The World of Joel

I am not sure I have ever read a story on Gizmodo quite as odd as what I saw today. Have you read the title? A cheeseburger in a can? Can I get fries with that? What is the need for a cheeseburger in a can? Do we not have enough fast food restaurant that can provide you with a real deal cheeseburger? Here is the product page. I just can’t imagine a cheeseburger in a can tasting all that great? All I know is its an interesting find, interesting to see if a hot dog in a can is next? How about a club sandwich? We shall see.

I read a really interesting article today. It is referring to the speech that Obama gave on his victory speech this past weekend in his Primary win in South Carolina. I have to admit I have “zero” clue who I am voting for in “Super Tuesday” where I will be voting. I am a registered Republican. I have a bit more in common in terms of beliefs with the republican party then democrats, however I am starting to find that my views are kind of split between the two. So I won’t be able to vote for Obama even if I wanted to. However I have to say I have been very impressed by what Obama has been able to do against the Clinton’s as well. I also have been one of many who have been very impressed by the man’s ability to speak to a questioning society.

I am not old enough to know how the society reacted to Ronald Reagan during his eight years in office and his various campaigns. However from everything I have read, studied, and viewed on TV, I can see why this blogger, categorized Barack Obama as the Democrats Reagan. Read his article, its simple, but a good analysis of Obama and the way his speech’s are taking Americans by storm.

There is no doubt that if you kept an eye on sports this week that it was a great weekend to be a sports fan. There was a great Australian Open Final that was the first time in a long time we didn’t see Roger Federer hoisting the trophy which to me was a bit of a bummer. Although in all actuality I would have loved to have seen James Blake win the whole thing but that just wasn’t going to happen. However if you did pay attention to sports this week you probably saw that Tiger Woods was playing in a league of his own this weekend.

The question that arises in my mind is Tiger that good or is the rest of the tour that bad? How can someone consistently win tournaments with 9 stroke leads? I mean that is insane. Where most of the field was maybe 1, 2, 3 under par he finished -19. I am a huge Tiger Woods fan, he is the real deal, walking history, walking greatness, and to watch him dominate in what he has been quoted as saying the best he has felt in a long time is pretty exciting. Could Tiger grab the year grand slam? It sounds like if he will, this may be his year.

So I was going around Digg.com again, and I was checking out some of the latest news on the political front. Sure I could write about Obama’s big win yesterday in South Carolina, which was huge. But I think everyone has heard enough about yesterday’s primary. And if you haven’t checked out Obama’s victory speech you really should, one of the best speechs I have heard in a long, long time. But anyways I am a big fan of political satire, things like JibJab.com are some of my favorite things to search for online. Here is a beautiful cartoon depicting the republican candidates for President of the United States drawn by the very talented M. Wuerker from Politico.com.

I go on Digg about once a day, usually for a few seconds and then click off. Today I saw a Digg for “10 stunning ultra-geeky home cinemas” and I clicked it. Let me tell you these are some of the most original and unique home cinemas I have ever seen. It got me to thinking if I was to build a home theatre would I model it after these or build my own? I have always wanted a theater room setup like a Sportcenter set on ESPN. Or at least an entertainment room with a full on ESPN/Sportcenter feel. But to compete with these cinemas would be quite a tough feet. My favorite out of the ten is either the Bat Cave (shown below) or the Titanic room.

You know it was a sad day yesterday with the passing of Heath Ledger. I usually don’t caught up in celebrity news, but with Ledger being extremely young, and involved in a handful of movies I have enjoyed it comes as a shock to hear of his passing. I was talking with Jenn and you just hope that it was an accidental overdose and not a suicide. I know many including even myself at times are betting that it was an overdose, but the optimist side of me said just wait and see. I have to say after hearing of his passing I looked at a movie website that had a timeline of the movies he starred in and I found that I owned three of them one of which is Jenn’s and those are Ten Things I Hate about You (Jenn’s), A Knights Tale, and The Patriot. He was very talented, and I still look forward to what I hear is some of his best work in the latest Batman movie.

You know it are times like these that truly make me not envy anyone in Hollywood to the slightest extent. From what I can see it is not what its cracked up to be.

May our prayers be with his family, and lets just hope the autopsy comes back as an accidental sort of situation.

I have not been one to follow the career of Bill Gates all that close, I watch him at his CES presentations, and other Microsoft presentations, but never a big one to really pay all that much attention to. He is no Steve Jobs, but at the same time I heard a lot of great things about his Farewell video this year at CES, and all the folks that told me about I thank because it was a great video to watch. And thus I have it for all of you. Enjoy

So it has been a while since I have had a book review, with school starting I haven’t been listening to my audio books which I get from Audible.com as much. However yesterday I finished my latest audio book from Audible, which was The Time Traveler’s Wife written by Audrey Niffenegger. Why did I choose to read this book? I had heard great things from some of my readers of Journeyman Blog and many spouted off the numerous similarities between the book and show. After reading the book there are some obvious similarities, but in a lot of ways the book is much darker, much more complex then I think the show ever could be. But how was the book?

You know this is the first audio book I have listened to since being a member of Audible that I struggled to get through. It was not only drawn out way to far, but the time traveling that the main character Henry has makes the book feel overly convoluted quite a bit of the time, and also makes you scratch your head and try to figure out where the book is going. If you haven’t read it I would say hold off. One of the things I told Jenn while reading the book was that it would make a much better movie then book, and in fact this year there is a movie based off of the book. The book was long, way to drawn out, I don’t mind when a author goes beyond the norm in there descriptions of events, but the book takes a long time to describe things and doesn’t go very far with it.

Favorite Moment: Unfortunately when I got to the end. I struggled to get through the book. If I had to actually pick a favorite part/moment in the book however I would say when you learn about Henry traveling back to when his mom was killed in a car accident.

Would they just stop striking already? Have you heard there is a possibility with the writers strike there might not even be new shows for next fall? What is the problem here, are we so stubborn that we can’t get a deal made? I for one am so sick of reality shows and game shows. I miss my Monday night Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman routine. It seems like years since I have watched a new episode of The Office. Where is Jim and Pam? Friday Night Lights is running low on episodes, and the only show that I am even interested in tuning into right now is Sarah Conner Chronicles which I watched the first episode and enjoyed it quite a bit but its no Heroes, or Office. Heck I would even take some new episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

As many of you know I run a slew of online TV blogs for some of the shows listed above and there nearly abandoned without any content or any shows to write about there is very limited to update people on. At least Jericho is making a return soon, I need something to watch. After a long day of school there is nothing like sitting down and watching a good episode of your favorite shows. I guess that is why we have TV on DVD’s now?

Many of you who have talked with me recently know that I am really getting the fever to graduate from college. I am finally getting the sense that I am actually going to graduate. I have an outside chance of graduating here in June of 08. One of the first things I had to do was change majors. The only way I could get into UC Irvine was under a Studio Art major, and how I got into that major to begin with I never have understood, but the Economics major I wanted when I transfered wasn’t even offered during Winter of 2007. So I got into the major thinking I would change right when I got into UC Irvine. However I got to the school and they said I had to take a few classes and I would be able to change, and then it was a few more classes and all of a sudden it was Summer of this year and I was still in Studio Art. Over the summer I changed my focus from Economics to Sociology in hope not only to graduate earlier (which I now will) and took four Sociology courses over the summer. Two were Social Psychology classes, one was a theory and the final was a political sociology class. However I wasn’t able to change majors until I took one more Sociology class which I completed during Fall of 2007, and now January 8th, 2008 I am finally no longer a Studio Art major. I am now a Sociology major, I am so much more interested in Sociology then I was with Economics. So now I am a Sociology major, I have to get a few more things to pan out and I could be graduating in six months. How great would that be? I apply for graduation next week, and we will see how that goes. More to come!