malja' mIqta'

I went to Las Vegas for the second week in a row this past Sunday. Last weekend it was my niece's wedding. This time it was for my nerd convention for work.

The NAB (I think it stands for the National Association of Broadcasters) was huge. Huger than I thought it would be. I was in charge of investigating new audio technology we could use to run the radio program. It's funny how one feels more alone than ever in the middle of a crowd. Give me pure solitude. That's company with someone I love.

Anyway, forget that nerd stuff. It was fun to be there on my own because I was able to do stuff I never get to do since nobody was with me to say no. So I went and checked out the Star Trek Store in the Hilton and Mamma Mia! I'm actually really surprised I've never seen the Star Trek stuff before. Somebody I know should have taken me. I'm disappointed in everyone who had the opportunity, because they should know I would love it. It's actually a lot like when it was 1991 and I had never heard of ABBA. It took Erasure's Abba-esque EP to discover ABBA and that was when I was like 14 years old or something. Nobody I knew told me the group ABBA existed for 14 precious years of my life. Travesty. So I just went to the restaurant and the gift shop. I didn't have time for the tour or the ride or whatever. At the restaurant I was obligated to get the Chicken Khan. As far as villain-themed sandwiches go, there was simply no other choice. The Hamborger? Please. I purchased three neato things at the gift shop: a working tribble, a Klingon barcup and a Klingon dictionary (which I had been asking for for Christmas and my birthday for over six months). These may sound like incredibly nerdy purchases. They're not. Keep in mind that I got Klingon paraphernalia. If I got Federation stuff, now that would be nerdy. The word "nerd" isn't even in the Klingon vocabulary. Serious, I looked it up.

Now if only Mamma Mia! was as good as I was hoping it would be. I got the cheap seats, which makes a huge difference, but there were some other flaws that took it away from perfection. I would have loved more hook-ups among the characters. There were really only three hookups out of a potential six. I say hook everyone up. Go cross-generationally more too, then they could have sung "Does Your Mother Know" twice. It's a well-known fact that "The Winner Takes It All" is my second favorite song of all time. The woman in the play sang it in a nasal way I didn't approve of. Anyway, I still totally enjoyed it (not nearly as much as the screaming, clapping woman next to me). As mentioned before, Sweden is pretty sweet.

I hope to get more pics on here soon. I just bought a new camera, which I'll be talking about.

Atlas Shrugged page count: same as last time.

swanee, how i luvya how i luvya

Ever seen a ballet? I hadn't seen a real one until last night. Usually I stay away from ballet, because it's hard to understand -- not the story mind you, but the actions. For example, if two ballet performers are supposed to be in conflict with each other, they still need to move cooperatively. When they use each other's bodies to make a dramatic move, I sit there and say, "Stop working together! You hate each other! Just punch him in the face! Stop swaying or whatever!" My frustrations are similar to Krusty the Klown when asked about why he bet against the Harlem Globetrotters. His answer: "I swear the Generals were due! The game had to be fixed, I mean, the guy's using a ladder for crying out loud! Look at him now! He's just spinning the ball on his finger! Just take it! Take the ball!"

So Andrea and I saw Swan Lake last night. We figured it would beat a movie since her friend raved about it and with a student discount, the final price of $8 would be comparable anyway. Since it was her idea, she paid. It was at this time that we found out that tickets were $20, not $8. I bought dinner, but financially, I came off way better.

Do you know the story of Swan Lake? It's about a guy feeling the pressure to get married. In his comfortable palace, he's totally surrounded by hotties, but he doesn't want to get married just for the sake of marriage to one of them like everyone is expecting. So he takes the advice of TLC and heads off to some lake, skipping the out-of-reach waterfalls. There, he finds the girl of his dreams, but she's cursed. She, among lots of other great girls, is under enchantment from some evil guy who gets his kicks hoarding beautiful women for himself. The only way to break the curse is for a man to love her, and she to love him in return. That seems to be a recurring theme in stories like this. Why is it just the pronouncement of love that breaks curses in all these old stories? Was such a thing that rare back then? It seems pretty easy to me. I'm surprised there weren't more people professing their love to each other when it solved all problems. Now in present day I'm more influenced by Depeche Mode in actually one of my least favorite DM songs.

There was a time
When all on my mind was love
Now I find
That most of the time
Love's not enough
In itself

Alright, that's not important. It is a good story. It's why we love love stories more than love itself. Anyway, love doesn't solve all because they guy falls prey to duplicity. They do get together, but only after they sacrifice their very lives. Hmm. maybe the point is that love isn't enough. Makes sense now.

I liked it. Honestly. The production was awesome. It was done by this Swedish guy and everyone knows I love the Swedes (but hate the Dutch). Best fog ever too. Unfortunately, the performance also reminded me of that time that my mom and my two brothers went to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. The costumes for one play had little tassels hanging off the bulge area of the male performers' tights. We were civilized and cultured about it for about ten minutes until my brother Mike whispered to my brother Andy, "Hey. Just curious, but what are you looking at right now?" Anyway, that part of the ballet was pretty distracting. It also made me think of that ballet scene in Top Secret!

What's it going to be? Stay in the castle to find a great girl (one of the castle girls in the ballet really entranced me), or rescue the girl in evil clutches?

Thanks for the awesome night, Dre.

r.i.p.m.l.w(w)

It's been pretty nice having Pete back in town. Come again.

My deepest condolences Jake.

Rest in peace Willie.

daylight saving blues

This week's daylight saving switcharoo was pretty darn bad. The worst daylight saving year ever. By Friday I was so messed up that I zoned out at two green lights. Someone honked both times.

I am now typing from my actual computer. The one that has only worked a week total in the last six months. I'm also typing on the new keyboard that Rhett gave me for my birthday. I'm not used to it. I love how it has a media player control panel at the top as well as other useful buttons like forward, back, refresh, home, my computer, etc. I also loooove the touch sensitivity on they keys. I don't love, however, that the left shift button is half the size it should be and a "\" is right next to it. That means every other time I use the shift key, i make a slash and then type a lower case letter. You can't tell, because I'm correcting my mistakes and therefore spending twice as much time typing this. I'll get used to it, don't worry. The tab key has some weird issues too, but it'll be fine... finer than my last two keyboards anyway.

I had the sucker in at Intrigue Computers. I have a beef with Totally Awesome, which I've been very public about in recent years, so I couldn't go back (that, and I guess it's out of business now). I might should have taken it somewhere other than Intrigue, but I have a sense of loyalty with them (possibly because I might be their only customer). Over the past few months I had them completely gut the machine with a new motherboard and a new hard drive. Within a few minutes of having my new machine, the sound went out. The last time I took it in was to remedy this problem. When I called to check in about it, they were stumped. They were actually almost happy to be stumped. It was like an X-file to them. The problem was a strange curiosity that fascinated them more than frustrated them. They found my chronic computer problems intriguing. That seemed to be the attitude, anyway. So a couple of days later they called me back and said that they replaced the motherboard again and it works. They don't know why. No big deal really. At least since I bought it from them originally they don't charge me for repairs (or replacements) to their own stuff.

I think one of the computer speakers blew out, though.

I'm continuing on with my spree of a lifetime. A few Saturdays ago I maxed out the mcgriddle consumption on my McDonald's gift card. I also used the Barnes and Noble card my mom gave me to give my mom a Verdi opera DVD. Such an exchange kind of depresses me. It's like no exchange was even made. Anyway, I hate Blockbuster video. When I was 15 years old they made me put down like a $300 deposit to rent a Nintendo. At the time they only gave out free memberships for people who supplied credit card information (I heard later that they automatically charged credit cards for late fees (they probably still don't do that though)). They're also notorious for not having widescreen. And now, now, they don't accept my two-year-old Blockbuster gift card. What really irks me is that one of my loved ones actually paid Blockbuster for the card and out of spite for the company I didn't use it -- not realizing that I just gave Blockbuster five bucks FOR DOING NOTHING! ... Hollywood, thankfully, fully accepted the $10 gift card there. I got Three O'Clock High and a package of dots candy.

I recently inherited a gift certificate for about 30 bucks at Graywhale CD. Somebody tell me what cds, dvds and/or video games I should get there.

Atlas Shrugged page count: 82/1168

Happy Birthday Pete!