Hi friend, do you like comedy TV shows?  Well, this new season of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! has been the best yet.  Last night's episode, Jim & Derrick was of very much extremely and completely absolutely brilliantness.  I encourage a highly recommended checking out of the Adult Swim website or your YouTube Internet for clips.  This is probably the best show on TV.  There, it's been said.   Abso-lutely!

A long time ago and in a land far away I used to work at a video store called, Video Zone (which later changed its name to Video Park where I had to answer the phone, "The Video Zone/Video Park, Clovis, this is Morgan, how can I help you?").  I worked there from about '91-'94, it was one of the best jobs I ever had.  My boss was Jim.  Jim was a cool boss.  He played drums in a band, he used to have a radio show at Fresno State, he was into computers and then moved away and got a computer job…  hey, that sounds like my story! 

Anyway, Jim has popped up lately on a couple of places like and Twitter and Facebook. He posted a 1991 vintage picture of himself on Twitter yesterday.  I have no idea what he looks like these days, but that photo is exactly how I remember him.  I commented on it and said that I should look around for a vintage 1991 Morgan picture somewhere. 

Shortly after I posted that comment my good friend Dave (super genius and party organizer extraordinaire) sent me an email with these 2 pictures.  At first glance I thought they were from different years, but I think they were taken a few months apart.  The funny thing is that I'm wearing the same glasses, necklace and t-shirt in both pictures, but my hair is completely different. 

Way back in '91 Dave, John and I took a trip to Tahoe, Reno and Carson City.  I had just turned 21, and was the oldest of the bunch.  I think we were only kicked out of one casino because the other guys were underage.  The reason I remember it being 1991 was just before the trip was when I first saw the video for Sells Like Teen Spirit on 120 Minutes.  On the way back from Tahoe we stopped in Sacramento and Dave bought Nevermind and I bought the Teen Spirit CD single. 

The one picture is me in front of Bill's Casino in Tahoe.  Dave's last name is Bill so we thought we should take pictures in front of "his" casino.   The other picture is probably from a party at Dave's house on Old Corral Ranch Road.   A couple of drinks and a bar stool makes me the life of the party - it's true.  I think there's another picture from that series of me in my underpants, but maybe we'll that some other day. 

So - this all got me thinking about all the pictures I have in a shoebox in a closet.  Next week I'm starting my 4 weeks of night shift duty, which loosely means I'll have 160 hours of nothing to do.  I think I'm going to scan in all my old pictures and get them organized.  It's something I've been meaning to do for a while, now I'll have the time for it. 

Anyway, enjoy these pics… 

I've been thinking about this lately.  I use computers A LOT.  I use a lot of different applications to do a lot of different things.  I thought I'd post a list of my preferred applications for doing various tasks.  There's a lot of options out there, and this is the list of stuff I prefer to use:

Operating System: 
Windows XP.  Although OSX is safer, and Vista is totally sweet looking, XP is best for me.  I'm running 3 different operating systems at home…  XP, Vista and Mac OSX - all on different PCs.  For basic daily things, I prefer XP. I know it like the back of my hand, and can pretty much fix anything that goes wrong with it.  OSX is a close second place, though. 

Web browsing:
Firefox 3 wins.  It's nice and works in any platform.  Although I don't think the Awesome Bar is that awesome, FF is rock solid and does the best job.  I hear Internet Explorer 8 should be good when it comes out, but for now the winner is Firefox.  Firefox's extensions make all the difference.  My must-have extensions are FireFTP, Foxmarks, and FlashBlock.  FireFTP installs a tiny FTP client into the browser.  No need for a third party FTP clients like Filezilla. Foxmarks syncs bookmarks to other installations of FF.  Flashblock keeps annoying Flash ads from launching and lets me choose what Flash components I want to see. 

Chat:
Digsby.  It's free and you can load all your different buddy lists (AIM, MSN, GMail, Yahoo, etc…) in it.  Plus you can add MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to it - if you're into that kinda thing - which I am.

EMail:
I use Gmail.  Gmail is awesome!  I used to use Outlook, or Thunderbird.  But I've found that Gmail works best for me because I use so many different computers.  It supports IMAP which allows me to sync my iPhone with my Gmail without a bunch of hassle.  For a web-based mail solution, Gmail has the least amount of annoying adds and works great. 

Music Recording:
Apple's Logic Express.  Sonar in Windows is great… but once you go Mac, you won't go back.  It's stable and easy to use. I hate being a PC tech when it's time to be creative. 

CD/DVD Burning:
In Windows I use Nero.  On the Mac I use Toast.  I like them equally.  They both do a great job.  However Toast in conjunction with Mac The Ripper is the best for copying DVDs.

Music/media manager:
Vista Media Center - winner!  Our Vista computer is our Media Center PC (running Vista Media Center).  All the music, pictures, TV, videos, etc… we have is managed using that.  VMC also allows third party plugins (like Firefox).  My faves are LifeXtender, which scans the recorded TV shows and removes the commercials.  And WebGuide 4, which lets me log into the Media Center remotely, stream music, TV (live and recorded), schedule recordings.. etc…  Nice!  I do like to use iTunes for things like tag editing, and I have to use it to sync to the iPhone - so I have to maintain a separate iTunes library for that.  Too bad I can't sync the phone with Vista Media Center…  oh well, I can't have everything. 

Image manipulation:
Photoshop does the best job for me.  GIMP works pretty well, too (and it's free)…  but I find PS easier to use. 

Money Management:
Budget Calender.  You can have your fancy Quicken, and MS Money…  this little app is the best.  I think paid we $15 for it.  It lets me plan out the bills for the month and tracks how much we're saving.  AND it's cross-platform (works best in Windows, though). 

Torrent client:
uTorrent.  It's a Windows only thing.  I can't find a good Mac alternative.  I hear Transmission is good, but it doesn't seem to work for me. 

Anyway…  I'm tired of assembling this list, so I'm going to stop.  If you have any great apps that you love, please share in the comments.  Now get back to work.