Author: josh

Free Music

Well, you may have seen the sort-of okay ad that Apple and Pepsi (but mostly Pepsi) aired during the Super Bowl. I didn’t watch the game because this was the only ad I really wanted to see, and I had already seen it, but the announcement is significant. Free music! One in three bottles wins. Not a bad deal. You could get a fair amount of music this way. I found this funny little clip in the official rules posted online:

To receive one free game piece and a copy of Official Rules, while supplies last, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked on or before 3/31/04 to: Pepsi iTunes Game Piece, P.O. Box 9205, Young America, MN 55558-9205. Residents of the state of VT may omit return postage. Limit one free game piece per request per stamped outer envelope.

The only problem is that postage costs $0.37 per envelope. If it was $0.33, you would statistically break even, and run a chance of actually coming out ahead (or falling behind) but you don’t get the soda (for extra money). If you can find a way to get it to them for less than a stamp somehow… you might make out well. I mean, $0.99 is already cheap for a song, but hey, if you can get the same quality of service, etc. for less than that, it’s worth a shot!

Unfortunately there’s probably no way to do it. Oh well. It was fun to think about.

Prayer Requested

Hey guys. I just wanted to give a quick request for prayer from all of you. I don’t want to go into specifics out here, but I need you all to pray for peace for me. There are so many things going on in my life, and I just have far too much to do. On top of that, some of the things that I’m trying to do just aren’t going well, and some of it is out of my hands. I don’t want to get into the “What’s going on?” part of it because it wouldn’t be appropriate, but pray for Steph and I to feel some peace in the midst of tumultuous times.

Thank you.

Life as a Bald Man

(I’ve been way too busy lately. So much so that it has made me a crabby person. Please forgive my lack of posts, and enjoy this little ditty, courtesy of a gift from Stephanie.)

Sometimes I don’t like being bald. I can think of all sorts of really awesome hairstyles I’d like to try (dreadlocks, the Ewan McGregor look, etc.) but I know I’ll never be able to. Even if my hair was really thick (which it isn’t which is one reason it’s gone now), it still sucks. It’s kinda floppy and poofy and dumb. Never really cooperated with anything but a bowl cut, or a really short trim. That’s just not stylin’.

There are also some days that I really love being bald. I mean, you can’t go wrong looking just a tiny bit more like the big guy (Sans muscles and cool eyebrows), and I even look a bit more like my favorite villain (Sans scar, white face paint, and midget). But a recent gift given to me by Stephanie has really made me love baldness. It’s called The HeadBlade. They’ve created this device that is made specifically for people who shave their heads, and it’s actually fun to use. The shave is close (almost too close, but not that bad) and you’re basically just running your hand over your head, leading with the blade. It’s sweet. You’ve kinda gotta try it to know why it’s cool, but if you ever shave your head for an extended period of time, pick one of these up.

Blue Sparks and the Bullet Blaster

If you’ve never played, seen, or heard of the Mario Kart series of video games, this might not make much sense. It might be a good idea to go read up.

I’ve done a great thing today, people. For awhile now I’ve been playing Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and honing my time trials on the Baby Park course. Originally, I was proud of the 1:18 I had earned for all seven laps. Then my friend Jeff came over, and I saw that he had some mad skillz on the game, so I asked him to give me a record, and he cut mine down by about two seconds. I observed his game closely, and attempted to mimic his every move. I was only about two tenths of a second above his record for awhile, and then finally broke it last week. I’ve been down in the 1:15.x for awhile now (using the Green Fire with Mario and Luigi, if you’re curious).

Tonight, another exciting thing happened. Steph saw that I was having trouble winning a Grand Prix and suggested that we play two-player to see if that would help, and we earned a 3rd place on the 150cc Star Cup, which was pretty challenging for us. Then we went and took 1st in the 50cc Special Cup, which was a walk in the park. She can really bring the blue sparks. That win unlocked the Bullet Blaster, which is a little black, bullet-shaped cart with decent acceleration and very nice speed. So I took that cart back to the Baby Park track for a time trial, and even though it wasn’t a really perfect race (I made some big mistakes) I beat my previous record. I’m now finishing Baby Park in 1:14.779, which is a very tight race.

I would love to hear if any of you guys have records on that course, and what they are. Oh, and what you’re driving of course. If you’d like to see some records for Baby Park online, there are some very impressive ones right here.

Bring it!