I am making my way out to the College Democrats of America convention today in Denver. Which is going to be cool.

They want me to dress up in ‘business attire’ during this weekend.

Why? I’m not running for anything and I don’t represent anyone. I’m only going because I have fun at these things and having fun doesn’t involve me getting decked out with 4 layers of clothing.

Basically, it’s vacation. I’m all for taking this seriously, and other people can have a great time doing that, but I’m wearing t-shirts. I have a suit that is coming along, but it’s going to be t-shirts.

I think I have said this exactly same thing for the last 2 years. And not once has not dressing up come back to bite me.

Should be a fun time though. I always look forward to these things.

Michael Phelps is 23, I’m 21. He likes a myriad of music from Lil Wayne to Outcast along with the random techno music. That basically describes my playlist.

Of course, I’m not blessed with physical characteristics that make me a 11-time gold winning swimmer, and unlike Phelps I have a hard time not gaining weight compared to him having a hard time keeping weight on. (although I’m down like 20 lbs from my peak last year, which is nice)

I was intending on swimming more this semester. I lost a reasonable amount of weight back in high school when I was in the pool all the time. It doesn’t involve as much impact, like running, which is good for me at the moment. Although going to the pool during the Olympics would seem like I was part of some new Phelps movement, when in actuality I was intending on doing it anyways.

Which reminds me, I haven’t told a few important people I’m back. Would be kinda weird walking into the pool area and people thinking “What the fuck is he doing here”

Alright, I’ll be vague today because I don’t want to ruffle any major feathers.

This dude was trying to mess around with his computer. He asks a friend of mine “if I change the size of a partition I’m not going to loose my data”… to which I sorta butt in and say “uhh.. no”

This guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was booting into Linux and the easiest way to partition things is using a program called Gparted. There is also the hard way, which is using a command line and using fdisk.

I say “You should use gparted”… he comes back to me like an ass and says “Uhh, I’ll use FDISK”… “uhh… but gparted is easier”… “but I’m still going to use fdisk”

Fine… be an ass

5 minutes later… “Aww fuck”

Goodbye data!

Now, this isn’t just a general end user. This is a student paid hourly to provide support to other students.

And it is a school computer, so I don’t really care what happens to it and nothing he did would have devalued anything other than his ego.

Nevertheless, I try to be sympathetic: “do you have a LiveCD?”

This started something of a shouting match… In retrospect it was hilarious.

Back to the Olympics

NBC is recording 3600 hours of 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage, most recorded in HD and most only available online.

And I hate watching this stuff online.

Lets do a quick overview of the offerings. NBC is using 7 networks to display everything. Lets go down the list: Standard NBC (HD Version Available), USA (HD Simulcast on DirecTV), CNBC (HD Simulcast Available*), MSNBC (No HD), Oxygen (no HD), Telemundo (HD?), and *Universal HD (Simulcast of CNBC)

Now there is also NBC Olympics Soccer and NBC Olympics Basketball (both with HD simulcast) available on Time Warner and other select providers in some markets (not RCN Chicago or Time Warner Milwaukee)

But they have other networks that NBC/Universal owns outright that they could be broadcasting on. And both have HD simulcast versions.

Scifi and Bravo.

I mean, Scifi has no original programing running right now (you can only watch Battlestar Galactica/Stargate reruns so many times) and while Bravo does have its own core audience, I think you can pre-empt it for the Olympics.

The worst part of it all is that CNBC/CNBC HD/Universal HD seems to be almost exclusively boxing. I hate boxing.

A few months ago I was deciding between an LCD and Plasma HDTV. I finally settled on a 50″ Samsung Plasma.

It cost me just under $2k, but I had been saving up for it for quite some time and since I moved apartments I was finally in a place where I had enough room for one it was a good time to buy.

Now, having a HDTV is one thing, but finding enough HD content to view on it is another. And finding HD content has gotten a lot easier.. but finding GOOD HD content is difficult.

Thank god for my HD DVR.

I set my DVR to record the Olympics Opening Ceremony in HD.

Oh my.

The contrast, color… everything… is just perfect on this TV.

Oh, and the opening ceremony is pretty cool too.