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Every once in a while I listen to music on Yahoo! Music LAUNCHcast Radio or AOL Radio. The selection on AOL seems to fit me better, but Yahoo does allow you to skip a few songs every hour. AOL Radio offers many XM Radio stations in addition to their own stations. The 90’s Alternative stations on both services have been my favorite so far.

I’ve probably used Yahoo! more because I started out with it and I tend to think of it first. I may be listening to AOL more in the future. I found out last night that they have an All Pearl Jam station and an All Final Fantasy station, among other good choices. Just hearing the music from Final Fantasy again was fun and it’s no secret how I feel about Pearl Jam.

I may not have total control over what I’m hearing in either case, but the variety of music is good enough that I can always find something that suits me. And it costs me nothing to use them. It’s hard to beat FREE!

I’ll be starting my new job on August 1. I have this week off.

Over the weekend I started playing Star War Knights of the Old Republlic II: The Sith Lords. It’s been sitting in my collection for over a year and a half now. Better late than never. It’s a fun game so far. It’s a lot like the first game, and that’s not a bad thing. As much as I’m trying to go to the dark side, I keep getting light side points. I guess it’s just in my nature to be a good guy.

Over the past few months I’ve been slowly making my way through the complete series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve seen all of the episodes at one point or another on TV, but now I can watch the whole series all the way through on DVD. I just finished season 4. The show started getting really good in season 3, but season 4 is even better.

My roommate and I are almost finished with our second helping of Tales of Symphonia. The sidequests are what’s keeping us from finishing the game. I’m going to try to make Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks our next joint project.

I’ve pretty much completely made the switch from eBay to Amazon.com for selling all the old games and DVD’s that I don’t want anymore. I mostly use the money to buy new games and DVD’s. I get more money than I would if I traded them in to GameStop or Sam Goody, I just have to wait before I get anything. When an item is sold, Amazon.com sends me an email with the name and address of the person that bought my item, how much I’m getting, and other useful information.

I’m at the point where Gmail is becoming my main email service. As most people with Gmail accounts probably know, they scan your email and deliver advertisements in the right side of your browser area based on what’s in that particular email. I like the way Gmail handles tracking numbers and street addresses. If Gmail sees a tracking number (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc) in your email, it’ll give you a link that you can click on to track the package. It saves me the trouble of having to go to the individual websites and going through the steps to track packages that I’m expecting. If Gmail sees a street address in your email, it’ll usually give you a “Map this” link that allows you to map that address using Google Maps. So, if a friend sends me his address in an email, all I have to do is click on that link to see where he lives and possibly get directions.

I get the “Map this” links with the emails that come from Amazon.com telling me that my items have sold and where I need to ship them to. If I notice the links and I’m bored when I’m scanning the emails, sometimes I’ll click on the links just out of curiosity. No, I’m not going to stalk these people. I just think it’s interesting to look at satellite imagery of their neighborhoods and their houses. It may give me an idea of the kind of person I’m selling my stuff to…or maybe not. Oh well, it helps pass the time.

I can’t remember where I first saw this image, but I thought I would share. Click on the image to see a larger version.

I finally finished playing 24: The Game for the PlayStation 2. I hardly ever finish games that I play on my own anymore, so I feel the need to write about it.

The game takes place between Season 2 and Season 3 and fills in a few of the plot holes that where present at the beginning of Season 3. The graphics aren’t the best, but the story is good and the voice acting is great. It sounds really good in surround sound.

For the most part, the missions are easy and short and I didn’t have a problem with that. The ones that are annoying are extremely annoying. Maybe that’s just me. The missions vary from the standard action missions to descrambling data on a hard drive. You get to complete action missions as different characters from the show such as Jack, Tony, Michelle, and Kim. Yes, Kim does get in trouble and you do have to save her. It’s cool to see characters that aren’t on the show any more either because they died or they became one of 24’s many characters that disappear without any explanation.

The enemy A.I. is terrible. You can run out in front of one of the bad guys and they’ll soon forget that you are even there. One weird thing is that sometimes when the bad guys run out of ammo they’ll yell, “Reload!” That’s basically another way of saying, “I’m reloading, so now is a good time to shoot at me!” The camerawork can be a pain, especially if you’re fighting up close.

There is a lot in the game that will remind you of the show: the multiple camera angles, the music, the sound effects, the ticking clock, etc. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this game. If you’re a fan of the show, it’s a good game to try out. No, it won’t take 24 hours to complete the game.

I am going to be starting a new job with Mississippi State soon. I’ll be glad to be programming again, even if it’s not the scientific kind of work I did in graduate school.

Teaching was fun at times, but I never really pictured myself doing that forever. Most days I dreaded going to work, but I did have decent days every once in a while. I’m glad for the experience, but I’m also glad that it’s over.

Tutoring also had its moments, but it got to the point where I was happy when students canceled even though it cost me money. Recently they changed the setup, so I’m in there a certain number of hours no matter what. Now I just sit in there bored…checking mail…reading news…over and over again. I’m glad that it’ll soon be over.

Now I’ll be a full-time programmer again. I’ll have only one job in one location. My income will be much greater than it was and I won’t have any breaks in income like I did when I was working for EMCC.

Is this what I thought I would be doing now? No, but you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. I feel fine, though.

Yesterday I installed the latest version of Movable Type. So far, so good.

There are a bunch of new features that I have just glossed over for now. The thing that I’m most excited about is the inclusion of tags. Tags are showing up everywhere, so why not here? If you click on one of the tags, you’ll get a weird looking page. I just need to restore my search template from a backup. Better to just hold off on clicking tags for now .

Here goes.

HBO does have some good original programming. Over the past few weeks I have taken the time to watch two miniseries that I had never gotten a chance to see: Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon.

Band of Brothers is a 10-part series that details the World War II experiences of an American group of soldiers called Easy Company. The series is based on real events and all of the characters are based on real people. You see brief interviews with actual members of Easy Company before each episode. The battles scenes were pretty intense and some reminded me of playing Call of Duty. I don’t remember being bored or thinking that I was tired of watching at any point.

From the Earth to the Moon is a 12-part series that chronicles the space race of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Their goal was to show the events in a way that they had never been shown before, so they don’t focus only on the astronauts. Instead of detailing the Apollo 13 disaster from the astronauts’ perspectives, they showed it from the perspectives of journalists that covered the story. One episode focuses on the wives of the astronauts and another focuses on the people that designed the lunar module. I learning a lot of things about the space program that I never knew before. There were a couple of episodes that seemed to drag on a little bit, but I was probably just a little distracted at the time.

Tom Hanks was a producer on both series and you’ll see plenty of recognizable faces. I definitely recommend them both if you have the time.

Another trek down memory lane.

I remember that Fall 2004 was an unusually great season for video games. Not long after I started this site, I created a list to help myself keep track of all the games that I wanted to buy. I had planned on making it available online, but I never got around to it and the list has sat out there all this time with no links pointing to it. Eventually, I stopped using that list and now I keep track of the games that I want on IGN.

Some games on the list that still haven’t been released. Some I never owned but maybe will someday. Some I owned but never played much. Some I spent way too many hours playing.

I hope everyone has a great Independence Day. Today will probably be a movie/gaming day for me. For some reason I don’t really want to do a lot of stuff outside today.

I played the demo for Prey. It reminded me a lot of Doom 3, but this one could potentially be more fun. I’ll definitely be interested in buying it when it comes out on July 10. I’ll just need to upgrade my old computer or buy an Xbox 360 first. So, I probably won’t be playing Prey when it first comes out.

Time to get some BBQ.