Back to work...

After my happy three day weekend, it was back to work today. Actually, I was happy to go back, given that I was starting to get bored at the apartment. There's only so much "Buffy" I can watch before I want to get back to doing what I normally do.

Speaking of "Buffy," I watched the last two episodes of Season 2 last night. Honestly, "Becoming, Pt. 2" may have been among the most depressing 40-some minutes of television that I've ever seen. I couldn't leave "Buffy" on that note, so I went to Circuit City before work to pick up Season 3. I actually started watching the first episode on my lunch break and I'm now on episode 2. (On a side note, I can't imagine how "Buffy" fans who watched the show in its original run dealt with the Season 2 cliffhanger. I would have gone crazy having to go four months with no answers on that stuff. Hell, I barely made it through the Season 5-6 break of "Charmed" and that just dealt with Leo's fate.).

Oh, yeah, there's no new DGOW or Versus polls yet. I'll get those up tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the book page again (or for the first time if you haven't seen it yet) and feel free to send me your feedback.

Last note. Don't forget to check out the new PowerBook's at Apple's homepage. They rule. I think I want one. But there's that whole debt thing I've been working on, so I'll probably hold off for now.

Until next time, which won't be in January anymore.

Party’s over...

Well, as far as I know, the party wrapped up sometime around 2 a.m., but I was once again in bed well before that, just like I was for the Halloween party and the New Year's Eve party (though to be fair, I was never really involved in the latter one in any way). I was feeling bad emotionally, then I started to feel bad physically. Before you jump to conclusions, I'd only had two drinks, so it's not like I was feeling the effects of alcohol in any way. Today I feel even worse in both regards. I'm kind of pissed at myself for just bailing on the party without even giving anyone an explanation. I really must have seemed anti-social, which is starting to become my M.O.

As of right now, we're slated to have a Super Bowl party on Sunday, but I'm not sure that's going to happen, mostly because we haven't done any planning or inviting of any kind, plus people may not be in the mood for another party at our place so soon. I know as of right now, I'm not. Hell, I haven't even done any cleaning yet from this one, though it seems my roommates have done their fair share. I did post some pictures online, from before I went to bed (obviously). Check them out over on the photos page, or by clicking here.

Not feeling well, I've taken the time to relax and catch up with some of my favorite movies. I finally cracked open the special edition of "Shawshank Redemption" and I have to say the transfer is amazing. The Pacific Ocean has never looked so good as it does at the end of the movie. I'm just wrapping up watching "Field of Dreams" right now, which I'll never get tired of watching. I just love the touching moment between Ray and his dad at the end. It makes it probably the ony movie on my rack that I can watch at any time, even if I've just watched it the day before. It definitely cracks the top five of my all-time favorites, along with "Shawshank," "Return of the King," "Scarface" and "Leon." I feel like "Fight Club" should be on that list somewhere, but it's just not a movie I can watch over and over again. Also, I'm a huge fan of the first "Spider-man" but it's hard to consider a movie one of your favorites when you feel like the sequel was actually a better movie.

Don't forget to check out my page on my book. Once I feel better I intend to actually start writing in it again. I hope to at least have chapter 12 done by the time the Super Bowl is over. Maybe if I set specific goals like that, I'll accomplish things.

Until next time, when I'm not physically ill...

Party time... almost...

Well, today's the day of our latest party, this one in honor of Pooz's birthday (which is actually on Monday). Last year, Pooz and Geoff had a joint birthday party at Dave and Geoff's old apartment, and that one got a little out of control. Honestly, this was probably has the potential to be even crazier, given that three of us can party and then just crash in our beds, plus Pooz has the next three days off, but I think we'll be able to keep out of too much trouble.

I finally had a relaxing day off yesterday, a day when I just really didn't do much other than enjoy the fact I didn't have to work. I did manage to watch quite a bit of "Buffy" and I'm now almost done with Season 2. I'll probably try to pick up Season 3 sometime in February, and at this point I've added Seasons 3-7 to my Amazon.com wishlist. Plus, I'm on such a Sarah Michelle Gellar kick lately that I finally cracked open my copy of "Simply Irresistible" that I picked up at Best Buy months ago for $5.99.

Thursday Moore, Pooz and I all went to the comic book shop and I found a few statues I really liked. I ended up going back yesterday with Pooz to pick up the Mary Jane Watson statue from the Loves of Peter Parker series. I've always been a huge MJ fan, from back when I started watching the Spider-Man cartoon in the early 90s. I think it's the redhead thing. Right now the statue is sitting on top of my file cabinet, but I'd like to find a more special place for it. Oh, I also finally took a picture of the Alias bust, but I'm having some network troubles that are preventing me from uploading the updated figures/statues album.

Oh, on the topic of pictures, I'd post updated apartment pictures, but right now there are decorations up for the party, making it kind of stupid to take pictures that are meant to be just of the apartment. Still, there will be plenty of party pictures up this week, so you can all enjoy those.

Oh, wow, I almost completely forgot. I finally got a book page up. Right now it's just a basic introduction to the book, but eventually it'll have lots of details about the characters, the writing history and more. For now, you can at least read the first chapter.

I hate the Patriots...

The headline really says it all, but for those who have short memories, the Patriots should be playing in Hartford, not Foxboro. And any writer who calls Bob Kraft one of the best owners in sports should really take the time to Google "Bob Kraft" and "Hartford Stadium Deal." Seriously, the guy is a slimier version of Art Modell (and I hate what Art Modell did to Cleveland). Plus, I still don't think Tom Brady is that good. On the other hand, I have always respected Corey Dillon's talent. Still, I hope the Eagles crush the Pats in the Super Bowl (though I doubt they will).

My iMac DV did sell for the price I was hoping for, so now I have to swing by the UPS store to pick up some packing materials so I can get this thing sent off tomorrow.With the sale of the lime iMac, I'm down to four computers (Power Mac G5, iBook G4, Power Mac G4 Cube, grape iMac G3), though I'll probably be picking up a Mac mini sometime in 2005.

Honestly, I don't really have a whole lot else to say right now. My week was pretty boring, and not a whole lot happened. Obviously we were affected by the big snow storm, which caused the store to close early on Saturday and barely open on Sunday, so Pooz and I got to stay home and watch football on Sunday (which sucked due to the crappiness of the Falcons and Steelers). I've got the day off today and don't really have any big plans, but Kate may be coming over later. OK, in the land of weirdness, right after I wrote that sentence, she called, and she will be coming over. Maybe we'll get some fun Buffy watching in.

Oh, I did finally get my Sydney Bristow bust from ABC, which looks pretty good (though it doesn't really look like Jennifer Garner in the face). I'll try to get a picture up of it later on the figures page. Also, I know I keep promising new apartment pictures, and may it's something I'll do today. If not, I do have a three-day weekend coming up, so I promise to have it done by the end of that.

Until next time (probably next Monday)...

Back again

See, I told you I'd have another update tonight. Though this one will be a short one.

I went to Target about 90 minutes ago and finally picked up a new DVD player for my bedroom. I was in the process of moving my entertainment stuff around, and I realized that it was a convient time to replace my Apex DVD player, which I'd been meaning to do for awhile. The Apex AD600-A was a great DVD player in its time (with the hidden menu that turned off region coding and MacroVision) and one of the first to do MP3 playback, but it isn't a progressive-scan player, and it was starting to have troubles reading discs. So I picked up a $45 player from Memorex, which actually looks really nice.

To be honest, my whole setup in my bedroom looks pretty slick right now, and I can definitely see a Mac mini fitting nicely right in there. Plus, with me selling the iMac DV, I'll be freeing up my wireless keyboard and mouse for use there, so I won't have to buy those again.

Hopefully later this week I'll have updated pictures of the apartment up, especially now that my bedroom has been reworked.

While I'm posting an update, let me get my NFL picks out of the way. I'm going with the Steelers and Falcons, though I can honestly see it going completely the other way. I really hope the Steelers pull it out. As for the NFC game, I just really like Mike Vick, but I wouldn't say I'm rooting for either team.

This week's DGOW and Versus are finally up, though if you look closely, you'll notice that one of the Versus polls is the same. That's because after one week of voting, Kate Beckinsale and Sarah Michelle Gellar remain tied. Make your vote heard and help break the tie. Maybe next week we'll have two new polls.

Busy Week

So I had the day off today and meant to get an update up sooner, especially since I haven't had one in the last week, But instead I got lazy and watched "Buffy" and played video games. Actually, in the past week, I managed to watch all of season 1 of "Buffy" and I liked it enough that I'm now onto season 2, which I bought on Saturday.

I played a bunch of "NFL Street 2" today also, and I really like how good my character is now. I'm at the point where I can singularly dominate games on offense and pretty much do what I want on defense. I even managed to win the last "Crush the Carrier" event I played, which was a major accomplishement, since I hadn't won one of those yet. Still, I'm suprised at how repetative the "Own the City" mode is, since it is supposed to be the major new feature of the game (besides wall moves, which still haven't gotten old for me).

As for what happened last week, well, let's start with Tuesday, which was the Macworld Keynote day. If you haven't been to Apple's website since then, I suggest you check out all the cool new stuff as soon as possible. I know for a fact I'm getting both a Mac mini and an iPod shuffle as soon as I can. I even put one of my iMac DVs up for auction on eBay, hoping to defray some of the costs of the Mac mini, since I'm also still trying to get out of debt.

Wednesday I went out to dinner with Vanessa and we had a really great time, just talking about movies and other stuff. We have a whole lot in common, and we're probably gonna go out again sometime this week. Then maybe when Lauren comes back from the four of us will all go out.

Friday I went to see "Elektra" with Kate and Aisha, and that was a huge mistake. It's easily the worst movie I've seen this year (though technically, it's also the best movie I've seen this year, since I've only seen one movie, but "Eletrka" isn't getting off on a technicality). Jennifer Garner was fine in the movie and the fight scenes weren't bad, but the plot was awful (and almost non-existent) and the characters other than Elektra herself were just garbage. Seriously, thank God for "Alias" otherwise Jennifer Garner might not have much of a career left.

That's all for now. I'll probably have another update tonight, with a new DGOW and versus polls. Then I'll try to update again before next Monday. Really, I swear.

Sports, sports and more sports (and some not sports)

OK, we've got a lot to cover today, so let's get right to it.

•I went 2-2 in my NFL picks this weekend, which somehow never made it to the site. I correctly nailed the mild upset by the Rams over the Seahawks, and obviously the Colts over the Broncos. I was actually very surprised by the Jets and the Vikings.

•Randy Moss's touchdown celebration may not have been the brightest or classiest thing to do, but it wasn't the end of civilization as we know it, like Joe Buck and the entire ESPN crew made it out to be. Buck immediately ranted about it -- the same Joe Buck that appears in Budweiser's "Leon" commercials, mind you -- and ESPN refused to show it. Come on guys, it was childish, but no worse than Joe Horn's cell phone thing from last year.

•Packers suck. I tell Todd this on a daily basis, and now it's actually true. They went 4-5 at home this year, and lost a first round home playoff game for the second time in three years. Maybe now Brett Favre can retire and we can stop hearing how he's the best man ever to grace the Earth with his presence. Seriously, if I have to read one more "Brett Favre has overcome so much and he just loves to play the game and he has so much fun out there" story, I'm gonna puke. Or kill Peter King (who I love reading when he's not writing about Favre).

•I liked the Mets signing of Pedro Martinez. I love their signing of Carlos Beltran. I hope they don't waste their time signing Carlos Delgado or trading for Sammy Sosa. They're both too old and not that good anymore.

•LeBron James deserves serious consideration for MVP. Sure, I'm biased (as the former publisher of LeBronJamesNews.com, I may be more of a fan than most people) but his numbers are incredible and he's taken a team that otherwise would be contending for a top-three draft pick and taken them to the second-best record in the East. If that's not MVP caliber, then I don't know what is.

•The Steelers will win the Super Bowl. Every other team in the playoffs has some kind of problem. Hell, I could actually see every home team but the Steelers losing in this round (in fact, that's exactly how DJ picked them over at SportsPickle, but he's no Jimmy the Greek). And if the Steelers do win the Super Bowl, Ben Roethlisberger should retire. Seriously. He'll be 16-0 as a starter, he'll have won a Super Bowl, and he'll probably be Super Bowl MVP if they do win (since the media votes on the award, and most members of the media are retarded sheep). He could live off autograph signings and public speaking appearances the rest of his life. Think about it; what company wouldn't pay at least $100,000 for a motivational speech to its employees by an undefeated Super Bowl champion? He'd be like Football Jesus. Then, in 10 years, he could come back like Roy Hobbs and people would think he was some kind of God or something.

That just about wraps up Adam's weekly opinions on the world of sports. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

If you look to your left, you'll notice I picked up "Buffy Season 1" on DVD. I never really got into the show when it aired on The WB, even though I'm a huge "Charmed" fan. Maybe I only had room for one teen drama about supernatural hotties, but I figured with Best Buy selling Season 1 for 50 % off, I'd give it a shot. I've only watched one episode so far, but I'll try to get through the whole season and judge it at that point. If I like it enough, I may buy more of them.

Lauren and Vanessa came over again on Saturday and Moore and I spent some time hanging out with them. It was an enjoyable evening, and it was nice to have people to talk to other than just Moore and Pooz (not that I don't enjoy talking to Moore and Pooz, it's just nice to occassionally talk with other people... you know what I mean...). I talked to Vanessa again yesterday and we're going to hang out on Wednesday and probably go see "Elektra." It'll be nice not to have to go see it by myself, since Moore and Pooz refuse to see it. I actually don't think it'll be that bad.

Oh, thought I'd mention that my camera ended up selling for just about the same amount my new camera cost me, which was good, because it ends up being nearly a wash. Plus, I upgraded to more megapixels and a much lighter camera, which I've been taking advantage of. Eventually, I'll try to post some pictures on here, once I take any actually worth posting. I do plan on re-shooting the apartment photos, now that we've added some more things and I've changed my room a little bit.

Last, but not least, we're on to round 2 in the Versus poll tournament. Lindsay Lohan did pull out a last minute victory in last week's final poll (proving my Anna Paquin-Princeton analogy was spot on). Also, I added the ESPN2 HD calendar to the iCal section. I'm going to keep that updated, even though Cox doesn't actually offer ESPN2 HD here yet. All in due time (though I'm starting to get impatient for my WTNH-HD, especially now that "Alias" is back on.)

Until next time...

Alias is back...

Oh man, "Alias" was just so amazing last night. Seriously, I think it might have been the best episode since the first season. At the least, it was better than any episode since the Super Bowl special of Season 2, and set the table for Season 4 to be much, much better than the mediocre Season 3.

If you're reading my site, you either don't watch "Alias" or you've already seen the episode, but if you do watch and haven't seen it, consider this your SPOILER WARNING!!!!

I'm very happy with the development of an SD-6-like group within the CIA, mostly because it brings the key players from the first season back together in an environment where they can go on more Season 1-like missions. The missions from last season were pretty lame, and made the show less interesting to people like me, who fell in love with it during the first season. Also, getting Dixon back in the field is a huge improvement, because you get a better rapport between him and Sydney.

Of course, the biggest development was the revelation of the Season 3 cliffhanger. I'm actually glad Abrams killed off Irina Derevko, because it was pretty obvious Lena Olin wasn't ever coming back to the show, and having that hanging over Season 3 was pretty shitty. Plus, making it into a relationship breaker, then builder, between Jack and Sydney made it all worthwhile. Of course, having the whole thing happen at the end with Nadia was just stupid. I'm a frequent visitor to the "Charmed" section of TWOP, and as Demian, the recapper for that show, says frequently and sarcastically "keeping secrets from each other has always worked so well for us in the past." That same line applies to "Alias." At no point in the history of the show has keeping a secret from a loved one ended up being a good idea. Ever. So why would this be different. No idea. Stupid Sydney, stupid.

In non -"Alias" news, we're less than a week away from the Macworld Expo. which is always super awesome. Just another one of those great days to work for Apple (for those of you looking for a more specific list of great days to work for Apple, they're the days that end in "y"). I am working that day, as well as the next two days, but I do have Sunday off, which is when I finally hope to get around to updating the DGOW archives with all the images I currently have. After I add these next 94 to my library, I'll have well over 900 total photos. Yeah, that's a lot of desktop pictures.

Oh, I should also mention that as of the time I'm posting this, my camera only has an hour left to go on eBay. So if you're really desperate for a piece of Adam memorabilia, go bid now. Then come back here and vote in the Versus poll or download the DGOW or something.

Enjoying Life

So I had to work from 11-8 today, and I actually didn't mind it so much. My mind seems much more at ease since I started meditating, and I'm able to let little problems just roll off my back. Of course, it's only been a few days so far, so let's see how things go in the long term. Still, for the first time in a long time, I'm optimistic.

Speaking of good things, I actually went 10-6 in my NFL picks yesterday, my best week of the year. And I was so close to 12-4, with an OT loss by the Jets and a last-second loss by the Cowboys. I can't complain though, especially because my Redskins won and actually looked pretty decent in doing so. Hopefully next year Patrick Ramsey will mature, Joe Gibbs will develop his offense a little more, and the defense will keep doing the things it has been doing. And maybe next year I'll manage to make picks every week.

I have another day off tomorrow, and I'm going to head over to my house to visit my parents, who just got back from their holiday cruise. Yesterday, I spent some time hanging out at the apartment with Pooz, Dave and his girlfriend Lauren and some of her friends (Megan, Vanessa, and Raquel for those of you scoring at home, and if you are scoring my blog at home, you really need to get a life -- and explain your scoring system to me, because I can't imagine how that would work. Are points issued? And can I count those points in the BlackOps Standings, which are woefully out of date as it is? But I really, really, really digress.)

Oh, I also somehow have forgot to mention in my last three updates that I bought a new digital camera. It's the Casio Exilim EX-Z4, which is a 4-megapixel camera. I picked it up for a nice price, and now my CoolPix 995 is on eBay. It served me well for the past couple of years, but it's just too big to carry anywhere on a regular basis. Hopefully with the new camera, I'll be posting pictures on here on a regular basis.

And finally, I should mention that this week's "Versus" poll is the final poll of the first round in my little tournament of 64, with Lindsay Lohan the obvious No. 1 seed versus Anna Paquin's plucky 16. Paquin may be the Princeton of DGOW 16 seeds, but I'm not sure that's going to be enough against Lohan, who, while not a UCLA, may at least be a Duke (and for those of you who don't get sports references, let me make it real easy for you: Lohan=Very, Very, Very Good; Paquin=Good, but not on the same level).

Until next time, may peace and happiness follow you for all your days...

Relaxed...

So it's 2005, and so far, it doesn't seem much different from 2004. Of course, it's been about 36 hours, so I don't really have much to go on, especially because I worked yesterday.

Actually, I've started taking time out of each day to just sit in my room surrounded by candles, listening to peaceful music and letting go of my stress. Thus far, it does seem to be working, as I feel better than I have in months. Last night I felt more relaxed than I have in a long time, and I even slept well, which is very rare for me. Of course, my iPod comes in very handy for this, as I can turn up the music and drown out everything else in the apartment without disturbing my roommates or my neighbors.

Today I have the day off and I get to sit around and watch an entire day of NFL games, with all 32 teams in action. I even considered moving my LCD TV into the living room to watch multiple games at once, but I'm just going to stick to the single TV and flip back and forth as needed. Oh, and I'm also going to make picks (home teams in CAPS):

•WASHINGTON over Minnesota
•TENNESSEE over Detroit
•NY Jets over ST. LOUIS
•Cincinnati over PHILADELPHIA
•NEW ENGLAND over San Francisco
•HOUSTON over Cleveland
•Green Bay over CHICAGO
•CAROLINA over New Orleans
•Pittsburgh over BUFFALO
•BALTIMORE over Miami
•Atlanta over SEATTLE
•ARIZONA over Tampa Bay
•SAN DIEGO over Kansas City
•Jacksonville over OAKLAND
•Indianapolis over DENVER
•Dallas over NY GIANTS

Next week the playoffs start, and I'll try to have picks every week, though with my track record of updating the site, I'm not guaranteeing anything.

Oh, an update on the webcam. We moved it on top of the TV so it's more central in the living room, plus nothing's blocking it. Also, our IP has managed to remain static since my last posting, so it's been up for about a week now. Maybe you tuned in for what were surely entertaining antics during the New Year's party.

Don't forget to vote in the Versus polls, because I do hope to have new ones up tomorrow, in addition to a new DGOW. I'm also going to update the file that lists all the Desktop Girls and how many photos I have of each. Within the next month, I'll also update the DGOW archives to include the newest photos I have of the past DGOW. Don't forget, if you have any requests, just e-mail me.