Man, it’s been a couple of days since I poked my head in here, but lots has happened since Monday.

Well, let me think about that for a sec…

Maybe not lots so much as stuff.

First, I went out and bought the Fountains of Wayne album Welcome Interstate Managers. It’s got a song called “Stacy’s Mom” that rocks. Besides which, it’s pretty funny, so all the better. That was, uh… Monday night. Yeah. Maybe I should tell this all chronologically instead of just the order in which I remember things.

Monday night Jenn took me out to Olive Garden for a nice Italian dinner because I passed my test. After that, I headed over to the music store where I picked up the Fountains of Wayne album, simply because I couldn’t get the song out of my head. That pretty much capped off that night.

Tuesday I went to the store to get a Firewire card so I can sync my iPod faster. Installed that, and realized after installing it that my whole laptop was sort of screwed up anyway so I decided it would need to be rebuilt… but not right then. Installed ephPod because Musicmatch Jukebox (the software that comes with iPod for Windows) is total crap. The only reason I left it on the computer was because the Apple “iPod Manager” software - which should allow you to connect and disconnect the iPod from your compute - doesn’t really work too well, while the MusicMatch thing works a little better.

Wednesday I couldn’t handle all the errors on the laptop anymore so I got a new hard drive for the laptop (faster and twice the size) and reinstalled everything from the ground up. By the end of the day I had almost, but not quite, everything back up and running.

Wednesday night, Jenn and I watched a movie called 15 Minutes about some murderers who videotape their crimes so they can sell the tapes to the media. Eh. I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theater. Love the digital cable.

Which brings us to today, Thursday. I got the iPod working this morning and I’m noticing that the “mount” and “unmount” functions are not terribly reliable. “What,” the technically challenged might ask, “precisely does that mean?” Well, when you connect your iPod to the computer, the computer “recognizes” it and then “attaches” to it so that you can put your music on it. That process is referred to as “mounting” the iPod. The thing is, when it’s done synchronizing, you can’t just jerk it off the computer - you have to “unmount” it, or, more simply put, you have to tell the computer you’re done so it will let go of the iPod (otherwise you could corrupt stuff - sort of like shutting off your computer without using the “shut down” function). This process of “mounting” and “unmounting” is not the fastest or most reliable thing in the world. It can take like 10 or 20 seconds to “mount” the iPod, and then pending on what you do, it may never successfully “unmount,” at which point you have to disconnect it and do a little reset operation (which isn’t bad per se, but it’s a pain).

Regardless, I’m still digging the iPod, and will have to put more stuff on it.

I’ve been studying for my next Microsoft exam, which will be on Programming Windows Applications in C#. Looking at the practice test questions, I’m already feeling pretty comfortable. I’m going to talk to a friend of mine who has used the same practice test company (different test, same manufacturer) to see how close the practice test is to the real thing. If it’s really close, I’ll schedule this next one up. It’s pretty common sense stuff.

Finally, my friend Marty has potentially offered me some server space to move to, so I may be able to expand my offerings to you fine folks out there. Maybe post pictures and things more often, and who knows what else? I’m going to talk to him and see what that’s all about. In the meantime, go check out MildPeril and see what he has to say.