You were my fave...you'll be missed. Here's to you and yours.

I've just heard that Christopher Hitchens died on December 15. I always seem to miss the important ones.

I didn't always agree with what Mr. Hitchens said (and I freely admit to not having read his books), but I always admired his passion and the fact that he seemed to arrive at his opinions intelligently. And he struck me as one of the great literary drinkers, so I had a hard time not liking him at least a little.

When I drink my bourbon on New Year's Eve, I'll raise my glass to his memory--whether or not he will ever know.

Joe Frazier died of liver cancer on Monday. He did great things in and out of the ring, including winning Olympic gold in 1964 and petitioning Richard Nixon to allow Muhammad Ali to continue boxing after Ali refused to fight in the Vietnam war. He was a legend who will be sorely missed.

So, I'm trying to finish my case study for Tuesday night (It's about Google's strategy--which seems to be world domination--if you're wondering), but I can't stop listening to this:

Mustang Ranch by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

May it infect your brain (and your hips), too.

...for me to post another music link. It's been far too long.

On an unrelated note, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is one of the better books I've read in a while (because it had also been far too long since I read for pleasure).

Leave it to The Onion.

At last...official Machete trailer is HERE! September 3, 2010 is the release date (according to Wikipedia, so take that for what it's worth). Looks really awesome and I can't wait!

I hated high school. With a passion. I keep in touch with one person from my graduating class and his brother who was one year behind us. Everyone else there is dead in my world (to be clear, I don't wish them harm anymore--I've grown beyond that at least--but they might as well not exist as far as I'm concerned). I got senior pictures made because I was forced and also because I knew that my mother would want to have them (I attended graduation for her benefit, too, all stifled and sweaty in a cramped auditorium with no air conditioning--love ya, Mom).

That's why what's happening to Ceara Sturgis really makes me sick. The gist of this story is that Ceara wore a tux in her senior picture and not only would her backwards, homophobic school not publish the photo in the yearbook, but they wouldn't even acknowledge her by name (to add insult to injury, the school printed a photo of one senior who had dropped out). I prayed for this kind of thing when I was in high school and I would have happily worn a dress to just be forgotten by everyone, but this girl wants to be recognized, wants the memories of high school, wants to be able to show her relatives (and maybe children someday) her yearbook picture, but she can't because her existence is an affront to the moral sensibilities of the pond scum in administration at Wesson Attendance Center in Mississippi.

Ceara (though you'll never read this), I wish I could cheer you up somehow. I'll send your persecutors angry e-mails (and if anyone else reads this and is outraged, too, please do the same) and hope it makes a difference. If it's any consolation, I know a lot of people are in your corner.

Stats project is officially off and running. For the record, I'll be attempting to predict the weekly sales (in dollars or units, I haven't decided yet) of a DVD based upon its average unit price, number of weeks in release, and the film's rating. Potential hurdles ahead include:  double dips (if you're unfamiliar with the term, it's when studios release a bare-bones DVD early and then, a few months later, release a DVD that's packed with special features--I hear Avatar will be doing a triple dip), the popularity of releasing unrated DVDs, and collecting a large enough sample that doesn't require adjustments for inflation (I'm shooting for around 80 data points with figures no older than 2009). Shouldn't be too bad, now that I'm pointed towards a goal.

Once I finish my corporate tax return this weekend, the hard part of this semester is done. Spring semester ends May 8th, summer classes start May 18th....

From IGN:  http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/107/1079073p1.html (link is work safe, but if you go to the actual GameCrush site, I can't make any promises)

I like video games. If a girl likes video games, she instantly becomes cooler/more attractive to me (it's like a jock finding a girl who loves football just as much as he does). It's kind of a nerdy fantasy (kind of?) to find that girl you're attracted to who can also kick your ass in your favorite game.

Now, GameCrush.com offers people who have that fantasy the chance to meet girls and game/chat with them over XBox Live (or PC, if you want to play Battleship or checkers and such). For a fee, of course. The site seems to be set up like a video chat site, so basically you might be paying for phone sex (what happens on GameCrush stays on GameCrush and is between the two participants). Which is fine...let me just say that whatever these women want to do to separate guys/gals from their money is cool with me--and it's working:  as of this writing, the site is down due to overwhelming demand.

Personally, I'll pass on this. I like playing video games with my friends whether they're guys or girls. If I have fun gaming with someone I don't know in reality, I'll send them a friend request and they'll accept it or they won't. I will not, however, pay someone to play video games with me...there are plenty of people on XBox Live to play with for free (and some of them are girls, too, who will likely be just as unattainable in every sense as these girls who are charging $8 for 10 minutes). Kudos anyway to the people who thought of this--I wish I'd been one of them because it looks like they're going to make a killing.