Yep, I am back a little earlier than I expected. Two games and done, oh well, they were really good games.

I bought I new shirt, I should get it on the eighth. It is from the people I got my other favorite shirt from.

I will be awesome forever.

brendoman's User Page - Last.fm

Luis got me into a little thing called AudioScrobbler ages ago and a bit ago they merged with a service called Last.fm. What you do is you download a plugin for your player that keeps track of everything you play. Last.Fm then displays your top artists and tracks and gives you recommendations based on what you play. You can also listen to a stream of music customized to what you play. And the profile pages are very pretty. You can link blog posts to artists, tags, albums, and other things. There is a nifty built in shout box. It's a great way to find new music and let your friends know what you are listening to.

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned how I ran into my good friend from junior/high school at Red Lobster, whom I hadn't seen in 10 years.. but it turns out she works with her father, who does adjunct work here at the university. She was helping him out on campus today, so we met up for lunch.

It's so weird to see someone who grew up through the same schools with me from 1st to 8th grade and see how our lives diverged and/or stayed similar in different areas. We're different people than we were before, although in some ways we're still the same. It was great to have a chance to kind of catch up. I hope we don't lose track of each other again.

By the way, don't eat the clam chowder in the E.N. It makes you burp and gives you stomach trouble.

This is excellent news. I hope this is a sign that more networks and other mainstream media outlets will embrace YouTube. I think this a situation where everyone will benefit. MTV2 will definitely benefit by having videos from their shows pasted all over the web. The users will benefit by having high quality content straight from the creators. Hopefully they'll put up some more Wondershowzen clips like this one.

So things are pretty much as resolved as they are going to get in my eBay debacle. I was very impressed with eBay's response time. I finally found the stub of the money order I had as well as the receipt used to buy it. Good freaking thing I saved those. I faxed them in today and when I got home 5 minutes later this was waiting in my inbox:

Hello,

Thank you for your cooperation during the investigation of the Standard
Purchase Protection Claim #720534. We are pleased to inform you that
this claim has been found on your behalf.

Maximum claim coverage is based on the final winning bid amount (up to a
maximum of $200.00) less $25.00. Additional charges such as shipping
and handling and or other fees are not covered. Based on this coverage,
a claim payment will be issued via PayPal within the next 45 days in the
amount of $75.00 through eBay, Inc. Payment will be sent to you at the
following email address:

Once the payment has been sent, you will receive a payment notification
email from PayPal at the above email address. If you do not receive the
payment on or before Monday, April 17, 2006, please notify us via email.

We are sorry that you have had this difficult experience and hope that
the Standard Purchase Protection Program has helped to alleviate some of
the disappointment.

Kind Regards,

Jentry
Claims Adjuster
Standard Purchase Protection Program
eBay Trust & Safety

The only bummer is I only get $75 of the $108. It's better than nothing. I'm just bummed I still don't have the Buffy set. I've seen them at Costco for $130, but I can't swing that right now especially with the Florida trip coming up. Sigh....

I missed last week due to illness but now I'm finally feeling better. It's raining a whole lot out here. There's a new version of iTunes and I'm downloading it at 1 MB per second. Dang. On with the show:

1. In The Mirror, from The Weight Is a Gift by Nada Surf
2. Flugufrelsarinn, from Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós
3. Love Explosion, from Meladroit by Weezer
4. Through, from Patience by George Michael
5. Kiki Wombauk, from Go, Fluffy, Go! by Fluffy
6. Someone's Calling, from After The Snow by Modern English
7. You Make It Easy, from Moon Safari by Air
8. Stella Was A Diver and She Was Always Down, from Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol
9. Very Loud, from Howl Howl Gaff Gaff by The Shout Out Louds
10. Radiophonic, from Nightlife by The Pet Shop Boys

Wow, what a nice little picture of my music collection. A lot of mellow stuff, some random rock, some 80's New Wave, George Michael, and the Pet Shop Boys. I will admit right now that I had a friend who based on my music tastes was convinced I was gay. Seriously. She was surprised when I told her otherwise. And that's my funny story of the day. I'm off to work.