The World of Joel

So with me not having a full time job yet and having nothing really to do until my trip in a little over a week I have had plenty of time to watch TV/Movies from online sources. I have been using Hulu.com for quite sometime now but I never really got into there Movie selection so I jumped in it today and did some searching, but didn’t find anything worth watching. So then it hit me, I am less productive when I have less to do. So I sat here thinking about how that could be, and my only reasoning is that with less to do I have less urgrency to get these done and thus I find a greater chance of procrastinating.

So I am not sure how to cure this, I have tried doing to-do lists but I never seem to even get a few done. I have tried doing as much as I can before lunch and taking the rest of the day off. I have even taken complete days off and tried working the next day, and I just feel like with each day I am getting lazier. So here is to am more productive tomorrow!

So I took the week off, I didn’t necessarily have that planned but I decided each day that I would take that day off to rest and get back ready to go. So a week went by and I figured that is about enough time to sit around and be lazy and so now I am back ready to go here at The World of Joel. So the graduation went well, it wasn’t all that red hot of a commencement ceremony but then again when are they? Jenn and I got to do it together, so that was the real winning ticket and made the entire experience worthwhile.

So now what? Well I can’t say I have been going ahead full steam looking for a new job, I have looked, but I am putting that off until after my upcoming 3 week trip. Speaking of the trip, beginning next Monday, so Monday the 30th of June I will be doing daily updates on the trip. Jenn wants me to do daily updates on the trip so not only you the countless loyal readers can see what we are up to but so five years down the road Jenn and I can remember details that if not written down we would have never remembered. I am going to set up a Flickr stream with all the latest photos and for at least the first half of the trip do daily updates on the trip. When we get to the cruise part it will be a bit more sporatic due to the crazy prices of using internet on a cruise ship.

Outside of that I have been crazy busy with my latest project, I am not calling it my last project, but I will say its by far the biggest I have undertaken. I will be unveiling it to you all when I get back. So that’s all from now, expect daily updates again starting tomorrow!

So as you all have been reading in the past few weeks I am graduating from UC Irvine with a major in Sociology today at 1pm. Can you believe how time flies? I sure can’t. It feels like just yesterday I made the big switch from Cal State San Bernardino to UC Irvine and what a transition that was. But now I type this message only hours before I leave to go to my graduation which I am a bit nervous about. I have to say that these kind of things aren’t my cup of tea, I would been just as happy getting my diploma in the mail and moving on, but I know that this is something I should and must attend, so that’s that.

Anyways I appreciate you all bearing with me through the up’s and downs of college life, its a stressful time, it can be fun, but its also a lot of work and I for one and so glad to officially be done. By the way graduating with me is the love of my life Jenn who managed to get done with school in just 3 1/2 years finishing up this fall. How amazing is that? Talk about working hard, she spent so much time and effort getting through school that I just say back and watched as she plowed through some extremely difficult classes. I am so proud of her, I cannot begin to describe the amazing work she has done, and what an honor it is to graduate with her. That is all for today I will be back tomorrow with a recap on the big day!

There are very few times that I have been truly captivated by a story, but A Prisoner of Birth by Jefferey Archer was one of the best novels I have ever read (or I should say listened to). A Prisoner of Birth was my latest book I purchased from Audible.com. I will get to the novel in one moment but first let me just say that my hat goes off to Roger Allam who did the narration for this book. Roger Allam a somewhat known British Actor couldn’t have done a better job bringing this story to life. After listening to the 16+ hour book you could see his acting shine through with so many different accents and personalities that really made this book a privilege to listen to.

The book itself tells the story of Danny Cartwright a simple down to earth man who goes out to celebrate his engagement to the love of his life with his best friend. The bad timing among other things finds Danny in jail and from there the story is something out of the pages of The Count of Monte Cristo. In fact Jefferey Archer who does an interview at the end of the audio book tells of this comparison and tells of how he thinks his story is better, which having read both, I 100% agree.

I listened to this novel with Jenn and we would get giddy before sitting down to read. This was the first audio book that Jenn has asked me if I wanted to listen to it, it was that good. The story has such a good soul that if your wanting to try an audio book this is the book that truly shows how great of a medium audio books really are. If you have a commute into work, time to spare, or just wanting to give an audio book a chance then A Prisoner of Birth would be the best choice I could ever think of. Its truly one of the best and most engaging novels I have ever had the privilege of listening to.

Favorite Quote: “Think like Danny, act like Nick” (When you read the book you will 100% understand it)

I was really looking forward to today, among being one of my last days of school (1 final today and my last on Wednesday) I was more interested in finding out what Steve Jobs had to say at WWDC. Most of the conference that I heard on Twitlive.tv was rather slow and unlike many other Steve Jobs conferences I have watched. I have said that I would look forward to apps on my iPhone and I truly am. However what stole the show was the already given fact that the iPhone 3G was announced. Some of the new features is a nice new black or white coat of paint on the back, the Me service which is hopefully going to do much better then .Mac and GPS.

Do I want to upgrade to the 3G version of the iPhone? I actually am very content with my current iPhone, besides a nice crack in the screen that I happened to cause last week. I just don’t want to be locked in to another 2 years of AT&T which has given me spotty service since August of last year when I first switched to them. More over it seems like they are going to be doing yearly updates (at least in my opinion) of the iPhone and although the GPS and 3G sounds fantastic I am not sure its worth putting another two years on my plan. Whatever the case its always excited when Steve Jobs gets up to talk, and it makes me very excited and hopeful that we will see a new Macbook and Macbook Pro this holiday season.

As many of you know I am in the video game industry press. 2K Sports has begun doing developer calls for there games. I participated in one a few weeks back for Top Spin 3, and this morning I had one with 2K Sports for there upcoming Boxing title Prizefighter. What was neat about this developer call was that Don King and Larry Holmes was on the call with us. I have heard Don King before, this isn’t the first time, but man can this guy talk. On this conference call he went through 3 questions in 30 minutes or so. His long winded answers to questions were ridiculous, the man didn’t answer one question, for some reason he seems to just grab words from the dictionary and throw them in the air and hope some of them apply.

Larry Holmes on the other hand was interesting. The question was asked if he could fight anyone who would it be, he said George Foreman. Can you say bad blood? The conference calls are usually pretty informative, but Don King just talks to talk, I cannot believe this man, I have no idea what he was ever talking about. He goes from talking about the Bible to boxing, to the video game, to ancient philosophers.

The game itself looks amazing, the career mode being the center piece I feel like its a great idea. Fight Night from EA has always had there easy ride to the top, so I am hoping 2K Sports delivers. I wish I would have recorded this interview because if you could have heard some of Don King’s responses I have a feeling you would have scratched your head just like I was.

I love this video, Jenn a big fan of the Entertainment channel had already seen this video. But I of course saw it on Digg.com, and I can’t help but post it. I love The Price is Right, maybe not with Drew Carrey, but this lady is classic. I guess she was just nervous, but nervous twice, there probably isn’t any excuse.

I am sure some of you are getting a bit tired of hearing about hearing the constant updates on my last week at UC Irvine. But don’t worry it’s getting down to the end. A week from right now, I will be finished with my last Final. Yesterday was basically a day off for me and so I came down to school with Jenn and got our graduation stuff (cap and gown, tickets, etc) picked up and am ready for June 15th (graduation day). It was a nice day all in all, we went to look at some houses near by, and took it easy for the most part. I have to say that it’s a bit weird imagining a life without school. It becomes so ingrained in your life for the last 4 years it just feels odd to know that one day it all ends and its time to move on.

As you all know I have my Europe Trip coming on July 2nd and so I am not making any big plans for my life until after that. I need some time to just relax, recuperate, and figure out what I want to do. And what better then way then 3 weeks in Europe? I’ll probably start thinking about what to do on the 13 hours of flying on the way home.

One week until I am an official graduate of UC Irvine. Crazy stuff.

How crazy is life? It feels like just yesterday I started my first nerve filled day at UC Irvine, and now here I am a year and a half later and I am finishing up my BA in Sociology and moving on with my life. For those who are wondering it did take me the 4 years to finish up my BA which most of the people I talk to are on the 5 or 6 year plan in school, so I am really excited to have gotten in and out of here in a good amount of time. For those who weren’t reading my blog a year and a half ago, I transferred as a Junior from Cal State San Bernardino to UC Irvine in January of 2007 and for all intensive purposes didn’t think I would be graduating until 2009. But a few lucky draws and bam I am a week and two days away from taking my last final, and a week and six days away from officially graduating.

So how has UC Irvine been?

It’s a good school, there is not two ways about it. It’s everything a top notch University should be, I just am not one that is all that engaged with school. I have enjoyed my time here, especially since Jenn transfered over last summer, that really has made a world of difference. More then anything I owe a lot of getting through UC Irvine to Jenn, she has kept me focused, she has helped me make some huge decisions, and more then anything she was there for me day in and day out to make sure I got through school as successfully as I possibly could.

By the way I don’t know if I have mentioned this yet in previous posts, but I graduate on June 15th (which is fathers day) and guess who’s going to be graduating with me? That’s right, the love of my life, Jenn! She to will be walking on June 15th although still having a few quarters to go they are allowing her to walk early to not have to come back for next years commencement. It will truly be a great few weeks to come!

For the first time in my life, I feel like I am jumping on a bandwagon. If you ask me my favorite football team it would be the 49ers, baseball, The Angels, Golf Player Tiger Woods, Tennis Player James Blake, but when it comes to basketball I just don’t have a team, probably because I have never been a huge fan. However this season, before the Pao Gasul trade for the Lakers, I began to show signs of interest. Now I have been watching most of their games and have been enjoying it. Last night was one of the more exciting basketball games I have watched in a while, and seeing the Lakers head to the NBA finals is fantastic news, it means more basketball in the weeks to come. How great would a LA vs. Boston match-up be? I for one am hoping for that, and hoping that the Lakers take home another ring.