My new tattoo

No, nothing permanent has been done yet.

Since I've been in college I've thought about getting a tattoo. My father killed the early impulses by getting a tattoo himself my freshman year or somewhere thereabouts. But just as time heals the wounds of parental mid-life crises it also heals the trauma caused by parental units getting ink.

My problem with tattoos for the past couple of years has been that I couldn't think of anything that I wanted on my body for the rest of my life. This week I had dinner at an Indian restaurant across the street from one of the many tattoo parlors close to the U of I campus and I think I've solved that problem. I never want to be this far from Texas and family again. Since I don't know what career opportunities lie ahead of me in the next five years I think the only way to guarantee my closeness to the state and the ones I love is to have their likeness on me.

I'm thinking an outline of the state on the left shoulder blade with something inside to represent family will do quite nicely. Thoughts other than, "Tim Smith, have you finally lost your mind?!" are appreciated.

Pixar does it again

I made it to see Cars this weekend. I agree with Bubba's Sis, it is a great movie that will be part of my DVD collection as soon as it is available.

You'd think that being up in IL for the summer by myself I'd be caught up on movie watching, but I'd still like to see Over the Hedge, X3, and I guess the next installment of Pirates of the Carribean is due soon -- I've missed all the trailers for that. A trip to the theater this weekend is definately in order.

Google has taken over my browser

Google hasn't managed to take over the world yet, and they're not even making good progress taking over the much smaller domain of my laptop. However, it appears that my browser has been overrun by Google.

I have four tabs open in my Firefox window right now.

Tab 1: Gmail -- Google's web-based email service I've been using for almost two years now. If you want a Gmail account let me know. I've got invites a plenty to share.

Tab 2: Google Calendar -- I've put my triathlon summer training schedule online using this newer service. I like how it is doubling as a calendar and a training log for me. No real need for me to use Google Notebook as a result.

Tab 3: This site -- I've just finished reading through my regular set of blogs and all but one of them is hosted on Blogger, a Google service.

Tab 4: Gmaps Pedometer -- While not a Google service it is a distance calculator built using the Google Maps programming interface. I use this site to map out my running and biking courses for my training, and also for getting some idea of how long it is going to take me to get somewhere in Urbana-Champaign on my bike this summer. This site and Google Maps share equal time open in my browser since I'm always trying to find something in town or figure out where I'm going to run/bicycle to next.

So there you have it, my regular set of tabs are owned by Google. My browser homepage is a personalized Google page as well that lets my quickly check the weather in cities of interest and glance through the headlines of the day.

While I think nerd-love of Google is a bit too high right now and the honeymoon is bound to end at some point soon, I have unintentionally come to use several online products from them. That scares me somewhat, but I'm happy with each of the services and won't be looking for replacements anytime soon. Google may take over the world in the near future, but now I'm going to be a little wary of any attempts to invade more space on my PC.

P.S. You'd think that with all of this online success Google would at least put together a spell checker that doesn't think "Google" is misspelled.