That is all.

SUNDAY
The Legend of Drunken Master
This film is the non-sequel to Drunken Master as there is not much that links the two beyond the fact that it stars Jackie Chan and he does drunken boxing. I liked Drunken Master better as it is more of a pure martial arts film. Legend had much stronger action movie influences and does more group battles than one-on-one fights.

Dazed and Confused
All around awesome movie. Has a lot of actors in it before they got big. Tells a number of good stories about kids growing up in the 70s.

The TV Set
The story of writer/director trying to film his TV pilot and get it picked up by the network. It is a story of creativity, deaspiration and compromise.

MONDAY
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Good story of a woman who married for the wrong reason and is now looking for a way out. I wonder how this will turn out?

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
LOUD NOISES!! But seriously, it’s a really good adaptation of the play were a two couples spend an evening making each other feel extremely awkward and pissed off. Interesting note: When the play opened, people said they thought writer had purposely tried to write something that would be so offensive and lewd that it could not be filmed. The film was extremely faithful to the play and kept almost all of the original dialogue.

Eyes Wide Shut
An interesting journey through sexual exploration and guilt.

TUESDAY
Point Blank
A simple story but done very well. Walker is a thief who is double crossed by his partner and left for dead. While the world thinks he did, Walker did not die and is now on a mission to get his money.

Chariots of Fire
You’ve all heard the song, now you can see where it came from. While it was well done, the story did not grab me that strongly. It was only 2 hours but it felt longer. Also, the 1924 Olympics only had running events, there was no need for athletes in other disciplines.

Get Carter
Point Blank, but British. Instead of money, Jack Carter has returned home to investigate the events that lead to his brother’s death. While, Get Carter is less of an action movie than Point Blank, it leads with mystery of not knowing where this information will lead Carter once he finds it.

WEDNESDAY
Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion
“I hate celebrities, all of them. I think that’s the poison … in this country is celebrita. [pause] I know the irony in saying that when there are five cameras on me.”

Good Night, and Good Luck
I had actually already seen this movie, but forgot. This is more of a comment on how many movies I watch and not the quality of the movie.

Ronin
The Italian Job except the double cross doesn’t happen at the beginning and Jean Reno is in it.

THURSDAY
The Karate Kid II
Just a fun film to watch despite the fact that there are no surprises throughout the plot. There were some really nice landscape shot after Mr. Miyagi’s dad dies. It’s kind of sad that Ali turned into a huge bitch between the end of the tournament and the start of the prom.

Up
I’m still amazed that Pixar had the balls to do what they did in the first 10 minutes of the movie. I saw it in 3D in theaters and Squirrel! …really enjoyed how they used it just to add depth and not as a gimmick. I think this helped a lot in making it still look phenomenal in 2d. I just realized that Russell is Asian.

FRIDAY
I drove to New Jersey and took the day off.

SATURDAY
This is Spinal Tap
You don’t need to do more than see the tag line to completely understand this movie. ‘Does for rock and roll what “The Sound of Music” did for hills.’

Avatar
Complaints: 1) The planet is called Pandora. 2) The mineral is called Unobtanium. You waited 10 years to start making the film and you couldn’t spend another 5 minutes to find something more subtle? Beyond that, I really enjoyed the movie. The plot is just Fern Gully plus Pocahontas, but the point of the film was not the plot. The opening scene where they are coming out of cryogenic sleep does a great job of setting the tone for live action 3D in cinematic setting.

Stylistically it reminds me a lot of Firefly. Though, Firefly is more aggressive with the flares and un-steady-cam. They also both do a lot of space flying that utilizes zooming in on ships after they come on to screen. Other than that the shows are completely different as Battlestar stays very close to the space scifi feel and Firefly is all about the comedy and melding of genres and cultures.

12 Angry Men (1957)
1900 (1976)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
39 Steps, The (1935)
400 Blows, The (1959)
42nd Street (1933)
8 1/2 (1963)
A Christmas Story (1983)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
A Dog’s Life (1962)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
A Man Escaped (1956)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A One and a Two (2000)
A Passage to India (1984)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
A Room with a View (1986)
A Star Is Born (1954)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
A Touch of Zen (1969)
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Accidental Tourist, The (1988)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Adam’s Rib (1949)
Adventure, The (1960)
Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938)
Age Of Gold, The (1930)
Age of Innocence, The (1993)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992)
Airplane! (1980)
Akira (1988)
Alice (1988)
Alien (1979)
Aliens (1986)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
All That Jazz (1979)
All the President’s Men (1976)
Alphaville (1965)
Amadeus (1984)
Amelie (2001)
American Beauty (1999)
American Graffiti (1973)
Amores Perros (2000)
An Affair to Remember (1957)
An American in Paris (1951)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Animal Farm (1954)
Annie Hall (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Audition (1999)
Babe (1995)
Back to the Future (1985)
Bad and the Beautiful, The (1952)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Badlands (1973)
Bank Dick, The (1940)
Barren Lives (1963)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Batman (1989)
Battle of Algiers, The (1965)
Battle of San Pietro, The (1945)
Battleship Potemkin, The (1925)
Beat the Devil (1953)
Beau Travail (1999)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Being There (1979)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Big (1988)
Big Sleep, The (1946)
Bird with The Crystal Plumage, The (1970)
Birds, The (1963)
Blade Runner (1982)
Blair Witch Project, The (1999)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blowup (1966)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Boogie Nights (1997)
Boyz ‘n the Hood (1991)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Braveheart (1995)
Brazil (1985)
Breakfast Club, The (1985)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
Candy Man (1992)
Carrie (1976)
Casablanca (1942)
Casino (1995)
Chinatown (1974)
Citizen Kane (1941)
City of God (2002)
Clerks (1994)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Clueless (1995)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Crumb (1994)
Crying Game, The (1992)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951)
Deer Hunter, The (1978)
Deliverance (1972)
Die Hard (1988)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Dracula (1931)
Duck Soup (1933)
Dumbo (1941)
E.T.: The Extra-Terestrial (1982)
Easy Rider (1969)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Elephant Man, The (1980)
Eraserhead (1977)
Evil Dead, The (1982)
Exorcist, The (1973)
Fantasia (1940)
Fantastic Planet (1973)
Fargo (1996)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1981)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Fight Club (1999)
Fly, The (1986)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Funny Games (1997)
Gandhi (1982)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Gladiator (2000)
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Glory (1989)
Godfather Part II, The (1974)
Godfather, The (1972)
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The (1966)
Goodfellas (1990)
Graduate, The (1967)
Great Escape, The (1963)
Great Train Robbery, The (1903)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Halloween (1978)
Happiness (1998)
Independence Day (1996)
Jaws (1975)
Jungle Book, The (1967)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Life of Brian (1979)
Lion King, The (1994)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
M (1931)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Mad Max (1979)
Magnolia (1999)
Man Bites Dog (1992)
Man Who Fell to Earth, The (1976)
Matrix, The (1999)
Meet the Parents (2000)
Memento (2000)
Metropolis (1927)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Muppet Movie, The (1979)
Naked Gun, The (1988)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
North by Northwest (1959)
Nosferatu, A Symphony of Terror(1922)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Once Upon a Time in America (1983)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Patton (1970)
Philadelphia (1993)
Pi (1998)
Pinocchio (1940)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Platoon (1986)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Princess Bride, The (1987)
Producers, The (1968)
Psycho (1960)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Raging Bull (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Rain Man (1988)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Rashomon (1950)
Rear Window (1954)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Ring (1998)
Rocky (1976)
Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Royal Tenenbaums, The (2001)
Rushmore (1998)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Scarface (1983)
Scarface: The Shame Of A Nation (1932)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Serpico (1973)
Seven (1995)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
Seven Samurai, The (1954)
Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
Shining, The (1980)
Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Sixth Sense, The (1999)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Sound of Music, The (1965)
Spirited Away (2001)
Star Wars (1977)
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974)
There’s Something About Mary (1998)
Thing, The (1982)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Three Kings (1999)
Titanic (1997)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Top Gun (1986)
Toy Story (1995)
Traffic (2000)
Trainspotting (1996)
Unforgiven (1992)
Usual Suspects, The (1995)
Vertigo (1958)
West Side Story (1961)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
Young Frankenstein (1974)

Pardon Me
Nice to Know You
Anna Molly
Stellar
Megalomaniac
Circles
Love Hurts
Just a Phase
Drive – acoustic
Make Yourself – acoustic
Dig – remix
Redefine
A Certain Shade of Green
Oil and Water
Quicksand
Kiss to Send Us Off
Wish You Were Here
Aqueous Transmission

Encore:
Are You In?
Warning
Lets Go Crazy

If you check that list, there is a whole lot of Morning View in there, which is a good thing because it is my favorite album (right now). I loved the acoustic break. Live shows give the artist an opportunity to add some wrinkles to their songs and that is what they did. To be fair, these are wrinkles that have been well tested, but it was still a nice interlude.

Once again Mike that he is really good at guitar. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again. He is very good soloing and the groove that Incubus has gotten into with their studio songs doesn’t let him show it fully. When you seem him in concert, he surprises you.

Continuing with that last thought, we have to talk about Let’s Go Crazy. This song is a cover of Prince and they actually recorded the track for the album. That being said, I had never heard this song before. So when I was bouncing my head to it, it was a new feeling and I was always trying to figure out what was coming next. What was coming next was an amazing guitar solo. As we were walking out, I said that the solo “melted my face off:” That’s how shocking, awesome and amazing it was. If you want to listen to it, find the live video as the studio version does not have the same emotion to it.

I would have liked to hear Sick Sad Little World again because of the amazing solo or Vitamin with the drum session interlude. But I’ve experienced those already, so I don’t mind getting something different. Especially since we got Warning, one of their best songs ever.

Tonight I watched Primer a second time, I still don’t know how everything pieces together quite yet. However, some one has documented it. Don’t read through it if you haven’t seen it, but you can look to confirm it’s confusing-ness. It’s very well done and the actors are the people actually making the movie too.

In other news, work is going well. The thing I’m working on is very likely about to become much larger and will keep me very busy. While working I’m making some good progress on my For Review folder of music. However most of the progress has been bands I’ve decided not to keep around. One of the non-ill-fated bands is Ozomatli. Think Flobots, but take the string instruments and replace them with Latin influences. I also have a place to live for the next year, so that’s good

Bands That I Would Not be Listening to Now If It Wasn’t For Evan
Nine Inch Nails (My favorite band who we saw together live)
The Beatles (Arguably the best band ever)
Radiohead (His favorite band)
A Perfect Circle
Beck
Bjork
Fiona Apple
Flobots
My Bloody Valentine
Outkast
Pavement
The Pixies
Smashing Pumpkins
The Strokes
Tool

Honorable mention to Spoon. I only had their two most recent albums and didn’t know they had more and he only had their first two and hadn’t heard the new songs.

Those 16 bands make up exactly 25% of the albums I listen to and the percentage is slightly higher if you do it by number of songs. Take that and the fact that I listen to at least 40 hours of music a week to understand how frequently I am given a reminder.

Evan, you will always be with me despite the fact that you are not here.

Like I said, I’ve been watching movies, but have seen more off the list than on.
For the on category we have:
Crumb
The Thing
Ben-Hur
Angles with Dirty Faces
Happiness
Badlands
North by Northwest
Harold and Maude

For the off category we have:
Sukiyaki Western Django
Dial M for Murder
To Catch a Thief
Dan in Real Life
Star Trek
The Killing
Mean Creek
Dear Zachary
Synecdoche, New York

Ok, I thought it was much less balanced, but I didn’t lie to you. A lot of these were hard to watch. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, more that they were extremely emotional or twisted, or both.

Crumb – It is about the underground comic artist Robert Crumb, but ends up being depiction of all the mental disabilities of him and his brothers.

Happiness – Despite the title, there is not a single happy person in this movie, very twisted and dark.

Harold and Maude – A really great movie about an unlikely relationship between a 19 year old boy and 79 year old woman. The hardest part of this was that the film opens with a fake suicide by Harold that I didn’t know were fake at the time. Once things were explained and I had a better feel for the movie, I enjoyed it.

Dan in Real Life – This movie stars Steve Carell and Dane Cook, it is not a comedy. You need to know this before you start or else you will not enjoy this film and you should.

Mean Creek – It’s Deliverance, except no banjo kid or squealing and everyone is younger then 18. What it lacks in original story it makes up for in performances and cinematography.

Dear Zachary – Wow, I still don’t even know what to say. A documentary about a woman who kills the father of her unborn child, flees to Canada, and how the legal system (mis)handles everything. Seriously hard to watch because just when you think you have gotten a handle on how messed up things are, something more comes. It is very well done and worth watching, just be ready.

On that note, we’ll turn back to me and talk about progress. I’m at 199 and chugging along. The first milestone of 250 will be just about in time for my birthday. I’ve also managed to bring the projected completion date into late 2015 instead of early 2016.

EDIT: I forgot about 8 1/2, which is on the list. So I guess I did lie, but it’s a lot of movies and hard to keep track of them all.

12 Monkeys
Beau Travail
A Scanner Darkly
RocknRolla
The Karate Kid
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Ultimate Avengers
The Exorcist
Layer Cake
The Maltese Falcon
Fahrenheit 451
This is England

Beau Travail, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Exorcist are the only movies from that group that helped me along my way towards 1001. Kind of surprised The Maltese Falcon wasn’t on the list, but then again, it wasn’t as good as Casablanca or Beat the Devil. Fahrenheit 451 was very good. Never read the book, but it is a very good story, so the movie worked well.

My favorite of the group is This is England. A 11 year old boy befriends a group of skinheads. Shaun had just lost his father in the Falklands War, and the gang fills this hole. Every part of the movie comes together well and you feel for the characters in it.

Beau Travail
My least favorite of the group, not saying it was very bad, just the least enjoyable for me. I can see why it is on the list because the cinematography and soundtrack were very well done. However, the entire story is very subtle and you get a feeling that nothing has happened when you are halfway through it. Much of this comes from the dullness of the soldiers’ post, but it was hard for me to get a feel on anyone beyond the 3 main characters.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Awesome. There is something about old-school horror movies that I really enjoy. These movies didn’t rely on huge budgets or lots of special effects to make you cringe. To me, having someone walk down a hallway, with eerie music, not knowing what is around the corner beats a person being tortured on camera any day. This is part of the reason I thought The Exorcist was not as good as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Exorcist used special effects, that were good at the time, but when you see them today, the same effect isn’t there.

Vertigo
Hitchcock never fails to disappoint. Vertigo was similar to A Beautiful Mind, in that, I was really getting into the story that surrounded the first half and was thrown when it shifted. Zooming in and pulling out is such an awesome effect. After going to look up how he actually did it, I realized that it was something I had discovered earlier and like. However seeing it again in Vertigo done with so much speed gave it much more of an effect.

Dawn of the Dead
Zombies are awesome. While they aren’t fast, there are lots of them and they are determined to eat you. Watching this made me sad of the current state of zombie movies. Today everyone is too focused on getting that shot where the guy’s head explodes looking just right. But when you watch this and Night of the Living Dead, you see more than just zombies. You see people being forced to interact with people they did not previously know and get what kind of person they are. Dawn of the Dead has a complete break from zombies for about 20 minutes where the 4 main characters just live their lives in the mall they have fortified themselves in. This is what we need to get back to.

Philadelphia
This movie was good. Tom and Denzel both have good performances throughout the movie. However, it didn’t grab as much as the other movies. It had all the pieces that make up a “good” movie. The homophobic lawyer, who already doesn’t like the client, takes the case because it’s right and shows the big time businessmen that they did wrong. It seem very formulaic to me and didn’t pull me into the court room like you do when you watch To Kill a Mockingbird.

Side Note: I did the math and since my start on the list in September, I am watching 1 movie from the list every 2.85 days. If I continue at this rate, I will be finished by the end of August 2015.

L.A. Confidential
Kevin Spacey. Russell Crowe. Guy Pearce. James Cromwell. Kim Basinger. Danny DeVito. Seriously, how do you got all of those people into one movie? Just a classic representation of film noir(neo-noir if you want to split hairs). Very well done on all accounts. You start in one place where you think you know everything, but then you are moving along with the characters as you learn more about them as they learn more about the plot.

This is Spinal Tap
Amazing. I don’t know how it took me this long to see this movie, I should have seen it years ago. This is Spinal Tap mockumentary that follows the fake metal band Spinal Tap around on their second US tour. Featuring the classic “This one goes to 11″ scene, this movie hits every joke right on the nose.

Man Bites Dog
Very Good. In this black comedy, the camera crew follows around a serial killer as he goes through his day. The entire thing is shot in black and white which gives it a much older feel. As you might have guessed, there are some fairly graphic scenes through out the movie. However, I found that the comedic presentation softened to blow that the audience would have felt if this had been a horror movie. That being said, rape scenes are always hard to watch. An American remake would probably do fairly well if one was made today. You might need to make some alterations to some of the random conversation between the crew and the main character. However, those are just minor changes of little consequence if you keep the same feel of the characters interactions. In general, I would be fine if they just did it again in English to help out the people who are too lazy to read subtitles.

Now my work has been recognized and added to the Softpedia listing. PlaceMint has been tested and deemed good and safe for use.

From January to June I was working at Citrix working on Provisioning Server. If you are too lazy to watch the demo, it’s a system that will let you boot an OS streamed from a server. This lets you have a bunch computers all boot off one hard drive image on a server with out needing a physical hard drive in the computer. Not really a product used by consumer, but it is really cool.

I also did a bunch of work for the lacrosse website. That’s now running pretty stable and won’t need much work to keep running. And since I’ve played my last season with the team, I’ve handed control of the everyday work off to others on the team.

From there we go to my latest creation. PlaceMint is a tool that will allow you to arrange windows into defined slots based on window title. Slot are configurable by the user to ensure the windows are position to each users specific needs. Allows for drag and drop swapping of windows between slots. It has turned out really well and I’m glad that I spent the time writing it. It forced me to learn a lot about programing in C# and utilizing the Windows API, which are two things that are good to be able to get your head around.

Now I’m keeping busy by fixing/adding things mentioned by people that are beta testing PlaceMint. I’m also starting to do the planing steps for my Capstone project. This is the major project that I have to do before I can graduate, where we make something and then show other people and try to convince them that our idea is better than everyone else.

Hands down best present is the complete Twilight Zone series on DVD. A total of 28 discs featuring 156 episodes that would take just over 3 1/2 days to watch without interruption.

In addition I got the following DVDs:
Futurama Season 3 (completing my set)
Bender’s Big Score
SNL Season 1
Simpsons Movie

The surprise out of the group was SNL Season 1. I’m not sure I’ve even seen a full SNL skit that was made before 1985. But it should be really fun to watch all the old classic comedians perform.

And since watching DVDs isn’t enough, I go some games for my Nintendo DS. Most notably Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass. Plays like a visually spruced up version of the first Zelda games. The touch-screen stylus interface works very well for clicking on items and moving around the map.

The strangest gift was two books featuring pictures of my hometown. At first glance this seems like a generic gift that would get flipped through once or twice before it is placed on a shelf. What makes it interesting is the fact that two other members of my family received the same books.

—-

A few years ago I noticed that my cousins had very limited access to good music. Since they live in a town that is somewhere between rural and suburban, they are essentially limited to what MTV decides to show. Based on this I decided to give them CDs as Christmas presents to “help” them on their way to good music.

This Christmas it became extremely apparent that one of my cousins has terrible taste in movies. The two movies he received this year were Deck the Halls and 1408. I unfortunately saw 1408 in theaters and watched Deck the Halls Christmas afternoon.

I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Go check it out. Northeastern Men’s Lacrosse

I’d say try everything out, but I don’t think the captains would appreciate the random emails they would get if the contact for was used without really being directed at the team.

In keeping with my habit of not actually posting about something when it happened, I waited about 2 weeks to get this up. I had a big splint on it over the weekend when it happened, which was pretty awkward. But now it now just keeping the last joint from bending (where the fracture is). Going back sometime next week to see how it is coming along. On the whole it could be worse. I can’t write, but I can do most other things with my right hand. Common task that is surprisingly hard with your weak hand: wiping your butt. Non-common task that I am surprisingly good at with my weak hand: Wii Sports.

Joshua Homme is an underrated guitarist. It’s ok, I didn’t know his name either until just before the show. Queens of the Stone Age works essentially on the same level as Nine Inch Nails. It’s Josh’s band and the people he plays with is in a semi-constant rotation. That fact makes the following comment even more amazing. The band as a whole was very tight and always in time with each other. You could see that they were always looking around to catch one another’s eyes to make sure they were in pace with each other.

I went in expecting it to be an Era Vulgaris (newest album) show. I was happily surprised that is was not that at all. They even played some songs that I had not heard before. One of the best songs was Better Living Through Chemistry. It’s one of my favorites of the band, so it was great to hear it live. The lights they used the most were yellow-green and blue strobes that pointed at the audience. The lights were all programed to switch right on the beat of the song, which added to the tightness of the music. While this is a minimal lighting set-up, the performance of Sick, Sick, Sick had one of the best lighting effects I’ve seen. For this song, they added two lights that were pointed at Josh as he played. These two lights would strobe in opposition of each other so it looked like he was turning back and forth every quickly, almost as if two people were standing there.

Other comments on the songs they played go as follows. I would have preferred they use the slot for Feel Good Hit of the Summer for one of their stronger songs. I would have played Suter Up Your Future instead of Make It Wit Chu, but that song went very well so I can’t complain.

On the whole, great show and a great way to celebrate a birthday. Hopefully I’ll be able to top it next year.

The reason why the website has not been published yet is because Northeastern Club sports is being slow in giving the team access to server space. Last Monday I sent an email asking for server space. Of the two people that received this email, one emailed me back saying that it was the other person’s responsibility, as he is our supervisor. The reply also stated that all our supervisor had to do was fill out a form online so that the request could be processed.

I did not have any other contact with the team supervisor until I went to talk to him last Friday. He clearly wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t gone to see him. He seemed to just vaguely remember that I had sent the earlier email. While I am in his office, he fills out the form and says “next business day, it should be ready”. Next business day means Monday, so I have to wait a few more days.

Monday comes and goes. Tuesday comes and goes. Still no response from our supervisor. On Wednesday I sent an email asking for an update on the status. Again there is no response, so I sent another email Friday morning saying I would be coming by his office to talk to him. He was not in his office at all on Friday.

There are a few ideas for posts that I’ve had, but pushed off. I’m going to force myself to go threw with the latest one, I just don’t have time now. But I think it will turn out well.

The lacrosse website is going through the process of being published. It will be nice to see it up and running after all the time I spent this summer putting it together.

That’s it for now. I promise to be back soon.

Thursday morning I was reading some blogs while I should have been getting ready for class. And then, black. The LCD of my laptop had become completely unusable. Faint outlines of where windows should have been could be seen, but even the simple task of following where the mouse was on the screen required much concentration.

Within a few minutes I had told my computer to restart. (Well, actually, I thought I had told it to shutdown. I ended up clicking the wrong button.) As Windows was booting up, the screen worked as it should. Within a minute, the screen had returned to it’s darkened state. Another minute passes as I try again to locate the shutdown option and this time succeed. I head to class considering the fact that I might be the owner of a new computer in a few days and the joys that would come with Vista. (Laptop screens cost around $400+, so it is often not worth it when that money could be used for a newer, better machine.)

The saving grace here is the fact that I have a second monitor attached to my laptop. This meant I could still use my computer, I just had less area to work with. Without the extra screen I would have been out of luck as working around the problem would have been much harder.

I get back from class and start searching for anything that could find that might let me resolve the issue of the broken screen. After scanning some “If you send us your machine and your first born son, we can fix it” websites and one “Ok, these are the steps you want to take to completely dissemble your laptop and do stuff to it” website, I went to Dell’s website.

Nosing around the My Account section I see those magical words listed above. My laptop is just a month away from the end of it’s three year warranty. I hopped on Dell’s instant messaging support service, had a relatively short conversation explaining my situation. They told me they would be shipping a replacement screen to their Boston office and to expect a call in 1-2 business days to schedule an in-house replacement. The call never came on Friday, which is fine, it came promptly Monday morning. We agreed that 3-4 on Tuesday would be a good time for both of us. Four o’clock that afternoon I get a call from the Dell service guy. “I’m sorry, I’m running a little late. I will be there in an hour.” I explained the misunderstanding and moved on as this was the worst thing done by Dell throughout the whole ordeal.

Tuesday comes and the technician arrives with my new screen in hand. I then watch, like a worried mother, as he begins to do surgery on my computer (which would be the one thing I’d grab from my room if the building was on fire). The procedure was fairly simply, lots of tiny screws and some cracking sounds as the plastic case popped apart as it was designed to.

The new screen has been working fine as I count down the next 23 days hoping that if something else is going to break, that it happen sometime before the 17th of August.