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For the first time. It's made me really unhappy, but only because I was so happy with the girl I was dating. It was blissful. She was a good influence on me, to the point where I started studying harder and working out more. She was a blast to be around because we clicked perfectly. This kind of thing is *rare* for a fella like me. I just never wanted to go home because it was so fulfilling to be at her place, whether we were idly watching TV or being study-buddies or taking turns giving each other backrubs.

But today, the only reason why my eyes are watery and I can't stop sniffing is that allergy season is in high gear.

Yeah, it was a good night.

Paul Oakenfold: Fluoro
This ancient set from 1996 is a rare import and goes for $40 and more online. A good friend from my Japanese class was nice enough to make me copies of the CDs, and the set is revolutionary. Considering the date that this was grabbed, I'm amazed to see not only the names listed on here, but by the sound of it - it sounds like it could have been a millenial mix, but sure enough it isn't.

I'm seeing Oakenfold tomorrow night.
That's right, bitches. He's playing a rave on 6th Street on a Wednesday night, and I'm skipping my one Thursday class to stay out all night and hear The Man spin his discs live. It's going to freaking rule.

Get Picasa2.
Picasa is a free piece of software developed and published by Google that aims to be your one-stop shop for managing your photo albums. And it does a damn good job of it. It searches your computer, imports your photos into a library, and from there it's *insanely* easy to use a bunch of built-in filters to edit, crop, rotate and re-colorize pictures - all stuff that used to have to be done with Photoshop. It was even able to take a picture my friend had taken while holding the camera crooked, and straighten it out so it looked level. So freakin' cool. When you're done, you can burn your entire library to CD as a backup or as a slideshow 'gift CD'. If you have photos, you'll find Picasa comes in handy, even if you don't think so right now.

It's Monday. Usually people tend to get Cases of the Mondays. Not so with me. The weather always seems to be great, everyone's strangely in a great mood, and it makes me feel like Senor Popular walking around campus, saying hi to everyone I know and talking with amigos every-which-way. Other things that I have respect for today:

Basement Jaxx - The Singles - Yeah, Basement Jaxx released a singles compilation. It's 15 tracks and composes, well, all the best tracks the two guys ever cut. Yes, all the familiar songs that get played at every party are there, and they're unchanged from the studio versions, but there are guaranteed to be a handful of tracks you haven't heard, either due to their age (too old, from albums most people don't have; or too new, from last year's Kish-Kash) or their status as all-new tracks appearing on this CD for the first time.

John Carmack - Yeah, the id Software star programmer is still a rocket scientist in his spare time. His newest research? Making good cell phone games. We've needed someone like him to bring shitty cell phone games back to reality. If you don't speak code, read the paragraph about DoomRPG.

Quakecon 2005 got announced.

August 11-14th at the Gaylord again.

We're putting a good deal of effort into planning for this coming year and I'll be heading up the SSB effort. Here's how it's going to work. Registration opens April 15th, so get your taxes done early. I'll reserve a hotel room in my name for SSB purposes, but after last year's residence fiasco I'm going to be contacting people individually and confirming them. So get registered on time, because I'm going to be partial to people who aren't on the waitlist. As for the hotel, I'm expecting people to be committed to me by May 31st so I can have everything planned out well in advance, as I'm leaving for Europe the next day and not coming back until about 4 weeks before Qcon.

Mark your calendars, bitches. This is the 10th Qcon, so expect some crazy shit.