If you know me, you may or may not know how much I dislike MySpace, even though I have an account there that I've been using with increased frequency. You could imagine my disgust when, while posted at the Mirrored Room, a couple high-school girls approached it and one exclaimed "wow! This would be, like, the most awesome MySpace picture!" Is that what has become of a shining example of modern art? MySpace profile pic fodder?

iPhone video from Conan...

So I went to work today (bleagh) and went in the control room safe to get my check. I was surprised to find two checks there for me. I was confused at first because I could have sworn I got my check from last week. I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the two checks was "vacation" pay. I don't get vacation or anything with the gallery, but US Security still pays out a week in vacation pay for every 2000 hours worked. Bottom line: I have $240 I wasn't expecting. I think I'm gonna buy a JamStation!

...and it feels great! I was stuck working a bunch of midnight shifts over the past few weeks, and man, did that stink. I was in a little bit of a rut to begin with, and that rut became an instant canyon. I was miserable and useless for a couple weeks there. I was weakened enough that I got sick. It was bad enough that I was thinking about going to the doctor, which would have put a hurt on my wallet. (hooray for being among that 15-ish percent of Americans who are uninsured!) On top of that, my readjusted sleep cycle made it really difficult to get certain high-priority to-do items finished. The two things I have in mind are actually still waiting to be done. *shame*

Thankfully, the slump mostly ended when the midnights did, on Thursday. I've had much more energy and rapidly recovered from that nagging sickness. Now if only I'd get off the figurative pot and get those nagging to-dos done. (Yeah, Bridge, that includes one pertaining to you...tis hard to send stuff off when one's sleeping through the post office's open hours. I WILL take care of that Really Soon. Promise.)

Oh man, do I wanna go to ProgPower USA this fall!! I already knew that Sonata Arctica was headlining one day and that the support bands included Freak Kitchen, Threshold and Vanden Plas. I just found out that After Forever is going to be closing the festival!I'm gonna give this some thought, but at this moment I think I'm gonna try to score a ticket. Yeah, it would cost me a couple weeks' pay to make the trip, but I think it would be worth it.

Even if I don't make it to Atlanta for ProgPower (there are only 900 tickets available to the general public), After Forever is going to be doing other shows in the US. I just hope that they get somewhere within reasonable driving distance. That's one band that I would really love to see live.

So we now have the Apple TV (nee iTV) and the ridiculously cool iPhone. Unfortunately, not only is the iPhone packed with way more features than I need, it's about twice as much as the most I'd pay for a cell phone. I just don't need a smartphone, even if it's über-sexy, runs OS X, has a built-in widescreen iPod, has Only One Button!! (yay touchscreen), etc. Now if only Apple would roll out a less-featured phone for the masses...I'd be all over that. Absent such a phone, I guess it's back to stacking the Moto V3i against a handful of Sony Ericsson phones.

What I found really disappointing was the lack of anything on the Mac itself. No new hardware (which wasn't really surprising, since most of the lines were updated within the last four months), nothing more on Leopard, and no iLife/iWork '07. Here's hoping that stuff isn't too far off in the future.