This picture was taken at my friend Mark’s, grandfather’s house in the south suburbs of Chicago. I’ve seen nothing like this by me (out in Napertucky ~ as we call it in the biz). :)

With that said, I’m starting off the meme… Who’s eaten a Cicada this year? Personally, I haven’t but I’m pretty sure our dog is going to town. From what I have heard, they have an almond-flavor and very high in protein.

I’m interested in this (but don’t think I’ll be indulging). :)

Liz forced me to bring the Wii and have to say that it was definitely the hit today. My friend Jason and I had a pretty good boxing match and we had a pretty mean four-person bowling tournament going between Liz, my two “cousins” and I.

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving… I promise I’ll be giving some more attention to this site very soon (although I don’t know if that’s something you will probably be thankful for). :) Enjoy your long weekend!

Up With:
- Fall being right around the corner (courdoroy has officially gone into rotation)
- The Wii finally being getting a release date (more on this later)
- My new Timbuk2 “Blogger” bag (am I loser since this originally caught my eye because of the name? um, yah)
- My “Good Luck Cat” not catching fire (yet)
- The continued success of my steak taco obsession (this may become the name of my “band”)
- Things that charge over USB

Down With:
- iPower Web Hosting (I’ve been dealing with them because of a client. WORST HOSTING COMPANY ever ~ and I felt that way before I got hung up on by their tech support!)
- The media/news (re)coverage of September 11th (reminds me of David Cross’s “9/11 Remix” routine)
- Printers in my house. I’ve never had good luck with any printer I’ve owned.
- Being teased.

If you know me, you’ll know how nostalgic I get every August when it’s back to school time. As with many things, I guess I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed my college years while they were occuring. The one thing that I hated, though, was the whole moving experience.

Being the packrat that I was am, this consisted of packing practically every single thing I own.

Here’s what a typical college move consisted of for me (circa 1992 – 1997 ~ yes I was on the five year plan):
- Hundreds of CDs
- All of my stereo components (receiver, cd player, tape deck(s) ~ this was the 90′s!) and speakers
- A large television
- VCR
- Computer and monitor (mini-tower/13″ CRT)
- Sony Playstation (original ~ again, remember it was the 90′s)

Now compare with what I would be bringing today:
- My iPod/mp3s on my computer
- Probably just a nice set of speakers for my computer and/or some kind of iPod speaker system
- Maybe a nice flatscreen monitor for a “large screen”
- My Powerbook (and the monitor mentioned above) – Used for school work, music and movies
- My Nintendo DS

What used to take a large truck (and sometimes even a trailer) to move could now fit in a large duffle bag!

Liz and I also talked about another things that is different today for college kids: phones. No longer do you have to worry about getting a phone setup at your dorm/house/apartment. Everyone has a cell phone now and between that and VOIP/VideoConferencing, there really isn’t such a thing as long distance phone calls (or stamps for that matter)…

Sorry for pointing out the obvious to you all. This is what happens when you’re in the car for hours… :)

I guess it’s pretty coincidental with “An Inconvenient Truth” being initially released over the weekend at select theatres?

Up With:
- The “Everyone’s photos” stream at Flickr
- a.sparag.us (I wonder who owns that?) ;)
- BBQ Rib Festivals
- Canfield’s Seltzer Water (does Canfield’s not have an official website?)
- Homemade nametags

Down With:
- Bad cupholders in cars
- Crap software (I’ll not link to what I’m thinking about to protect the innocent)
- Nick and Jessica USO Shows
- Cadillac Bicycles (wtf?)