I am mad.  I am mad because I cannot install Sim City 2000 on my 32-bit Vista operating system.  So instead I play Rogue Spear with the volume on high.  XP forever!

Lots going on.  I have a paper due Wednesday around 3, and I have yet to really get started.

The K-State Singers spring show (rescheduled) went off without any major hitches.  Actually, it was one of the best shows I've mixed, I think.  It was the last show I'm going to do with Jake, Amy, Mardell, and Meredith.  Next year's going to be a little different cause of that.  I've considered leaving after one semester, but we'll see how that works out before I decide things like that.  Sometimes I wonder if the Singers really know how much they mean to me.  That group easily contains half of the people I call friends.  Not that it's hard to get that high, I don't trust that many people.  And besides, it's fun to yell at people and have them march to my beat.  It makes me feel like I have power.

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Had a great dream this morning.  Went to see a movie at opening night in a really nice, small hotel/bar.  Family was there, and they were making the usual fuss, so I stayed away from them for the most part.  When the movie was over, I fake clapped a couple of times.  Will Smith almost got angry before I explained that I was just messing with him.  As we were leaving, he asked me to go to club in Wichita with him, but I explained that I had a hotel here and didn't want to drive that far tonight.  When I went back to the room and had to deal with the family, though, I almost wished that I had gone.

The spring show is traditionally the biggest show for the K-State Singers.  Last night, we had to cancel it.  The fire alarms in McCain Auditorium malfunctioned several times yesterday yielding false alarms.  We didn't have to evacuate when it was just the Singers setting up, but when it went off again while the audience was filing in, McCain operators were forced to cancel the show due to liability reasons.

We were able to reschedule the show for Monday, May 5, but this was still one of the biggest let downs I've faced in the past 3 years.  On the bright side, for once I actually felt like I was friends with the Singers as a whole instead of just a business associate with most and friends with just a couple.  And the night wasn't a total loss, to be certain.

In my experience, most electronics won't work for a few simple reasons.

1. It's not plugged in.
2. It's not turned on.
3. It's not supposed to do that.

A friend came to me with a problem - his new speakers weren't working.  I checked, and he had plugged them into the power correctly, and he had plugged them into the computer - just not the speaker part of the computer.  I don't know if he fried his microphone input or not, but at least it couldn't do any damage to the speakers.  I flicked the switch to turn the speakers on, and they still wouldn't make any sound.  I decided to make certain that the volume was turned all the way up.  It wasn't, but that wasn't the problem.  The main mix had been muted.  So it wasn't plugged in AND it wasn't turned on.

You know, every once in awhile, it actually is broke.  And if you can't get it working, sometimes it is worth it to just say it's broke and give up.

Tony & I were on the way to dinner last Saturday when I misread the menu and saw that water tots were being served.  After we figured out that I just couldn't read the word tater tots, we followed water tots down the rabbit hole.  I now present with great pleasure our findings: a water tot is an ice cube from an ice machine that is in the shape of a cylinder, usually with a hole in the middle.  And that was that - we went on to have dinner.

Today I got a phone call from Tony.  He had just gotten a Cherry Limeade from Sonic, and it was served with water tots.  My day is complete.

I was working in the lobby when I was suddenly attacked with silly string and collapsible daggers.  Yes, the K-State Singers came to wish me a happy birthday.  I now have a pirate balloon, a light up sword, a collapsible dagger, and I just finished a gigantic cookie.  They completely surprised me.

After I got off work Jake came over to take me out for a drink or two.  Amy was stalking him and joined us.  We quickly found out that I greatly dislike beer.  Then we took a trip to another bar where we saw Meredith working for her first night.  We again proved that I can't stand beer and I tried a couple of shots, which weren't too bad.

And now that I'm older and wiser (and still haven't been drunk), I'm spending lots of time keeping up do speed with the Singers.  When you unplug a cord, you should not grab the wire part.  You should grab the plug.  That way you don't rip the wire out of the plug, causing shorts or bare wires that could be very dangerous.  Also, you should not shut either the cord or the plug in a door.  Both are bad for cables.

It is still quite hard to come to terms with the fact that I am going bald.  It's not the hit to my image, cause most of my image is made up of my antics.  I think it's just the fact that CHANGE is on the horizon.  I mean, I've had my hair since I was, well, younger than I can remember.

Human beings don't really deal with change that well.  Or maybe it's just me.  When the honey-mustard sauce isn't exactly where it was yesterday, my lunch is ruined.  And then one day, they moved the pink lemonade to the other side of the line.  That is still messing with my meals.  So while the thought of a bald me doesn't really bother me, the change disturbs me.

Almost precisely 3 years ago.

No, really, they are.  One guy told me the story of how he convinced his brother that eating enough pickles would cause him to turn into one.  They figured that his brother was about 10 pickles away from turning into a pickle himself.  The boy stopped eating pickles for about a month before the parents figured out what was going on.  And another time they took an eraser to the back of his jacket and told him that they had erased the color off of his jacket.  It is so amusing to me now, but that little boy must have been so sad.

I never got any good pranks pulled on my younger sister, but she had some good ones on me.  She used to call me "big boy," but since she was just learning to speak, it sounded to me like baby.  This angered me to no end, I mean, what 4 year old wants to be called a baby?  And when she saw how mad it made me, she said it more.  Of course, the only things I really remember from back then was how we would play with her Barbies and my model tractors because we couldn't agree on which would be a better exclusive pursuit.

There are so many good stories about me from when I was younger.  I wish my parents would write them down.  I can't remember them all even when prompted, and I certainly can't just pull them out of thin air like they seem to be able to do.  I don't get embarrassed at some of the stories, though.  That used to make me unusual, but I don't think people are quite as touchy about it anymore.

I finally got advised today.  I missed the first day because I was campaigning or doing something with the Singers, I don't remember which.  I missed the next day cause I went to sleep after lunch and didn't wake up before my appointment.  Which probably was a good thing, cause I wasn't ready for it.  Then today I went in, spent almost 3 minutes on the 2nd floor before handing my folder back to the EECE desk.  Advising really is a joke for the most part, unless you actually need help, in which case there are some good options.  It's just that for the most part, we're intelligent enough to pick our own classes, and we don't have much that we really need from these advising appointments aside from a signature.

After I was done being advised, I went to McCain Auditorium instead of back to my dorm.  I had my computer with me, and I sat in a lobby and poked around the Internet.  I have not really done this yet, and it was mostly relaxing, even though the chair was quite uncomfortable.  I am quite happy that I purchased a laptop.

The K-State Singers have their spring show coming up.  You should be there!  Check out the Facebook event page at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10909461233.