Random Musings #4

• 1 day until my last day working at the apartment office
  
• 5 days until Kelly's masters defense
• 6 days until Ghostbusters: The Video Game is released
• 7 days until my last day working at the Indiana Climate Office
• between 9 and 12 days until Kelly and I leave Indiana and return to Pennsylvania
• 23 days until the wedding!
• 30 days until my first Phillies game at Citizen's Bank Park in nearly two years
• 31 days until a trip to Knoebels, where I haven't been since 2005
• 38 days until Ocean City, MD - first time in almost 2 years
• 44 days until Toy Town in Macungie, PA - we will not miss it two years in a row!
• Please let it be football season soon.
• The Phillies will win the NL East in 2009, their third straight division title.
  
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be good, but not quite as good as the first movie.
• I can't wait to go see Up.
• Tuesday is going to be INSANE.
  

Random Musings #3

• 5 days until Penn State football begins
• 10 days until Kelly's birthday
  
• 13 days until the Miami Dolphins take the field
• I would list the number of days until the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars starts but I don't think the premiere has been revealed yet
• The Phillies are wildly inconsistent, both offensively and in terms of success. They can come out one night and post 10 runs and then struggle to notch 3 the next day. They will go on a multiple game winning streak only to lose that many the next week. A little consistency, please. I'd much rather have a team that goes 6-4 every 10 games throughout the course of the year than 8-2 one span and 1-9 the next. This team is better than they are playing now, despite the 3-game winning streak. Who would have thought pitching wouldn't be our problem? And by the way, if a team went 6-4 every 10 games for the entire season, that team would finish the year at (approximately) 97-65. Not too shabby, eh?
• I am so excited for football season to arrive. I know it training camps and such have been going on for close to a month now but I want real games! Penn State starts in less than a week and then the following week the NFL begins. And thus begins the best time of the year. Nothing beats September through January. Football season, October baseball, the start of hockey season and then eventually Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. Enjoy it while it lasts, because soon enough it'll be March.
• I am thoroughly enjoying the iPhone 2.0. Though I didn't get a 3g model, the 2.0 upgrade really adds more possibilities to such an great phone. And from what I am hearing, the 3g phones are having a bunch more problems than the originals. I can't say I have had many problems, other than on launch day of the 2.0 software. The new applications are absolutely wonderful. Though there are many great ones (At Bat, Facebook, PhoneSaber, Pocketpedia, Simplify, Sportacular) I have to single out Shazam. Shazam is so far the greatest iPhone application ever. What does it do, you ask? It helps man solve this age-old question: what was that song just playing on the radio? Shazan will listen to any song and identify it for you by artist, sing title, and album. Plus, it links to YouTube videos and ways to buy the song through iTunes. I have tested an abundance of songs so far and it has nailed everything. And the bets part is the software is free! It cannot detect anyone humming, singing, or live performances but any recorded song it should be able to find. Pure genius.
• I am looking for a second part-time job. Most of you know I have been working at Purdue for just over a year now. Well, I have been employed as a temporary worker (which basically means I don't get benefits). The University only allows someone to be employed as "temporary" for 1 year. My time was up on August 22nd. We asked to have the "temporary" status extended at the same rate I had been going - 30 hours/week - but the request was denied. Human Resources required the Climate Office to hire me with benefits, let me go, or drop my hours below 20/week. My boss wanted to keep me but does not have the necessary funds to pay for the benefits. He dropped me down to 19 hours/week. As a consolation he gave me a hefty raise to try to offset losing 11 hours/week. That's nice and all but I already wasn't saving too much money after rent, food, electric, and gas. When I was working 30 hours/week I didn't feel like adding a second part-time job. Now that I am only working 19 it is a necessity. It'll be nice to have more money but finding another job will be tough. Hopefully something enjoyable turns up. It will only be for about 8-10 months, hopefully.
  

Random Musings #2

• 16 days until Brent, Greg, and Justin visit us in Indiana. Holler.
• 39 days until new Star Wars collectibles
• 46 days until Das Awkscht Fescht (TOY SHOW!)
• 47 days until my fantasy football draft
• 59 days until Star Wars: The Clone Wars is released in theaters
• The Phillies are still good but have been struggling a little recently. After sweeping the Braves in Atlanta, the Phillies won only one game in Florida and St. Louis. The offense is inconsistent, starting pitchers are giving up too many home runs, and Tom Gordon has lost it again. Jamie Moyer is easily the Phillies best pitcher right now. Brett Myers and Cole Hamels are up and down (currently down). For the Phillies to hold onto the NL East and push for the pennant, Myers and Hamels must be consistent. But I'm definitely not complaining about a 41-30 record.
• I'm torn on the iPhone 3g announcement. As much as I want the new version with faster wireless access and GPS (with a cheaper base phone), the charges on AT&T are getting ridiculous. Though the current iteration of the iPhone sold for $399, it is still cheaper in the long run. AT&T will charge $30/month for the cheapest plan on the 3g iPhone ($20/month for original) plus another $5 for 200 text messages (the text messages are included in the $20 price for the original iPhone). You pay less up front but more over the course of your contract. Of course if I had the money I would upgrade ASAP. But I don't. The EDGE network will have to work for me for now.
• Kelly and I went to the Rascal Flatts concert on Saturday. Their performance was amazing. It was my first concert ever and it was a good way to start. Their opening was sweet and they sounded really good live. This was their first stop on their tour this year so that's cool. We had a bit of an altercation with some rude people at the beginning which kind of ruined the first few hours there but once Rascal Flatts came on it was all forgotten. Taylor Swift was the opening act and she did pretty good. It seemed that a lot of the teenage girls that were at the concert were actually there to see her and not Rascal Flatts.
• Kelly and I also watched Meet the Spartans and Live Free or Die Hard this weekend. Meet the Spartans was worth what we paid for it ($1 at the McDonald's Red Box). I'm glad I didn't see it in the theaters but it was still funny and ridiculous; a good movie to watch for laughs and with friends. Live Free or Die Hard, basically Die Hard 4, was better than I expected. It's been out for a year but I never got around to watching it until this weekend. I liked the plot and the action was good. Bruce Willis looked really old so that cut out a little of the Die Hard mystique but it is set 19 years after the events in Nakatomi Plaza. Definitely worth seeing.
• New Ghostbusters toys have been announced, sort of. NECA will be making a video game version of their Slimer figure from a few years ago (see image below). The previous Slimer figure went with a small GB line that featured him, Gozer, Vince Clortho (Terror Dog), Zuul (Terror Dog), and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in 2004. The 2008 version will be translucent, apparently as he appears in the upcoming video game. Rumor has it that NECA is trying to get authorization to create figures of the Ghostbusters. One can only hope. If NECA doesn't get it hopefully someone will.
• Recently a lot of images of the new Star Wars toys have surfaced around the internet. Someone in Canada actually found the Millennium Falcon at retail already. To my delight (but not my wallets) there have been many pictures of different colored/designed clones. Sweetness.

NECA's Slimer figure.

Random Musings #1

OK so I realize that I have a lot of random stuff I'd like to say but I can't bring myself to write individual posts about them. I will gather them in a collective post and submit them whenever I want to; there will be no schedule. Topics may include but will not be limited to: Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Video Games, Books/Comics, Movies/DVDs, Sports. One additional thing I will start 'the musings' with will be any and all countdowns I may currently have going. Let's begin...

Random Musings #1

• 11 days until the Rascal Flatts concert
• 52 days until the reboot of Star Wars collectibles from Hasbro (more on that in a bit)
• 59 days until Das Awkscht Fescht (TOY SHOW!)
• 60 days until my fantasy football draft (reigning champ, w00t)
  
• 72 days until Star Wars: The Clone Wars is released in theaters
• The Phillies are good. They are currently 9 games over .500 (34-25) and are in 1st place in the NL East. After 59 games last year they were 30-29 and in 3rd place, 6 games behind the Mets. But we all know how that turned out... The Phillies didn't win their 34th game last year until June 12th.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is good. It's better than Temple of Doom but not as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade. A 77% on Rotten Tomatoes is about right. I'd prefer an 80% but what are ya gonna do?
• According to Ernie Hudson (Winston Zeddemore), the Ghostbusters: The Video Game script (written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis) is 4 times as big as a normal movie script. Damn.
• Movies I MUST see in the theaters this summer: Wall-E, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
  
• Movies I wouldn't mind paying to see in the theaters this summer: You Don't Mess with the Zohan, The Happening, Get Smart, The Dark Knight, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
• I started reading the Clone Wars and Clone Wars Adventures comics recently and I like them a lot. It's nice to have them sorted and bound. The Clone Wars period is my favorite part of the Star Wars universe.
  
• July 26th will hit my wallet hard. The AT-TE ($100), Millennium Falcon ($150), V-19 Torrent Starfigter ($20) and wave one of both The Legacy Collection and The Clone Wars figures from Hasbro hit stores. Luckily I have been saving up and am prepared to drop ~$300 or so on that date. I don't need any of the figures from the first wave of The Legacy Collection but there are three from the first wave of The Clone Wars line (~$7.99/each) that I'd like to get: Obi-Wan Kenobi (Clone Armor), Captain Rex, and Clone Trooper. I wouldn't mind grabbing the Clone Trooper helmet voice changer either (another $30).
• I love reading online comics but it's hard to find ones that I like. I found Yak's Pub about 2 months ago and really enjoy it. Heck, it revolves around Star Wars action figures which is awesome. I recently found Real Life. It has been around since November 15, 1999 and I just now found it. I started reading, from the beginning, on Wednesday night and am currently up to date with it as of 2:30pm today. I read over 2,000 comics in under 1 week. I'm kind of depressed I caught up this fast. Reading the comic was the highlight of my work day. What else am I supposed to do when Excel takes 5 minutes to open a damn file? Any suggestions on another web comic, please let me know. I have tried Penny Arcade. It's OK. I do like some of the CTRL+ALT+DEL ones.
  
• I want new Ghostbusters toys! Come on! We are getting the original movie on Blu-Ray (hopefully #2 as well). Time Life is doing a box set of The Real Ghostbusters series (including Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters). Plus the video game is coming out in October. Now we need TOYS! TOYS!! TOYS!!!
  
• Today is my late grandfather's birthday. Happy birthday, grandpa! We miss you.

Well that about wraps up 'the musings' for today. TTFN!