How often do you sit back and question your station in life? Are things going the way you had imagined they would and if they are not, where did you go wrong and can you still make the changes to do what you dream of? These are the questions I'm asking myself today.

At my core I'm an adventurer, an Indiana Jones, a dreamer and a hero. So if this is what I am, then why have I settled with a desk job, which has given me nothing more than twenty extra pounds and more gray hairs than I would like to admit. This is certainly not what I had aspired to become while crafting my knowledge of the sciences. I always saw myself in a much more active position.

Now that it seems to late to embark on wild adventures and travel to distant lands, it depresses me. I feel that I will never be the tech hand on a research vesicle at sea, studying the migration patterns of the Blue Whale or perhaps indexing items found in a wreck. I won't be casting sail off the coast of New Port Beach as a grinder on an off shore racing yacht or leading a development team in the building of a new data storage system in Hong Kong. The month long subatical to Eurasia designed to learn the cultures of its indigenous peoples and hang out in their pubs, will not happen.

I feel forever stuck, as if I have been weighted down and am now dependent on my biweekly paycheck. The adventure to Eurasia will never happen, mainly due to the fact that I could never squeeze that agenda into a weeks long paid vacation. How could I possible request the eight months off of work to participate in the Volvo Ocean Race around the World?

Of course there is always the option to leave my job and seriously pursue these extravagant day dreamt adventures. But then there is the question of funding. How would I be able to afford these ideas? I suppose if I wrote the next great American novel, then I could research my follow up book any way I wished. I could spend three months living in Newfoundland, in a fishing community, eating seal flipper pie and growing an extra thick beard. I may opt to spend those three months of research in the tropics discovering my inner Hemingway.

This is what I think about during the day. Is this wrong of me? Am I losing focus on what is real and really important? Truly these imagined items can't be completely far fetched because others have done them all.

It has been a very long time since I last sat down and actually played a video game from start to finish. Katamari Damacy not only got me to spend the time to complete the game, I find myself returning to the Prince of All the Cosmos and retrying old stages to do better.

What a great game. At first -about 3 months ago- when Nam and Buke showed it to me, I thought it was stupid. But after giving it a good run, I have fallen in love with it. Hell I'm even listening to the soundtrack as I type these words.

If you're not familiar with Katamari Damacy then here is the idea. The King of All the Cosmos was having some fun and destroyed all of the stars in the sky. Now you -the tiny Prince- must use your Katamari ball and travel to Earth to put the stars back into the sky. You do this by rolling up objects from Earth -because Earth has so many things-. As your Katamari get larger you can pick up larger objects. Starting with thumbtacks to candy, stationary, boxes, people, plants, houses, buildings, trees, hills, islands and so on. As your Katamari skills increase you get hooked.

The soundtrack for this game is amazing. So chill and fits in perfectly with the game play. A wide range of genres and mix of Japanese and English.

I've even gone as far as downloading Prince paper crafts so I can have a toy!

Laugh now, but if you play Katamari Damacy, you'll be dreaming about it in your sleep and scoping out items to pick up on your way to work in the morning.

I'm not going to write about the game, I'm not going to write about how the referee's were horrible and totally screwed the Seahawks. Instead all I'm going to do is give you the link to iFilms and the list of TV spots from the game.

Which one's were your favorites?

Thanks to Boing Boing here is a link to see a video of British soldiers tripping on goverment supplied LSD. Story has it that the British gov. and the Amercs as well all tested the affects of LSD on the soldiers. Now you can see what we all acted like in high school.

I have been recently introduced to Pandora. Pandora is a Flash application which allows you to enter you preferred music taste by artist or song title. It then searched it's database for not only that artist or song but then compiles a "playlist" based of the criteria of that selection. It works like this:

I typed in Nine Inch Nails, it then played Into the void, then Mechanical Animals by Marilyn Manson, then Orgy then Superbeast by Rob Zombie and back to Nine Inch Nails with The Day the World Went Away.

Type in the search and sit back and enjoy the playlist, if you hate something you can guide the system which not only goes to the next song, but helps the AI for the next time.

You get four or five songs, but then you have to create an account, which is free so don't panic. You can then listen until you're blue in the face. Check it out and tell me what you think.

A few weeks ago I received a new phone from Sprint -who just so happens to be my provider-. Perhaps I'm moving to quick here, let me give you a bit of primer.

In January I got an email from Sprint noting that they have visited BerfNet and would like me to apply for the Ambassador program, which is basically a beta group from what I could gather. Since a free phone with new bells and whistles sounded cool I joined, but was a bit worried that it would be a scam.

A few weeks later I received my new Samsung A920. Basically I get to run all around town using this phone and all of its services for free and for six months, just as long as I fill out a form about twice a week letting Sprint know how I feel.

Thus far I am having fun with it. It is a very comfy phone, and if you have a Samsung now, the feel remains the same. One really cool feature is the loud ass speakers on the side of the phone. This combined with your playlists which you can download from the Sprint music store can really fill up the room -I crank it in my office at work-.

I have also taken advantage of the zip code features. When I added my zip I can download all the weather, sports, news, movie times and other crap I want.

A few roadblocks I have found are minor things but could be show stoppers to some. For example, this is to be a multimedia phone, with the ability to play music I wanted to plug my iPod earphones into the jack and rock out with myself but the adapter is small. This means that I have to travel out to whatever electronics and pick up a special set just for this phone. Now that's a lot of earphones. Between my iPod, Laptop, CDMan and wireless bad boys for my computer I have to many to keep track of as it is.

The phone is Bluetooth compatible, but I havn't made it that far yet. I'm sure I can rock out in one ear with that.