damn, if i'm gonna call this "daily musings" i better post here, like, daily and shit, huh?

see posting more everyday would be easy as potatoes if it weren't for that sweet thorn in my ass officially labeled "CPSC 420: Artificial Intelligence" by texas a&m. goddamn the homeworks in there are vicious, man. i whipped out some pretty nice java code for about 1/3 of it, but that took a good 8-9 hours total. yeah, that's just 1/3 of it. sorta makes you go into that mode where you just watch people on your buddy list slip away as the night goes on until you realize you're the only asshole left online. note: i've noticed a huge difference in the number of people online at 2am vs 3am.

i've come to the sad realization that tivo has the ability to make your other high-tech toys jealous and feel left out. it's prolly cuz the little tivo character just seems so full of himself, all dancing there on your remote and whatnot. but seriously man, it's like i'll get maybe an hour to just sorta sit and do nothing, and i'll think "hey, maybe i'll pop in one of my 100 frickin dvd's and just have a good time going through my favorite scenes or listening to a kevin smith commentary or something" or "shit, i'll sit down and actually complete one of my 10 gamecube games" but no, instead the damn DVR sucks me in every time.

the more i think about it, the more i think a DVR is actually a brilliant invention. i guess before you started hearing all about tivo's and replaytv's i never really considered the concept all that seriously. sure, i had taped shows now and then if i knew i'd miss 'em or something, but tivo really takes that entire concept to a new level. it kinda puts the thought in your head that anything you've ever been interested in, you should just tivo it and watch it later. i get some of the most random shit on there too sometimes man, shows i never would have caught back before the tivo. for example, i've found i can't seem to get enough of those 9-ball tournaments they show like 8am on espn2. granted, i'm not much of a pool player, but i'll be damned if i don't wanna just go out and be ranked #1 after i watch that shit. i always kinda steered away from cartoon network in the past, and if it's light outside, i still do, but the nightly 'adult swim' shit isn't too bad. i never watched family guy in the past (c'mon man, it came on fox) but it's pretty good overall. evidently good enough for me to throw down $41 for seasons 1 and 2 on dvd. i've also found home movies lately, that's kinda funny in sort of a completely different way. if you've ever seen it, you might know what i'm talking about, but something about how fast and choppy the dialog is, i find it amusing. some of the other stuff i've had recommended to me and all, but so far i haven't gotten into the other shows, like aqua teen hunger force and whatnot. not to mention MST3K's every saturday morning on sci-fi. that's one of those things where it's like "why the hell would i ever get up at 8am on a saturday morning to watch that?" well now i don't have to.

not to mention all the TLC, history channel, and travel channel specials i've grabbed lately. typically i'd see those kinds of shows as kinda dorky and wouldn't really give a crap about 'em, but some of them are pretty damn entertaining in a more grown-up kinda way. modern marvels, resident life, etc -- pretty well put together. tivo knows i like a lot of stand-up/comedy type stuff, so i'm constantly gathering comic remix, premium blend, comedy central presents, and most importantly, reno 911. i was such a huge fan of the state on mtv back in the mid 90's, and reno 911 has a lot of the same members, so it's damn funny. definitely check it out if you're not familiar with it, wednesdays 9:30pm.

but yeah, if i really wanna quit feeling like i'm wasting $20's on dvd's i gotta do a better job about getting my money's worth out of 'em. i think besides tivo winning most of the time, it doesn't help that i can never motivate myself to watch a full movie alone and having a girlfriend that is almost guaranteed to fall asleep in any dark room (day or night) with a moving picture in it. as far as my sweet little indigo gamecube, she gets played in weird phases it seems. i seem to be the kinda guy that can get hooked on a game and play it nonstop for 3 weeks, but can also convince myself to do other things instead and not play anything for like a month. let's go through the list of dvd's & gamecube games that need further loving, feel free to comment to me if you want on a particular one:

dvd's
-- FAMILY GUY: SEASONS 1 & 2 - need to watch all the damn eps
-- ER: SEASON 1 - ditto, although i did see them all in '94-95
-- RESERVOIR DOGS/PULP FICTION/TRUE ROMANCE - just plain need more airtime, too good not to, y'know?
-- BLACK HAWK DOWN - really just an assload of special features i need to hit up
-- SERIAL EXPERIMENTS: LAIN - still have to see a few episodes
-- SNEAKERS/O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? - just bought, haven't even been put in yet
-- VACATION: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION - need to listen to the entire commentary

gc's
-- PIKMIN - great fuckin game overall, i was going strong for only like 5 days on it in the summer, but i really like the game, just got kinda overshadowed by others
-- ENTER THE MATRIX - prime example of throwing away $50 cuz i was too quick to run out and buy something with falling green alphanumeric characters, really had bad reviews that i didn't bother to read until after i had bought it... overall prolly not as bad as what most people say, but yeah, overall a disappointment
-- METROID PRIME - for some reason this is by far the most neglected of my GC games, i've seriously only played it for like an hour, and i sucked horribly at it. prolly just takes some getting used to; amazing graphics and such, just didn't really feel that impressed by it initially.
-- STAR FOX ADVENTURES - what seemed like a great game at first seemed bout half as good after zelda came out... i still wanna go back and pick up from where i left off, which was like 20% or so i think
-- LEGEND OF ZELDA: WIND WAKER - i'm not sure how much impressed i could be from this game. i haven't finished it yet, but i'm really close, mostly just trying to do all the sidequests instead of beating ganon at the end so quick. in my opinion it's prolly the best GC game thus far, absolutely beautiful and clever in so many ways. i also got the bonus disc with it, but shit ocarina of time is a little further down on my priority list for now.
-- SSX TRICKY - ssx has kinda a goofy reason for being in my library -- it was cheap. for $10 at best buy, it was sorta hard not to buy it. turns out alayna and i love playing it against each other. she's not a huge video game type chick, but she almost always gets completely giddy while playing it. for that reason, i've barely even seriously played the game at all, we mostly just play each other or whatever on the easiest settings and have a great time.
-- PRO SKATER 4 - y'know, just standard tony hawk shit here. fuckin awesome for the most part, fun to play, typically something funny going on in it, exceedingly difficult at times, almost always something to do in it, great concept.
-- F-ZERO GX - really badass graphics and gameplay, just as much fun as we had in '92 when i was 10 years old on SNES. only reason i haven't played it that much is i'm just plain too swamped with 16 hours, that's all.

admittedly, the only GC game i've fully completed (okay, except one damn blue coin) is super mario sunshine. some people hated that game or didn't think it "broke enough ground" but damn dude i'll put that right behind wind waker as a truly awesome experience playing through that entire game. i spread it out over several months and 3 cities - college station, westcliffe and garland, and i'll be damned if i didn't have a great time doing it.

well i guess this has gotten pretty long and all, i'll wrap things up. next few days are pretty academically busy for me, but i'll prolly post more here shortly. maybe give ya some music picks or the like, hoang-style, word?

cheers,
justin