I woke up at 4:30am today. After an hour of lying there, I decided sleep was hopeless and got up for the day. Maybe this will get me back on my old schedule of not staying up so late at night.

Friday Jarod and I gave a kickass presentation on summaries, paraphrasing and quotations to the class. It lasted about 20 minutes and included clips from a TV show, clips from a LiveJournal, clips from comic strips, Jarod’s music video on paraphrasing, including a bald guy with PARAPHRASE written on his head, handouts, a powerpoint presentation and buttons at the end of it all. A few of the students were wearing their buttons as they left class. The handout that we gave everyone looked a little something like this:

Facts:

When you paraphrase, you follow very closely the author

Yesterday at Goodwill I picked up one of those old 80’s power switch box thingies for $6.00. They’re the kind that people used to have sitting under their monitors to switch various computer components on and off. Back in the days when you didn’t have to “power down” your computer – you just switched it off while all your stuff was still on the screen. Here’s where I put it:

I had to take the thing apart to drill holes in the top so I could mount it to the bottom of the desk. And while it was apart I scrubbed the 20 years of dust off of it. I bought a few extension cords too and I’m plugging in everything that runs on an AC/DC transformer. That way I can switch off those energy-sucking adapters instead of leaving them running 24/7.

I’m not sure if it’ll make much noticeable difference in my power bill or not. My electric bill usually only runs $30 or so. So it might. Probably take me a few years to make back the $6.00 I spent on this power swich box. But at the very least, it’ll sure make my room a lot less brighter at night. Damn LEDs…

Before I moved to Oregon, I had this crazy plan to put some kind of centralized DC power supply in my house and then run 12 volt hookups to every room. THEN I was going to start ripping the transformers out of all my household appliances and convert them to 12 volt power. Too bad I never got around to that before I moved.

Hung around Little Caesars this evening, waiting for our pizza.  At some point, a carload of teens comes up to the drive-thru window.  I’m not sure if they ordered anything, I just know they blasted a hand held airhorn in the window.  The very crowded and noisy waiting area went completely silent for a few seconds.  Emily and I looked out the large window behind us as the teens were looking in to check out our reactions before they sped off.  Reminded me of that guy on Cal’s forums that did the airhorn video a year or so ago.

The funniest part was one of the Little Caesars employees – he watched as they began driving away and yelled out (to who?) the first 3 digits of his license plate number.  Then he ran through the kitchen so he could run out the back door to attempt to get the rest of the plate number.  You gotta love how seriously he took the situation.  This guy seemed prepared to call the cops on some teenagers just for making a little noise, while everyone else just kind of snickered about it.

Spent the afternoon writing a paper that’s due tomorrow.  Did some revising on it tonight and finished it up.  I’m happy enough with it.  I got a B+ on my last paper and I hated it.  Did nothing this evening, just watched some TV. 

School is fun, I’m enjoying it. Jarod, a guy from class, came over for a few hours yesterday to work on a project. We’re giving a 45 minute speech on paraphrasing and summaries, basically teaching an entire class. Lazy teacher. He had some hilarious ideas and our speech is going to rule. I’m going to make buttons to hand out after the speech that say, “Brad & Jarod taught me Paraphrasing”

The kids and I went to see a movie yesterday. Open Season. It was funny. Crazy how many computer animated movies are coming out each year. Today we had piano lessons, then went on a tour of all 4 Albany fire departments. Went for groceries. That’s about it. Been hanging around the house the rest of the day. Emily is playing an online PS2 game right now (Ratchet & Clank) with a 7-year-old boy named Bob The Killer.

Jammie is calling me!

Biked to lunch at Wendy’s yesterday. On the way back, was passing the Pix theater and noticed Little Miss Sunshine was playing there and that it started in just 10 minutes. So I saw it. Me and several dozen really old people. It was a great movie.

Also, last night, I heard a couple of really great songs by a band called Lemon Demon on a podcast I was listening to. Today I found their website and their Myspace. And they’re amazing. Go listen right now:

http://www.myspace.com/lemondemon

Listen to the song called The Ultimate Showdown. And then watch the video for Word Disassociation. Great stuff. I convinced Altalp that they were great and she bought one of their CDs online and let me download all the tracks from it too. I’m going to buy the other 2 CDs as soon as I have some money.

A huge thanks goes to Smart Bomb Radio who played Lemon Demon on their podcast.

EDIT: I knew I recongized his voice! Lemon Demon used to be known as Trapezoid and is the guy behind the Ebaum’s World Sucks song. Also there’s a video for The Ultimate Showdown.