A Return to Normalcy

Now that a couple more days have passed since the college basketball season came to an end, I realized that while losing the NC game was sad, a much sadder thought is that Monday was the last time we will ever get to see Luther, Jack Jack, Roger, and probably Deron play. I'll even miss Nick Smith, a little.

Other schools can have their top recruits who play for one year jump to the NBA, but I honestly don't want that for the Illini. Thinking about how we fun it was to watch these guys develop as a team for the past few years, and then see the success they had this season, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Anyways, I think I'm finally done talking or thinking about college ball, until next season is in sight. It's time to move on. The last few weeks I have done pretty much nothing outside of eat, sleep, work, and think about or watch the tournament, so as you might imagine, there are things I need to catch up on.

First order of business is definitely to do my taxes (I know, they're due in less than a week). I gotta figure out whether I should try one of those programs, or just do it by hand like I've done the past couple years. People have told me TurboTax is a great program, but I guess I've never really understood the need for a program. Maybe if I had more deductions, had more investments and assets, owned a house, then I would understand. But so far it's been pretty straightforward for me, either use the 1040EZ or the 1040 and the directions seem to make sense. So the hard part is getting all my documents together and just finding some time to do it without interruption.

I heard Britney Spears and her husband are going to be in a reality series on UPN. Sounds interesting. Never thought I'd say this, but I think she should just go away and retire from the public. Did anyone else know that she has a new song and video out on MTV? I didn't know until I saw it a week or two ago. Take my word for it, the song is pretty terrible.

It's weird when I see the MLB scoreboard this season and all of a sudden there's a team called the Nationals. I mean, I knew it was happening since the move was announced last year, but still I get a little confused.

I received and replied to my first ever wedding invitation this week.

I finally figured out how to set up and use BitTorrent on my computer, but I don't know many sites that have good stuff for me to download. Anyone who has recommendations for me is encouraged to share.

TBS has been showing Road Trip a lot lately. Yet another movie that makes me miss college. Whatever happened to Tom Green? "My bum is on the Sweee-dish...."

Been listening to the Killers album a lot lately and I like it.

Hate to say it, but it's pretty clear Shingo Takatsu is not gonna last very long this year.

And finally, a coworker sent me some jokes about engineers which were somewhat depressing and disturbing to me because they are surprisingly close to the truth. Here are a few of them:

1. To the optimist, the glass is "half-full". To the pessimist, the glass is "half-empty". But to the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

2. A pastor, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting 15 minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"

The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him -- Hey George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greenskeeper replied, "Oh yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group was silent for a moment. Then the pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my opthamologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

3. An engineer was crossing the road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want."

Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back in his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter with you? I told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer replied, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."