By Jeff:

Welcome to your written version of Thumpin’ Thursday – the first in a long time.

I have been at the University of New Haven during this week, and am taking a course to teach the Saturday program I taught this past year (and will hopefully be teaching this year).  The training program has some obvious positives.  #1, I get fed breakfast and lunch (and if I stayed late enough, dinner).  #2, I get to work with some awesome people that I have worked with for the past year, including two teachers that also teach at my school.  #3, I get to learn something new, which I always enjoy.  And #4, the training staff treats us very well and goes out of their way to make sure  everyone is as happy as can be (There is a 5th perk, but you’ll have to ask me about that in person).

However, there are some drawbacks.  The first and most important is it takes a HUGE chunk out of the day, and consequently the week.  The training is 2 weeks long, five days a week from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  It’s technically a bit longer than that since breakfast opens at 7:15 a.m.  It is in New Haven, which is about a 30 minute commute for me.  That means that if I want to eat a (actually great tasting) hot breakfast, I have to leave the house at 6:45-7 a.m…in the summer…where i’m supposed to be recharging after a tough school year.  Again, there’s another drawback but you’ll have to ask me about that in person.

Because of this, I failed at planning ahead far enough to select another line of songs to cover for the site, and therefore I do not have a new video to debut this evening.  I do plan on recording a few videos in advance on Sunday, since I will be elsewhere for most of Saturday.

So, to tide you over, I mind as well enlighten you on some recent things.

I finally finished off my George Carlin DVD collection.  I am the very happy owner of all his HBO specials after I ordered “Complaints & Grievances”, “Life is Worth Losing”, and “It’s Bad For Ya”.  This comedian is my favorite of all time.  Hands down, no contest.  He was funny when I hear or see his routines from the 60’s, and he was funny and enlightening in 2008 when he debuted what would be is final HBO special.  Ever since I got interested in his material, I always said to myself “I hope he comes out with some new stuff soon”.  And he did.  Books, CDs, and DVDs.  I myself was a sucker for the DVDs because seeing him perform is half the fun.  I was also fortunate enough to go see him in concert at Jorgensen at UConn when I was a student.  As usual, he was his old hilarious self, but I found it rude that the crowd wanted him to perform older routines instead.  George is well known for his critiques and observations of the English language, and I recall one thing I heard on my shuffled Ipod today “If you have 24 odds & ends on a table and 23 of ’em fall off, what do you got – an odd or an end?”.  He did lean more towards social issues, but continued his usual goofy antics all the way to his death.  I do miss the guy, but i’m glad that he has helped me laugh quite a bit for the past 15 or so years.

I still play Final Fantasy XI periodically (not much this week due to aforementioned training), and I recently applied to something called a HNM shell (High Notorious Monster).  The object of these groups is to seek out the biggest and baddest monsters in the entire game and take ’em down.  Most of the fights require 12-18 people, and they are pretty tough on their standards for acceptance.  My character has 3 leveled jobs, and they took a long time to gear to where they are now.  They still want me to get a few more pieces before I would be considered accepted.  I am going to hopefully get one of them tomorrow late at night (as a reward for getting through week #1 of training I guess).  The trouble is the rate it drops is about 30%, and we are fighting it up to 6 times.  My friend in game is also after this same item so we’re hoping our luck is good for the run.

I’m also resistant on getting a Twitter account.  Jim and Chris will have to convince me.  Until they do, I have to say no thanks.

I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my recent happenings, but again I promise I will have new videos to debut next week.  Until then…