JLGoolsbee.com

So I’ve been meaning to write an entry for several days now, and everytime I think about it, there’s some reason I can’t do it. The battery is dead (the laptop’s, or mine for that matter), or I don’t feel like writing, or something. No more procrastinating. I will warn you though; everything past this paragraph may be completely random, and I cannot be held liable for any injuries you may sustain from your brain suddenly having to change topics.

In government news, Samuel Alito is going through hearings and questioning before the Senate this week to determine if he has the stuff to be one of our nine Supreme Court Justices. I don’t know much about this guy (look him up on Wikipedia if you’re interested), but I did have the chance to listen to him give his opening statement before the Senate, and I think it was a very good, and very well spoken opening statement. If you can grab the audio clip from somewhere, I’d encourage you to give it a listen. I could probably say more about it, but I don’t want to turn this into a discussion on political views. I’ll just say – I liked his opening statement.

My car is getting happier. It got vacuumed the other day, yesterday it got a new windshield (huge crack suffered on the way home in December), and on the to do list is an oil change and a car wash. A happy car is a… well, it’s just a car, but I feel better driving it when I think it’s happy. Besides, it needs all the love it can get – Lindsay laughed at it’s seat belt pads.

On that note, I had lunch with Lindsay today, and that was greatness. I’ve missed her, but she finally had a day off (what a workaholic), so I took a long lunch break and we went to lunch. Good times.

Yesterday (1/10/06) was a great day in computer nerd world, as Apple released it’s new line of Mac products using Intel chips. What this means: improved performance, improved opportunities for better Apple devices, and we finally have a computer that can triple-boot either OS X, Windows, or a Linux distro – without any virtualization (faking it). These things may not mean much to you, but to a nerd these are exciting times. And, if you’re a nerd, you’ll get a kick out of this: yesterday, Apple’s shares closed at $80.86.

Battlestar started up last Friday, and wow. This week’s episode should be amazing; the tension is through the roof… or the deck plating. Lost started up tonight after being on hiatus since the beginning of December… it was good as well. Eko had an interesting encounter with “the smoke,” and we saw the beginnings of Michael going postal, which should make for a good second half of the season.

I suppose that’s all for now, that’s all I can remember.

Many times, I’ll be somewhere doing something, and I’ll think, “Hey, this is cool, I’ll blog about this.” And then I sit down to type it, and I either forget about all those things, or I then say to myself, “That’s not worth blogging; no one cares about that.” Oh well, this time I remembered some things.

We started putting our Christmas decorations away yesterday, and I found a box full of my old toys. So I did what any old man would do – I sat in the attic for about the next half-hour, just going through the box and playing with them. Good times.

Today my family and I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I’ve never read the books, but I’d be inclined to now. What an amazing film – and with no big-name stars in the cast, which I liked. It would have been easy for Disney to pull in the likes of Shia LaBeouf for the role of Peter or Edmund, or Hillary Duff for the role of Susan, but I’m very glad they didn’t, and I’m glad they didn’t make it that kind of movie. I’d say it had the cinematic feel of The Lord of The Rings, but in the children’s world of Narnia. Yet another thing this week that has let me bring back some of the kid in me.

Though – for those of you have seen it too, I have a bit of a flaw to point out. The second time Lucy entered the wardrobe, and Edmund was following her, since time outside the wardrobe stands still from the viewpoint of the person in the wardrobe, from Edmund’s point of view, shouldn’t Lucy have exited the wardrobe immediately after having entered it? Ponder that… I know it’s weird, but I like to find paradoxes in time travel type things.

My TV starts again this week; I’m excited. The line-up starts Tuesday with Scrubs on NBC, then on Wednesday it’s Lost on ABC (though that doesn’t kick off again till next week), then there’s My Name Is Earl and The Office on NBC Thursday, and Friday tops the week off with Battlestar Galactica on Sci-fi. Yay for TV.

Happy New Year everybody.

“He must become greater; I must become less.”

– John 3:30