Remember that time when I said I was going to try and make a substantive post every two weeks? Me neither.

So, here’s what’s been up since my last post:

Well, obviously, we’re more than SEC Champs these days. Since we whooped up on OSU, we’ve become the first school to hold both the basketball and football National Titles in the same calendar year. I don’t have much to say about that except that it’s great to be a Florida Gator. Oh, and I feel we’re a strong favorite to repeat in basketball… and look out for us in football next year.

Speaking of next year’s football team, it looks like Urban Meyer is a recruiting genius. But we don’t have a chance next year because we’re losing so much on defense, right? I don’t think so. I think our defense was great this year because we had a lot of talent, but also because we were so well coached. I think after spring practice and our first couple games this fall, we’ll be back on track. Also, our schedule is much more favorable this year and our offense is going to put up some serious numbers. I think our coaches will have the defense ready (though maybe not quite as good as last year), and our offense is going to put up better numbers this year. I think this year’s offense will make last year’s look pretty timid.

Moving on, um… I’ve been reading a lot. I recently finished reading Tipping Point. It was excellent, and it helped me have a new perspective on causality. It was interesting to get a better picture of what can make things “tip”. Here’s the analogy that comes to mind for describing what a “tipping point” is: Paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit; it doesn’t burn at 450 degrees (in theory, or whatever). It’s not that 450 degrees isn’t hot, but that 450 degrees isn’t hot enough to cause the paper to burn – to tip. At 450 degrees, the paper is just hot; at 451 degrees, everything is on fire. But there’s not much difference between the two numbers. That one degree is just enough, in addition to the previous 450 degrees, to make a bunch of stuff happen and finally catch the paper on fire. And so it is with social epidemics – things will often be going on as they always have, and then some small thing suddenly causes those things to become something bigger and much more obvious. The book basically tries to break down the individual factors that contribute to something reaching its tipping point.

I am currently reading Fast Food Nation, which is pretty boring, but educational. I guess I’m learning a lot about what goes on behind the scenes in the “food industry”. The book goes through a brief history of “fast food”, then goes into the specifics of where most of that food is produced, who produces it and how very evil the whole process and industry is. Ironically, I keep finding myself craving a good hamburger while I read it. That ain’t right.

I’ve had a good run playing poker online recently. I spent some time working on my cash game, had a really, really good run, then took a break when the law of averages roundhoused me in the face (but still ran at about 5BB/100 hands for about 5K hands). I jumped back into MTTs and recently had a pretty big score in a $30 tournament. There were 113 people and I took 2nd for $678. Normally, I’d be very pleased with that finish except I battled back from a 2-to-1 chip deficit to a 10-to-1 chip lead (over about 25 minutes of solid heads-up play)… but then I lost a coinflip (AKs vs. TT), a 70-30 (King high vs. QQ), then lost another coinflip (all-in on a QTx flop with two hearts – I had KJo, he had 8h7h and flushed the turn). By the time all that was over, the blinds were so high we were just gambling. I lost one more flip and that was it.

Anyway, I’ve been to Jacksonville several times over the past couple months and I’ve enjoyed being able to get home so easily. I’ve seen my family several times and I’ve spent time with some friends too. It’s nice to be able to head up to Jax whenever I want, and it’s especially nice that I don’t have to burn vacation time or like $500 a trip. As I think back on my time in Dallas, it really seems like it was just an extended internship or something. I never really felt “at home” there, and I was always in a “wait and see” mode. I knew I’d either move west to pursue acting, or I’d move back east to be near my friends and family. Texas was never really a long-term option, and I’m really glad I ended up back in Florida. It’s hard to describe the overall increase in my quality of life since I moved, but it’s pretty drastic.

I bought a digital piano a few weeks ago. It’s a Kurzweil PC88 and it’s in pretty great shape, especially considering it’s probably 10 years old. I have been surprised how much dexterity I still have, and it’s been fun playing “by ear” instead of just reading sheet music. I can tell my musical ear has definitely matured since I’ve been playing the guitar. It’s nice to be able to just sit down and play something that’s in my head (at least a slimmed-down, easy version). Hopefully I’ll stick with it and become pretty decent.

I think that’s about all I have for now. I’ll try to make it back before April.

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Buddies’ Band ’bout to Blow Up

Ok, I generally don’t refer directly to other people on my blog, but this is a special occasion. My friends Chris and Casey have started a band called northsouth and it’s ramping up to speed pretty quickly. They just finished recording their first EP and it should be for sale starting in January. You can hear the EP and see where their upcoming shows are at their website. I’ve got a link over on the sidebar.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to sit in for a show with them or something. I guess I’d have to do that before they’re too famous to remember who the heck I am.

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Weekend Update

This week, I read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris. I enjoyed it and I got the feeling that his “voice” is similar to what mine would be if I was actually a writer. He’s sarcastic, satirical, sardonic and short. Basically, the book is little vignettes from his life. A collection of autobiographical short-stories that are disturbing and interesting at the same time. I found myself compelled to continue reading by a sort of morbid curiosity. Anyway, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a relatively quick read that will make you simultaneously laugh out loud and grimace for the characters.

I’m also still trying to finish reading other books I’ve started and put down. I’m working on The World According to Garp, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time, The Truth in Comedy, Money Matters and probably a few others that aren’t coming to mind right now. Between these books, TiVo, GameCube, Netflix and the gym, I’ve been keeping pretty busy doing things that ultimately don’t matter. I guess maybe I feel like I’m educating myself and killing time until I start moving into the next phase of my life.

One other thing I think I’ll start pursuing is sign language. I’ve been wanting to learn another language and, although French, Italian and other languages have a sort of romantic allure, I feel that learning ASL could actually be a useful way to invest my time. I don’t know if I’ll actually do this, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

More on music

A while ago, I wrote about shopping for an electric guitar. Well, I eventually decided I just didn’t want to spend the money on something that is essentially a variation on something I’ve already invested a lot of money in. That being said, lately I’ve been looking at digital pianos. I played for about five years until 10th grade, then I quit and picked up the guitar a year later. Since I got to college, I’ve been itching to play piano again and just haven’t had any way of scratching that itch… until now. I figure I can get a decent digital piano–weighted, pressure sensitive keys, good sound, etc.–for $500 or so, which ain’t bad. I’m trying to take my time and be patient about it, but the truth is I’ve been patient for the last five years and I’m really gettin’ the itch.

Maybe it doesn’t help that I’ve been listening to a lot of Billy Joel lately.

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New music (to me)

I picked up a copy of Nora Jones’ feels like home and I’m likin’ it a lot. It’s good, soothing music and I’ve been reading to it, but I wouldn’t recommend using it as driving music or anything like that. Mostly, she just focuses on singing good lyrics over excellent jazz. It’s definitely a nice change of pace.

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Another choke

I didn’t see or hear the game, but from what I could glean from Sportscenter, the Gators let another one get away today. Apparently, we had a lead late against LSU, but we choked it away in the last few minutes. I expected us to get beat up a little inside (their frontcourt is solid, while their backcourt could use a lot of work), but I ultimately thought we would pull this one out, especially since we were playing at home. I thought wrong.

I noticed an LSU player doing the “Gator Chomp” just before time expired… I’m not sure what compels players to mock our Gator chomp, but I find it ironic that other teams never mock it before they get a win. Why? Probably because they know we can beat any one, any time if we bring our A game, and who wants to look stupid mocking our chomp and then gettin’ beat? I guess am entertained by how flamboyant other teams come after they squeak out a win against us… where’s all that confidence before the game, fellas?

Switchfoot

They have a new song–Meant to Live, I think–being played on the local alternative station, and I think it’s a fantastic song. Here are the lyrics:

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he’s bid for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly [Chorus]
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
Somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

I think they’re playing it on the radio because it’s a great piece of music… but I’m glad to hear that Switchfoot is making a breakthrough into the maintsream on the wings of this particular song. The lyrics are powerful and it’s difficult to listen to the song without asking, “Why are we meant to live?”

More Target time

So, I went back to Target tonight to exchange a couple lamps I bought. I ended up spending about $150 and making two trips instead of just one. I had been keeping a list of stuff I needed, so I took this opportunity to cross some things off that list. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to write a little about what all went into moving–logistically, financially, etc.–and I’m definitely including this list. The list has things I never would’ve thought about until I lived here for a while. Hopefully it’ll save me some trouble later on, or maybe it’ll help someone else. That’s coming soon.

Snow

I went to go play basketball this morning and I was greeted by several inches of fresh snow. I think this was the first time I’d ever woken up to see fresh snow on the ground (unless I include the Winter of ‘89 when it “snowed” a little in J-ville; it was mostly just ice). I took several pictures, but didn’t realize until after it stopped snowing that my camera was set to the lowest resolution (1 Megapixel), so I’m not sure how they’ll turn out. I hope to post them on JoshDoody.com pretty soon.

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Busted hip…

Yeah, I played basketball today and got dropped trying to make a fast-break lay-up. I went to the gym to play ball with a few of my friends, but ended up playing with a bunch of people I didn’t know. That wasn’t so bad, but what was bad was my performance: As I think about it, I realize I played very poor basketball–I shot more than I passed, took the same shot repeatedly, even after having missed it before, didn’t contribute defensively as I should have–and I’m not happy about it at all. I’m sure I’ll improve as the semester progresses because we’ll be playing in the Creekside League again this semester and I always improve during league play. Oh, but I was running a fast-break in our last game and, when I tried to make the lay-up, the defender grabbed my arm and hauled me to the ground. I was fortunate to have my hip break my fall; unfortunately, I’m kind of hobbling around and I’ll probably have a pretty nasty bruise tomorrow.

Royal Tenenbaums, anyone?

I bought the DVD a week ago, but hadn’t opened it until tonight. A few friends came over and we watched it (well, most of us did… one of us fell very soundly asleep on the couch)–this was my third time. I know that it’s not terribly impressive from an “action” or “cinematographic” perspective, but the writing is incredible and I appreciate it more each time I see the film. Also, there are some one-liners that may rival almost any comedy I’ve seen. I’m gonna’ take a look at the special features on the second disc sometime this week, I hope.

Bought the Listener Supported DVD

I was at Wally-world tonight, looking for a bookshelf. I didn’t buy the bookshelf, although I found the one I was looking for, because they didn’t have it in the store. But, I bought Listener Supported, so my trip was well worth it. I wanted to buy the DVD last summer (a year ago), but I didn’t have the cash back then. I’m not exactly rolling in the green now, but I had twenty bucks to drop on a quality musical experience.

Another week of classes…

Tomorrow begins week number three. I guess I don’t have to worry about keeping any streaks alive, since I broke my gone-to-all-my-classes-so-far-this-semester streak last Friday, but I do still want to make decent grades this semester, so I’ll probably be going to all two of my classes tomorrow… Woah is me.

Free food?

Apparently, I’ll be getting free brunch tomorrow as my friend is trying to get rid of some stuff before it goes bad. Sounds like a nice round of good, southern breakfast food. It’ll be a great way to break up my two classes tomorrow (since I have a two-hour break in between them). Food is super.

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Whew…

I haven’t been tired this consistently for this long in a long time. Mark that previous sentence as evidence of my fatigue. So, I’ve spent the week ambling about campus, sweating, catching the occasional lecture and doing puny little homework assignments that are meant to remind me of all the stuff I’ve already “learned”, but may have forgotten between previous classes and these. Last week was the same and equally as exhausting. I almost made it through the first two weeks of classes without missing a lecture, but I blew it when I skipped my last class today. I had a headache, was hungry, was tired, was lazy, had errands to run, only had a ten-minute walk to my car, which would readily whisk me away to home and nap-land. One can easily imagine how my conversation with myself was, as I talked myself out of attending that last lecture. I’m a pushover when it comes to skipping class…

New song, sort of

This week, I wrote a guitar lick, which will hopefully become a song with some nurturing and lyric writing. I like it because it’s “up tempo”, but not “upbeat”. I guess what I mean is that it’s a sort of fast song, but it’s not “poppy” as so many fast songs tend to be today (at least when they’re written on acoustic guitar by a mediocre vocalist such as myself). I had a nifty name picked out for it (yeah, I guess naming songs is sorta’ like naming kids… only not) last night, but I forgot it. I had some lyrics I was singing over it, too, but I forgot those as well. I need to start writing this stuff down again.

Bought the Simpsons: Second Season DVD set

I have already watched some of it on my roommate’s copy of the set, but I wanted to buy it because I guess I’m collecting them or something. I don’t collect much stuff anymore (I used to collect baseball cards), so maybe it’s some sort of outlet. Mostly, I think it’s just cool to own seasons of the best sit-com ever… No, that isn’t open for debate and yes, I do remember The Cosby Show.

Had a great home cooked meal tonight

Apparently, I’m sort of notorious for getting free food. To most, that may not sound like anything significant, but to college students, free food is like some sort of mythical thing that only happens in the movies. Some college kids prowl around campus the first week of classes, just to seek and devour the free food that different groups and companies are offering. Some college kids just beg for free food.

I think it all began my freshman year… Most of my friends (especially the ones I knew before I came to school here) were girls and so I spent a good amount of time hanging out with the girls. As it turns out, girls like to cook and, as everyone knows, guys like to eat. So, we had a neat little dynamic going where the girls would cook and I would eat and everybody would be happy. I guess that sort of continued throughout college and it apparently persists to this day (I’ve had three free, tasty, home cooked meals since I got back to Gainesville a month ago).

Anyway, tonight’s meal was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and salad; we had brownies a la mode for dessert. It was nice to get meatloaf because that’s gotta’ be one of my favorite ground-beef creations and there isn’t much of it cooked among the college kids I know. What a tasty treat.

Exchanged Trivial Pursuit: 20th Anniversary Edition for Genus 5 Edition

I’ve heard that the questions for Genus 5 are better, so I figured I’d exchange it. (Hopefully, I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I bought 20th Anniversary Edition last weekend) I don’t mind the swap except that the 20th Anniversary Edition came with a groovy card dispenser that isn’t with the other versions… Ya’ win some, ya’ lose some, I guess.

Huge game tomorrow

We play Miami tomorrow. I’d say this is probably the biggest game we’ve had since I’ve been here. Well, that may not be true: we had Tennessee here last year at the end of the season and that was make-or-break for the National Championship game. Anyway, this is a huge game and, if we win, the polls are gonna’ be all screwed up. I think we can do it, but I haven’t seen enough of our running game or defensive line to know how they’ll stack up against Miami. I’ve heard Miami’s got a solid secondary this year, too, which may mean Rex won’t be throwing for over 300 yards this week… at least not to Jacobs. Hopefully, we’re well prepared and it’ll be a tight game. I can’t wait.

On that note, I’m going to sit in front of the TV for a while. I’m tired and it’s Friday night, so that means I get to sleep-in tomorrow. Now that is exciting news!

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I got a new bed!

I guess that seems trivial to most, but since sleeping is one of my hobbies, it’s important that the equipment be as good as possible. I guess this bed isn’t technically new, but it’s new to me. I was sleeping on a queen-size mattress that was old and “springy”–not in the way that one might hope, but more so that I could feel each and every spring gouging me in the back as I slept–and hadn’t been “turned” regularly so that there was a nice divot on one side; I would usually just sleep in the divot, but if I got adventurous and decided to try sleeping on the other side of the bed, I would eventually just slide back into the divot. It was very frustrating.

Anyway, I got a full-size (“double”?) bed that was taking up space in my grandparents� guest bedroom. It’s practically new (I don’t know if anyone’s ever slept on it) and it’s super comfortable. And it came with a frame, which, heretofore, I never had. I spent three years sleeping on a box spring and mattress that were laid directly on the floor; and last year, I slept on that queen bed, which was set up on six cinderblocks, which were more useful for accidentally kicking than for keeping the bed in place. I don’t know why I’m all worked up about this…

Botched the set

Chris Case and I played a short set tonight at the Rock Gym here in Gainesville. We were part of a Crusade sponsored event with unlimited, free rock-climbing and Outback appetizers. We did a simple set, but I’ve been feeling a little exhausted and my voice wasn’t up to par. Also, the room was really hot and I just wasn’t “feeling it” at all tonight. Everyone, including Chris, said the set was pretty good, but I was thoroughly disappointed in my performance. I wasn’t disappointed because I flat-out did a bad job (although I did), but I was disappointed because I know I can do significantly better than I did tonight. Oh well… I guess there’s always next time.

First CRU meeting tomorrow

That’s right. Tomorrow night is our first CRU meeting. I think everyone’s pretty much prepared, but we’re gonna’ meet up tomorrow to sort of finalize our plans and workout the details for the meeting. I’m really excited because I’ll be the emcee, whom I’ve always secretly wanted to be. I think it’s gonna’ be a blast and I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I do.

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Picking up right where I left off…

I left Gainesville for three months–worked, read, wrote, was bored–and have now returned and it’s as though my time in Texas was merely a long dream. I was accustomed to being in bed by midnight, staying up until one or so on weekends, and I’ve been up until around three for several consecutive nights; I’ve watched DVDs with large groups of people, had someone getting me refills at most of my meals, had to figure out where everyone should sit, so all could see the television.

It’s amazing how easily one can transition from “not home” to “home”. I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve fallen into my old routine: I took a two-hour nap today, I’ve not read anything in almost two weeks, my guitar is collecting dust, I’ve written nothing but phone messages for my roommates since I got home. I’ve got to make sure I force myself to be productive this semester. I so enjoyed writing and producing, taking advantage of the “creativity bug” as I was gone this summer. I will be terribly disappointed in myself if I don’t continue to create this year.

I’ll have to make sure I keep moving forward.

Oh, and I cancelled tomorrow’s guitar lesson…

I decided it wouldn’t be a wise use of my resources–money, time–to take guitar lessons this semester. I learned so much last semester, but did so little practicing; I feel I need to focus on really learning the old stuff before I pay (with time and money) for new material. Maybe I’ll continue the lessons next spring.

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Good time at the overnight

Each year, Campus Crusade here at the University of Florida has a “leadership overnight”, which is basically where all the people who will be directly involved in Crusade for the coming year assemble and discuss the game plan in detail. There were about thirty of us this year (which is typical) and we had a great time (also typical). This was my third overnight and I generally use it as a sort of landmark to symbolize the actual beginning of the semester: five days and I’ll be in classes again and the routine will have rebegun. I’m not looking forward to classes, but I am looking forward to the semester.

Guitar lessons?

I took them last spring (eleven lessons in all, I think) and my instructor has contacted me and is wondering if I want to continue. I scheduled some time with him on Thursday afternoon (actually, at noon) to discuss this semester and how frequently we’ll meet, if at all. I’m thinking about canceling our Thursday meeting. I just don’t know if I have money, time, or motivation for guitar lessons this semester. The thing that concerns me most is that I’ve already taken so many lessons and applied so little of the material. I feel it will probably be beneficial for me to take the semester and try to think of a disciplined, routine way to go back over everything I covered last spring and actually learn it, instead of letting it all sit in the back of my mind with no practice time invested.

I guess I’ll see how I feel about it all tomorrow. On that note, I’m going to sleep. Several of my friends and I had an action packed night of Olive Garden dining, Simpsons watching and Office Space revisiting–three wonderful but tiring activities. Or maybe not so tiring, but definitely wonderful and I happen to be tired, so I’m not articulating very well. Time to sleep… a lot.

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