It started with a simple problem, I noticed that my iPod would be completely depleted of battery power after about 2 straight hours of listening, so I did what anyone would do, I looked on amazon.com and got me a new battery, costing about 12 bucks… what a deal! So I get the battery in the mail and I crack my iPod open and wire it up, luckily everything worked out just fine and it started working just as it did when I first got it.

Not too long after that, maybe 3 months, it happened. I told my roommate to eject my iPod and pass it to me as I was heading out the door to hit up the pool, he did then handed it to me, I immediately noticed that all my songs were missing… not a good thing, luckily I had taken all of the songs from the iPod and put them on my PC so I was covered, I thought oh well I’ll just plug it back in and re-sync it… not a big deal… wrong. After numerous attempts to re-sync I kept getting an error message, “Attempting to copy to the disk failed. An unknown error occurred (-69)”. I took the iPod into the Mac store, they poked and prodded and couldn’t get it fixed until something just happened and it worked for them, I took it home and thought, “oh wow I can finally listen to music again”, wrong.

So I’ve been doomed to the radio and cd’s for the past 5 months… that is not something that I enjoy, I’ve been virtually radio free for about 4 years and loved the freedom of listening to whatever songs that I want whenever I want, and to top it all off I found a torrent for the new Muse album that doesn’t come out for another month that I can’t enjoy in the peace of my vehicle, downright tragic.

So my solution, go back to the Apple store today and attempt to get the damn thing fixed one last time, if that doesn’t work I’d sure hate to drop another 200 or so bucks, but that may be the only viable answer =/. Maybe I’ll switch over to the Zune HD, it looks pretty solid and it’s got a good price, plus it has just enough space for me, none of that 120 gig nonsense that is a tad excessive for me. The Zune HD comes out on September 15th and comes in 2 sizes, 16 and 32 gig costing $220 and $290 respectively, check it out at http://www.zune.net/en-us/mp3players/zunehd/default.htm or if you have any idea of how to fix this problem please let me know.

Saturday rolls around and my girlfriend and I make plans to see the film in Gainesville, we were both pretty excited and finally got to see the film that had been eluding us for such a long time, of course we still had to pay full price but I think it was worth it.

After seeing the film I was pretty happy with my decision and persistence to actually go and see it. The film offered a very humorous story with great direction and a fun and interesting back-and-forth style timeline.

If anyone hasn’t seen this film I really suggest you check it out, I’d have to say it’s definitely one of the best I’ve seen all year, it’s charming, has a lot of humor, and doesn’t leave you feeling as empty as you’d think (kind of sad but true).

Now the only thing to really look forward to is District 9, I’ve been checking the ratings all week and have noticed that everyone’s review has something in common, they are all showing very positive things. District 9 comes out this Friday, August 14th and should be just about everywhere movies are shown =)

So after mindless hours of television, watching stupid shows like Meerkat Manor and Animal Guinness Records (which was actually awesome), a gem appears on my horizons, something that I haven’t seen in a long time and until recently had completely forgotten about. I speak only of the Crocodile Hunter, a show that I shouldn’t have to explain, a show so amazing and hilarious it brings a tear to your eye, a show driven by the legendary and once vivacious, Steve Irwin, God rest his soul. I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of pride and fulfillment. As I kept watching I remembered exactly why I loved the Crocodile Hunter so much, his energy and love for what he did was unmatched by anyone I’ve ever seen. In this episode he was going through South East Asia surfing and looking for snakes; as he finished riding out a wave he comes up to his camera man, talking about surfing, all of a sudden he spots a snake in the water, he dives off his board and yanks the thing up out of the depths. He begins to tell the camera everything about the snake, and tells us how it’s the biggest of the species that he has ever seen, it was remarkable to see him handling this thing all the while balancing on a surfboard, but the best part was after he was finished giving all the info about the snake he kind of gets it into a compact state and rests it upon his head… like a crazy person… all the while the snakes head is dangling down in front of his nose, lol at that very moment I laughed like crazy and realized how much I missed Steve Irwin, it wasn’t a sad feeling but a feeling of joy for how amazing he was at what he did.

Anyway I just wanted to write something about Steve Irwin because I enjoyed his show so much and wanted to post some clips of him doing all the crazy shit he was known for =)

Here is a cute couple showing off their newly acquired skin cancer.

We’ve always figured that tanning beds caused cancer or that they were at the very least not very good for you, well now a recent study says that they may be as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas. The study says that skin cancer increases by 75% when people start using tanning beds before the age of 30. Melanoma in young people has risen so much that is now the leading cancer diagnosed in women in their 20′s in Britain. So with all that said you should probably avoid tanning beds, after all it is Florida so just get outside when it’s not raining and you should be fine =)

This summer has been pretty good, I haven’t really done much during the weeks in terms of friends or adventure but the weekends have always been good, thanks Jayde =). So how do I get through the mindless weeks of work and nothingness? Usually I would love to hang out with friends and just bs, hit the bars or hang out nothing special just something to pass the time and get out of the house. Also I’ve always had a slight interest in video games because I just don’t like to sit at home doing nothing or scout around for something to do all the time, so I combine the fact that I don’t have the money to go out… ever… and I need to pass the time in the least painful way, at least to make it to the weekend.

I have been messing around on video games probably this whole summer. Luckily I know how to use a computer to do whatever I want and have pirated many games, assuring that I don’t have to spend a dime and because of that I don’t really have to be choosy on what I’m playing. I think I started the summer playing Red Alert 3, just messing around and learning about the game. After that came the Sims 3, fun for a few days but it really takes too much time and gets pretty old pretty fast. Finally I downloaded Warhammer Dawn of War 2 and had it sitting on my computer for some time. My friend suggested the game so I got to downloading, after it was finished I tried to get it to work and it wouldn’t budge, kept saying some unexplainable error occurred and I did everything I could to fix it… still no cigar. Finally just the other day I was bored and started messing with it again, I found the appropriate .exe and it opened up like a book. After a few minutes of playing the game I decided that I really was starting to like it. The game combines parts of an RTS with the leveling and personalization of other types of games. You get new weapons with rarity values and can assign points to your troops when they level up to be how you want them to be. Aside from being slightly repetitive the game is fun and the abilities that you get as you level make it even better, plus it was free so I’ll never complain =)

You can get the torrent for the game from the piratebay.org here http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4733484/Warhammer.40.000.Dawn.of.War.II-ViTALiTY you can get bittorent to download it here http://www.bittorrent.com/ and if you need help with installing or wanna know how bittorent works let me know =)

Check out the review of the gameplay and go download it!

Check out both trailers and you can see how different they are, maybe it’s me but whatever I just hope the film turns out to be good.

The next day while I’m at work she finds the pinball game on my computer, she tells me how she likes it and when I come home I see that she’s actually pretty good at it. I’ve never really played the pre-installed windows games other than skifree and solitaire so I didn’t really know what I was getting myself in to. I remember playing pinball on the computer but can’t remember ever really getting in to it. I start off and I’m doing kinda poorly, I can keep the ball going but I just couldn’t break 500 thousand points, all the while she’s getting over a million every game! So we keep playing it alternating back and forth and I start to notice all the lights and really start to understand the game, granted it’s just pinball but it’s actually pretty awesome, it has missions that you have to complete and added bonuses for hitting things over and over. Finally I get a break and I make it on the top 5 high scores, it might have been the bottom but it was still something.

During this time my girlfriend and I are having fun, we’re encouraging each other to do well and are really getting involved in the game. Saturday morning I wake up and I go right to the game, Jayde is still sleeping and I start playin, bam before I know it I have over 1 million points and I was still on my first ball, I kept strong and finished with over 4 million points, the record on my computer that still stands today! I wake up Jayde and say hey look I’m doing better I got over 4 million, of course I expect to be applauded and really feel accomplished but then she gives me the death stare. All of that talk about the two of us not being competitive and the next day she starts up, I guess it didn’t help that I signed my high score, “can’t touch this – tim”. Well this was a serious problem for our relationship, it seems a bit trivial but she was really mad, she nearly wouldn’t talk to me for a whole hour, meanwhile she was pinballing away trying to beat my score and knock me down a peg. Eventually we worked it out and she no longer hates me, at least openly, we’re even back to encouraging each other to do better. My advice, always let your lady friends win, it may hurt your ego to be humble but man it keeps em off your back =)

*story may have been exaggerated for interests sake.

On this day I’m forced to choose between my, now, antique ride that got me through highschool and into college whilst roaring down the streets, and my newly acquired 2003 Acura RSX with just 20k miles and AC, which is something that I haven’t enjoyed in over 4 years. The choice may seem quite easy to the heartless, but for me it’s a choice between the memories of a past and the uncertainties of a future, a choice that makes me tremble in my wake. Unfortunately the facts chose to give me less and less of a choice then I’d enjoy, my ancient vehicle has suffered a near fatal blow to the head gasket, the sort of clout that could be easily fixed with a little bit of time and a little bit of money. Fortunately my great grandfather has graced me with the use of his RSX, a car that he purchased new in 2003 and has only subjected to the road for 20 thousand miles. So the choice becomes easier, it’s a dog eat dog world out there and the outdated falls by the wayside, alas the choice becomes something different, it’s no longer a choice, it’s a rite of passage, a vessel that will bring me into the future (with half the gas).

So this is my farewell to the vehicle that I’ve loved so dearly and had so many memories with, this may sound a tad cheesey but a man’s vehicle that he bought with his own money and truly appreciated is something that is hard to let go of.

If you’re interested in buying my love check out http://jacksonville.craigslist.org/cto/1270785262.html or the ebay site to check out the pictures.

Click to visit eBay page.