That says it all.

I just happened to notice a TV ad for Ray, an autobiographical drama about Ray Charles. This strikes me as a little disrespectful so soon after his death in June, mostly because it seems to me that he has to die in order to get a film made about him. Why do the greats have to die before they are recognized by the entertainment industry and their story is told?

To me, it just seems as if Ray Charles’ work and legacy deserve more than token shows of appreciation after his death.

You heard it here before anyone on the naturalaxis Announcements list: naturalaxis has a new web site.

After fooling around with Movable Type a little and suffering through what had to be at least five or six blog site rebuilds, plus an unknown number of little template tweaks and individual template rebuilds — sorry, pair Networks — I am pleased to announce that there have been a few changes — first, archives are now available by category on the main archive index and on the left-hand side of your screen under “Archived Entries”. In addition, I’ve spruced up the main archive index to add a little more information on how many posts per month I’m doing,

Or, at least, I was as pleased to announce this as you can be after cursing at your blog’s management software trying to get it to do what you want it to.

Enjoy. Don’t take any wooden nickels.

Interestingly, there’s an article on Common Dreams about whether John Kerry will really return the troops home. Apparently, I’m not the only skeptical one.

For those interested in monitoring Mount St. Helens for eruptions during daylight hours, the USGS has a VolcanoCam for your viewing enjoyment.

chmod 0 mt-comments.cgi

Comments are now permanently off on this blog due to comment spam. Thanks to Sean for the hint.

How ironic. Now that I’m with a cable internet connection, I haven’t bothered to post. Figures.

The big news: Oh, my God, Betty, he can assemble furniture! Okay, this isn’t the big news, but yeah — I can, in fact, assemble furniture. I assembled my new stepping bookcase when it arrived on Friday — took an hour or two, but it was fun. Listened to Clint Black in the process (“Eww”, I can hear some of you say, “Clint Black…” Yes. Get over it) — it hasn’t fallen apart yet.

In other news, I spent all of Thursday and Friday on campus doing web site work for the Writing Center. Somehow, I also served as a moving man, helping one of my supervisors move a bookshelf from the depths of the library’s storage cages (which I’ve never been to before) into his office. It’s cavernous down there. We weren’t actually in the tunnel system that connects most of upper campus together, but the connection into the tunnel system was probably nearby. Nevertheless, cool experience.

Spent all of Saturday helping Amanda move in, and got my cable internet and lunch in return. Amanda was nice enough to bring her desktop over so that I could run the Comcast install, which didn’t take long — after that, just cloning her ethernet card’s hardware address onto my router ensured my connection. I did a lot of running back and forth on Saturday, bringing her ethernet cables and stuff. We went out to dinner at Apollo’s Pizza and Pasta down the road, since we didn’t want to brave the annoyingly long lines at the Greenery (the campus cafeteria).

Sunday was mostly just reading and fiddling around until Amanda showed up around 2:00. We went over to Target, shop-ified, and came back here, then back to her dorm at around 6:30. I spent the night over there (though I admit to wondering if her roommate really approved of it), then came back with her this afternoon. My roommate’s here (finally), so it’s a bit of an adjustment. Amanda left after a while, since she had Orientation Week stuff she wanted to attend tomorrow. I’ll see her again at the Writing Center retreat on Wednesday.

Not much else to say — I’ve been working on a draft article regarding the Enrollment Growth DTF for the Cooper Point Journal, which I’ll be presenting to the DTF Wednesday afternoon. We’ll see if they like it. Other than that, it’s mostly just attempting to relax and not go batty with the possibility of an insanely hectic schedule.

Yet another year is nearly upon us.

Well, I’ve been without a cable internet connection since like, Saturday when the modem was actually installed. I’m waiting for Nathan (my roommate this year) so that I can hook it up (or Amanda, depending on who gets here first). Yeah, I could call Comcast and activate it manually, but if I can’t tolerate my own technical advice, why the hell would I want to listen to someone else’s?

So, therefore, you probably won’t see many other entries on here until, like, Sunday. Consider yourself warned.

Yes, this is a humorous entry. Really.

Well, I said in my last entry that this was a weird movie — I just finished watching it, and I think “twisted” is a more appropriate phrase. Amanda liked the movie, but she kept saying that she was freaked out by the rabbit, which didn’t make sense to me until I watched it. Now there’s a rabbit that’s very hard to forget (no, it’s nothing like the rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). I really liked it, though — it’s extremely well-crafted and a very interesting story line. I’m not going to spoil it for people who haven’t seen it — just trust me when I say that it’s an insight into a world that none of us would ever dare even imagine unless we were stuck there ourselves. I give this a 5/5 — nice special effects, great cinematography, and believable characters.