Musing
While driving this afternoon, I caught a bit of a radio commercial that loudly proclaimed, "It doesn't get any better!" By 'it', they seem to be implying 'life'. Now pardon my cynicism, but if the pinnacle of life is 25%-off on a recliner, that's a really depressing state of affairs. I'm not sure I would see the point in living. Now you might retort, "By 'it'...they meant 'deals'." However, if that's the case, they're saying it in a pretty poor fashion (using 'it' instead of 'they'). Plus, it's funnier when you look at it my way.

American advertisers are really fond of making their rather mundane stuff seem super important. Bryson (see: previous entry) points out that British advertisers are a bit more restrained. "Ad-ver'-tiz-ments" suggest that a cold medicine will help you feel a bit better. Meanwhile, American advertisers "suggest" that their cold medicine will do everything just short of curing cancer.

School Wrap
The semester wrapped up semi-stressfully. I turned in my Spanish Capstone, so I've actually got a degree if I decided to graduate immediately. I'm definitely trudging through the rest of my Electrical Engineering degree though...and I'm still trying to decide whether to tack on Wireless Engineering.

My exams in Italian went swimmingly. My presentation in French wasn't spectacular, but I think I did a decent job of overviewing Monaco in a few minutes. I don't speak French particularly well. I really like speaking with the accent...but I have a habit of butchering it. Anyway, I wrapped up with an A in each of those classes.

As for the engineering classes...they had me quite worried. In Thermodynamics, things were starting to look up. I did pretty well on a couple of the later exams (after bombing the heck out of the middle ones). That said, I was still likely failing. Therefore, my final exam would represent my overall grade. He has a policy that you won't make less than what you make on the final. I studied for quite a few hours, and I was able to partially answer all of the questions, but I knew I was right on the edge of passing. Post-exam melancholy kept repeating, "I really suck at engineering." Fortunately, I came out with a C. I'm quite satisfied with that.

In Electromagnetics 2, my second exam went quite well (in contrast to the first one), so I tried to remain positive about the final. Again, I put in quite a few hours of studying, and I was able to fully answer most of the questions, but there was at least one where I was quite lost. Basically, the final covered this particular class along with the material from Electromagnetics 1. I took the first one a year and a half ago...so some of the concepts from that class were noticeably fuzzy. Again, I knew I was on the edge and I had the same post-exam melancholy (though a bit more magnified in this case since I'd been pretty optimistic about passing). Fortunately, I managed to pull a C in there also.

Oh, and I'm happy that the languages classes are more credit hours...so I stayed on my 3.25 GPA mark. After 200 credit hours, that's not likely to swing anymore.

Chillaxing
Since the semester has ended, I've been chilling - mostly reading books, playing p-game (steadily positively), playing video games, and watching TV. Actually, I've been watching quite a bit of TV lately due to our acquisition of a Tivo-like device (DVR is the technical term) called Moxi. Despite being somewhat buggy, Moxi has simplified the TV watching experience. It has two tuners, so we can conveniently record two shows at once. We no longer have to remember to record Survivor and the World p-game Tour. The drawback to having Moxi is that it has a tendency to suck a lot of time. Previously, if we missed watching something...well, we missed it...no big deal. Now though, we have a huge backlog of shows. It's like an entertaining chore wading through them all. =)

As I've been rather short on spending cash since my Colorado trip, I've neglected keeping up with movies. I haven't seen any in theaters since Christmas Break. I haven't rented any, and I barely recall seeing any on tv. I did manage to finally catch "American Wedding". It's crude to extremes at times, but there were some pretty funny moments.

Anyway...I hung out in a rather dead Auburn for a few days before coming home to Chattanooga. I'm looking forward to hanging out with some friends and my family while I'm here.

p-game Pouch
Since I've been home, I've ploughed through a book called "Small Stakes Hold 'Em". It's highly regarded in p-game world, and it has some interesting concepts that I'm looking to apply. It primarily applies to Limit Hold 'Em (not the famous No Limit of tv). While I stuck to No Limit for quite a few months, I've begun to branch out and play several other forms of p-game for the sake of variety. Pot Limit Omaha 8 Or Better is a pretty fun little version.

While talking about this, I realize that the majority of you likely don't care. You know why? Because p-game's not really interesting to people that don't play it. Heck, I don't really find it interesting most of the time when other people talk about it. I do read about it, play it, and watch it a lot...but there's something intellectually or viscerally engaging about those situations. I've touched on this before.

My brother has a tendency to share too many of his p-game stories. He's had a rough run over the past month or so. He's still way up from where he started, but listening to him go on and on about bad beats was getting pretty annoying. I'd thought he'd shed the extreme temper that he had as a kid, but it has been resurfacing. I'd be doing something nearby when suddenly an angry "ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!" startled me...like actually caused me to jump out of fear. This was followed by an angry tappity tappity on the keyboard as he berated the terrible player that drew out on him. I'm hoping that he can get back to regularly shaking things off and calming down. I know he doesn't like losing. I don't like losing. Losing can temporarily bum me out. That said...getting angry isn't typically helpful. It's actually usually pretty detrimental in the context of p-game.

I feel a bit bad airing this. I'm not trying to talk bad about my brother. He's a great guy. His temper and competitiveness have just been an issue lately. After a while, I started confronting him about it. Confronting people that are pissed about being pissed is a delicate matter, so I've tried to broach the subject at other times. I'm trying to encourage him and act as a calming influence...reminding him after rough sessions that he does not in fact "hate his life" and that bad players are how he's made all that money in the first place. I think he's actually been a bit better lately.

Okay...the sun is bound to come up before long...I need to get to bed.