24 used to be a good show. Yes, “used to be”. First season was cool, second wasn’t bad. The third, well, it’s dreck.

I’m convinced that the technical jargon on the show is obtained by drawing slips of paper from a hat. It’s so awful. I expect at any moment, them to reference a “garbage file”. Chloe trying to chase down the worm last night like it was water flowing through drainage pipes was just too much. Open the gateway, I know, it will get the kernel…we have no choice. Argh, painful.

Even worse, the tension is created so artificially. Ack, a baby in CTU! Oh, and maybe it belongs to a main character! Oh no!

Did I mention that president Palmer is surrounded by idiots? The plot constantly has him behaving in ways contrary to his characterization as a smart man. Dumb, dumb, dumb

I’ll finish the season out, but I really hope there’s no season 4. Then I’d have to choose not to watch.

According to I4U ads for the MSN Direct service will start airing on TV.

What is MSN Direct, you ask? Simply put, they bill it as the Dick Tracy watch. You pay a monthly or annual service fee to get local news, weather, sports, etc., sent wirelessly to your watch.

Now, what importance could this have? Simple. It’s going to bomb. Bomb hard. I can’t say it enough. What we have here is an amazing situation. Everybody and their mom knows this won’t sell in the US. Yet Microsoft wants to see it, badly. Maybe it’s just one of their risk ventures, I don’t know. But how, when SMS won’t catch on in the US, do they think they can sell additional hardware to wirelessly beam people news. Everybody already has a cell! Who is gonna pay about $10 a month to find out the weather on their watch, when they can do it for less, maybe even free, on their phone.

Somebody in their marketing department is seriously out to lunch. And did I mention, the watches don’t even look good?

It’s been very windy lately. The funny thing is, the weather.com icons for current local weather don’t read “windy”. Trust me, they should. Last night, as near as I can figure, we had multiple wind related blackouts. I counted 5 times the power shut off. Must be blown transformers?

I like the wind though, yet I’m not entirely sure why. It’s horrible for contacts. It messes up your hair (oh, the vanity). It makes driving precarious. On the other hand, it tends to blow our horrible smog somewhere else. Never is the sky in SoCal so good as after it’s windy. Well, maybe if it rained. But when it rains, the day after the ground is annoying. And the sound, why is it appealing? Not sure, it just is.

Oh, and static electricity is always fun. So here’s to wind but fewer blackouts.

I managed about 3 hours sleep last night, the rest I was trying to count back from 99 to 0 to nod off. Alex, I’ll take “Names running through my head that start with ‘A’”. Argh.

Now I gotta make practice, it’s going to be awful though as it’s too windy. Double Argh.

Apparently somewhere near my house they’re doing construction this morning. I can’t tell what. I keep hearing the “beep beep beep” of trucks backing up. Plus, there’s the occassional shreak of a power tool. Waking up to the sound of said tool, my initial reaction was “is somebody torturing a badger?”

Now, a real tortured badger would probably sound much more shrill. But hey, that’s what I thought.

So here I find myself awake and typing far earlier than I should be. I know, the world says “Boo hoo, you woke up before 7″. No, seriously, it’s traumatic for me. It always makes me feel sick to my stomach, literally. Every time I have to wake up earlier to make a tournament, I feel this way. Not from anxiety. It’s odd, I wonder what the reasoning behind it is. And go figure, the earlier I wake up, the hungrier I am.

Perhaps google can satisfy my curiosity.

I officially turned 29 today. But, my new stage age is 27. Ya, you heard me right.

Here’s the steps I’ve taken to celebrate. Last night, had dinner with the family. My mother made us fish tacos and a fantastic vanilla straberry tort. It was especially nice of her to throw together a green salsa for the tacos, since she loathes cilantro! She even ate it.

Tonight, Chris, Justin, Melanie, Todd, and Ashley took me to dinner over at the Marketplace. We ate at SensAsian, which I’ve been meaning to try. Yes, this might sound contrary to my coworkers who have continually tried to drag me there. It was much appreciated.

And now I sit, with an overly large serving of ice cream in front of me. I have to enjoy it now, because by the time I’m 30…errr…28…it might be time to cut back.