS, the UPS brandmark, and the color brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All rights reserved.

Apparently, UPS has trademarked the color brown.  I am no lawyer, but it seems odd to me that a company can trademark a color.  I can see a font, a slogan, etc.  But it seems as if now we live in a world where colors can be trademarked.  So, I better get in while I still can.

I hereby trademark the color blue.

Shrinking Profile

As I try to every summer, I’ve started running again.  I tend to gain weight over the winter, and I try to lose it over the summer so when I gain it back over the winter, I’m always around the same bounds.  I started eating less around a month ago.  I’ve run whenever I can, but the weather’s not been great for it, but I think that’s about to change.  I started about 205.  Right now, I’m about 198.  I’d like to get shed about another 10-15 pounds.  I think if I get down that far, then I’ll be able to resume my normal eating habits, and maintain that weight.  That would be sweet, because I really do love eating.

The earth shaking beneath my feet

Last night the midwest had a 5.2 earthquake.  It was the first earthquake that I remember.  It was pretty weird waking up to that in the middle of the night.  Hearing stuff in your house shake.  I thought my house was collapsing.  I turned on the TV thinking there would be some special report about it, but all I found was infomercials.  I thought to myself that I really hope there was an earthquake, or else I was actually losing my mind.  I found this morning that it was one and that helped me realize I’m not crazy.  There have been some aftershocks, too, as the morning has gone.

All in all I’m not a fan of earthquakes.  I really don’t like the ground shaking beneath me.

I Officially Do Not Like The Mars Volta

Last night Darren scored us tickets to see The Mars Volta at The Pageant.  His cousin is married to the bass player.

We’ll start with the positive.  Everyone in the band is talented.  I’ve never seen a more crazy drummer.  They have interesting rhythms and time signatures.

On to the negatives.  The show is nonstop 2 and a half hours.  The music stops maybe twice.  You can almost hear words sometimes.  It just goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.  I actually walked around for awhile just go get away from it.  Maybe if I was high it would have been better.

Flying Solo

Well it isn’t really true.  More like flying duo.  My parents have been out of town for a few days, so it’s been Barb and I holding stuff down at work.

Friday was a really crazy day, today wasn’t so bad, and we’ll see what tomorrow will bring. It didn’t really hit me until after Friday just how it was.  I was running it.  It was kind of weird.  It’s not so much that I don’t feel comfortable or unqualified, it’s more just knowing that there’s no one else to blame for mistakes.  There’s no one to pass the buck to.  As Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here”.

I’m ready to be a tripod again.  It’s been a lot of extra work.  Getting there early, leaving late, no lunch break.  Makes remember how it used to be and how good I normally have it.

My Prediction–Ebay will be gone in a few years

I’ve liked Ebay less and less over the last few months.  First, they decided that merchants couldn’t post any feedback about buyers.  This means that no matter how bad or crazy a buyer was, the merchant could really do nothing about it.  As an online merchant myself in both my full-time and part-time endeavors, I found this disturbing.

Then, I read today that Ebay is testing an only Paypal use in Australia.  If you didn’t know, Ebay owns Paypal.  Now, I will admit, if I were Ebay, I would do the same thing. I would make people pay high fees to sell on my site, and then I would make the buyers use my pay service (which takes a higher cut than most credit card processing plans).  They are making money hand over fist, at the expense of the people they depend on.  Many people earn a living selling items on Ebay. The fees these merchants pay keep Ebay in business.  The fees they keep in raising.  They keep raising the costs of doing business on Ebay, and these increased costs are harbored by the very merchants they depend on for their business.  They can only do this so long until someone really comes along and changes it.  I predict this will happen in the next few years.

New Corporate Headquarters

I splurged yesterday and decided to get a new desk for my home office.  I got it from Weekend’s Only.  I’ve been looking for a new desk because my last desk (only a few months old) isn’t really very comfortable.  And, I wanted to have a new desk to face the TV.  This way I pretty much never have to leave the office.

It’s a pretty sweet aluminum frosted glass thing.  Pretty modern looking I guess. It’s an L shaped desk. And going along with that, I’m doing a bit of other office enhancements.  I’m working on my wall of accomplishments and my wall of inspiration.  That way, no matter what, I can never forget what I have done and never forget what I still want to do.