• Whats up with pushing back the digital television transition again? This is just ridiculous.
• The idea of femotcells is very interesting. What is the range for these things? It could be a great move for the phone carriers. They are basically having their customers improve the carriers network coverage at their own expense. Could one AT&T device in my building provide better coverage for the whole building (especially me)?
• I think it is a good idea to cut mail back to 5 days. Why do we need to get mail 6 days a week? You could always send it another way if it is that important. Why not knock it down to 4 days? They could make the mail business more profitable if they cut down the days since other people could compete for those off days (even the USPS).
• Not happy with one of the first Obama decisions. This stimulus plan better not distribute checks again. I would really like to see evidence proving that method helps.
• I having been cutting my food intake by half but my weight has not changed. I have also been doing cardio and weight lifting every day. It seems like I am stuck at my current weight no matter what I do.
• The new Gears of War 2 update seems like it make some differences in online play. The third update to the title is supposed to really address the issue with lag. I like how they finally made each round of Horde count as a game played for the 1999 achievement. I could play a 3 hour Horde match and only get one game played while other could play 20 or 30 games in that time period in non Horde matches.
• I am loving my new laptop setup with a dual screen setup and dock at work. I think it is going to cut my printing down by half. Now I have no need to print something just so I can use it on something else I am working on.
• I despise my new Charter DVR. The firmware has serious problems when it comes to recording. Here is my short list: (1) it records all HBO and Showtime series every time they are on if I have deleted them from my DVR. I had to delete the series recording because it was so frustrating. (2) It sucks at recording two things at the same time. I haven’t had it work right. It is almost like one of my tuners is out. (3) no external HD (4) the search function does not show the HD version of network channels. Makes it really hard to find programs in HD without paging through multiple days. When will Uverse come to my area?
• I never had problems like I did yesterday in the snow. My car almost got stuck leaving my garage and definitely did get stuck trying to get to it on my side street. All the other cars just zipped right through but I would spin in 1st gear and couldn’t keep the car alive in 2nd gear starts. I am so happy I was finally able to get moving.
• I am not very excited about the Superbowl. Why does everyone in St Louis think they have a stake in this one since the Cardinals played in St Louis at one point and so did Warner? The Cardinals were in Chicago for 60 years. Are Chicago fans cheering for the Big Red?
• 107 days till graduation. 35 days till Jamaica.
• I am probably going to get my scuba diving license. I do not think I can get it locally in such a short time plus I don’t want to pay extra to have my open dive in a cold cave. I will probably just do it in Jamaica.
• I think I have been doing my taxes wrong since I started Wash U. It looks like I could have been deducting my entire $25k tuition instead of doing the ~$4k Lifetime Learning credit. The articles I read make it sound like an MBA is some kind of special case when you can do this. Hopefully I will get a big chunk of change back when I refile.
• Last but not least, I forgot to mention something about ratings for Lost. Everyone is wondering why ratings are down. I think you will know this if you are a Lost fan. These past episodes are not made for the new watcher or even the every once in a while watcher. These episodes rely on the fact that you understand what has happened in the past 4 seasons. This is what makes the show so great but what also makes it unappealing to new users.

• I almost thought there was a gas scare or something when I tried to get gas by the station by my condo. The line was backed up onto the road which is pretty strange for a station that is pretty large. I expect it had something to do with the $1.98 gas but it was that same price yesterday.
• Gongrats to Obama. He gave a good speech at the end of the night. We will see if he can put a dent in turning this company around. McCain really stood no chance because of the poor job Bush did before him.
• I really wish people would not have been driving up and down Wash Ave the whole night screaming and honking their horn. It was still going on at 1AM so I had to shut my windows and turn on the AC in disgust.
• Every Wednesday I look at who I claim on the fantasy waiver wire and I get disgusted. Not sure why but I also seem to change my priority based on what other people pick. I really wanted Jon Beason but didn’t think anyone would pick him up. I also did not get Hightower.
• I still have no clue what classes I am going to take next semester. I would like to take all classes in the B School but the $2000 discount for taking the 3 hour HR class is mighty appealing. I am also debating taking the weeklong International Business class in January but I do not want to use vacation time. Everything basically comes down to if my company offers me the new position.
• I had no clue that CNN was pulling some Star Wars moves. Pretty crazy. 
• Vegas. Here I come.

I am a newly registered voter and never really been interested in politics before so this is all new to me. It has been quite an experience. For one, I wasn’t even sure I was registered. I have tried to register at least 2 other times but never received my notification. I again did not receive my notification like the form said it would (it inidicated I should receive something back in 14 days). I did though receive a letter stating where my polling site was. The first step on this paper was to look up online to see if you were registered. Of course, it said I was not which really had me worried but I thought it might be that their search engine did not deal with apartment numbers very well. I was again worried when  the girl behind me said she received a welcome letter when she recently registered.

I decided to wake up early to make my votes since I did not want to miss any work since I am really behind. I got their at 6:30 AM. I did not get there early enough. There was at least 100 people in front of me in a line that was not moving at all. It was also entirely outside; snaked around an asphalt parking lot. Luckily I brought my ipod in case of a situation like this but I did not bring a jacket so I was a little cold in my short sleeves. It took me almost 3 hours to get through the line which is pure ridiculous. The line was even longer when I left. Here are my thoughts on this issue:

1. Do they actually look at any data for the area to see how big of a polling station they need to setup or how many they need to? The reason I ask this is that I saw two major problems. (1) Our station was divided into two wards. I did not see a single person go to other ward line so basically the 1 guy checking in people for that ward was just sitting there twittling  his thumbs. (2) the second issue was that they had my ward divided by 3 checkpoints. The A through J checkpoint had about 10 times the people in it thus why the long lines. The other lines were empty at times according to what I heard. This kind of inefficiency is crazy. This problem also relates back to the first. Shouldn’t they know that there are a ton of last names between A through J over the others? I can’t believe this was just bad timing or a coincidence. I would have needed to wait in line at least another hour if I was in the A through J line.
2. Why is there only one day for elections? Shouldn’t it be at least two to knock down the lines? Can anyone do an absentee ballot? If so, why doesn’t everyone do this to avoid the trip altogether? I saw many people leave because the lines were too long. My bet is a lot of them were not coming back. This was not very encouraging for a new voter like me.
3. Was the city basing the voter turnout based on the last election. If so, downtown population has experienced a huge boom in the last 4 years. I had one guy tell me that he has been coming here for 40 years and another one for 20 and they never waited in line. Everyone in line was wearing either a suit or scrubs. Someone would have to predict that a majority of the downtown residents would vote.
4. My last issue was that we had at least two pregnant women (that looked ready to pop), a lot of elderly, and a woman with a broken leg on crutches. They all had to wait in this long line; standing up in the cold on the asphalt. Shouldn’t they have an express line for these kinds of situations? It is common courtesy.

I did hear a couple good jokes in line:

1. Why was Hans Weinman not on the ballot? …… I don’t know, why should he be? …… He is the president of the Hair Club for men
2. Republicans are so sexy! You never heard anyone say they are as ugly as an elephant. ( I think I am totally telling this joke wrong … it seemed a lot more funnier in line)

Last but not least, I did run into a lot of people from Mizzou and Wash U that I had no clue even lived downtwon. I thought that was kinda cool.

I watched my first and possibly last political debate (or at least parts of it). I watched the first 30 minutes then got extremely bored with it. I was not a big fan of the political cat fight that was going on where they were playing the he said, she said game. I would have thought the debate would be more of an avenue to get their current political views than trying to smear their opponents with their views and past votes, but I guess it is a debate. And this is the first time I have ever even followed politics since I am a recently new registered voter. I guess I thought it was time.

I also watched a bit of the analysis. On NBC, the first reporter said it was a successful debate, but would probably be forgotten in the next 24 hours because there were no problems. I totally disagreed with that and so did Tom Brokaw. I also didn’t agree with the statement that this debate would have no impact on the presidential decision which was the stark opposite of what the media was reporting before the debate. I disagree with this statement because I think it did help me make my decision. I thought Palin looked pretty good up there. I think she might be the “down to Earth” person we need in the White House.

What does everyone else think?