davidpbrown.net

I was fiddling around on the GSU student website today and was told I couldn’t do certain actions because of a hold on my account. That hold, as it turns out, was due to outdated Emergency Contact Information. Fair enough… if I stumble down the stairs after a mind-numbing lecture, I definitely want the ladies of the Pink Pony to know I will be late for our nightly scheduled rendezvous.

So I proceed to the Emergency Contact Information page only to find that in addition to the name and number of Trixie (information which cost me big money to get in the first place by the way), they also wanted her mailing address. Not email. Street address. Let me get this straight? If there is an EMERGENCY dealing with me on campus they are going to pop out the Georgia State University stationary, write little miss Trixie a letter, slap on a 42 cent stamp, and drop it in the mail box? I know the post office claims to be fast but damn, I hope if I’m injured this information will make it out sooner than 3-5 business days.

It’s really just absurd. Trixie can’t even read.

I don’t know what’s come over me but I’m a lousy blogger. Not that I was ever an exceptional blogger in terms of quality but I was fairly consistent at getting posts out on a regular basis. It’s not that I’m devoid of suitable content. Over the past several months there have been plenty of things happening in my life which I would deem blog-worthy.

I’m playing kickball with the WAKA organization and am having a blast with it. Although my team officially has a losing record, I’ve met some really great people in the league who have taken my alcohol consumption to some of the highest levels ever. We have even booked trips to Las Vegas for the 2008 Founders Cup (basically the Super Bowl of kickball). I cannot wait!

I went sailing for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. I was pretty petrified of the boat tipping the entire time but fortunately for me that never happened. We were sailing in a regatta and took home a 3rd place divisional trophy. How awesome is that for a first experience?

Today I start back at Georgia State to take a few business classes. Negotiations in the May-mester and then Project Management in the regular Summer session. It will be weird going back there after all these years gone but I’m kind of looking forward to it. Can’t wait to pick up my first Georgia State Football t-shirt from the Student Center!

My house rented out. I went through a management company to find a tenant and to handle all the paper work. So far, I’m pretty satisfied with how everything turned out. I knew nothing about my renters before they moved in except they had stellar credit, a dog, agreed to the rent I was asking and paid an absurd deposit. It’s so nice not paying a mortgage and rent at the same time.

I was at the Braves’ Opening Day. We lost but it was my first time at an Opening Day (regardless of what Brand Atlanta says). We had the all you can eat / drink tickets. I definitely got my money’s worth.

Along with APWBWGTTD founder mingaling, bobafred and I launched APWBWGTTD.com (or atlblogs.net) for all Atlanta Bloggers to join and participate. Right now it’s mostly just a feed aggregator such as the old site but we have some ideas to make the site an even better Atlanta Blogger community. Much thanks to the recently new member freecone for a kickass logo (which will debut as soon as we can figure out how to fit into the template).

I took a cooking class. That was interesting. It was via the Apron’s deal at Publix. All in all, wouldn’t recommend it. Not worth the money.

I went to the Orange Bowl. My motivation for going was Miami January has got to beat Atlanta in January. Not even close. It was the first time Miami had been in the 30s in 40 years or something. Rained, too. I’m glad I went and I had a blast. I just wish I had brought warmer clothes.

So there’s an update. Not funny. Not even interesting really. I hope to do better. Promise. Not that you care.

Ever since I saw the movie Gattica I thought its vision of the future was the most realistic. This legislation brings us one step closer to that prophecy.

If you haven’t seen the movie, check it out. Really good / scary.

After moving out of Alpharetta 6 months ago, I have tenants moving into my house today! The days of paying rent + mortgage + (2 x utilities) is over! How should I celebrate? Zombie Strippers with this dude at the Landmark followed up by 20 rum & cokes a few drinks at the Highlander should do just nicely.

Oh happy days…

This is something I’ve been waiting for for a very long time. Georgia State University is finally getting a football team and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Granted it will be a Div I-AA (Football Championship Subdivision) team but who cares? It’s football!

I’m fairly big football fan now but that wasn’t the case until I was a couple years into college and I saw how much fun my friends had rooting for their teams. At the time, I really regretted not going to a school with a team so I adopted my friends’ schools as my teams to follow. Even then, there was no real connection to the teams and I refused to wear any shirts, hats, whatevs supporting the teams. I didn’t go to school there, so why should I advertise like I did?

I’ve been following the news reports about possible GSU football fairly closely over the years (GSU Football is even a friend on myspace) so I knew this was in the works. I just never really thought it would happen. Good things don’t often happen to me (especially in the realm of football). So here’s the the kick-off of the 2010 season at The Georgia Dome! May we not go 0-12 in the regular season!

GO PANTHERS!!!

My Very Own Logo

Originally uploaded by davidpbrown

Fellow Atlanta Blogger and Natural Born Kicker team mate, freecone, felt I needed a personalized logo that really described who I am. This is the result. Could it be any more appropriate?

is dumb.

Every morning while getting ready for work, I listen to one of the mainstream 24 hour news channels. Inevitably, each day they are reporting on something in which find absolutely pointless and better placed on Real TV rather than a “legitimate” news channel. Today they were going on about their 50 minute continuous news coverage some animals being rescued some flooded area of the flood plains. Didn’t see that one coming, did they?

So this got me thinking, how come the news seems so fixated on reporting mundane stories which only impact an incredibly small portion of viewers? Then it hit me, and I’m sure I’m not the first to realize this, but being required to report 24 hours a day means you have to come up with something to report. Well, there is only so much which applies to the majority of viewers so a bunch of fluff gets picked up and put on air.

The problem is, the news becomes far more like entertainment and much less about what is really going on in the world as it applies to you. Even worse than that, when viewers tune into the news, to get “legitimate” information, they are bombarded with all this fluff. After a while, they get trained to believe this garbage and nonsense is just as important to their lives as the bigger issues are.

I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with all this or what, if anything, it means but all in all, I’m thinking 24 hour news channels have done society more harm than good. Does this mean I’ll stop watching or will issue a boycott? Hardly. I will continue doing what I do now and get the majority of my news from alternate sources (and as many as possible). Hopefully others will realize this and do the same but I seriously doubt that. Oh well…

Last night was the Sound on Film show at Smiths Olde Bar. I received a few free passes from the band after catching the tail end of their act at The Masquerade a couple weeks ago. Wrote about it here. I had been wondering whether the show would be any good. I really liked what I heard at the Masq but I only heard a few songs and it could have all been a fluke.

The start of the show was delayed due to some PA problems at SOB so as I waited, one of the band members from SoF recognized me from Masq and brought me a demo CD. That was cool but the place was pretty empty so I felt kind of weird just sitting there alone. Finally the first band started. No clue who they were but the lead singer had a mic stand made out of a chain so I guess they were pretty hard core … or just gay, not sure which.

Finally SoF went up. It was kind of impressive as these are some young damn kids. I mean like still have braces young. That didn’t stop them from experimenting with all types of instruments. The first song they played made use of the traditional guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. They didn’t stop there, no, add to that keyboard, accordion, xylophone, bells, and even a glass of water. A lot of shit for a bunch of kids. I was impressed. Anyways, I’m not a music reviewer so I’m going to cut this short. They did a great job and I really enjoyed it. There were a few hiccups, unfortunately during their closing song, too, but overall it was a great performance and I’m glad I went. I’ve posted the tracks from their demo below. If you’re reading via RSS feed, you’ll need to come to the site to listen. Alternatively, you can check out their MySpace page here.

No clue the track names…
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3

From the funny and obviously skillful team member Brody, the Natural Born Kickers logo is born.



In the immortal words of Peter Griffin, how freakin’ sweet is that?