I need to stop linking to YouTube videos. They keep getting taken down by freaking copyright claims. 
Also, if you are reading this on Facebook, keep in mind that these notes are imported from my blog and some things might not import correctly, such as embedded YouTube videos.
That’s all. 
-Philip
Before I get started, let me just say this: Gym Class Heroes are the only people that make hip-hop that’s worth listening to. Period. It’s the only hip-hop I like, and I’ve seen them in concert twice (they’re one of the only hip-hip groups that doesn’t used sampled music and actually performs it live. Also, Travie is hilarious and very entertaining to watch).
That said, this line in their song “Don’t Tell Me It’s Over” is pretty funny. If you were a fan of Chappelle’s Show, I suggest you watch (or rather, listen). You’ll know when you hear it (plus it’s set to skip right to the part I want you to hear 
).
(By the way, some of the lyrics are NSFW.)
Oh yeah, and as proof that Travie and Gym Class Heroes are awesome, watch the following video, even if you didn’t like the one above. I have no idea why they covered this song, but for a rapper, Travie is an awesome metal singer, hahaha. The part I’m talking about ends at about 1:15, but the rest of the video is a live performance of a totally awesome song I’ve been listening to way too much called “Cookie Jar.”
I like how he has a Guitar Hero controller around his neck.
-Philip
Chuck Norris was just on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News. I wasn’t paying attention until this part, which I’m going to reconstruct from memory:
Chuck: If those Chuck Norris facts that are circulating the Internet were true, there’s one that says that America is not a democracy, it’s a Chuck-tatorship. Well, if I was in charge, I’d go to Washington, line up all of the politicians, and get Ron Paul, who I think is one of the more honest men in Washington, and get him to point out who he thinks is honest and dishonest. Whenever he pointed out someone and said they were dishonest, I’d say to that person, “You’re fired!”
Hahahahahahahaha! Awesome.
-Philip
(That’s the day before Mardi Gras, for you out-of-staters).
I went to the Krewe of Cleopatra parade in Houma on Monday night, and it wasn’t too special as far as parades go, but their float theme – video games – was pretty amusing. I took some pictures of the funny ones and the good ones, as well as the misspelled “NCCA 2009″ float. The thumbnails below link to the larger version, like usual.
The full set of pictures is here. I apologize if some of the signs are hard to read; it’s hard for me to shoot decent pictures from a distance at night.
-Philip
Thursday was my birthday, and hooray for birthday money. With it, I ordered a new point and shoot digital camera. More on that in a bit.
My mom cooked gumbo and the family came over and we had a good time eating gumbo and Mr. Ronnie’s king cake (Mr. Ronnie’s has the best king cakes ever. They’re big donuts) and socializing. I wanted to do something with my friends in Baton Rouge, but all of them seemed to be busy or out of town. Oh well, I’ll have to have twice as much fun next weekend at Samantha’s Team IS party.
Anyway, on to the camera.
That’s it – the Samsung TL34HD (NV100HD). It’s an ultracompact point and shoot with some pretty awesome features. Its 14.7 Megapixels are overkill, but it’s slightly thinner than my current camera (about ~.78 inches) and takes 720p videos, which was one of the must-haves when I was shopping for it. I love Samsung quality (they’re my second favorite consumer electronics company, after all; I’m sure you can guess who #1 is), and in following my camera tradition, this will be my third Samsung digital camera. I’ll have more to say about it when I actually get it in.
The only concern I have is that the format it encodes the video in is kind of…funky. QuickTime with Perian installed plays the videos just fine, but they don’t seem to work in iMovie. This was the case with my old camera too, I think, and it’s definitely supported now, and has been for a while since I shot all four Team IS movies with it and edited them all in iMovie. Anyway, I’m hoping whatever weird codec it uses will be supported soon, but in the meantime, if I need to edit the videos, VLC can very easily transcode them, albeit with a slight loss in quality.
I also ordered an 8 GB Class 6 SDHC memory card for it. Not much to say about that!
I have more to say, but I’ll save it for later (unless I forget ).
-Philip
One of the coolest things about the Internet is being able to connect with so many different people. Not just friends and family, but people you’d never normally be able to talk to.
For example, I’m “friends” with my favorite author, Eric Nylund, on Facebook. I also subscribe to his blog’s RSS feed, because he has some pretty interesting things to say. I believe that he uses the Internet as a way to connect with his fans and keep them up to date with what he’s doing, and naturally, I went to search for him on Twitter, and he didn’t appear to have an account. There is only one solution for that problem!
But that’s not all – he actually responded to me, which I thought was pretty cool.
I’ve only ever had that happen one other time, and that was on Twitter (speak of the devil). When Mahalo Answers first launched, I thought it was probably the best “answers” service out there, so I Tweeted @jasoncalacanis (Internet celebrity, and also the CEO and founder of Mahalo) that I thought his new service was really cool, and that I hadn’t had a Mahalo account before Mahalo Answers launched.
It’s nice to know that some people listen to you on the Internet.
-Philip
I know what you’re thinking – two updates in a row? Well, I started writing that last one last night and I Just finished it. I didn’t figure these two entries went all that well together.
Wednesday night, I went and hung out with Brian, Curtis (and his sister’s fiancé), and Jared. I haven’t seen Brian in about a year, and I haven’t seen Curtis and Jared in about 3. It was pretty cool, we spent a good two and a half to three hours catching up and stuff. It had definitely been too long.
Tonight, I went out with a bunch of my old coworkers and had a blast. We went to The Chimes for dinner and then went to see a movie. We all agreed we had to do it again soon, and next time, that I’d remember to bring my camera because cell phone cameras suck.
-Philip
When I left Houma to come to Baton Rouge for college, I always expected to return back to Houma when I graduated to find work. I still felt this way when I graduated, but after having been in Houma for a couple of months, I feel like there’s not too much for me to do there. I think I got used to the big(ger) city. Plus, most of my friends are in Baton Rouge, and for some reason, I kind of feel like besides my family, there’s just not a whole lot for me in Houma.
There’s not a whole lot of open positions in Baton Rouge that I have the qualifications for (I really wish I had some real Server 2003 experience), but every once in a while, a position pops up that I am qualified for, and I send a resume to all of those that open. I’m really hoping one of these works out, because I’ve made some really good friends in Baton Rouge, and many of my old friends are there as well.
I’ve been keeping an eye on some jobs in other cities, but I’m not ready to apply to any of those yet. Though not having a job (besides my Tiger Weekly column) makes me feel completely and utterly useless, I still want to give it some more time before I go to a completely new place and have to leave behind everyone and everything I know (not that I wouldn’t come back at least monthly to visit).
Anyway, to anyone that cares, that’s how that part of my life is going.
-Philip
I’ve been known to complain about my phone – an HTC Excalibur/unlocked T-Mobile Dash – occasionally freezing and not accepting any input while typing a text message. I’ve looked into new phones time and time again, but either the phone’s hardware sucks or it runs Windows Mobile (which means the phone sucks).
Today, my relationship with my phone hit a new low. I officially cannot delete text messages. No matter what I do, when I restart the phone, the messages magically reappear. After some research using my friend Google, I came to the conclusion that the cemail.vol file, which contains all mail and text message settings and messages, was somehow corrupt or dysfunctional. The afforementioned file is 6.1 MB. A text message is typically 190 bytes or less, and according to Wikipedia, that includes protocol overhead, which I’m sure is not stored. Disregarding that last part, if I did my math correctly, that would mean I had 33113 text messages, ignoring the .1 of the 6.1, which seems about right to account for the settings that the file also contains.
Now, I texted back and forth to Michelle a lot (and a few other people, but not nearly as much, and that number would include all messages, both sent and received), but I do not see how it is possible to have that many messages stored on my phone. Regardless, this file is consistently in use by Windows Mobile (understandably), and unfortunately for me, that means I can’t delete it. I need to get some special program to run a script that will delete the file before the phone loads anything that uses the file.
In short, I’m very turned off of the Windows Mobile smart phone market. I don’t know if it’s HTC or Windows Mobile or some magical middleman I’m unaware of (my phone is unlocked, but there are a few leftover T-Mobile artifacts on, so possibly that), but it’s annoying and I am quite certain I could get a better experience somewhere else.
A while back I asked on Twitter if there is a better smart phone on the market than the iPhone 3G. I had one response that I appreciated, but only listed crappy phones I was already aware of. If you can think of a better phone, please post it in the comments. To be applicable at all, the phone must be AT&T/T-Mobile compatible (GSM), around half an inch thick or less, have Wi-Fi, have a decent battery life, and not run Windows Mobile. For example, I don’t want the T-Mobile G1 because it is too thick and the battery life is poor, even though it runs Android. If I think of more qualifications, I will post them.
As soon as I get a job, I plan on buying a new phone, and unless someone can convince me there’s a better phone out there than the iPhone 3G…well, hello again, Apple.
*sigh* I wish I had my RAZR as a backup phone (I somehow managed to kill it by using the HTC charger to charge it, even though the adapter was mini-USB). I don’t even trust my HTC phone to receive calls properly right now. The other day, the phone radio magically turned itself off and I didn’t get any calls or text messages for a whole day until I realized something was wrong, restarted my phone, and got 3 voicemails, some missed calls, and 2 text messages all at once.
Bleh.
-Philip
For those of you that read my site with an RSS reader, you may not have noticed that I put a Twitter widget in the sidebar on my site. I’ve noticed it didn’t look right on some lower resolutions, but I think I fixed it. If anyone notices that it extends out past the border(s) of the sidebar, let me know. Thanks. 
-Philip