But most assuredly not forgotten.   I took about 500 photos from my Olympics experience, and I’m slowly uploading some of those pictures in different batches.  There’s a total of four sets, and I’ve already uploaded one (“pregame”).  Look for the remaining sets over the next couple weeks!

Next stop, London?

Almost time…

Hmm, anything else?  In a bit of geeky news, I ditched Microsoft Security Essentials and moved to avast! antivirus.  Security Essentials was okay, but it lacked some pretty basic things (like a frickin’ pause button) and it doesn’t have as many realtime scanners as avast!.  So, avast! it is.  I think it’s a superior solution and so far I like it, but staying virus free is ultimately dependent on the actions of the user, don’t you think?

Oh, and one last thing.  I’m going to be in Vancouver in two weeks for the 2010 Winter Olympics.   Huzzah!

Of course, an advertisement plays before each video. So, basically, in order to watch one advertisement, you have to watch another advertisement first…

Maybe you should just watch them on Youtube instead.

EDIT: Okay, it seems like you’re no longer required to watch an ad before the video plays. This means that the folks at Hulu either (1) saw my blog post and the irony finally dawned on them; or (2) realized that you could see the videos without ads on about a million other sites and relented. My bets are on the former.

In other news, thanks to some very helpful info provided by this site, I’ve finally gotten Shadowbox JS to display multi-line captions at the bottom of pictures in the gallery. So, no more clipped captions. Cool. Also, I confirmed that videos aren’t loading in the gallery due to a technical issue with kPicasa gallery, so if you want to see videos in the picture albums, you’ll need to view them directly through my Picasa Web Albums gallery. As further explanation for this, for those who didn’t realize, kPicasa gallery is a WordPress extension that allows you to display your Picasa Web Albums gallery through WordPress. It accomplishes this magnificent task through creative programming and the magic of PHP. If you want the full story, see this post. So, the bottom line is that the gallery on my blog is just my Picasa web albums gallery displayed inside my blog via a WordPress extension, and that WordPress extension does not, at present, support videos. All in due time, of course.

One last piece of news. I did an about face of sorts and decided to use a personalized iGoogle page as my homepage. Why, you ask? Because there’s too much content on the Internet to individually check every time you open your browser (which should be Firefox, by the way). iGoogle solves this problem by aggregating all of that content into one, convenient, customizable place. Of course, I added an RSS feed for my blog.

Next issue to tackle, should I join Facebook?

By the way, help? It’s kind of wet.

As a Chicago native, this was a great opportunity for me to get out and explore the state I now consider my home and also check off a few items on the great to-do list. A few of the more notable items:

Eastern Washington is… East of the Cascades. I often tell people I’ve never visited Spokane or Eastern Washington in general, and that I should try to do so one of these days. Although this almost always prompted a string of disclaimers that there’s really not much to see or experience in Eastern Washington (with the exception of Aplets & Cotlets) people would eventually agree that I should travel East of the Cascades at least once. Well, I’ve now done it! And I saw lots of rolling hills in the process. And grain fields. And long stretches of highway. And nothing. But I’ve done it! Hell, I even spent a night in Ellensburg, and spent some time driving around the city of Ritzville (which, let me tell you, is anything but…) Is there anything I didn’t do on this trip?

College football is fun. I went to a college whose greatest claim to sports fame was probably its fencing team. Needless to say, it was pretty darn impressive to watch a college football game between two D1 schools. What’s more, this was my first college football game ever. Yeah, I need to get out more. Given the level of excitement that surrounded this game (somewhat infamously referred to on ESPN as the “Crapple Cup”) I can only imagine what it must be like to go to a BCS bowl game, or pretty much any game involving LSU. Or any college football team with at least one win.

Traversing the Columbia. It’s the longest river in Washington State, it provides the backdrop to one of the premier and most scenic concert locations in North America, and it’s the star of the state’s folk song–it’s the Columbia River! Actually, it was a pretty fleeting moment when I saw the river, and we basically just drove over it and that was it. But I saw it. And it was pretty.

The “other” state university. I visited, for my first and probably last time, WSU’s campus in Pullman. I think I can now say I understand a little better the rivalry between the Huskies and the Cougars.

So that’s a small hit list of cool takeaways from my trip to the Apple Cup. If you’re interested, pictures are posted in the Gallery, complete with mildly intelligent captions. All in all, I have to say I had a blast on this trip; good times, good company, and good puns (that is, they weren’t too pedestrian).

On a completely unrelated note, there’s a great new Top 10 Video Game Themes Video at Gametrailers.com that you should check out. As the name suggests, this video takes on the formidable task of attempting to rank the top 10 best video game themes of all time. I won’t lie, video games were a big part of my childhood, so I get a lot of enjoyment out of sites like these, especially when they’re focused on the 8-bit/16-bit era, which I believe was, hands down, the golden era of video gaming. Sure, kids these days can get their super-graphics intensive, 7.1 dolby digital sound, full motion video, 10-way wireless rumble pack fix from Playstation and Xbox360, but I remain firmly convinced that nothing comes close to the video game fanaticism of the late 80′s through late 90′s. That’s when the video game industry produced all the gems that we still revere to this day: Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metroid; you name the classic and chances are it was conceived during this period. And who doesn’t love the Nintendo/Genesis rivalry from this era? All of that was my childhood, and I have very fond memories of it all. And for what it’s worth, I think there are quite a few notable omissions from the video (Castlevania, most prominently) but to each his own!

And on a final random note, the Seahawks’ season this year has unfortunately been nothing short of disastrous. But, given the depth of their injuries, I guess you really can’t blame them. I do feel for Mike Holmgren though, who most assuredly does not deserve to finish out his coaching career like this. But, on a much happier sports note, at least the Red Sox will NOT be going to the World Series! Huzzah!

The snow nullified both our offense and defense. It became incredibly difficult to see the ball, which completely shut down our pass-happy (actually, pass-dependent) offense. Also, the snow turned the natural grass field into a wasteland, making it impossible for our lightning-fast defense to get a jump on the oh-so-sackable Favrah. So, by the time the second half started, the Hawks were basically running in circles, and the Packers took advantage of it. Big time.

Regardless, I thank the Seahawks again for a fun season, and there’s always next year! And again, I thank them for showing me just how much fun football really is! If that statement makes you roll your eyes, well, tough.

In blog-related news, I’m currently trying to get my embedded gallery on its feet again. After I updated to the latest version of wordpress and wpg2, and switched my theme, the well-oiled, finely-tuned machine that was my embedded gallery… broke down. I’m currently trying to pick up the pieces, but it’ll take a bit more time. Not that anyone is dying to see my horribly-outdated gallery, but, hey it’s all part of the package.

Regardless, here’s why the Seahawks will win tomorrow:

• We have a lightning fast defense that knows how to put pressure on the QB and force turnovers
• Hasselbeck is having a career season and is on par with Brady and (Peyton) Manning when it comes to executing at the line of scrimmage
• We have an incredible receiving corps which, for once in the entire season, is entirely healthy
• The Seahawks have more playoff experience
• We are fresh off an incredible win last week, and are probably sharper than the Packers who took a week off to sit on their butts

And the most significant reason why the Seahawks will win tomorrow…