Going through your fiends list and making custom group based on your relationship to people really high lights how complicated all those relationships are.

I want to get a new phone. Mine has been out of contract for some time, and I am thinking about getting something nice that I can use for more than just making phone calls. An Iphone would be wonderful, but at this point the cost of the data plan still puts me off. I would like to have some kind of data plan however. Does anyone have a recommendation or preference for another phone. I've been reading a lot about Google Android phones and they seem nice, but it will be a few months before I can get one with AT&T, and the family plan I am part of means I am kind of stuck with that carrier for a while.

If the choice is between:

Android
Blackberry
Iphone
Palm
Windows Mobile,

Which one seems do you prefer, and which model of phone would you choose?

Watching C-SPAN is depressing. Watching set peace congressional hearings designed to make dupes believe congress is doing more for them then they actually are, or policy discussion conducted by academics with great ideas that no one will ever listen to or enact is bad enough, but listening to the confused nonsense that comes out of the mouths of people calling in with "opinions" about the election is just painful. Are they high? If they aren't do they need medication? About the only people I can stand to listen to are the pollsters because they aren't really sharing political opinions, just talking about statistical data.

I'm still trying to make sense of the vanity license plate I saw this evening. I would have missed it except that the Google license plate holder caught my attention. The car was a late model infinity sedan and the license plate said "PWNGNR" If I'm reading this correctly its the dorkiest thing I've seen in a while...

I got my first few chisels in the mail today. They are basic tools but kind of beautiful. The blades are polished smooth as mirrors and sharp enough to shave with. I'm terribly eager to try them out, but I don't have a good set of sharpening stones yet, and I still need someone to teach me the proper sharpening technique. I also got a small wooden mallet to go with the. The set I have seem like a good start, but I still need a knife to go with it and I an already imagine other tools that I will wish I had as soon as I start doing any serious carving. I can also tell there is going to be a pretty dramatic different thought process involved in carving compared to the sculpture I have done previously with was almost entirely in clay. The ability to add as much as I want to a piece seems like a real luxury compared with the reductive approach of of wood carving demands.

So, Medfair is tomorrow. I don't even get my hopes up that it will be entertaining anymore, but something still compels me to go see all the bad costumes and crappy trinkets for sale. I could lament the move to Andrew's park from the duck pond for ruining the event, but really I think I started losing interest before that even. I think its mostly the opportunity to eat over priced fair food that gets me out. It doesn't really feel like spring until I've waited in a long line the open air to get strudel or funnel cake.

So I'm thinking about trying to get a job as an online tutor. This sounds like it could either be great, or torturous. I really can't tell.

What music is everyone listening to these days? I've had an itunes gift card and I don't know what to spend it on. I haven't bought much music lately except for the new radio head album.

This was seriously my fortune at dinner.

"Here we go. Low fat, whole wheat green tea."

I'm still not sure what to make of this.

Yesterday I got tickets to see Feist in Tulsa in April. I'm more excited about this concert than I've been about a show in quite some time. I usually if I get to see bands I really like at all it is after they have already moved on from the material I really liked (e.g. seeing the Red Hot Chilli Peppers now is just now that they are old and mellow is just not like seeing them on tour for Mothers Milk, or Blood Sugar Sex Magic would have been) so its rare to hear a lot of the songs I want to hear. The Reminder is one of my favorite albums of the past couple or years so, Woot!

It still amazes me what people will do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2251283,00.html

The ice is gone, but the casualties are still pilling up. Every day I see another tree, now scattered in a rough pile of wood by the curb, waiting for someone to haul it off to be fire wood, or to fill some hole in the land. Cedars fresh cedar heart a darked to crimson its freshly cut edge still oozing sweet smelling sap. Oaks, pines all sort of beautiful woods. Four foot diameter sections of some old tree I couldn't identify. Some of it is just too beautiful to waste. Someone should do something with it, and since no one else really seems to be I've been gathering it up and stowing it away in the garage. In months or maybe years when it is cured and ready maybe it will become sculpture. I haven't sculpted anything in years, and never really carved much wood, but with luck and the right tools maybe something will turn out. In any case it seems like an ideal project for the new year. So one of my resolutions for this year is going to be to have a finished piece done by Jan 1 next year.

At this point I have a bit more 24 hours to make up my mind what my resolutions should be. The list is getting a bit long, but one resolution doesn't seem to be enough this year, and I won't be satisfied unless I keep all of them.

I need a new book to read. I just finished the Martian Chronicles, and World War Z, so I've had a good dose of sci-fi, and I'm ready for a change of pace. Any suggestions?

After last night I can highly recommend The Machinist. Christian Bale as a 120lb insomniac who hasn't slept in a year is spooky to begin with, but if you can't sleep at 4:00 am from fever, and all the coffee you drank to make it through work, and it starts to seem like you are watching an honest to god animated corpse walking around and saying Mr. Bale's lines.

One of the few perks of my new job is that I can listen to music while I work. I need some good heavy metal to listen to at work. I have plenty of other good stuff I listen to on the job, but sometimes you just need to put up a curtain of noise between you and the world, and I find metal is the way to go. I've been enjoying Opeth lately. They have a nice balance going between complex melodic and rythmic elements on one hand, and raw power and incomprehensible lyrics on the other. So, any suggestions?

I hate fall. The first cold day always seems to come suddenly. It's never too cold, but the drop in temperature always chills my blood uncomfortably after so many hot summer days, and reminds me that winter will be here before too long. I hate winter. No, I don't really hate winter. I just hate being cold. It happens to me far to easily. Sometimes I wish I lived in a sun scorched desert where the only cool time was after the sun when down each night.