found this looking around on my hd. i think it was the beginning of a sonnet i was supposed to write for my freshman english class:

Vending Machine

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thy coolness keeps my food from spoil and rot
My throat is parched by the summer’s ray,
It is quenched by the drink from you I bought.
In to your slot I place my hard earned wealth
A tasty burrito is what I select

coldplay was good.

don’t worry folks, i’m still alive. just keeping myself busy.

so i got my new iphone. it is beautiful. getting there was a bit of a task. all week i had told myself that i was just going to go to the at&t store near work early in the morning to get it, but for some reason on friday morning i got the crazy idea that i should go to the apple store. just for the full experience, you know? bad idea. i got to the store at around 6:30, and i think there was about 100 people in line in front of me. i thought, ok, its long, but i should be out of here by around 10:00. boy was i wrong. at around 7:30 all of the apple store employees came out cheering and clapping, giving us high fives, etc. it was fun and people got excited. right at 8, the local news stations were there to tape the first guy in line to go in. about 15 people went in to the store right when the doors opened. excitement was high, and we started to wait for the first guy to come out with his phone. and we waited. and we waited. it was 8:40 before the first guy came out of the store. ugh. i am sure most of you saw the news reports, there’s no need to go into detail with what went wrong.. down activation servers.. requiring a call to at&t in order to get the upgrade price.. etc. the line moved veeeerrry slowly. i got to the store around 12:05. did the calling up at&t and removing my fan discount song and dance, got the phone, and got out of the store by around 12:35. the line still stretched down 2/3 of the length of the mall. crazy. and to make everything more fun, i had forgotten to turn of my headlights when i got to the mall, so my car was dead when i got there. after getting a jump, i went straight to work.. only 6 hours late.. sigh. nevertheless, its an amazing phone. was it worth it? i think so.

pretty proud about getting this.

last night, i paid the $140 fee and selected a date to take the graduate record examination (GRE). august 9th, 8:30 am. this is something i have been avoiding for way too long, so its both exciting and scary to finally get started down this path. i’ve got a few schools i am starting to research. i am going to work towards getting my masters degree.

two stories today really proved to me how idiotic the people who post on digg are. i really would like to believe that this is not indicative of most people in this world, but sometimes i really have to wonder.

1. AT&T Announces iPhone 3G pricing plans
   wow, people are such whiners. it is really this simple: 1st gen iphones were eligible for the $15 at&t medianet plan with a forced $5 200 text message plan. thus an “iphone data plan” was $20 a month. the reason at&t allowed for the $15 plan on a smartphone was most likely a) to placate apple and b) the iphone only supported slower EDGE speeds. now, with the new iphone 3G, at&t is giving the phone the same treatment as all other smartphones: the $30 smartphone data plan. this time there is no forced text message plan. is this expensive? yes, welcome to the world of wireless plans. is it any more expensive than any other smartphone? nope. really, the only rather interesting and unique aspect of the iphone 3G is that people who bought 1st gen iphones are eligible for the upgrade price ($199). i think this is once again there to placate apple and not to turn off all of the early adopters.

2. Obama to expand Bush’s faith-based programs
   i have been a pretty big obama fanboy lately, but i will be the first to admit he has his warts. i am pretty upset over his cowardly stance on telco immunity. nevertheless, this story, the title it was given, and especially the idiotic commenters are just amazing. this seems like a much more balanced view of what is happening here: Obama to rename Bush’s faith office. sounds like a good idea to me. is there really that much indiscriminate hate against people with religious beliefs that anything to do with them has to be evil or wrong? it sure sounds like obama is doing what he promised to do: change the old politics of predefined partisan divides and bring both sides of the table to work at making america better. he won’t give federal funding to proselytizing efforts, but he will give money to important and established charitable efforts regardless of the beliefs or lack their of their sponsors. this is not an expansion of bush’s programs, this is a restart.

i just wish people weren’t so obnoxious.