Well dammit. I wasted way too much time today. I was all motivated and tore my server out of the rack in order to upgrade to RH7.1. Spent all day carefully selecting packages etc. etc. to find out (after 3 failed attempts) that this shitty Seagate HD is toast. Blah. I stand by my previous statements: Seagate hard drives suck ass! I will never buy another Seagate HD and I recommend that you stay away from them as well. The one that is now officially toast was actually a replacement for a replacement. What a fucking sorry product. What a waste of my time. This HD was in Stacy's old P133 machine...I suspect that's what caused her so many problems. Perhaps I should send it back to them with a nasty note telling them where they can stick it. If you have a better use for a broken 2Gb drive, please let me know. On the bright side of things...I we rented Rush Hour so that we could be up-to-speed for part two. Ok, so it was Lethal Weapon remade with different actors...so what...it was still funny.

Perhaps its apathy. Maybe it's boredom and frustration and boredom. Maybe it's melancholy feelings and a true hatred for the things I do with on a daily basis. Or maybe these are just pathetic rationalizations and complicated ways of saying that I just don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'm smoking.

Last night was a blast! stm, me, and Lobo and some other folks met up at Einsteins to check out Fydolla Ho! I thought they rocked! Especially in a place like Lubbock, this band was a much needed change. Not necessarily groundbreaking new style, but they played with intensity and energy and what I heard I liked! I took some photos, I'll put 'em up real soon, that's a promise.

Well...it's well into week 3 and we are still tobacco free. I do have to say that the cravings are getting less frequent, but it's weird...each one now seems more powerful. It's quite strange. Now if only they would just hurry up and make that damn cancer vaccine...

It's official: Stacy and I quit smoking today. Long live The Patch. The reasons for quitting are obvious. It's bad for our health, it gives us bad breath and makes us stink, turns our teeth yellow, kills our sense of smell and taste, and it's gotten too fucking expensive! You know what though, I fucking love smoking. I love packing the box before opening the top. I love the way that clear plastic wrapper will stick to anything. I love the smell of a freshly opened pack. I love the sound my zippo makes when I flip it open and strike the flint...and the follow-up sound of the first drag is equally pleasing. I love perfecting my cigarette butt flick (both for distance and accuracy). I love a cigarette after sex. I love the way that first cigarette feels in the morning, and I love the taste of a smoke right after a good meal. I guess the above summary demonstrates my situation perfectly: I'm a fucking addict. Well no more my dear friends. I'm determined to kick that little fucking monkey. Probably the best part is the money. Once we get weened off the patch, the saving are really going to be crazy. Here's the way I figure it. We each smoke a pack a day. Unless you buy cartons (which we were really too lazy to do), the current price is somewhere between $3.50 and $4.00 per pack. Let's say $3.50 to be conservative. Between the two of us, we're saving $7.00 per day! So in a month we're saving roughly $210.00. Crazy, crazy, crazy. In 5 months we will have saved over $1000. In a year it's well over $2500. Rad.

I'm calling my first modified toy instrument completed. I finished it last night. Originally, it was built from the "Micro Jammers" 6-pad ultra cheesy drum machine thing. I am still amazed at some of the sounds this thing can create. Hopefully, I'll take a few pics (of the outside anway, there's no way I'm opening that back up!) and create a little page for it under the art section. Yeah. And I'll take some recordings of the various noises this thing can make. I think the next thing I'll bend is this little toy piano that Dean gave me a while back. I don't plan on doing too much to it. I really want to mount it inside this old cordless phone, but it's going to be a tight squeeze.

Well, I saw "A.I." on Friday. What a complete disappointment. While I will admit that my expectations were quite high, this movie failed to live up to any of them. Apparently, the film began as some kind of Kubrick project and was handed down to Spielberg. Unfortunately, this film didn't have that true feel of either director. I think that my two (of many) biggest complains relate to the music and the improper handling of the subject material. The music was just horrible. It wasn't interesting. It was used improperly. And often. What's the point in having music constantly playing in the background with frequent violin swells to try and tug some emotional response from viewers? It just doesn't work. Even worse, I feel that the subject matter was handled improperly. More to the point, Spielberg took a really good idea (admittedly, I like the idea behind the story) and fucked it up. I waked away from this film feeling like Spielberg has no idea what it really means for a machine to posess true intelligence/consciousness. I felt a little sick when the close-encounters-alien-meets-contact-father anorexic futureborg muttered that crap about "space time continuum stores information blah blah traversing a path changes things". Whatever. Poor writing. Save your money.

I just got back from seeing ohGr in Dallas!!! That show absolutely rules! I plan on doing a short little write-up review type thing so that you can get my full unwanted opinion...but until then you can check out (via my photos section) some of the great pics I took. The trip was a total success in my opinion. Totally worth the 10+ hours driving time (ALONE I might add!). Definately worth my while...I had a fuckin blast. To top it all off, I got to meet Cevin Key, my all time musical idol. And yes, I've got the autograph and photos to prove it. :) That was most certainly one of the greatest shows I've ever been to.

A couple of buddies of mine and I have started studying for the Fundamentals of Engineering exam in the fall. This is going to be one of the first major steps in working toward a PE certification, which I'm quite excited about. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. Anyway, my point is, I was on Amazon last night shopping for a review guide. I found the book, but thought it was hilarious that it says ""Popular In: Lubbock, TX". Neat.

I saw "Requiem for a Dream" last night on DVD. That was an amazing and depressing film! Don't go looking for happy endings and walks into the sunset on this one. I won't give away plot details (you have to watch this one on your own), but it basically examines the downward spiral of 4 people looking for happiness despite their addictions. Don't miss this film. It was directed by Aronofsky, the same guy who directed "Pi". It's a really different style, but you can still get the same feel from a great director. His use of music was really amazing. Kronos Quartet did much (most?) of the soundtrack...I dig those guys. I think it's great to see such young, talented directors doing new and innovative things with the film media. This film reminded me of an interesting combination of Fight Club, Go, Magnolia, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (mind you, Gilliam isn't exactly young). Aronofsky's use of "hip-hop montages" was fuckin intense. It made me wish I had a better sound system. :)