It's 7am and I'm wide awake!

Hello again! So it's been about a week or so since my last posting, but for once it isn't for lack of interest. I've been working all nights this week and the weekend leading up to it was pretty hectic as well. So needless to say my routine has been a little off and I really haven't had an opportunity to sit down and write an entry. But it's 7am, finished my last night shift a couple of hours and I'm wide awake and moderately bored. Although the first thought might be to sleep, I'm pretty energized since I'm done for the week and want to do a few things before sleeping. However nothing opens until 8am so I have a few minutes to kill.

Just a few little tidbits this morning:

• Purchased the online version of the Hardball Times 2004 Baseball Annual this past week and haven't been disappointed. I haven't had a whole lot of time to delve into it that deep yet but I'm certianly impressed by it so far. It'll be interesting to get a feel for the different contributers to the site and the book. Normally I really only read Aaron Gleeman's articles and have grown to like his writing style, mainly because it's a lot like mine.
• Thinking about a New Years Party at the apartment this year. Probably nothing too huge, maybe 30-40 people. Trust me, compared to some of my previous parties at my last place, this is pedistrian! More details of this to follow. Purple Jesus anyone?
  
• Nintendo is retarded. Some of their most recent line of commercials cross the line, and I'm usually not that easily offended. However, when portraying the harsh reality of addiction and what that can do to someone's life and their loved ones, using it to promote their video games is a little much. Yeah video games are addictive (SEE: Everquest, etc) and can cause some of they touch upon, but only in extreme cases and nothing like the frequency of tradgey that occurs with other, and arguably, more serious forms of addiction (SEE: gambling, drugs, alcohol, to name a few).
  
• Speaking of retarded: Peyton Manning threw 6 TD's against Detroit yesterday, to bring his season total to 41. He's on pace to throw over 60 and has 5 more games to throw 7 more and break the single season record. Absurd.

So that's about it for now. Gunna head out pretty soon, get a few things taken care then catch some shut-eye. Cheers.

I'd Rather Be Sleeping.

Not a whole lot on the go today. The long nights seem to be catching up with me. I've been pretty tired all day so this'll be pretty short. Nothing really going on either so here we are. However, hearing some buzz about Vince Carter possibly being traded to the Portland Trailblazers. Not really sure how I feel about that. The proposed deal doesn't seem that good for the Raptors but we'll have to see.

Amen for a day off.

Just a quick little note to keep things relatively regular. I've begun drafting a series of articles for the next few weeks, which should be pretty good reads. They're quite varied but that's how I do.

I had the day off today, which was good. Just kicked it with Jen, watched some tube and hit the mall. Picked up a copy of Forbes' '400 Richest People in America' which should make for a good read. I also somehow received a copy of a Video Game magazine that I thought should have stopped arriving in September, but I'm not complaining.

Good to see Vlady Guerrero win the AL MVP award today. The man's a damn natural. It's just too bad he had to leave the Expos to 1) gain exposure and 2) be on a talented enough team to contend for a playoff spot, which in turn allowed his consistent ridiculous offense numbers to matter. As for the NL, Barry won it again with Pujols finishing third in voting. Bonds had a monumental season so it was with little surprise that it his to lose. Adrian Beltre finished second in voting and although he also had a monstrous season, after all I've read about him, I'm still not sold on him. I'd like to see another season of similar caliber. Not that it will matter much though: he's a free agent, good timing on his part, so he's very likely going to receive a massive contract. It's too bad teams couldn't enact an "Mulligan" or "fluke" clause when they sign a player based on an anomalous year (See: Esteban Loazia), in respect to the rest of his career. But that's all part of the game, heck that's how BillyBeane makes a living (reading into a player's peripheral numbers and seeing something other teams do not), so it'll never happen.

And there endeth the first of what will be regular baseball rants. I'm gunna go leaf through those mags. Until next time...

First Snow of the Year, Day Two

Alight so lets get this going: Over the past few years I have continually tried to maintain some sort of online journal, or blog, in an attempt to cover many of my interests and things that grab my attention. All previous attempts have failed quite miserably and like every time before, I am optimistic about this attempt.

However, I have confidence that this might actually hold this time. I say this for many reasons:

1. I have decided to forego all astethic modifications and focus on content. I have chosen a template for the appearance and will do my best to leave it that way . Previously, I have gotten caught up on trying to create the perfect visual experience only never to be satisfied. This has resulted in me losing interest in the whole endeavour.
2. My time committments, and life in general, have changed. I graduated from University this past May and now have a full time job. Although the hours are long and slightly erratic, it lends itself better to maintaing this site than before. In addition to my scholarly committments, I was involved a number of societies on campus, including heavy involvement in a Fraternity. This meant not only organizational contributions but social requirements (Read: Parties, etc) which greatly ate up my time. On top of all that, squeeze in a part-time job and a steady girlfriend and when I did have some downtime, my first thought wasn't to post to the Internet. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome and in a lot of ways I miss it, but here we are.
3. The most important difference, I believe, lies in content. Before, I would struggle to come up with something to write about and how to articulate my ideas (when I did have a worthwhile one), however, lately I have found a number of topics which I would like to cover in the upcoming days and weeks. This should help feed my enthusiasm to write and continue to post here.

These reasons should be more enough to ensure I continue to add to this fledgling blog.

Now, as I mentionned above, there are a number of topics I would like to cover, which include:

• A Weekend Gamers' Guide to Halo 2.
  This long-awaited sequel to an Xbox classic was released this past Tuesday November 9, 2004. I picked up the limited edition copy, with extra DVD full of behind the scenes feature, the day it came out and haven't been disappointed.
  
• Hindsight is 20/20.
  I came across a white paper about Electronic Arts which looked at how it plans to hire approximately 1000 new hires/year for the next several years and how it has mandated that 75% of these hires come from universities. This brings up the question of how well universities have tailored their cirriculum for real world needs. I was surprised how well Dalhousie measured up against the author's observations and reccomendations.
  
• From Out of Left Field: Would Today's Athletes Make Good Soldiers?
  Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking, wtf? But seriously, what if tomorrow the world was faced with impending doom? Could athletic prowess and skill be translated into other skills? There have been several examples with I could draw from to answer this, most recently Eric Tillman, who left the NFL to fight in Afghanistan.

And that is just a glimpse of what I plan on covering. My aim is to prety much write about whatever comes to me. I read a few blogs and have gradually begun to appreciate the appeal of such writings.

I must go try and clean my car off. It snowed all day yesterday and early this morning so my car is good and covered. I believe we got nearly 25cm, oh yay!

And then there was One.