When we were moving and packing up all of the boxes, I found something that I remember I used to have hanging on the wall near my computer. It was some caligraphy that an ex-girlfriend of mine made for me for a monthly anniversary. Sure, usually when you break up you throw everything away or box it away, but long after hers and my breakup, I kept it on my wall and subsequentially hung it on future walls. But Allison was an artist, and still is, and I have a lot of respect for her and her work.

Anyways, I kept it because it wasn’t just random caligraphy, it was a quote that I could be heard often saying, and I had forgotten it.

While I boxed it back up, the words I used to say stuck with me all over again…

“There are two kinds of people in this world -
Those who continue to search for themselves as they grow and change,
and those who give up and become the mask they wear…
…keep searching…“

I gave up for a while, I think. I know. And its time that I throw away that mask and start searching again…

Well, I had heard about WP2.5 coming out the other day from my friend Mel, and now? Here it is.

Matter of fact, I like it, despite the fact that the plug-in for crossposting to my LJ doesn’t work. I’ll have to figure that one out soon enough, though. No loss there.

I can say this, though, on the occasion of the second time I’ve upgraded WordPress (the first time being about a month back)? Much easier than I would have anticipated. And it seems to get easier each and every time… And Goob? Looks like I beat you to it too… :D

So tomorrow sometime amidst everything else I’ll be doing? I’ll be working on a way to see about getting my LJ crossposting working again… If I feel like it…

And two hours later… as you can see, I figured out the LJ-crossposting… There was a nice little fix that I found via a quick Google search… Now, you’ll no longer be deprived of my posts, my LJ friends. Not that you cared, but still…

The other day, I stumbled across what might be one of the coolest pieces of furniture around: a drum table.

Essentially, its a modular table that you can change out the drums in it. It functions as a normal table, but you can drum on it, as shown in the video above, or get together with friends to beat on it and make fun beats. The possibilities are almost endless… And its not the only table that MusicalFurnishings.com has. They make xylaphone style tables/chests/benches/chairs. Very creative ideas…

I’ve had a few ideas that I’ll be talking about soon here that you’ll be coming across soon, but I’d like to make today’s post a little different, seeing I’m going to have some downtime this next week to really think about writing here more.

Yup, now that our move is said and done, things are a little quieter. Not too much quieter, but mildly so. And in the upcoming week or two, I’m going to talk about…

The struggles of finding a place to sublease

Some of the new albums I’ve come across–some new to me, some new in general–like: Gnarls Barkley, Panic at the Disco, REM, The Raconteurs, and Joe Hedges

My presentation from my ethics class on March 26th, this is a good one, seriously

Summer 2008 as my last semester at UCF

My campus restaurant history

More of my liberal banter, as you’d well expect…

I think that covers most of what I’ve been thinking about, but I’m open to some suggestions from folks who have heard snippets of rants here or there that I haven’t fleshed out… So for this Saturday, consider this more filler than anything else, but just looking for some input if there’s been an entry you’ve been looking for or expecting me to rant on that I haven’t yet…

Thanks folks, and will see you tomorrow with my third installment of a Sunday Share…

With one of my 5 classes I’m in being completely online, I find myself behind a computer a lot for homework. There’s been an on-going issue in this course with people missing quizzes. Today’s quiz actually closed at 1am this morning because it was open till March 28, 2008 at 12:59am. Usually, however, they close at midnight, meaning it would have closed on March 27, 2008 at 11:59pm.

So, very sadly when I opened my course’s e-mail program inside, I have this message from a fellow classmate:

Subject: Quiz 7
Sent: March 28, 2008 9:07 AM
From: ******* ******
To: All Section Instructors
CC: All Students

Quiz 7 states it’s over march 28 by 12:59 am but it won’t let me take it. It showing as if I missed it or something, but it still within the deadline. Can you please help

I feel sorry for her… Not because she missed the quiz but because she can’t tell time.

And this isn’t the first time I’ve received a stupid e-mail in this class… Nope. There have been a few deadline changes like that, and people who had waited to the last minute or hadn’t looked at the time on the day have sent out other messages like that. And each and every time, they complain and whine on the message board about how it should be reopened because they missed it. The fact of the matter is? In a number of this teacher’s lectures as well as on the board itself, they’ve stated that they cannot reopen ANYTHING at all, because it would remove everyone else’s grades from the system. So, we get down to the ethics of “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one/few.” And even still, because you’re the one/few, you feel screwed.

But hey, no use crying about it online. You’re better off drowning your sorrows with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. It understands you…

I know I only barely covered this sucker yesterday, but with how I felt this morning and how I feel now? It’s only fitting to cover it again…

In the span of the last 24 or so hours, I’ve had that whole Jones Energy 4-pack that I talked about. Add to that two RockStar Juiced energy drinks, a sugar-free Amp Tall-Boy, and a RockStar Mocha energy drink this morning… While that might seem like a lot, I’ve constantly been one who drinks a large amount of caffeine with no real effect. In high school and other times growing up, I was the guy who’d have a whole pot of coffee with my breakfast and a large homemade latte for my lunch. A diet coke or two into that equation and I was golden.

And for me with caffeine? You really don’t notice much of an effect with me. Or, I like to hope you don’t. On Thursdays, I feel sorry for my evening group because I have so much caffeine earlier in the day that when it rolls time later for class? I’m more sardonic and more of an asshole than ever. Its not my fault, its the caffeine withdrawal.

Even still, this morning before I had the RockStar Mocha, I needed to drink as much water as I could. I could tell I was dehydrated from all of the extra caffeine in my system. As I get older, I have to deal with that more and more. Sad sad side effect…

I’m still feeling a little caffinated and out of it. Its a long slow road back to me, and I’m working on it… I’ll probably wake up tomorrow morning and feel a little better… I can only hope… Thankfully when I’m done with some homework tonight? I’ll be good to go…

Ever buy one of the tall boy cans of this or that energy drink and read the back label where it says “Don’t consumer more than 3 cans a day, not for people who are sensitive to caffeine” ?

Last night, I picked up a 4 pack of Jones Energy when I was at Wal*Mart where I used to work. Usually, I’ll pick up the Steven Segal Energy Drinks or the Rip It ones, just because they’re a buck each. If I’m going to drink something with caffeine in it, I don’t want to spend $2-3 a can, I’ll spend only a buck a can and that’s that. Why? What’s the point. You don’t get much more caffeine or flavor for the other ones. And most of them have the same amount of caffeine in them. And speaking of that, the Rip Its have 200mg of caffeine per can. As much as a NoDoze.

So I’m sitting here and reading the Jones Energy drink and it says to not drink more than 2 of them a day. So I’m thinking that it probably has a good amount of caffeine in it, seeing the RockStars say limit yourself to 3 and they have 160mg of caffeine roughly. And me? I’ve had 5-6 Rip Its in the span of about 9 hours, so I know how they work. But then again, my Thursdays consist of grabbing a Tall Boy then later having a large coffee with a double shot of espresso in it, so caffeine is caffeine to me. Boosts me to normal for a bit, then I crash hard and become a cynical asshole. Not that I’m not already halfway there, but it just adds to it a bit.

I researched it online and what do I find? One 16oz can of Jones Energy has only 100mg of caffeine. Only half of what I’m used to having in a Rip It, and about 2/3rds of every other energy drink on the market. And they tell you to only drink 2 a day?

Yeah, if I drink three, its really going to affect me that much… About the same as drinking 2 RockStars, I imagine.

That’s why I’m on the third one of my 4 pack now, and I’ll have finished the 4th one before 24 hours have passed. This is like the old days of writing papers: an energy drink and a bowl of ramen. Can’t beat that in my world…

So I open up my websites this morning and I read my news and I come across this:
Don’t discount Gore-led ticket - Source: TC Palms

Gore? I mean, seriously, Gore? Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was the man for the job in 2000, but to read this again now in 2008 after a long locked battle between Obama and Clinton? I’m not pleased at all. I’ve heard multiple talks of a brokered convention, and it seriously makes me sad as a complete usurption of the democratic process. I guess all we can really tell is whatever will happen soon enough.

Add to that this fun one:
Electoral College votes could help choose Democratic nominee, Clinton supporter asserts - Source: Herald Tribune

Just digging for a reason to stay here is all I see. I’m just waiting for April 22nd and waiting for something to happen and for there to be a change… This Democratic party in-fighting isn’t wearing well on Democrats in general.

Finally, forget national polls, it makes me even more sad that in their brackets, McCain is beating Obama: 33-15 to 32-16.

As you read this, I’m probably immersed in school work and just took a second to hit “publish” from my cell phone. But believe me, when I come back tomorrow, I’ll give full updates on the move and soon you’ll get all of the rants from me about how subleasing can be a pain and the stupid things I encountered…

Before even starting the move, I made a list of DVDs and CDs that I’ve been selling online through LiveJournal on some communities that I’m on there. We’re talking a list of over 140 albums that I’ve all digitized and no longer need or care for the CDs. Nope, don’t need the liner notes, and why the heck do I need to keep Boyz II Men’s II sitting around?

And then I started to think about how we all do that nowadays. Really, why do we need to worry about buying all of these CDs? Think of all of the space that they take up. Heck, I have almost 100 albums on my 4 gig iPod nano alone (just about 90, if you’re really caring), and if I were to carry that many CDs with me daily, I’d throw my back out. Have you ever stacked up that many CDs? You’re talking about a five to six foot tall stack of CDs.

So what’s really going to happen? Are we ever going to get rid of CDs? Where the hell am I going with this post? Nowhere. I’m sad because I spent $9-13 per CD and I’m reselling them for about $4 each. Considering I’ve named about 140 albums there? That means I’ve lost between $5-9 per CD. Over $500 that I spent on music that while I enjoyed it, in the long term I’ve lost the money on it.

I guess now that I realize it, here’s where my point is: the record industry tells us that we’re to buy more music and support all of these artists. I’d love to do just that, honestly I would. But I don’t have $500 to just throw away like that, and I shouldn’t have even done that in the first place.

And they wonder why folks download…

First of all, to all of the well wishers throughout Sarah’s and my move–via either text message, AIM to my cell, MySpace, or Facebook–thank you. Things went smoothly, for the most part.

The full story, however, involves me cutting myself on two different metal objects and profusely bleeding the second time to the point of feeling like I was going to faint; willingly riding in the trunk of a moving car; and hanging out with some Russians. I’ll tell the full story later, but seeing its 3am, its well time for me to sleep, I’d say.

I did want to apologize for lack of formatting in my prior entries because something messed up that I have no idea what it was. When/if I ever figure it out? I’ll let you know… Also, because I noticed a lot of Splogs taking my feed, well, I followed my friend Mel’s advice… So enjoy the nice little copyright information at the bottom of your feed now… Thanks for understanding.

Alright, I’ve used enough ellipses in these past few sentences that I should give myself and my period key a rest… I’ll be back to my usual posting later today… Unless I drown myself in the sorrows of my homework because Duke lost, completely screwing up my bracket…

For this sunday’s share, I’d like to double share something…

1) ImprovEverwhere.com Recently this blog/site/group came to my attention because of a VSL e-mail I got about their latest mission. You can watch a video of it here:

Cool, right? Go read about it on their site now if you haven’t already. Well, that’s only one of their many “stunts” that they’ve pulled off… With “No Pants Day,” “Greatest Gig Ever,” and “Fake U2″ amidst many others, the planning and execution of these are beautiful. Just all around beautiful. Their site is a good “waste of time” and has some good laughs amidst it, if you’ve got the time. I added them to my RSS feed in Newzie, so there’s a good chance this won’t be the only time you hear about them from me…

2) Pop Fiction! on E! Ashton Kutcher’s new show on E! is interesting. Essentially, its a “reverse Punk’d” with the celebrities pranking the paparazzi. The show sets up gossip situations with celebrities in on the jokes, trying to see how to make the paparazzi look stupid with these fake news stories. The most prominent one of all of them so far has been the Paris and her guru story. They also did a David Spade picking up a bride and Eva Longoria and Mario Lopez having an affair. There was also one about Avril Lavigne being pregnant which isn’t true. Needless to say, the concept as a whole is interesting. It seems, though, that they’re mostly low-key stunts to the poitn that they’re not making it too far out of the Hollywood/LA circle. Or at least I know Sarah said she hadn’t seen any of these, and she regularly reads these tabloid things. And I only vaguely saw something about the David Spade and the bride, but that was that. You can catch “Pop Fiction” weekly on E! network, just check your local listings…

Anyways, two interesting links to think about… The new “thing” seems to be how far can we push reality and still be real. I like the idea in the case of ImprovEverywhere, but “Pop Fiction” is only passable with me. I think there’s only so much questioning we can do of what’s out there before just settling in to accept it. We’ll see how it goes, though…

Recently, I read an interesting article on MSNBC.com about Zooey Deschanel. It was mentioning her first album, She & Him - Volume One. Now, folks know that I’m very very picky when it comes to my music, but I figured that I’d give this one a shot. I remembered when she was in Elf and she sung in the movie. For me, it was… interesting. There was a bit of awkward beauty to what she did, and I think that’s the sole thing that really sits well with Deschanel. She has a bit of an awkward perfection to the roles that she sits in. Think her “I’m here, but in a different sort of place” a la Tin Man or what she does in any role that I’ve ever really seen her in. I don’t want to call her a “one note actress,” but she’s typecast for that role often as I’ve seen it.

In listening to the album, well, that doesn’t come across. There’s an interesting enthusiasm that throws back to a late 1960’s early 1970’s folk rock feel. Jangly with beautifully arranged pianos and guitars across the board, the 13 song set comes across beautifully. Its a nice little “background listening” album to just let sit on for a half hour and do whatever you have to do. After my first listen, I’m adding this one to my noteables list so far… Like all albums I listen to, I’ve got to let it sit a few spins to figure out how it really grows on me.

The art of listening to an album… That’s something that folks don’t really understand…

Well folks, this weekend is a bit different of a weekend when it comes to me pre-drafting. As you read this, I’ll be really grumbling over boxes and all of Sarah’s and my worldly possessions, and be somewhere in the process of our first move together. While you might be able to count our first move together as being a year ago when we moved into this apartment? That was more along the lines of two people moving into a place, not moving together.

This time around, its about US and not a HIM and HER. There’s a bit of a different dynamic when you do that. Sarah’s moved each year since when she graduated in 2005. Me? Since 2002, this is only my third move. I lived on campus from 2002 through 2004, then from April 2004 through till March 2007 off campus in Pegasus Landing, and then from then on out in GrandeVille at River Place. Needless to say, it’s not easy. It means two people assigning different values to various things that we’re both not wanting to get rid of, etc. So far, we’ve been good on the packing. Well, Sarah’s been better than I have. I’ve been trying to juggle getting our sublease set, my school work, and then packing coming third.

So as you’re reading this, I’ll be getting to what I hate doing the most. But we’ve already donated three carloads worth of stuff we don’t need to Goodwill, so if you’ve been dying to own a piece of Adam J. Cohen personal memorabilia? In a few weeks you could take me to Goodwill and I’ll tell you what used to be mine. Or, you could just do the easy thing and download some mp3s from my music page. When I’m back with live posts on probably Tuesday? I promise it’ll be good…

I don’t expect to be updating about March Madness every damn day. I’m not that much of a sports nut, but I did want to say that I’ve gone a very poor 9-7 on my first day and first time ever guessing… For random picks, I’m glad that I even got slightly more than half of them right so far…

But, what I’d like to share here is something for people to look at and laugh as they see fit…

Of the three folks in the presidential race, Senator Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a March Madness bracket. Senator Barack Obama has one up on his blog on his site. And Senator John McCain is a sly dog with one on his site that you have to be a registered user to see. How lame is that? I’m not going to be a liberal asshole and suggest that it means something about his view of democracy to require registration (other than the passing snipe of that suggestion here), but who am I to judge because you have to register to comment on my site here…

So, my friend Tim Firks registered under the name George W. Bush with an address at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled out McCain’s picks from his site. With a bit of Photoshop work to change his HTML into a graphical bracket using Obama’s one as the format, Tim has made it able for me to show you side-by-side brackets from the Republican candidate and the Democratic front-runner…

I don’t have any sort of commentary on this one, folks. But, hey, if you’re still undecided, you could use their brackets to decide who you want as the leader of your country. I mean, seriously, shows appropriate foresight or something like that, right?

If only politics really were as simple as basketball brackets…

Its that time of year again when your alma mater matters and you face off in the ultimate fantasy sport that noone cares about but all pretend to know and have something genius about… Yes, my friends, I’m talking about March Madness and the classic bracket picks.

I’ve never really participated in one of these before, so I had no idea what I was doing, seriously. I read a little on some teams, and I said “Ah, fuck it” and picked out some brackets based on what the experts said, what I wanted to see, and just dumb luck. Better than picking them based on their mascots, I guess. I mostly just read this article and figured why not.

Well, why did I do it? Let’s just say that Goob is great at incentives. On HIF, he decided to run a March Madness contest, where the winner got $25. So I added it and just did what I could. That lead to me also join up in the 7M3 board’s group, and then add it on Facebook where I’m in the group that my friend Ben created and my friend Christina is also in.

I figure I’ll be lucky if I get anything right, but right now as I write this up, I’m 2 for 3, and it looks like on the next 3 games that will be finishing, I’ll be ending up maybe going 1 for 3… We’ll see. One upset outta three ain’t too bad, I guess. Hah.

So here’s my completely unblemished bracket without any wins/losses, and when its all said and done? I’ll update with my finished bracket and how bad I end up doing… Still, not bad for just guessing…