What a week. <br/><br/>Started off on Monday with a <a href=”http://www.iammike.org/index.php?subaction=showfull&amp;id=1203403476&amp;archive=&amp;start_from=&amp;ucat=2&amp;” target=”_self”>Howie Day concert</a>, which went pretty well. <br/><br/>Tuesday, I find out three weeks after ordering, that the headlights I purchased for the Civic have been discontinued. <br/><br/>Thursday, the company that I ordered my new Civic battery from finally received their supply (two weeks after ordering), and the price has gone up. I’m sorry, but I already paid, you can’t raise the price. After some heated e-mails, they lose my business. <a href=”http://www.batteryweb.com/” target=”_blank”>Battery-Web</a> is a joke! Steer clear. <br/><br/>On Friday, I get a call from my credit card company saying my card has been locked out due to a suspicious charge from <a href=”http://www.bestbuy.com/” target=”_blank”>Best Buy</a>. I call Best Buy, the guy is really nice, and he explains that for some reason every month for a couple of years now an authorization attempt has been hitting my card for an amount just under sixty bucks. No charge, but still something my credit card company should have caught. He’d never seen such a glitch before, but it’s no problem for him to wipe it out. I call my credit card company back up, inquire why I’ve been paying for fraud detection all this time (it has paid off in the past), the lady is stumped, and I cancel the service. <br/><br/>Friday also brings a <a href=”http://www.deanfields.com/” target=”_blank”>Dean</a> concert… The worst of my life. The sound guy was an absolute idiot, which resulted in feedback all night long and Dean sounding as if he had a cardboard box on his head. The second opener did nothing more than irritate me, and to top it off, I almost got in a fight with a guy who was being a complete douchebag. I won’t go in to the details, but he was being extremely rude to some extremely polite girls… Anyone in the vicinity would have backed me up on that fact.<br/><br/>This weekend brought a long run (and an injured hip-flexor), a visit to the family, a <a href=”http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx” target=”_blank”>Vista</a> install on my main rig, game-night hosted at our house, a super-bowl win in my <a href=”http://www.easports.com/maddennfl/home.jsp” target=”_blank”>Madden 08</a> superstar league (I had a huge season… 2900 rushing yards, two 300+ yard games in the playofs, about 35 rushing TDs, 750 receiving yards, 5 receving TDs)… My first championship in my five year career. <br/><br/>Not sure what today will entail… since I’m injured there wil be no run, but I hope to hit a store to grab some running tops… Hope to watch a movie, do some XBOXing, finish up my laundry, and finally do some reading.<br/><br/><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>Links<br/></span><ul type=”square”><li><a href=”http://www.tuaw.com/2008/02/19/shuffle-price-drop/” target=”_blank”>iPod Shuffle Price Drop</a> – Buy one. <a href=”http://www.iammike.org/index.php?misc=search&amp;subaction=showfull&amp;id=1193176145&amp;archive=&amp;cnshow=news&amp;ucat=4&amp;start_from=” target=”_self”>I did at the higher price point</a> and feel it was a very, very worthy purchase. At almost half off (or with double the capacity), it is no-brainer.</li><li><a href=”http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8698817727805840605&amp;q=mac+owners+are+snobs&amp;total=1&amp;start=0&amp;num=10&amp;so=0&amp;type=search&amp;plindex=0″ target=”_blank”>Mac Owners Are Snobs</a> – Truth, and most I know will not deny it.<br/></li><li><a href=”http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/06/24/gallery.nbabusts/content.1.html” target=”_blank”>NBA Draft Busts</a> – Funny, nostalgic.</li><li><a href=”http://www.acc.umu.se/%7Eemilk/” target=”_blank”>Phun</a> – Neat little 2D physics sandbox.<br/></li><li><a href=”http://kotaku.com/357951/microsoft-lights-up-gdc-with-red-ring-of-death” target=”_self”>RROD @ GDC08</a> – A failed XBOX 360 at Microsoft’s own booth of the Game Dev’s Conference. I’m on my third system in a year and a half. It just did some funkiness last week, but it’s still going strong. It’s still the best system out.</li><li><a href=”http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/20306/” target=”_blank”>Self-Cleaning Clothes</a> – Does anyone else see the problem here? The only people who would want such technology, do not venture outside. Flawed market to say the least.<br/></li><li><a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAR2T4qPAeU” target=”_blank”>Unnecessary Censorship Anniversary Edition</a> – Funny stuff.<br/></li><li><a href=”http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/02/17/beef.recall/?iref=hpmostpop” target=”_blank”>USDA Issues Largest Beef Recall In History</a> – thanks to some more investigation in to the use of <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downer_cow” target=”_blank”>downers</a>. Most of the beef had been heading to California schools.</li></ul>