Lyrics collection

This week I have been registering for classes and doing a lot of homework. Since some of my homework is done online and the portal that provides my school with the means to do online homework and class signup is pretty slow and annoying I have been browsing Amazon in other tabs.

After my last debacle with Amazon where I had 72 items in my shopping cart and actually needed to buy something, I have become much more adapt to using the wish list. I have tried to use the other Amazon features such as the ratings system to improve my store. However, I guess I need to rate more things because Amazon believes that because I gave this literary masterpiece a high rating I must want to purchase obviously inferior products of the same topic.

Pl4n is over and just in time as their is a growing rift in the Computer Club between those in favor of QWRETY and those using Dvorak. Despite doing all that I can, the two factions have divided the group evenly and have proposed meeting on different nights. The QWERTY group has started wearing these fashionable bracelets to make others aware of which side of the tracks they reside on. What the Dvorak group’s next move is nobody knows, but rumors are circulating about ammonia, rabbit tails and RFID tags. Last night I met with leaders of both sides over a couple pints in hopes that an agreement could be reached. While their was admissions by both sides, only time will tell if the agreements will stand. There is a meeting tonight and I pray their won’t be bloodshed.

Yesterday was the WMU vs. CMU football game which is the closest thing to a rivelry at our school. More importantly, it is the weekend most closely associated with out of control riots, late night parties and reckless abandon for ones safety. I didn’t go to the football game (which WMU won btw) but I did make it out to the emotional hockey game Saturday evening. Despite an inital 3-0 lead at the end of the 1st, WMU surrendered 5 unanswered goals and lost 5-3 to Ferris who sported a larger than normal fan section. I did escape for most of Saturday around town, having a good time because I could not yet stand to get back to working on homework.

One dilemma I faced this past weekend was that I finished all of the non-school related books I had and my latest Amazon order does not arrive until the 22nd. I finished Lennon Revealed late last week and finished off my copy of Blink Saturday morning when I discovered it underneath some stuff I hadn’t touched since I moved in. I enjoyed Blink and found Lennon Revealed to be interesting but it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. After pondering what I was expecting the book to focus on, I have realized that it was everything the book could be, it has just been a long time since I have read a biographical book.

I was faced with nothing to read when my mind is burned out because of school work, until a fellow Computer Club member Nik pointed out I should just go to the library. The library at my school from what I have gathered over my course of studies is not exactly the happening place to be. Reasons that I come to this conclusion include but are not limited to:

• Library is open 10 less hours a week than the Student Recreation Center
• Consumption of alcoholic beverages is frowned upon at the library
• You have to be quiet at the library
• I can count the number of times I’ve seen someone checking out a book on my fingers
• There is always 2-3 times as many completely empty tables for study than their are used tables
• The library requires you to wear pants inside
• You can’t listen to music while studying

However, it appears over the course of the past year the library has been trying to reinvent itself. They now offer an eating area with a coffee/smoothie stand and vending machines, televisions for study breaks, and advertise the latest book arrivals. I have rarely used the library for the reasons listed above and the fact that computer books are frequently out of date by the time the are printed. However, I did find a few of the books on my Amazon wish list in-stock at the library and went to hunt them down.

It took me what some would call a considerable amount of time to locate the selected books. While it was a great adventure for me, the young lady who was putting books back in their appropriate places seemed to rather enjoy my inexperienced library navigation. After acquiring the needed books and reading the prefaces, I decided on checking out Central Banking in Theory and Practice and Essay’s on the Great Depression. Despite the assured claim from my parents that these books do not fall under the category of “Light Reading”, anything that does not require me to answer trivial and meaningless questions or write an extensive book report currently falls under this category.

This week might be the roughest one of the semester yet, with Team[2] having to pretty much rewrite their term paper and the final midterms of the semester being passed out. *sigh*

I made it one week closer to the end of the semester and for that, IÂ’m content. I took my final midterm Friday, leaving only a couple presentations, document editing, and a handful of online quizzes to take before finals. On Wednesday I went with Kristen to see Wal-mart: The High Cost of Low Price at Kraftbrau. I enjoyed the film for what it was, and awareness pic, but felt very slighted by itÂ’s overwhelmingly one-sidedness. As usual it threw numerous statistics out, and presented the Wal-Mart leaders as unquestionably evil people with out any explanation for their actions. Specific faults I had with the film include its blaming of Wal-Mart for certain regulations in China that are out of their control, and the lack of any solutions given for Wal-Marts dominance over small, local businesses.

On Saturday I went with several friends to see the WMU hockey game. WMU tied MSU, 3-3 in East Lansing and both teams were set for a rough rematch on Saturday night. The game was filled with penalties from after whistle roughing, but in the end WMU upset the formerly thirteenth ranked team in the country, 5-3. Again, WMU shows up against a tough, ranked opponent after falling to lesser squads the past two weekends in LSSU and Ferris State.

This week I read Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte due to my Amazon shipment arriving earlier. I had never read a philosophy book so I found the book incredibly interesting but I had to read slowly to make sure I picked up on the most basic of philosophical jargon. It was also refreshing to read a modern day British writer, and it didnÂ’t hurt that he was wickedly funny.

I promise, IÂ’ll spend some time over thanksgiving doing a brain dump of all my latest ideas and projects onto the blog, but for now I leave you with this:

Today I spent a lot of time thinking about television. This is kind of odd for someone whoÂ’s TV sits in his room unplugged due to not having cable or an antenna. A lot is being discussed about how mediaÂ’s inevitable switch to all digital technology and the freedoms that it would seemingly give to consumers. I have read several articles on Business Week (which I unfortunately can not link to due to their subscription service) and around the web on how TV companies are rushing out their broadband services. ESPN, MTVU and Comedy Central have all begun to move content to broadband services in hopes to take advantage of those college students who will soon be graduating, getting jobs and have been hooked into high speed internet access. However, as I am finding more and more common, the most rational, thought-out ideas come from Mark Cuban. The lack of bandwidth necessary to turn the internet into a global, on demand video source will definitely hold many dreams back for the foreseeable future.

However, like most of my crazy ass thoughts, what I find most interesting is the customer-company relationship. As many companies have found out before, part of building a successful brand is creating the perfect relationship between customers and themselves. Today this is done with ever progressing technique of community building. What community building offers is the ability for consumers to be directly connected with each other in hopes of building a better system. Just as Live Journal, Amazon, and TheFacebook have learned, consumers have a desire to learn from each other and will, if given the opportunity, will create their own sub-communities. Could not the same work for television? If I had some advanced digital cable system, why couldn’t I sign up to be part of certain communities. Global communities such as “West Wing Fans” (and its many sub categories), “Hula Hackers” and “1420 Party Goers” give me the ability to share my thoughts on episodes as well as recommend other shows to people. Each community could be combined with certain online services as forums, mailing lists, wiki’s, and chat to create bonds between users who share things in common. In the end, only one rule dominates, you can only provide the tools and direction, its up to each community to decide what to do with it.