Irony now available from iTunes

This weekend I was finally run down by the sleek and sexy machine that is Apple. I now own a nano. I've been looking at these for a while now, with a mostly jealous eye as my officemate taunted me with his. He enjoyed mocking the brick that I used as my main mp3 player. At about 8 times the size and 20 times the weight it was an easy and ugly target. Still, it did its job and will continue to be used at home, I just won't lug it around everywhere now.

This morning as I left the house I was careful to set the volume so that I could still hear the birds. I didn't want to be one of those annoyingly oblivious individuals that I consigned to early deaths as part of natural selection in my post less than two weeks ago. As I walked up to the Rec center I realized with a cringe that my effort had been to no avail. I almost walked right past my friends Nathan and Shawna. They had seen me coming and were waiting in front of the Rec. Nathan and even tried to greet me, shouting "Tim Smith!" as I approached. I however, had been sucked into my personal bubble and was bouncing along my way.

Someone run me over with a bus already.

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity

The Daytona 500 is this afternoon, and I'll be watching. This year I think I'll have company too. Ana has started to move beyond the Baby Einstein and Dora the Explorer DVDs, showing interest in my Pixar movies.

Her favorite of the bunch is Cars. Bugs has too many scary grasshopper scenes that have to be skipped, and the Toy Story movies are a lot of talk without much action (The Incredibles also talk too much). This afternoon she may make a pit stop and help her daddy look for Lightning McQueen out on the track before resuming her own race around the house.

Update: Ana went down for her nap just as the engines were fired up. She slept as I watched the first half of the race. When she woke up it was too pretty to stay inside, so we went to the playground. So I missed the big wrecks and excitement, so it goes. They race almost every Sunday from now until October, so I'll see my fair share of wrecks this year.

Popping the personal bubble

The Washinton Post has an article about proposed legislation in New York that would ban pedestrians from using electronic devices while crossing the street. Chatting on the cell phone or dancing along with your iPod would earn you a $100 fine.

I'm all for folks getting off the phone and making eye contact on the sidewalk once again. Cell phones and music players have killed a large part of the friendly spirit on the A&M campus. Long gone are the days where "Howdy" was an oft heard phrase as you crossed campus. However, I'm more in favor of letting natural selection handle the problem instead of introducing legislation to get people to pay attention.

Let the real waiting begin

Harry Potter fans have been waiting for more than a year and a half for the conclusion to Harry's adventure, and now the wait has been intensified. The new book will be available on July 21, 2007. Knowing the release date has just made more more impatient, something I blame on my inner-child that will enjoy the book more than any thiry year old probably should. Whatever. The books are entertaining and well written.

I'd like to post a link to the press release on J. K. Rowling's site, but it is a bunch of shiny flash that requires pop-ups so I'll not bother. You can instead cruise over to Amazon and place your order now. I'd like to thank Borders books for sending me the SPAM with the news by not linking to them.