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So, for folks who might have thought that I’d forgotten to blog today, nope. Squeaking in under the deadline with this one…

Today marks a half a year that I’ve blogged at least a post a day. Be it all me, or some friendly surrogates, I’ve gotten in at least a sentence or a thought a day. And its good for the writer to do that.

For my first year of having this site, I wanted to do that. And the more and more I thought about it, and the more I realized a lot of the uncertainties and days/times that I might not be able to blog, well, the more I thought about how maybe a half a year was good enough for posting once a day.

As a whole, we’ll see if I keep up with getting in a post a day. I’m going to certainly try to when I have something to say, but I think it lessens the really good deep thoughts that I have when I post the quick lame ones that I’m just doing for the sake of blogging.

But, as a whole, blogging is just about writing what you feel like in your space, as you feel it. We’ll just have to see what I feel…

Remember Ask Jeeves? The search engine where you’d post your search queries as questions? Well, a classmate of mine showed me something similar to that…

ChaCha.com

What it is, is the website of a really unique cell phone service. Running around and have a question? Text your question to 242242 (or “ChaCha”) and in the next few minutes or so, you’ll get a reply back from a real person. Answers change all the time, depending on who’s answering, so you can answer one question and get different answers if its opinion based, but if its factual, well, its a good start.

Forgot who won Superbowl XIV? Ask ChaCha.
Need to know the airborne speed of an unladen swallow? Ask ChaCha.
And if you need a magic 8-ball style answer? Just ask ChaCha.

I’d say that the possibilities are endless. Its just like Googling yourself. Ever do that?

With school ending only a few weeks away, I’ve been trying to start reading more when I’m not working on the job hunt (more on all of that on Monday, I think, if I feel like talking about it). And right now, I’m in the midst of Lewis Black’s Me of Little Faith with Keith Olbermann’s Truth and Consequences lined up right afterwards, followed by Maggie Jackson’s Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. From there? We’ll see what crosses my hands.

And with that, I’ll ask another question, as I’ve come akin to do on Saturdays:

What are you currently reading nowadays?

And that reminds me… I need to put a Last.FM widgit somewhere on my page, and maybe I’ll add a “now reading” one too…

That I’m one paper and presentation and exam away from graduation. That is all… for now.

This is the first night in a long time that I’ve actually pulled an “all nighter.” Not with much purpose or much completed from it, I found it a bit interesting all over again. After working as a RHAP for as long as I did and having the all nighter a second part of my nature, to force myself to pull it off now was almost too much for me.

I guess that’s what happens when you get a little older, you can’t do what you used to.

Guess I should get my wonderful wife up and get her out the door for work (on her Birthday, of all days), and get myself some sleep… Sweet sweet sleep…

Seeing Goob posted this on his website after my post on HeyItsFree last night, I figure its only fair that I post it here… This is via ChaCha.com and my friend Shaynon:

…and lastly, I asked
“What is AdamJCohen.com”?
They said, AdamJCohen.com is a political blog that talks about current issues facing the country”.

Really now, ChaCha? Next time someone asks, you should tell them this: “Adam J. Cohen is a guitarist/songwriter who has a blog that he never or rarely talks about his music or any music in…”

I should probably fix that too and actually start talking about music some more… Ah well…

And my thanks to Amrah for showing me ChaCha… I’ll write more about it for my Sunday Share this week…

As I was watching MSNBC today, they were discussing Barack Obama and how he is having issues with the Muslim community because of his lack of visits and appearances with them, as well as the recent campaign mixup where two women were moved from sitting behind him at a rally because of their head scarves and possibility of the perceptions of seeing them with him.

And that’s what it’s all about. Because of the lovely memo going around about Obama being some sort of Muslim.

But, here’s where my quandry comes in…

If Obama is a Muslim, why is there such a problem with this man “Reverend Wright?” I mean, he’s only the man’s pastor who married him, presided over the church he went to, christened his children, and was a deep and dear former friend.

A Muslim with a Christian pastor… That’s a new one to me.

Read more

George Carlin has passed away at the age of 71…

And if you don’t like my title? Fuck off…

The other day while reading my usual icanhascheezburger.com, they posted a link that I scoffed at originally. It was a site that supposedly was a more political version without lolcats. And then, I went over and read it and had a smile…

Yes, my friends. A site that takes the best of lolcats and superimposes it on politics. PunditKitchen.com, which I readily linked for you on the picture.

Now, while I’d like to talk more? I have a class to head to. Back on Monday to talk about campaign public finance and all of that fun stuff. Or maybe, I’ll wait till Tuesday, as it is, just because MSNBC calls every Tuesday Super Tuesday from now till the election…

Morning friends… I type this one out as I walk to campus for mediation training- something I opted to do today and tomorrow. I find it funny, though. See, any day of the week that my alarm goes off at 6:18 AM and I’ll hit snooze a few times before finally dragging my ass out of bed around 7. Today? The title says it all…

I keep looking up at my calendar in disbelief… As of now, I have three weeks of school left. Well, three weeks of undergrad education left, and then I’m done. And then after another three weeks, I’ll be walking across a stage in a cap and gown, accepting a diploma, and then doing the same thing that afternoon for another diploma. One after the other.

I’ve been going to UCF for about 7 years now. My first day was actually August 20, 2001, which coincided with my sister’s 14th birthday. And at this point, I was an engineering major. I had planned to take calculus and chemistry and a bunch of other classes. As folks know, calculus and chemistry didn’t sit well with me that semester, and after failing both, I switched my major to English in Spring 2002. I started taking a few education classes in the Fall of 2002, and continued with that for a short while. And just as I neared graduation, I added an official minor in General Business. After this, I changed that minor to a second major in Accounting, and then a year later after failing half of the classes and doing mediocre in the other half of them, I was kicked out of the accounting school. Then, in Fall 2007, I switched that over to a Management degree, and now three semesters of that track, and I’m finally able to walk.

And on August 2nd, I’ll be walking twice: English Creative Writing and Human Resources Management.

It took me damn well long enough to get here, and I’m going to relish the moments as I can.

Of course, I still have three more weeks of Capstone, but that’s just an aside…

With a title like that, you wouldn’t expect a post about my cell phone of all things, eh?

Last night I had one of my last two finals of my undergrad collegiate career. Cool, huh? Well, to get to campus I usually use the shuttle service that’s provided for some of the off-campus areas. Instead, I decided that I’d walk to campus.

Now why would I do that, and why would I leave at 3pm? Well, this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be taking a First Time Mediation Training through the UCF Dispute Resolution Services–two day seminar from 8:30a-5p. I thought it’d be nice to add to my resumé, as well as just in general it’d be good to undergo before even wanting to be a manager one of these years, as I’d like to eventually be able to attain.

So I leave home and along my way while I’m on an open stretch of road, it starts to rain with heavier drops. Fairly spaced out, but still heavy enough for me to start getting wet. And then, it really picked up.

For folks who aren’t from Florida, you might not understand the idea of “sideways rain.” We see it all the time over summer. Its that really fragrant and fresh rain with the heavier drops that instead of normal rain that seems to fall from a 90 or 75 degree angle (i.e. straight down, slightly from the side), you’re talking more like a 40 degree angle. And that’s what I faced.

With no shelter to even duck by or behind, I was drenched. My jean shorts were soaked through to my boxers, and my shirt was a wet mass that I was wearing that started to droop. I was thankful that my bookbag was waterproof, or so I thought, but more on that in a bit…

But in my pants, I had my cell phone, wallet, keys, pens: the usual for me. And my phone seemed alright, and I got to the parking garage and flipped open my phone and read the text that Sarah had sent me. I had made it to campus in about 30 minutes. Not bad.

Not bad? No, my phone got it bad. I went to reply to my wife’s message and my phone started freaking out as if I was adding spaces right after letters. Just horrible. It’s 3:30, I’m soaking wet, my phone is acting up, and my final is at 6. Things weren’t looking good for me.

I started looking at my phone (a Samsung m510) better. I noticed that it was primarily a few buttons that seemed affected: 3, 6, 9, #, and “Back.” Now, while that might not seem too bad, well, Sarah’s phone number was saved to speed dial on 9, and I text message a lot and that means that I’d have issues with: d, e, f, m, n, o, w, x, y, z, and “space.” Ten out of twenty-six characters. Damnit.

I couldn’t turn my phone off right away. I left it on and brought it to a bathroom and tried to use hand dryers to dry it out a bit. It mostly started to seem like it cleared up. So I called up Sprint’s customer service because *2 wasn’t affected. The gentleman I got was extremely helpful and gave me the number that I’d need to call to do a warranty replacement. Of course, that’s $50 to do that, which sucks, but still not bad. Of course, I have to run this by Sarah.

Now, its about 4ish at this point, and its still a bit frustrating and it seems to get better. If I push the 3, 6, or 9, it automatically adds a # after it. So texting is out of the question. Seriously, have you ever tried to text without using 5/13ths of the alphabet? Yeah, doesn’t really work all that well. I was able to get off “Call me” from the preset messages in one text, and then “ASAP” to Sarah, but because of the way my phone was acting up, it turned out more like–and I kid you not because I’m transcribing this from my sent messages–”Asap pjfox e o-w fox dozenyfowemen-yene my book for youfox.” Mr. Bush and Homeland Security: I swear to you that its not an encoded message and that it has no meaning. I may be critical of my government, but I’m no terrorist.

Needless to say, I finally get ahold of Sarah and she says to just wait it out and see what happens. I’d say that I agree with this, but if you know me? You know I’m addicted to my phone and I do almost everything on or with it. But seeing I can go to recent calls and access her number to call her, and any/all calls that I need to make, I can always use my GrandCentral account as a dial interface to make my calls. And because I can still receive calls, its not too bad. I could always use my wireless backup to add new numbers to the phonebook to make calls if I need to as well.

Still, I’m frustrated.

So at about 6:30 after calling Sarah after my final, I turn my phone off and leave it off. When we get home around 7 after getting dinner, I take out the battery and the memory card and let it sit on a paper towel. I powered it on last night and it seemed to be doing a little better, but still messed up. I then turned it off and re-divided up the pieces.

This morning, I turned on my phone and I crossed my fingers… And honestly?

It works.

Now, I’m not going to be like “omg, perfect like before!” I do notice that there are some differences. For one, the # key seems to falter 1 out of 7 times or so, give or take. Meaning when I’m typing messages, sometimes it doesn’t recognize when I push space all of the time. And there’s one other problem. The backlight for the keypad? Is dead. So there’s a little more battery saving right there…

All in all? I think I lucked out on this one. But if I ever text you and I’m missing a space? Yeah, now you know…

I thought I’d share something that I “just found out” now.

First off, I upgraded to Firefox 3, and I’d recommend the same. Tim, when you read this, I know we were just talking about it tonight and why I wasn’t going to, but I figured I might as well try it out. It seems mildly faster, but only negligibly so, which is nice.

Needless to say, if anyone uses GMail and has been trying to setup their “mailto: redirects” in Firefox 3, I found this nifty little guide which really helped out with that info.

Just thought I’d share that little tidbit for anyone who might be looking for it…

Oh, and for people wondering why this is in “Webmaster Woes,” I’ve just been using that as my all purpose computer one…

I’m finding myself looking forward to final exams.

I’ve got one tonight and one in 3 weeks, but because its at the end of the line? Well, I think that has something to do with it…

Is one that many of my friends have heard me rant about before, but because it happened in a presentation last night, well, I felt it was necessary for me to repeat.

Wikipedia.

I’m not some fabulous writer or some amazing researcher, but I can tell you one thing: if you are writing ANYTHING at all, NEVER EVER EVER cite Wikipedia as a reference.

Sure, I know that more often than not when I mention someone or something that I link to Wikipedia here. I think, though, for the basic blogging world, its not too bad to run with and have a comment or two or quickly reference back. Why? Well, if I didn’t know what was what and I read it on a blog? My first instinct is to either Google it or search for it on Wikipedia. So why not just save the work?

Yet, in a research paper? Its completely inappropriate. When you’re researching, the facts have to be accurate, sure, and reputable. People think that Wikipedia is some sort of ultimate online encyclopedia. The issue there, is that its user editable and anyone can write in it or edit it as they’d like. Sure, its moderated, but its not perfectly seamless. I have three examples for you on this one.

1) There’s a classic incident where an individual had written some false information about the Kennedy assassination on a writer’s wikipedia entry. The man’s reputation was drug to the dirt.

2) This past week right after Tim Russert’s passing, a ton of edits were done to his page by people trying to defame him for one reason or another. I witnessed one of them myself when I refreshed the page and it redirected me to this article, with the header “Tim Russert.” I’m sorry, not funny.

3) I was ranting about this same thing and an acquaintance of mine told me that they knew someone who quoted Abraham Lincoln as being “the first black president” because they found it on Wikipedia. Someone had edited the article and put that in and the person happened to find the article after the edit and use it for their paper.

The examples just seem to go on-and-on about issues in reliability and accuracy, but the truth is in Wikipedia’s own words on their reliability. They acknowledge that there is a lot of accuracy in the articles, but that there might be some issues. A good way to look at it is this editorial article from The Guardian from a few years back. While 3 years old, it has the right idea.

The right idea? Use Wikipedia as a springboard. In the two groups that I’m in this semester, that’s exactly what I told my teammates: Cite Wikipedia and we’ll have problems. The honest to goodness best way to use Wikipedia is just to get a general idea of the information and then from there, go to the sources of the article. Its a great way to find what you’re looking for. Think of it like a Google search giving you some prose response, but to cite Wikipedia?

I’m sorry but in my mind, that’s not a good idea. Anyone could go in and switch up a number or two here or there and give you a completely false figure. Change a few “billions” to “millions” and move around decimal points and some scientific articles are worth nothing. Switch up a few names and you change everything.

The whole truth of the matter is simple: its only as good as the information that it cites or the sources it comes from. So maybe, why not just go to the sources?

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About The Site


Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!

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