Goodbye Vacation, Hello Summer

I thought that now would be the second best time to wrap up the Spring since the best time already passed me by. This semester was the most trying and intense semester of my life so far. Who knew that 14 hours could be so exhausting? As if that wasn't enough, I started out looking for an internship (though that was fixed quickly) and then I had so many issues with my apartment complex that I had to hunt for a new apartment and all the headache involved with that. To boot, our complex is now charging us some ridiculous fees. I couldn't be prouder of how I handled things up through finals though, and it was definitely a challenge. I realized that things have been difficult in life before, but the only real challenged I'd encountered before this semester was cluttering, which I'm still dealing with. What's sad is that I was so happy to be done after finals, and then I entered another crisis: my car crash. So it was just one thing after another, but I look back on it and see myself as having really grown from it. My biggest regret is that I didn't develop myself socially as much as I had hoped (read: didn't find any worthwhile girls to go out with), but I guess you take the good with the bad. It's also sad that my "vacation" is over (read: the two weeks I just spent at home in Houston), and other than the standard parental restrictions I definitely had fun. I'm especially glad that I finally spent an entire weekend with my brother and his fiance. Tomorrow morning I begin my first day at TI. I almost want to say that this is like my first job since that museum gig was really a high school thing whereas this internship requires stuff I've learned at UT. I'm pretty excited about it despite knowing that I'm away from my family and friends, and despite my hotel room being less than thrilling.

I've got a ton of tech news to catch you all up on since I had to miss my Sunday post for a family bbq. I'll start out with the Apple stuff: they're looking to replace the eMac series with newer educationally-targeted machines based on an Intel-chip. Also, the monitor will be flat (like the iMac), so that'll drive up their costs, but with renewed competition in educational computers I'm sure that they'll be sure to keep the price down. Apple has been recruiting programmers with a background in gaming, which would imply that they may be trying to make their own games, possibly for the iPod, or at least knock down that wall between gamers and Macs. Speaking of the iPod, if you're curious as to how it became a household name, you may be interested in this article. Gmail may soon integrate Froogle in your e-mails by showing you the prices of products mentioned in any given e-mail. This is based on an interesting line of code discovered in the web application, and it sounds rather feasible. There's also speculation of a Google shopping cart, but it's based on a company's address, so it's not quite as likely. They've publicly denounced trying to compete with PayPal, but I don't think that totally rules it out. Netflix is looking to follow a couple of competitors with their own movie download service, to be unveiled by the end of the year. I'm sure we're in store for yet another rocky launch. We all feel a little too comfortable with the Times New Roman font face, but could that just be because it's the Microsoft Office default? Well Microsoft is switching that to a new font called Calibri, leading some to wonder whether it'll become the new standard. Supposedly, they think it'll make reading large amounts of text easier, and I'll admit that it does look a little better than even Arial. Lastly, if you're curious as to how the PS3 actually got to be so pricey, you can read a really good explanation of it all here. At the base of it is Ken Kuturagi, who started development of it aggressively and once things were in motion it became too late to turn back and make it more affordable. I think he just did what he honestly thought would be best for the company, but I believe he fell a little short.

That's one of a few FX pictures released by Marvel from Ghost Rider, and it actually looks better than I would've thought. Anyway, the winner of the box office battle this Memorial Day weekend was X-men: The Last Stand at a shocking $120 million. What sucks the most about that is that they'll almost certainly make another thinking that they did even better since X2 made less its first weekend. Da Vinci Code had what I would consider a pretty reasonable dropoff raking in $43 million, and Over the Hedge earned a very impressive $35.3 million in third place. We have another review of Talladega Nights, and it's quite positive. My hopes just keep going up and up for this one. We also have a review of Clerks II, and it sounds awesome though it's from a fanboy (though most Internet geeks are Kevin Smith fans anyway). I'm looking forward to that movie even more. All I have left is some multimedia. Moviefone has the first trailer of The Great New Wonderful featuring some big name actors/actresses including Maggie Gyllenhaal, who I love. I can't make out the plot too well, but it has enough talent to be real good. A random movie site has some clips from Babel, though they're still in English. They don't reveal a whole lot though, so don't fear any real spoilers. Lastly, Yahoo Movies has clips from The Break-up if you actually care.

Now for some Monday Madness:

How many simple things have you learned to appreciate more, for one reason or another? Please list them and feel free to elaborate on each.
For one thing, my car! Having to spend 45 minutes at a McDonald's in Elgin waiting for my brother to come was really no fun. Then there's my own home, since each apartment and hotel room I've been in since leaving home hasn't been quite as convenient as my parents' place. I think I'll feel better whenever I actually buy a house. I'm going to stop there so I can rest up for my early morning.