DMB, John Mayer, Aaron Lewis, Halo 3, Starkville, Floatin', Roomba, etc.

The mood to post to this blog comes along quite infrequently. I've got a lot to catch up on.

Katherine and I have gone to a couple of concerts lately (both free!). VT held a concert to start the year, and it was widely publicized. Phil Vassar opened up, followed the the rapper, Nas. Both of them were horrible. I like country, but Phil just doesn't cut it. Nas; what can I say, pathetic. Then came John Mayer. That guy can play a stinkin' guitar like it was his job (which it is). I was impressed to say the least, plus he's dating Jessica Simpson. Then came, get ready Heather, Dave Matthews. We stayed for a few songs of his, then left. He's ok, but I can only take 15 minutes of one song so many times.

The other concert was a couple of weeks ago. I called in to the VT radio station while doing lab work at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Supposedly, I was the second caller, but I have a hard time believing there was somebody listening to VT radio on a Saturday morning. Nevertheless, I won 2 tickets to hear an acoustic concert with Aaron Lewis, the lead singer of Staind, over in Roanoke that same night. He's pretty dark with his lyrics, as Katherine mentioned, but he's got some really good songs and a great voice. I put a video down below if you want to see.

Halo 3, the greatest game in the history of the world, came out a week ago. I beat the game yesterday. The multiplayer games are great, and I've gotten to play with my cousin Kurt (lives in Tupelo) several times. He's a bit better than me, but I will say I'm still getting back the feel for Halo after playing Battlefield 2 for so long.

This weekend, we're headed to God's country, Mississippi. We're flying out in a 4-seater on Thursday afternoon and should arrive in New Albany at around 4 p.m. I'm excited to get back. It's been about 4 months since I've seen the promised land. We'll head to Starkville Friday night, and partake in some MSU Homecoming festivities on Saturday. Sunday afternoon, we'll come back. Anyone who hasn't seen us in a while and plans to be in Starkville this weekend, let us know.

Katherine is in Minneapolis for work. Her company sends their employees there after they've worked about 6 months. Katherine flew out of Roanoke Sunday morning. After getting back from the airport, my friend Gaurav and I went to float down the New River on intertubes. We were the only 2 people who were out there all day long. The water wasn't even cold; it was spectacular. They give you an extra tube for your cooler, and you just sit back and let the water take you down. I've been fiddling with some video editing software, and this is what I came up with from the trip. Let me know what you think.

I've been getting some extra spending cash from advertising websites lately, and I've been trying to think of something to get for Katherine that we would normally not get ourselves. I found it tonight. It's called a Roomba, and it's an automatic vacuum cleaner. Some of you may have heard of them before; they've been out for several years. They just came out with a new model that claims to have fixed several short-comings from the previous version. Anyways, I'm a sucker for free trials now, and I really think Katherine will enjoy having this. She's not too big on vacuuming, and I would just do it myself, but she claims I don't get the floor clean enough. Who am I to argue? This is definitely going to be a cool gadget, though. I'm excited to see if it works. Supposedly it uses little sensors that go in doorways to know which room it's in. After it's finished cleaning one room, it automatically goes to the next. When it's low on battery, or done cleaning, it uses the doorway sensors to navigate back to a charging dock. It stops suction when going over rug tassles, it changes height when transition from carpet to hard flooring, it even slows down to clean really dirty spots. I'll let you know how it goes.