JamesSlusher.com

I have said that I would get my podcasting s**t together this week and I will. I had wanted to finish my taxes first, just to be a good boy. It’s not looking good, however, and I may just end up giving up and going back to the woman who did them last year.

I downloaded Audacity for Windows and also the suggested LAME MP3 encoder (their name, not mine). I will install them both today and try a bit of recording to see how it sounds. Then, once I’m satisfied I can do this without letting on that I’m a complete moron, I will record a show and cry to my brother until he helps me set up the feed and shows me how to post new podcasts.

Then I will be off and talking, I reckon.

UPDATE: It sounds horrible using my old gaming headphone/microphone setup. I’m going to go get a better mic and perhaps a cheapy Radioshack mixer. It is not so much that I have to sound great, it is just that after all my comments about people sounding bad, I have a certain quality level I need to adhere to.

I had to debate with myself on whether to put his under arts/tv or arts/movies. I figure since it is actually TV about movies, it should go under the tv section.

That being said, who gives a crap about the Oscars anyways? The fact that cornball junk like this has gained such a position in our society is, in my opinion, a sign that it was a huge mistake standardizing the work week to 40 hours. Obviously people need more things to worry about if they have that much leisure time on their hands. It all boils down to debating who did the best job of pretending to be someone else last year. Big deal.

Okay, I know that most readers will not be shocked by the title of this post. Most are well aware of my status of being nearly filled to the brim with crap. But this is a particularly egregious example of my personal hypocrisy.

After making this particularly hostile statement towards upgrading Quicken, I went out and bought Quicken Deluxe 2005. That and I bought the TurboTax software for federal and state software. All by Intuit, thus making my statement of hostility towards them fairly meaningless.

But frankly, the rebates and all that you get by buying all three of them were so good I couldn’t pass it up.

Upgrading Quicken to the 2005 version was a bit of a pain as it decided that it didn’t need to convert absolutely everything over, leaving out a number of fairly important transactions and making me have to go back and figure out what was missing manually. It also looks a great deal different from the 2002 version so I’m still trying to get my head around what I’m doing with some of it.

Do you ever end up with two major things to do, one that you want to do and the other you should do? I do quite often. When that happens, I usually refuse to start on the want thing until the should thing is finished. Bu since I don’t want to do the should thing, it just doesn’t get done. So there I am, stuck again.

I have, however, worked out a compromise. I have begun doing things that I don’t want to do and shouldn’t be doing.

Years ago my brother introduced me to a little game on his PDA (or whatever it was called then) that was called Bejeweled. It has other names including Diamond Mine. It is an addictive little game for sure. I’ve wasted many a good hour moving little shapes around for no apparent reason other than it makes my little monkey brain happy.

Well, they’ve updated it. Bejeweled 2 is now available and it is quite cool. I imagine it is what would happen if you combined the first Bejeweled with Mortal Kombat.

I am about as exhausted as I can possibly be and still be able to function. I’m not functioning well, but I am functioning.

Looks like this Rover is no more! He has ceased
to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If we hadn’t towed ‘im to the shop ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!!

THIS IS AN EX-ROVER!!

I am glad that things will be over and done with soon. Having something like this hanging over you puts a cloud onto everything. It turns a tiring life into an exhausting one. I’m ready for it to be done.

G’night

I downloaded Skype tonight. I haven’t installed it yet as I am just too tired to continue on. I will mess with it on Friday when I’m off. After that I will post my contact info so that y’all can call me for free. That’ll be cool.

The good news is that I’m alright. The bad news is the the Rover is not. Despite my mechanical background, I’m no expert in the calculus of deciding whether to fix or total a vehicle. My guess is that the Land Rover will soon be an ex-Land Rover. Just guessing from the way that the front axle is broken and that the grill guard is pushed into the engine on the passenger’s side.

I was on my way home and coming down Hammond Drive which is a bit steep. It was raining and very dark and the street light was out on that street (after having been hit two weeks ago in another wreck). When I saw the maroon Chrysler parked there, it was too late. I jerked the wheel but our front passenger sides met and then I was doing a Starsky and Hutch two-wheel trick into someone’s yard.

The really embarassing part is that the car I hit belongs to a co-worker of mine. Not just the same company, but the same crew, same area, everything. He had just got home (not in that car, though). Now his maroon Chrysler whatever is in his yard. Way into it.

I’m going to miss that Land Rover. I wonder what color the next one should be.

Yesterday was spent in a bit of Suburban Utopia. We raked the yard, cleaned the house, caught up with the laundry, and painted a few spots of the fascia that got replaced at the same time as the roof. It was the kind of beautiful day that I dreamed of when I decided to become a husband and a father.

It is absolutely shameful how dirty our house gets. I’m getting very close to giving the okay for an occasional maid service. Especially one that does laundry. I used to think that I would be embarassed to have someone I’m not related to washing my drawers. I think I could get over it very quickly. If it would keep this stuff from piling up so high, it would be well worth it.

The fun part was playing in the yard, though. Check these out, a good time was had by all.

My posts have been sporadic, at best, lately. I know. This rotating shift business is for the birds. I will try to catch you up on some of the goings on of the Slusher family, the Automan Empire and my journey towards starting a podcast in the next couple of weeks.