A local used book store that I believe had already officially closed shop had a huge sale on its last remaining merchandise this weekend. The books were sold by weight, for a dollar a pound, with all proceeds going toward the Humane Society and the local library.

I thought this was a fantastic idea, and Erika and I took advantage of it on Saturday. Here's what we got (click the picture for an even bigger version).

Total cost: $9.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your week. I, for one, absolutely detested getting out of bed this morning. Oh well.

This weekend was a pretty good one.

Thursday night Ric got more tickets for the Kings. We were glad to go and say our goodbyes to the awesome season ticket-holders we've sat with throughout this season. I think I prefer sitting in their section just because hanging out with them makes you truly experience a game - united fans, plenty of yelling, and plenty of jokes. I hope Ric's boss buys the same seats for next season so we can see all those folks again. I liked to call the guy who sat next to me Niles (I never learned his real name). He knew tons about hockey, but the way he phrased everything he shouted at the team sounded just like a scathingly-worded-yet-harmless rant from Niles on Frasier. Ah, Niles. The way you yelled, "Any closer, and he'd be giving him an engagement ring!" when the opposition was holding one of our guys tickled my funny bone.

Friday started out shaky when Ric and I got ready and went out for a night out on the town, but then Ric felt sick after dinner (not Panera's fault), so we went home and watched some Arrested Development. I got some reading done too - only forty pages left and I'll finally be done with Wuthering Heights. Poor book. I've really neglected my reading lately, and have been working on this book since August!

Saturday after sleeping in, purchasing my Travis tickets, reading my dlisted fix, and doing laundry at my parents' place, Ric and my sister and I went out to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner and then saw Blades of Glory in Brea. If you watch ice skating, it's even funnier, because you know exactly which skaters they're copying, plus there are tons of cameos.

Sunday we went to church and got to hang out with the Andersons for a bit. Baby Emily sleeps in the weirdest positions! In the afternoon I went to see The Lookout. Good movie. Afterwards I met up with Ric at his parents' place and gave the Mini a wash that was much-needed after Tuesday's insane weather. We hung out there for the evening and came back home to clean, put away laundry, and watch more Arrested Development. We just finished season two. I've been quoting the show like crazy lately.

Up this week: not too much. I've got an eye doctor appointment today, so hopefully I'll be seeing better soon and having less headaches. Otherwise, it's the usual stuff. Maybe the dollar theatre, definitely some grocery shopping, probably hanging at the Neals' for Wednesday night television fun.

Have a great week!

And in recognition of this month I'm going to make an effort to include more posts about poetry. I'll still do my usual random commentaries on news, politics, and entertainment, but I'm also going to periodically provide excerpts from poems I like.

To kick it off, here is an excerpt from Walt Whitman's "Song of the Exposition," which demonstrates Whitman's pioneering style as well as his views on poetry and culture.

Away with themes of war! away with war itself!
Hence from my shuddering sight to never more return that show of blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
That hell unpent and raid of blood, fit for wild tigers or for lop-tongued wolves, not reasoning men,
And in its stead speed industry's campaigns,
With thy undaunted armies, engineering,
Thy pennants labor, loosen'd to the breeze,
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear.

Away with old romance!
Away with novels, plots and plays of foreign courts,
Away with love-verses sugar'd in rhyme, the intrigues, amours of idlers,
Fitted for only banquets of the night where dancers to late music slide,
The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,
With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

To you ye reverent sane sisters,
I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for art,
To exalt the present and the real,
To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,
To sing in songs how exercise and chemical life are never to be baffled,
To manual work for each and all, to plough, hoe, dig,
To plant and tend the tree, the berry, vegetables, flowers,
For every man to see to it that he really do something, for every woman too;
To use the hammer and the saw, (rip, or cross-cut)
To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,
To work as a tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,
To invent a little, something ingenious, to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning,
And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at themselves.

I'm back home for a little bit. I got back last night from camping at Justin's parent's ranch in Paso Robles. It was really fun. The drive up the 101 was really nice. I'm only back for a few days and then I'm off to San Francisco on Thursday.

Something has come up at work. I got a call on Friday saying I was being removed from my post. My boss didn't give me a reason, he just said I had to come in on Monday and talk to the big boss. I'm a little pissed about the lack of information. I have no idea what the reasons could be behind this or what is going to happen. So I'm leaving in a couple hours for that. Thankfully if I do lose the job or something like that, I just got my financial aid check from school so I will be able to survive for awhile.

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking

Apple, inc and the record label EMI announced (EMI press release, Apple press release) this morning that they will begin offering songs in the iTunes Music store that have no digital rights management (DRM). If you're not familiar with DRM, here's a quick explanation. When you buy a 99 cent song in iTunes, you can play it on your computer and up to four more computers where your iTunes account is authorized. You also can only play the song on an iPod, so if you have bought some songs on iTMS and you get an mp3 player that's not from Apple, you can't play your songs. There's also a limit on how many cds you can burn from the music you buy. The idea is to prevent piracy, but the people who are willing to pay a dollar for a song are usually not the pirating type. They could have downloaded the entire album for free from BitTorrent if they wanted to pirate it. What usually happens is that DRM is an annoyance to law-abiding music purchasers.

EMI is offering DRM-free tracks on iTunes for a premium ($1.29), but they are higher quality (256K). I think the price is still too high, but this is a huge step in the right direction. You'll be able to do whatever you want with these files: email a song to friend, burn as many cds as you want, back them up, play them on any mp3 player and not worry about losing your investment if technology changes. Steve Jobs says that similar deals with other labels will follow and by the end of the year he hopes to have 50% of the iTMS catalog available DRM-free. This may be the beginning of the end for DRM. I've never bought songs from iTunes, but I may consider it now.

I mentioned DRM in a post almost two years ago. I linked to Cory Doctorow's great speech on the subject (still a good explanation of why DRM is terrible) and I hoped that Microsoft's forthcoming portable audio player wouldn't have an oppressive DRM. It does.

If you're wondering what artists this will include, here's a list of EMI artists.