I'm now an elected official,

I'm now an elected official, at least on-campus. I just found out that I won the run-off election I was in to be on the University's P&S Council. P&S stands for Professional & Scientific, and it's the type of position my job is, the other two major types being Merit (mostly hourly jobs, not requiring a 4-year degree) and Faculty. Those two groups are unionized, we, the P&S people, are not, relying instead on the Council to act on our behalf. The web site, with more information, is here.

I'm writing this post while

I'm writing this post while laying in bed, having a laptop is nice when you're sick. I'm not deathly ill or anything, just a nasty cold that leaves me congested and tired. I went to work yesterday, but spent most of the afternoon dozing off at my desk, since I was so tired. So, I decided to use one of my copious sick days and spend today at home in bed, where it doesn't matter if I fall asleep, as long as I remember to put the laptop down before I do it!

I have a new definition

I have a new definition of gaming sweetness and that is NCAA Football 2003 in widescreen mode on my Xbox, displayed on my HDTV. Now this is how video game football is meant to be! I took the 20 minutes needed to manually enter all of the names of the ISU Cyclones into the game too, so that the announcers call out their names instead of their numbers. I'm not psychotic (or patient) enough to do that for the entire field of Division 1 teams in the game, however. So far, the game seems pretty well balanced, both passing and running games have the right balance of difficulty, though I'm not much good on defense yet. I'm still amazed by some of the details included in the game. My first game as ISU started with the announcer saying "Welcome to Jack Trice Stadium, on the banks of the Skunk River in Ames, Iowa!" I was impressed by the level of research that's gone into all the teams, and I like the ability to tell the game who your favorite team is, so that even the opening menus are customized to reflect your favorite school.

I was given a play-test

I was given a play-test copy of The Sims Online yesterday. The game won't launch for a couple of weeks still, but they have a few thousand people playing it so they can test the system and get feedback. I am now one of those people. So far, it's a lot of fun. If you've ever played The Sims, you'll feel instantly at home, though this moves at a slower pace, and you don't disappear off to work for most of the day. Having real roommates is kind of neat, the woman I'm shacked up with bought some really ugly chairs to put in the living room though. I'm going to have to talk to her about that...

We caught the new James

We caught the new James Bond movie at the Waverly Palace Theatre this weekend. A good flick, though the first half is stronger than the second. I'm telling myself that now I have a big screen TV, I'm not going to go see as many movies in the Theatre, and I think I can do that, but there are a few coming out in the next month that I will pay to see. Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers and Star Trek: Nemesis being foremost on my mind.