I have been paying my credit cards religiously. Like 200-300 a month, just to get the balance down. I went from around $2,000 a year ago to finally getting it nearly paid off this year. I have a recurring $100 charge going to the one credit card for my dedicated server on which this website is hosted (among others). However, I missed a payment last month. For which I was charged $40! WTF. That's all I got to say.

However, my student loan, which is still asking for $10,000, doesn't mind this practice. If I pay $200, I don't have to pay next month, since it is about $100 a month (less than that, but no less than $90). In fact, it warns me that I'm paying more than the required minimum amount. Credit cards got to shape up. WTF.

I thought I was done with the expensive stuff following my guitar and amplifier purchases. Not so. I couldn't be happier with those two though. The guitar plays so, so nicely, it's made me better; with just how easy it plays. And the amplifier couldn't sound better. Unfortunately, lately I've been getting around to playing too late that I can't turn it up, since I live in a row house :P

But with a great guitar, and awesome amplifier, I've been playing more regardless of what time I play. This, naturally, gets you warmed up. When I'm all done playing all the stuff I know, which happened within the first thirty minutes of when I got my new guitar, the only thing I can do is try to learn other stuff. So, I've been playing, improving, improv, jazz, and blues, and now I want to record!

The last purchase consists of a Yamaha Go46 FireWire recording interface, a Sennheiser guitar microphone and headphones (don't want echo recorded from the computer through the mic and into the computer again), a boom microphone stand, microphone cable, and Logic Express 8. These are costly items, but I was able to save a bunch going through Amazon.com, as I usually am able to do. They'll all be here before the weekend, but I'll be heading up to Zatko's this weekend to play video games, so I won't be able to record anything until Sunday or so. Maybe look for stuff then. If not, the latest will probably be Tuesday.

But, part of my improving has been playing chords that I've never played before. Like, the C# maj dim (usually diminished chords are noted with a ^o, but I don't know how that's going to look :P ), which goes nicely in between a D9 and a Bm. Then trying to come up with solos between those chords is always a challenge, and I'll know if I can do it once I start recording some background music to solo over. There's always a chicken and egg scenario.

Like, for instance (and this is BRUTAL), I want to start copying all of my DVDs to a hard drive, but I need a computer with a ton of space. I might as well throw Linux on there and also do my development on it as well, so it should be a pretty powerful machine with like 2 TB of space (that's 2000 gigabytes). Of course, then to watch them on a TV, I'd get an Apple TV. But, to really get the most out of that, I'd need to get an HDTV, preferably the 40" Sony Bravia that I've been eyeing. And if I'm going HD, then I have to upgrade my cable plan to get HD channels.

Brutal, I tell ya. F@%#@$ing brutal.

The house is now mine. Parties galore in coming weeks. My rate lowered and no PMI. 'Tis a beautiful thing.

So, some big weeks lately... This week:

Monday: Paid off my car on Friday and got the title on today!

Tuesday: Received second iPod Touch that I didn't order, and assumed I'm on some sort of iPod touch weekly subscription, for only $400 a week! I sent it back. (It was Amazon's fault, not Apple's :P )

The rest of the week... I will finally be buying my house! My parents sold their house and move on Halloween. They are hiring movers.

My keyboard's kinda screwed up because soda was spilled on it (not me!!). The keys were really sticky, so I pulled a bunch of them off and wiped behind them with a wet paper towel, but my "I" key will never be the same (although it works fine, it just sticks up a little more than the others), and my "0" (zero) key (and hence, my "close parentheses" key) makes some weird noise when pressed.

This month and next are big months for gamers:

Crysis Collector's Edition DVD-ROM with Bonus! PC Pre-Release
Ships 11/13/07 $59.99
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men with Bonus! PC Pre-Release
Ships 11/20/07 $49.99
Sim City Societies with Bonus! PC Pre-Release
Ships 11/13/07 $49.99
Super Mario Galaxy Wii Pre-Release
Ships 11/12/07 $49.99
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune PS3 Pre-Release
Ships 11/20/07 $59.99
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure Wii Pre-Release
Ships 10/23/07 $39.99


That's my shopping cart at EB games.

This Friday will be the first time all of us from work head out to the bar since we hired a bunch of new people, including me! We're gonna get wasted.

I'm 3-3 in Fantasy Football this year, winning the last game by 2 points! Tony Gonzalez had a huge game, and Muhsin Muhammad has finally started scoring for me. My team stinks, though. It will be miraculous if I finish over .500. I only had 76 points, and really only got points from those two and the Eagles D. No one else contributes. This week I play my brother Scott. He'll be at the Eagles game so I'll have to call him and tell him I'm whooping his ass.

I joined Netflix finally. It's gonna be a great way to finally watch all those movies I haven't seen yet.

I'm also trying to quit smoking. It's rough, and I know drinking will make it really hard, but the trick would be to go back to quitting after a long night of drinking with a few smokes here or there. Drinking in Philly is a lot easier than in the suburbs.

This post has a little of everything.

Sucks:
Mortgage (estimated):$887/month (not a $320,000 loan)

Rules:
Interest Earned This Month: $ 0.91
Interest Paid Year to Date: $ 3.57

I opened that account on 5 Jan.