According to my current iteration of my blog, this is my one-thousandth post.

I never thought I’d see the New England Patriots lose Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants. I gotta say, that was the best Super Bowl I’ve ever seen. Down-to-the-wire drama and a huge upset — perhaps the biggest in Super Bowl History. Plus, I’ll get to tells kids in twenty years that I saw the greatest team in NFL history lose the only game that matters.

I saw the game with a couple of friends from church (Aaron & Jessica) — two of the few people my own age. They have a lot of friends there age which was nice. Also, I will not complain when I’m invited to social gatherings that include even one available female my age. It’s probably the first time that’s happened since I moved here.

HDTVs rock. I want one, but then I think about starving children in Africa. But I don’t think starving children anywhere are able to consume HDTVs so I feel a little less bad about wanting one.

So FLAC files sound awesome. I decided to rip Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows to FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) to see if the sound quality is really that much better. It does sound a bit better. At some point I want to repartition my hard drives and perhaps slap a fat 1TB (Terabyte, baby, Terabyte = one thousand gigabytes) drive in my computer so I can go crazy on backing up all my albums and DVDs in the best quality possible.

The only problem with FLAC is that it’s complicated if not impossible to get iTunes to play FLAC. So what I’ve done is I’m using Winamp is the player/library for my FLAC files and storing them all on one of my other drive partitions to keep it all sorted and simple. Of course, I also created MP3 copies of the files for use w/ the iPod. With the demise of DRM though, I’m more open to considering other portable media players, but I can’t say I’ve seen anything more impressive than the iPod.

I’m considering purchasing a laptop I can load up w/ Linux. Partially to be nerdy and indie and open source, but I’ve become a lot more familiar w/ the command line over the years and it’d also be a much better machine for doing web development. Anyway, this also feeds into the desire to find alternatives to iTunes/iPod because Apple isn’t exactly friendly w/ Linux.

Of course, I’d take a Macbook if I could get one, but cost remains prohibitive. It’d cost me twice as much to get the Apple as it would for a comparatively powerful Dell w/ dual-core Athlon chips, 2GB RAM, DVD-burner, 120gb hard drive, wifi.

I’m impressed w/ how busy I’ve stayed this weekend. I spent 15 hours out on Friday, 9 hours out on Saturday, and 9 hours out today.

Social Life FTW!!!

Tags: Aaron & Jessica, FLAC, football, iPod, iTunes, laptop, Super Bowl, Winamp

Heading East:

After a few minutes a very tall girl with long brown hair who I would later learn was a Parsons design student, broke social convention, turned to her fellow benchmates, and said, “My God, wasn’t today beautiful.” At first she just got a few quiet affirmations,”yeah, gorgeous”, “best day yet” etc, but then a young woman in a business suit again broke social convention and revealed personal information: “It was so nice, when I woke up I decided I didn’t want to feel miserable about anything, and broke up with my boyfriend. I ditched him at 7:30 in the morning. He didn’t know what hit him.”

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the unspoken walls that prohibit conversation between individuals in public. I’ve experienced this in many places in America, but it’s become more noticeable to me in Seattle particularly with the daily hour-long bus riders to and from work. Unless you speak to a person first or have previously established a rapport, people are hesitant to speak to you. The omnipresence of cell phones and iPods doesn’t make this any easier.

On the bus, I must have a presence of unapproachability (as stated, the iPod doesn’t make this easier). I find myself oftentimes being one of the last bus seats to acquire a second person when the ride gets full. Do I look like a big (overweight) scary (frowning) white guy?

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(Insert pause for a runaway train: I originally found the Heading East post from Raul via Kottke. I started browsing through some of the art and photos on Heading East and got distracted by this photo. It’s one of the best I’ve seen.

I ended up browsing through Eliot Shephard’s other photos on Flickr also. Additionally, I ran across an interesting art project called 20×200.

This is as close as the internet can get to ______________. IM, IRC, forums, and Digg don’t count. Try listening to The Album Leaf while you’re on the train.)

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Return to the tracks: Martin has been working on talking to women lately. During his brief period of unemployment while he’s waiting for his new job to begin, he set a goal for himself of talking to three women a day. He took to the internet in search for advise.

Now, I probably wouldn’t do it this way, but he found some advice columns from various male resources. Apparently some of these tricks work:
• talk to the woman within three seconds of making contact (eye-contact, arriving next to each other, whatever)
• say something funny (sarcasm doesn’t count… sorry, guys)
• say something belittling — now, this is one step I wouldn’t be likely to use myself, but I guess some girls respond well to this. e.g. “I like your outfit, that’s pretty cool. Although, I think blue would be a better color on you.” (I would never try to give out fashion advice.)

Apparently the idea is to get them to want to earn your interest instead of vice versa.

Instead of just trying to pick up girls or get their attention, I’ve made a few general attempts of spurring conversation the last few days. I managed to discuss the weather and daylight savings time with one of the men who waits for the same bus I do when heading downtown.

While actually on the bus, I’m still working on it.

One man who rides the bus apparently isn’t afraid of breaking taboos. He sits in his seat talking on his cell phone no matter who is around or what’s going on carrying on lengthy conversations. At the end of one of the phone calls, he wished the other person a happy birthday. While holding the phone in his left hand a few inches from his face, he took out his harmonica, held it to his mouth, and played a rendition of the Happy Birthday song.

But I’ve never seen harmonica-man talk with anyone on the bus.

Tags: America, bus, harmonica, iPod, Martin, The Album Leaf

So much happens in ten days, this is a brief checklist of things I would like to write about, but may never have a chance to get caught up on:

Thursday (May 17): The one-handed man on the plane from Seattle to Denver. Eventless flight to Omaha. Ride w/ Varvel to the bachelor party. Bachelor party.

Friday: Tyler + Luebbe + thai. Tux rental, rehearsal dinner, potential poisoning. Coffee w/ Cora. Final moments talking w/ bachelor-Phil.

Saturday: Wedding + the ups and downs. Sprite toast, substitute best man, seeing people. Dancing w/ the ladies. Tackling Phil’s brother to grab the garter. “May your quiver be full!” Cards.

Sunday: the dog, the airport, $9 roast beef + cranberry juice, mom. G&G, picked up dad at the bus station.

Monday: Getting the U-Haul, Wendy’s, lock, blankets, Mother’s day a week late, mowing the lawn, loading the truck, poker party w/ the Boulder crew. Suzanne unconscious and no good markers to draw on her.

Tuesday: Finish packing and drive. iPod. Stayed in Billings, MT. Smoky room.

Wednesday: Billings, MT to Kirkland, WA. More iPod. Country songs.

Thursday (May 24): Seeing Washington on the Eastside w/ my bro (wetlands, Medina beach, Chipotle). Movie: The Namesake. Trigun.

Friday: Work+

Saturday: Airport + grocery shopping + sausage balls + work.

Sunday: Church. Pirates 3. And typing, typing, typing…

Tags: airplane, Colorado, Cora, family, iPod, Jenny, Luebbe, moving, Nebraska, Phil, Seattle, The Varv, Tyler