Here it is…

Read this post first.

It came in last night. Joe is very happy. Very happy indeed. Two 60-card decks, vitality counters and rules sheet. The game seems simple enough, but I’ll elaborate more when I actually break open the plastic seals and attempt a game. As much as I’d like to play against someone, there’s no one local that would want to learn. So I’ll try playing a game against myself and we’ll see if the game is good enough for a second player.

Ok, I downloaded 2 songs by The White Stripes: Fell in Love with a Girl and Seven Nation Army. Now, I like these songs, and I want to download more from this band, but I have no idea what’s good or not.

So, calling all music experts. Start recommending. Songs or CDs, whatever. All input would be awesome. You can either leave a comment or drop me an e-mail: aj(at)averagejoe.cc. And if you know any of my other personal contact info, that’ll work too.

In May 2005, the computer lost the ability to produce sound. On 2/5/2006, it then lost the ability to fire RGB pixels on its own screen. Suffice to say, the laptop is no longer practically usable. I know that the source of both problems lie in the motherboard, which would be a $900+ replacement (most of that is the cost of the part, not the labor.)

I’ll be bringing the laptop into work on Monday to transfer the files I’d like to keep onto a CD. After that, the laptop will be retired after 4 years of noble service.

Yeah, I never got to discuss this.

I attended the state of the county address on January 24. I helped in the technical side of things such as making sure the text of the speech was sent to the teleprompter and that the speech writers were able to prepare the speech on their laptops (they all wanted to work in the county executive’s office as opposed to their own offices in order to maximize coordination.)

My most notable experience happened at the site of the speech. Some hours before, the other tech guys and myself and the county exec went to the site of the speech in order to prepare the teleprompter and the video camera (which I was to operate.) Since I’m about the same height as the CE, he asked me to stand on the podium and read parts of his speech while he went into the seats to see how he’d look on the stage. Reading a speech off-the-cuff like that, not knowing the content of the speech and not having any experience with a teleprompter before made me very nervous, and as expected, it sucked. After I was done, I said to him “That’s why I’m not a public speaker!” I think he had a laugh at that, but I couldn’t tell since I was walking off the stage as quickly as possible at that moment.
After that was setup, we set up the camera and had a quick dinner before the attendees started arriving. The address was made during what was technically a county legislature meeting. After the roll was taken for the meeting, something that I didn’t expect happened; a local nun was recognized by the presiding officer and the legislature and the attending audience (which was minimal) bowed their heads in a prayer. After the prayer, a local minister was then recognized and read a part of the Bible.

Now, being a college-educated and secular young man, I felt very uncomfortable with acts of church being practiced in a government meeting. Anyone’s that taken an introductory Political Science course knows about the separation of church and state, and what happened there was a complete violation of that fundamental principle. There are not many things that make me feel uncomfortable (Fear Factor doesn’t surprise me anymore), but the practice and recognition of religion at a government meeting is one of them, and I felt very weird being a part of it, even indirectly. I didn’t want to say anything during the public portion of the meeting because I didn’t want to cause any trouble, but all I could think about is “why is this happening when this isn’t supposed to happen?”

I think I might be alone on this one though, since my supervisor said that it was no big deal, but it still feels weird to me.