Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo

So IBM is in the midst of what they call the employee charitable contribution campaign or ECCC. They send around emails and put stuff up on the intranet about contributing to charity. As part of signing up you can at the same time put your name in for a gift drawing. Keep in mind you don't have to donate any money to put your name in. So the grand prize in this drawing is a trip to Cancun. Does it seem odd to anyone else that they give prizes away for giving to charity? Seems like they could use that money for charity doesn't it? I mean some guy could give like $10 a month for a year, register for the prize as a joke, and then go on a trip to Cancun. Something just seems odd about that to me.

Here's another thing. They come on the public address system everyday and announce where the site is on its goal and who won the daily prize. Before the announcement, they play what I can only describe as "fairy music." The first time I heard it I looked around, kinda frightened, looking for little elves or other such magical woodland creatures. It freaks me out every day and its been going on for two weeks. One day last week I was outside waiting for Jerry and it played on the outside speakers. As you can imagine being outside, and under a tree no less, I was especially frightened. I just hope the campaign is over soon.

This weekend was particularly nice since I got to play golf with my father. We played the front nine at Lions and I shot a 45, the best round I have ever played there. My father had a 37, so it seems I play up to the competition. The two guys we played with, brothers and Arkansas fans, were quite good. One of them drove the green on a par four. It was just nice getting to spend my Saturday afternoon showing my father "my course" and now he even has a logo ball for the course to add to his collection.

As a present to myself for my summer promotion, I purchased new surround speakers. I got a good deal, as they have been discontinued. The speakers, and matching stands, came in last Thursday and I was able to set them up that night. It is truly amazing how much better dipole surrounds are at producing surround sound. I played clips from a bunch of movies, Matrix, Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Empire and Titanic, and the speakers really do a much better job at surrounding the listening field with sound. While it is true that you lose some of the direction capability that a regular speaker provides, movies normally use the surrounds to immerse you in the environment, and the new speakers do that job wonderfully. I look forward to watching a movie in its entirety.

Got to watch a little football on Saturday in HD. My sister said it was "scarily lifelike." My father was amazed he could hear the stadium announcer and the band warming up. I was just happy CBS decided to do one SEC game a week in HD.

So Taylor you gonna give me your industry vs academia speech?