I’m in Panera, working on my final paper for my Leadership class, and I overhear from the table next to me, “A professor cannot mention intelligent design in the classroom without being ostracized and fired unless they have tenure.” Have they forgotten that we are in Kansas? Luckily, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has given us hope with informative yet inspiring pictographs:

Then a group of hotties wearing almost nothing sat down at a table across from me and I forgot what I was typing. I’m pretty sure they’re at least 18.

Categories: Entertainment, Kansas, Rant
No Comments »

First off, I added some pictures that Jenny has finally unloaded from her cameras, so check out the photos tab to the right to view them. Anyway, I worked all day Saturday until about 7:15pm, then Jenny, her mom, and I went to the Wichita Wingnuts game. Jenny won tickets on the radio, and we had a great time even though we didn’t get to the game on time nor did we stay until the end of the 9th inning. They are the minor league replacement team for the Wranglers, who moved to Arkansas. Coincidentally, the Wingnuts manager - Kash Beauchamp - made national headlines after July 9th’s game for his funny tirade:

With tickets ranging from $6 to $12, I think we’ll go again soon.

We left at the bottom of the 8th inning to drop of Jenny’s mom and pick up some friends to go to the Loony Bin comedy club to see the Sandman. He is a very, very raunchy comedian hypnotist and it was our second time to see him make the audience do funny and dirty things.

For today I have planned… homework. Ugh.

Categories: Entertainment
No Comments »

I love this ad:
Discovery Channel: I love the World

Categories: Entertainment
No Comments »

Work on Saturday went slow, like most holiday weekends, and was a welcome break from the summer time rush. Jenny and I had dinner with Jenny’s mom, then we went out until about 1am touring Wichita on my scooter. It was a cool evening, by far the lowest temperature since June. Sunday started with me sleeping in until 10:30am, which I’m sure is an all-time record for my morning-loving self. Jenny and I then met with Cary and Aubrey at Saigon for lunch before heading to Botanica.

Afterwards we headed to my soon-to-be former apartment to get Kim’s scooter and drop it off at her apartment. She’s going to leave it outside of her apartment, which I don’t think is very safe, but thankfully she feels like she can take over insurance, tags, and other costs of having the bike. Already in the late afternoon, Jenny and I went back to her house to move an old sofa, recliner, and end table to her mom’s house to make room for my furniture. We then packed furniture from my apartment into my car and Jenny’s truck with the help of Cary and Aubrey. At around 11:00pm we quit and Jenny, Aubrey and I headed to meet some friends at Club Glacier to watch a drag queen show.

I slept in again on Monday since it was a holiday from work. Around 1:30pm Jenny, Cary and I went back to my apartment to finish cleaning it out. Cary left to take his son, Travis, home for a nap later in the afternoon. Jenny and I finished around 9pm. I’m now officially moved out!

Categories: Entertainment, Friends, Fun
No Comments »

Jenny and I went to Final Friday last night with her sister Brenda and Brenda’s husband Jake. In downtown Wichita, several art galleries and studios open their doors alongside other shops, restaurants, and bars on the last Friday of every month. We hit several places such as the Fiber Studio, Dock 410, and Shift Space. I was impressed by all the people we ran into that Jenny knew, deepening my belief that Jenny will know someone no matter where in Wichita we go. We ended the evening at Old Chicago for dinner. We didn’t leave until about 11:15pm, spending part of dinner playing “3 Items” (a game I learned from Adam and Kassie) in which each person tries to hypothetically shop for 3 items from Wal-Mart that would scare the hell out of the cashier. For example, ammunition, a ski mask, and a machete - all available at most Wal-Marts - would probably freak out a cashier. Some other items mentioned in groups of three included a cucumber, condoms, KY Jelly, duct tape, tie straps, whip cream, girls underwear, pacifiers, red lipstick, Nair, Season 3 of Full House, etc… You get the idea. The discussion alone is enough to freak out, for example, your typical unassuming Old Chicago waitress.

Along with Final Friday, everything else is going really well. I recently bought Batthfield II after being insisted upon by a few friends from work. I installed it yesterday but have yet to play it. But the talk of an online first person shooter with driveable tanks, planes, and helicopters easily persuaded me. Also, last Sunday Jenny and I met several of my friends from work at the lake for a BBQ. Since Sunday follows a typically late Saturday night (in this case, at a nearby bar with some friends), we didn’t last very long at the lake. I also have been helping Jenny on her house recently, trying to paint and make a lot of small improvements throughout the house. Our goal is to have this completed by the 23rd - we’re having a BBQ with a lot of friends and family for my 27th birthday.

In addition to this, I paid the termination fee for my apartment’s lease and will be moving in with Jenny this weekend! I’m very excited and feel very confident about the decision. Now I’m trying to move out of my apartment as early as possible - there’s a waiting list of 10 people looking for a 1 bedroom loft at my downtown apartment, and the sooner someone moves in to my old place the more I’ll get back from my lease termination fee.

Categories: Entertainment, Family, Friends
No Comments »

This American Life (web) is, as once mentioned before here on this blog, the best entertainment program on any medium. Saturday afternoons it can be heard at 3pm in Wichita on NPR (89.1 FM - KMUW). Now the show is coming to Showtime, in which I’m sure even more people will discover and be enlightened by all the true stories of American Life.

Try this free 60 minute episode for a taste.

Categories: Entertainment
No Comments »

Thanksgiving came and went, and now Christmas lights are up everywhere around town. Kim and I spent Thanksgiving together. We were planning on having her family coming down and having dinner, then using the time off to move into the Place Across the Street. However, we postponed moving out until the 3rd of December. So Kim and I went to Golden Corral for Thanksgiving. That was a pretty terrible idea, since the place usually ranks about a 3 stars out of 10 in my non-patented, completely fictional and made up on the spot restaurant guide. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the few days off from work.

Entertainment has been found recently in my new game, Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Playing on servers with live air traffic controllers makes the simulation game even more real.

I also stumbled upon on a new [to me, anyway] series called Paranoia Agent. Besides my euphoria for Cowboy Bebop (re: this blogs nomenclature, my personalized license plate), I never could get much into anime. Paranoia Agent, however, has a suspenseful miniseries feel. The series consists of 13 episodes - half of the Cowboy Bebop series - and does a great job of not appearing too campy (something most other anime shows seem to be).





For home, I have some great new toys that will be nice to have in the Place Across the Street once we move over there. First is my Jinzora-based music server. With my music collection on one computer, I can play any song from any computer in my house or any other broadband connected PC in CD-quality sound. By typing “mediaserver” into my web browser on any of my LAN PCs, I can bring up my music collection, sort and create playlists, view and print album artwork, read lyrics, and (obviously) stream music. I’m not openly streaming my collection to the general public, but there is a demo at jinzora.org:



With Jinzora installed, I added a “Currently Listening To:” script on the right-hand side of this blog so people can see what the server is playing. It’s not perfect though. I’m thinking of extracting the artist each time a new track is displayed as being played, and then linking the “now playing” text to an Amazon search or something. Also, if I close my player, it still shows the last song I listened to as the “current song.” I can probably psuedo-fix this by creating a script to the effect of:



If song_currently_played is older than 1 hour
then display "Not currently listening to anything"





The next toy is my new TV that I got from Dell. I get discounts from Dell, and every year in November my employer will pay for my Dell purchases. I then pay back my employer over the next 12 months, interest free. My new TV is actually a Dell, DLP HD projector and 106″ HD screen. I’m waiting until I move before I set up my nearly 9ft HD TV, especially since the living room in the Place Across the Street has surround sound built into the ceiling (thanks Adam for leaving your speakers. )



Work has been going pretty slow. I had my usual 3-day weekend, worked one day, had two days off for thanksgiving, worked one more day, and now I’m back to my usual 3-day weekend. Most supervisors and managers took the entire Thanksgiving week off, so I probably won’t find anything out about getting the promotions until Wednesday.

Categories: Entertainment, Miscellaneous, Tech, Work
No Comments »