The World of Joel

Yesterday April 27 2007 I became the proud owner of a 2007 Prius Hybrid from Crown Toyota in Ontario CA. I went for a Black Prius with Package #2 which means iPod Connection, Vehicle Stability, and six speaker surround sound am/fm/cd player. The car is just an absolute beauty and drives so smooth. I have to say that driving a hybrid not only feels great but its gas mileage is already impressive. Let’s just say I am very proud to have bought this new car and so far I am loving it!

More Prius Images:
Full Toyota Prius Shot
Side View of Toyota Prius
Front View of Prius
Back View of Prius

Last night’s episode of The Office opened up with one of the most clever openings the show has had, which is saying something. Jim comes in pretending to be Dwight, and at the end of the show you see Dwight come in and pretend to be Jim. Really good stuff, and why this remains my favorite show on TV.

Well as many of you I have had a big problem with my Macbook, the screen cracked pretty good and was not covered under warranty. I will post a picture of the screen later today! Anyways to make a long story short I got reimbursed for the repair by my new favorite company, American Express who has there awesome Purchase Protection Plan. I digress however and want to get into a little “mini-rant”. I sent my Macbook last Friday in for repair they received it on Monday which was April 23rd and now for the whole week it has been on hold for “part order”. Now my problem with this is not the time it takes for repair because the damage was pretty bad. However the fact that a “repair center” that repairs notebooks on a daily basis doesn’t have the parts in house shocks me. So your telling me no one else cracks there screen? Come on now, I hope the turn around time speeds up a bit my productivity for my websites and school work has gone way down. We shall see, I will keep you up to date.

Well if you like free stuff as much as I do you will enter this new contest from Bob Buskirk over on his blog for a 1GB Flash Drive. You can find more details over on his blog along with a lot of interesting articles on his websites and advertising on the internet. I acutally once worked with Bob on ThinkComputers back in its infant stages and in fact I think some of my reviews are still on there, but don’t quote me on that. Anyways if you want a chance to win a free flash drive, enter the contest, or don’t, because that way I have a better chance of winning!

Here is the link to the contest! Enjoy

I want to start by clarifying that my life is not anything I can complain about, in fact I quite possibly am the luckiest guy in the world. I have the most amazing girlfriend in the world, I have great family and friends, I have a job in which allows me to review video games, and a good “real” life job that allows me to live as comfortably as a college student can live. However with my recent transition to UC Irvine which I knew was going to be challenging in its own merits, has come some unfortunate events that have happened in literally a five day span.

Case #1: It all began on Thursday April 12th when I was ready to go leave for work (Bank of America) when I found my Hyundai Tiburon wasn’t starting. It has 30,000 miles on it and sure enough the battery died. So no big deal, my parents let me borrow there car and I was off to work making it in time. My parents were also nice enough to buy a new battery for me and install it. So that was not a big price tag and thus not a bad deal.

Case #2: The same day of Thursday April 12th I brought my brand new less then two month old Mac Book with me to work, so I could do homework at my break. Like I mentioned I had to change cars and I think I was in a rush and through my backpack into the back of my parents Honda Pilot. No harm no foul right? Well I got on break and was on the phone with Jenn when I opened my Mac Book and saw a major crack at the bottom of the screen. Now I have 3/4 of my Mac Screen un-viewable. Now I call up Apple and they say it to the Genius Bar to get it serviced. I thought it might not be under warranty but the sticker shock of how much they were going to charge me to replace the screen could basically buy a new Mac Book. Luckily I was with Jenn who asked a question of what else we could do and the guy asked if I bought it with an American Express. Luckily Jenn recommended me to get a Gold Card which I did and bam I find out they cover accidental damage to products for the first 90 days. So now I am in an ongoing effort to get American Express to cover my repair of my Mac Book. More information on this will come, I am just praying that American Express covers it.

Case #3: So you would think my unfortunate events would stop there right? After one of the best days of my life when Jenn came to surprise me on Friday the 13th of April, we decided to drive my Malibu which sits at the train station back into Riverside as we had missed the Train. The drive home was great and the evening was topped off with a great meal. I left my Malibu at the train station in Riverside to drive back to Irvine Monday morning. Well of course my luck hasn’t been going to strong and the car began overheating right when I got on the freeway. I managed to get off the freeway without stalling and got towed back down to Riverside to the dealer. Let’s just say the news wasn’t good from the mechanic and it looks like I busted my block (not sure if that’s right). I was happy to hear that it doesn’t seem to be cracked which would have basically meant I would have wanted to dump the car. In short the Malibu is going up for sale and I am going to be looking for a new car all together. I am thinking of a Toyota Prius Hybrid. We will see.

Case #4: After what seemingly was all of the bad that could have happened, the unthinkable happens, something else stops working. So I was just ready to go to bed last night and I had my cell phone in my shirt pocket. I bent over by the sink and bam there goes my cell phone into a nice pool of water. I rushed to get it out of there, probably was in there for a split second tried drying it off. The cell phone seemed fine, and I gave a sigh of relief. Walk into our den and bam it turns off. So I fiddle around with the battery and it seems like it might turn back on and now it’s completley dead. That’s right my cell phone has now been damaged and is dead. It is an old phone, one I didn’t spend a lot of money on, however the fact that my plan has 6 months left means I need to get a cheap phone for time being. Just another expense!

I am not asking for anyone to feel bad for any of this .As I mentioned before I am truly blessed, in fact the more I think about it I am so blessed to even have these problems to begin with. When you see the terror in this world like what happened at Virginia Tech or anywhere around the world where people are being massacred, I have nothing to complain about. I am writing this mainly so one day I can look back and remember this time in my life and laugh. Also I figured it would give you all a little insight to the outlook of my life right now.

I had a post that I had planned for today talking about the unfortunate events of my own life, but when I keep hearing about what happened in Virginia today I can do nothing but pray and feel grateful for my own life. Whenever life is lost whether naturally or through the act of murder it is an extremely devastating time. However when thirty plus lives are taken for no apparent reason but just the sick act of hatred, that is not only disturbing that is horrific. I want to dedicate this post to all of those who have lost loved ones in this awful event. Being a college student I can only imagine the terror that must have run through the campus as those gun shots were set off. I pray that is the last of this violence, and pray for the comfort of those families who loses must be unbearable.

Let us all pray for not only the victims but for the friends, neighbors, and family that all were involved in this horrific event.

I actually took sometime away from my studies to watch some baseball (Dodgers vs. Padres) this was the game that one of the ball boys got smacked with a line drive in the head, pretty scary stuff. Throughout the game it was this constant reminder of the 60 year anniversary to when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. I am no scholar on the subject but I get the feeling that when the MLB wants to promote something they go overboard. Every player was where his number (42) and at every turn the commentators would turn to another Jackie Robinson clip. I have so much respect for the man and his ability to face adversity, but come on we want to watch some baseball here. Heck when the ball boy was just brutalized by a linedrive we got a commentary from Peter Gammons on the impact on Jackie Robinson. The kid was hit with a line drive, I think that is a bit more pressing of an issue.

Don’t take this like I am trying to take away from the amazing legacy and accomplishments of Jackie Robinson but when I wanted to sit down and watch a game of baseball, watching a documentary of Jackie Robinson on every turn was not what I signed up for. I would love an hour to hear about his life and contribution but not during a game!

Did you have today marked on your calendar? With the NBA Playoffs right around the corner and the NHL Playoffs just getting underway, do you know what was the biggest story today outside of the Imus controversy, the release of the NFL Schedule. I am a big football fan as many of you may or may not know, but the fact that we are spending a good portion of Sportscenter breaking down the NFL Season which is around five-six months away is crazy. I am looking forward for football to get going again to but the fact that we need analyst to sit there and break down the big games in November and December of this year seems like overkill.

With that being said one game did strike me as intriguing. It was last year we saw a pre-season game played down in Mexico City which was neat it brought a unique flavor to the game. Well this year is the first international NFL game and this is taking place in London with the NY Giants and the Miami Dolphins. How great it would be to fly out to London to go check out that game. First off London is a great city and I think expanding the NFL around the world could become a bigger part of the sport. The way soccer has become such a “world” event, the same could be said about the NFL given the right structure. Obviously right now soccer reigns supreme in most countries outside of the US, but it doesn’t have to say that way. Can you see the Super Bowl in 2015 in Tokyo? London? Australia? Sounds good to me!

We have come to a point in this nation where it seems tolerant to degrade women or even to degrade other races. We also find that what a celebrity can say, or I should say highly respected individuals are given these pedestals and they often show us why we shouldn’t put them there in the first place.

I worked at KCAA Radio 1050AM which played three hours of Imus In the Morning (Don Imus) every morning of the week. I obviously never had that kind of radio airing but having spent a year in the industry I can understand that you can say things that don’t come out right but as you can see from the video below this was not just a slip, but an absolutely despicable comment that relays as being downright disgusting. There is no excuse for that and its a shame that we still have such racist/sexist comments coming out.

Should we hold Don Imus responsible for his actions? Absolutely. We should keep anyone responsible for there actions, as hatred, sexism, racism, whatever words you want to associate with his comments it is was uncalled for and utterly disgusting. At the same time people like Rap Artists, Celebrities, White Supremacists, and the like should all be held responsible for there words as they can be just hurtful and ill spirited as Imus’s comments. I have never been a huge fan of his (Imus) to begin with, but these comments are just so blatant and so strong that it’s hard to even have a clue where Imus was coming for. These girls were part of a college basketball team, they are college students for crying out load and just the fact they got that far in the tournament deserved a lot more respect then Imus gave them. It’s hard enough just going to college, imagine playing for a successful women’s basketball team. In fact this goes for anyone, man or women, white or black, they deserve the respect not to be called such hurtful and foolish words.

Does Imus deserve to lose his job? That’s for his network to figure out. For me I just think we need to stop supporting people who promote such hatred. Imus has been called on this sort of talk before, but calling college girls the words that he said is just without excuse. Sure he apologized but come on he had to do that to have a chance of keeping his job. His actions are without excuse and hopefully above all else this brings up the fact that racism is alive today and is an issue that still needs dealing with. Let’s start by supporting people who use positive words and not those that bring groups down.

As many of you know I am a huge fan of The Office. In fact I believe it to be the best show on TV right now. It hit sort of a low at the begining of this season but has picked up tremendously with Jim back at The Office and the whole Jim and Pam relationship escalating. My buddy David Lithman had posted this video earlier today right before announcing his engagement (congratulations buddy). However I could not resist posting the video, it truly is one of a kind.