Well, the weekend hasn't been quite what I hoped for, but it was still pretty good nonetheless. The hospital hasn't called too much, and what they've called for has been pretty legit, so I can't really complain about that. I'm eager this week to see if the new job I interviewed for gets offered to me or not. Heidi seems to think that I have it in the bag, but I don't know--I'm just not that confident. Ames would be a great place to live--it'd certainly be a step up from here and I think I'd like working at the hospital there, even though John's probably right in saying that it's less clinical than what I'm doing at my current job. But what's pressing me to move isn't the job (not really anyway)--it's the town. We just don't fit in here at all. I was at Pamida earlier today and it just reinforced why I wanted to leave--it's a dying town. Really it is! And to stay here is to die along with it. If they had called me and offered me the job this afternoon, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

On the lighter side, one of my latest momentary obsessions is mash-ups--y'know when they take two songs and kind of splice them together into one song. Well, I've really been into Eminem mash-ups and I managed to download about four or five before the computer guy (rather rudely) uninstalled Kazaa from my computer without even asking me first. I think my favorite one is "The Real Slim Shady (Billie Jean Mix)" which, as you might imagine, combines Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" and puts it over the top of an instrumental track of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." They've also mashed that song with Britney Spears' "Oops…I Did It Again" which gives you "Oops…Slim Shady Did It Again." There were a whole bunch of Madonna ones that I got back in the Napster and Audiogalaxy days, the best one probably being a mash-up of Hanson's "Where's The Love" and Madonna's "Express Yourself." It's probably the one thing I'll miss most about the file-sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa--those kinds of things aren't commercially available so you won't find them on legit music services like iTunes and Rhapsody. My biggest lament at the loss of both Napster and Audiogalaxy were all the DJ remixes of Madonna songs that I would probably never be able to lay hands on. Of course, a large majority of those sucked anyway so it's probably not that big of a loss.

I don't really know why I like Eminem--he's not the easiest person in the world to listen to and he's definitely vulgar (a lot of times for vulgarity's sake) and Heidi really can't stand him. But I think it's probably because he's really this generation's Madonna. In a weird way, they have a lot in common. Plus his use of samples just rocks. That Dido sample in "Stan" and the Aerosmith sample in "Sing For The Moment" are just absolutely fantastic. And normally, I don't really like samples but they can be cool when used in the right place. I'm thinking specifically of that "I'm Coming Out" sample in "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" or whatever that dumb rap song is.