Use of watches may have seen a decline since everyone started carrying cell phones everywhere which also have clocks. However, I hear they're making a comeback. I always wear a watch as my phone in my pocket isn't nearly close enough when I want to know the time. For a long time I've had an unfortunate habit of checking my watch for all sorts of information that it doesn't contain. I think it could have the potential to have more of that, but more about that in a later post about my thoughts on the upcoming smart (meta) watches.

One specific idea I've had for a while is a way for my watch to show me the time in the TV show or movie I'm watching. ( Read more... )

For some reason I'm currently in love with Palladia. It's an HD digital cable TV channel that I get. I used to just use it as my go-to demo of my HD setup when people would come over. It was great for this because it was always showing beautiful crisp HD footage, usually of concerts. It is better than finding some show because you can watch it for a just a few minutes without getting wrapped up in the show. Lately I've realized I could enjoy watching it. It is amazing because it is a music channel that actually plays music 24/7. Even better, a lot of the time it is live music (concerts) instead of just music videos. It's funny because I was never even someone who liked watching MTV, music videos or anything.

This weekend I caught a marathon of the new WB show, Beauty and the Geek. I'd heard about the show before. It's the new thing that Ashton Kutcher came up with. The idea is they pair up hot girls with nerdy guys and make them compete to not get voted off and ultimately win money in classic reality TV style. When I first heard about it I thought it was going to be really shallow and crappy. When I watched it though it wasn't as bad as I had thought. There were definately clashes where the girls and the guys weren't used to each other's worlds. Overall they ended up getting along better than they had thought they would and the people leaving the show really did seem to have learned something.

The whole brains tradeoff for beauty thing isn't as balanced as they'd like you to believe. The guys are trying to learn things like massage, women's fashion, and asking for girls' numbers. Theses are things that are very hard for them on an emotional level but things they'd like to improve. They had the women doing math, car repair, and "rocket science". It really wasn't that hard, even for them, and it wasn't like they cared. I don't think they were really learning anything or improving. They did benefit from hanging out with the guys.

Anyway, I was thinking about going on the show. I've thought about going on reality TV before. I watch Survivor a lot recently and I always think, "what would I do in that situation". I like the idea of actually playing the game. Showing what I could do in those challenges (I'd be good at any that involve staying under water a long time).

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Today was the most excellent day and yesterday was great too. Today I received a phone call from someone at Walt Disney Imagineering to set up a phone interview for an internship position. If you know me you know how excited that would make me. It is only the #1 place I'd want to work. And with all that has happened and how competetive it is to begin with the get a job there I'm very happy to even get to interview. This is just a first round, but I'm still very nervous.

I often express my worries about finding an internship position. I really need to find one this summer because I need this experience I haven't had before. Unfortunately I don't feel that I am very good at the whole job search and interview process. Not being able to well answer the basic question, "What do you want to be doing in a few years?" doesn't exactly set me up for success. I know that I'm really good at a lot of things. It isn't that I don't feel qualified to do any sort of job I'd be interested in, it is just that I don't feel that I'm qualified to get the jobs. I don't think I look that good on paper. I haven't had any internships before, I don't have any major accolades, I'm not an expert at any one thing except maybe learning to solve just about any problem put in front of me. A problem solver is what I am, but how do I sell that?

I had another interview with an amazing company yesterday. Yesterday two guys from 4orty 2wo Entertainment came to the ETC. In standard ETC fashion they gave a talk, took a tour of the project demos, and then interview students who signed up for slots.

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Any fan of The West Wing would be jealous of the day I had today. A few months ago, my mom went to a charity auction to benefit MS. One thing up for auction was a personal tour of The West Wing. Knowing what a big fan of the show I was, she bought it as a gift. This week she was going to be in LA anyway for a business conference so I flew up on Monday to join her.

First of all, the weather is beautiful. It more than makes up for the rainy conditions when I visited several weeks ago. I spent Tuesday walking on the beach and sitting by the pool. But that wasn't the exciting part of the trip.

Today we went to visit the set of The West Wing. It was Bradley Whitford that had put up the tour for auction so it was his assistant that arranged for us to come and show us around. At first we had some difficulty with the gate guards. We ended up circling around 3 times, before we were able to convice them that we actually belonged there.

It was exciting to meet several of the actors from the show. First we talked to NiCole Robinson who plays Margaret. Of course, we saw Bradley Whitford, we said hi to Allison Janney briefly, and we also were able to talk to Martin Sheen. We also saw Richard Shiff who wasn't acting but directing. Everyone was really nice. We actually got to hang out with Martin Sheen for a minute in his trailor, he signed some autographs, we took a picture with him, and then he invited us into the West Wing to watch a scene they were filming. It was quite surreal because of how similar people seemed to their characters.

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Words cannot begin to describe how much I hate the Comcast cable provider. They have of course got a monopoly on the cable service in my area and a disturbingly large part of cable service nationwide. Their prices are absolutely outrageous. The lowest plan they have that includes any strictly cable stations (not broadcast) costs $42. I don't watch a lot of TV, not nearly the amount I would get for the $42, but some. $20-$30 seems reasonable to me for what I want, but to get it I must subscribe to their $42 plan. They make no attempt to serve their customers; it is one of the most blatenly self-serving businesses that I can think of. There's no way I can do anything about it. I feel I need to take some action, but the only action I can see is cancelling my subscription outright in protest. Unfortunately that wouldn't even be noticable to such a large company. Rather, it would hurt me by taking away the programs I want to see. I'm really mad because I'm addicted to the stories in the shows I like to watch. I need to see them, so I feel I must subscribe against my will. I don't even think I can afford it. In a way I blame MIT housing for getting me addicted to TV with their free cable (even as sparce as it was).

The last two weeks have been really tough. So much happened but I haven't had a moment to relax, well, not exactly. Here's the recap.

Going Home

I don't mean home in the literal sense, but mentally. Last monday classes were cancelled so I decided to take an esaver and visit Pittsburgh for the weekend. I had to fly out of Providence which meant I was dependant on the train schedule which doesn't always go all the way to Providence. Therefore, I ended up spending the night with Jackie at Brown. It was nice to see and spend some time with her, since we can't do that often.

It was really great to be back at CMU. Possibly it was just because I was on a trip and there wasn't anything I had to do, but the whole time I was there was very relaxing. Just sitting in these familiar rooms on familiar couches with my best friends was really comforting.

Mike Weiss was also in that weekend. He flew in to take his stuff from storage and drive it back to New York in a U-Haul. Nate and I helped him load things up. The U-Haul he was given, old-faithful we called it, seemed a bit beat up, but we didn't quite know how bad it was when we first set up. When we got to the storage facility we noticed that the radiator was leaking. Instead of packing up storage we just had to wait around for a while. After U-Haul determined they weren't going to do anything for us, we had to walk and take two busses home. Then we had to return the next day with a better truck and do the actual packing.

Except the amount of time spent on that ordeal, instead of seeing people, the weekend was good.

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I haven't written in a while. It was because I had a really rough emotional rollercoaster ride that left me unable to care about anything as trivial as my website. Oh, and I had a lot of class work. So the situation, for the curious, was this thing with this girl, and it sucked and wasted my time, but I'm over it now and ready to move on.

So back on the update scene here's what's been going on. Class are keeping me busy. Got my first OS assignment back. I wasn't too pleased with the grade despite the fact that ours was the most efficient shell our grader had seen. Efficiency, that is definately one of my things. Still waiting to get into 240 but I figure that if it makes it to the end of the semester I can just say, "Hey, I did all the work, I got an A on the final, now give me my credit and let me go on my way."

TAing is a lot of work. More than I expected but the pay and helping people make it worth it. Today I did 4 hours worth of motion capture, but it came out surprisingly well for my first time. I can't wait to see how it turns out in the worlds. Mocap makes me really feel important. Like I have something special going for me. Let's hope that carries though.

Speaking of things going for me, GRE's went well, so now it must be time to apply to grad schools. This is going to be a tough choice to make if I have to. Free and in Boston, or with my friend where I think would be more my style?

But what do I really want to say today. I feel on top of the world. I used to hit pits and stay down.

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