I'll put my christmas list on here again this year. At the top:
Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir
Star Wars Episode 3
The Kevin Smith movies I still don't have:
-Clerks
-Mallrats
-Chasing Amy
-Jersey Girl
new toolbox
New Third Day CD
Peter Gabriel The Hits
Beck Mellow Gold
Nirvana Boxset
Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin and Folsom
iTunes Store Giftcard
Happiness for all the little girls and boys!!
2005/12/15
2005/12/07
This is too funny
This is great. It's a list of 213 things someone in the military was instructed not to do. It made me think of the stuff Jody has to tell me I can't do at Kinko's all the time. Especially:
87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.
Check it out here
The explination of how these rules came down to the author:
a) I did myself, and either got in trouble or commended. (I had a Major shake my hand for the piss bottle thing, for instance.)
b) I witnessed another soldier do it. (Like the Sergeant we had, that basically went insane, and crucified some dead mice.)
c) Was spontaneously informed I was not allowed to do. (Like start a porn studio.)
d) Was the result of a clarification of the above. (“What about especially patriotic porn?”)
e) I was just minding my own business, when something happened. (“Schwarz...what is *that*?” said the Sgt, as he pointed to the back of my car? "Um....a rubber sheep...I can explain why that's there....")
To explain how I've stayed out of jail/alive/not beaten up too badly..... I'm funny, so they let me live.
I've got to paste in a couple more:
36. Can't have flashbacks to wars I was not in. (The Spanish-American War isn't over).
52. Not allowed to yell “Take that Cobra” at the rifle range.
55. An order to “Put Kiwi on my boots” does *not* involve fruit.
56. An order to “Make my Boots black and shiny” does not involve electrical tape.
119. I cannot arrest children for being rude.
130. “I’m drunk” is a bad answer to any question posed by my commander.
137. Should not show up at the front gate wearing part of a Russian uniform, messily drunk.
138. Even if my commander did it.
87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.
Check it out here
The explination of how these rules came down to the author:
a) I did myself, and either got in trouble or commended. (I had a Major shake my hand for the piss bottle thing, for instance.)
b) I witnessed another soldier do it. (Like the Sergeant we had, that basically went insane, and crucified some dead mice.)
c) Was spontaneously informed I was not allowed to do. (Like start a porn studio.)
d) Was the result of a clarification of the above. (“What about especially patriotic porn?”)
e) I was just minding my own business, when something happened. (“Schwarz...what is *that*?” said the Sgt, as he pointed to the back of my car? "Um....a rubber sheep...I can explain why that's there....")
To explain how I've stayed out of jail/alive/not beaten up too badly..... I'm funny, so they let me live.
I've got to paste in a couple more:
36. Can't have flashbacks to wars I was not in. (The Spanish-American War isn't over).
52. Not allowed to yell “Take that Cobra” at the rifle range.
55. An order to “Put Kiwi on my boots” does *not* involve fruit.
56. An order to “Make my Boots black and shiny” does not involve electrical tape.
119. I cannot arrest children for being rude.
130. “I’m drunk” is a bad answer to any question posed by my commander.
137. Should not show up at the front gate wearing part of a Russian uniform, messily drunk.
138. Even if my commander did it.
2005/10/20
Katy
So with the house coming up and more importantly getting married, Katy and I spend a little time trying to hash things out. With a couple of things tonight we had to reach a compromise. I told her that I felt shot down, and that I was realizing I will have to deal with being shot down a lot. I also told her that I want to make sure I don't become the husband that deals with being shot down many times, then after 15 years doesn't want it anymore. This obviously led to a great deal of discussion, and we kind of felt better in the end. Of course since neither she nor I have been married before, we don't really know what we will have to deal with, what we will fight over, etc, but I do really think we are trying our hardest to do and work out the right things. I think we are a bit more realistic than many couples.
But after coming home, and listening to some of my old bands music, and thinking about what is really important to me, I realized a couple of things. First off, I'm not really that guy. I have a big problem with getting hung up on things in a moment, but it is EXTREMELY rare that she and I disagree on something and after stepping back and thinking about it I still consider it an issue.
Also, she's smarter than that. I think about things that have happened between us over more than 5 years of dating and more than a decade of knowing each other, and it seems like she usually knows what's going on. It's an awesome thing. We will still fight and have trouble, but in the same way your parent's did things that upset you and you later look back and realize they really were doing what was best for you, she does these things a lot. I think she knows a lot more about what I'm thinking and doing that I even do, much less what I think she knows.
It's easy to take things like that for granted. I'm really blessed. I think it's bad to go off on how I don't deserve her, but I do sometimes wonder if I'm getting the better end of the deal.
And about the old Of music. I don't listen to it often, but I put on an old recording of a practice, (that I don't think anyone else has) and the demo type thing that we did, and I realized something I hadn't in years..... we were pretty good. I was always kinda the weakest link musician wise, but even my parts weren't bad, and going back and listening to Nick's song writing, and some of the little licks and hooks Mike and Shwin were doing was a lot of fun. We were all very jazz inspired and I guess I forgot how much we broke out of the modern rock mold and added some snazzy little bits that to me separate a good performance of a song from just a good song being reproduced. I miss that stuff a lot. Nick has sorta gone his own way now, but I feel like I still have a very good bond with Mike and Shwin.
I'm sure Katy will be able to tell me when I should try to go down that path again............
But after coming home, and listening to some of my old bands music, and thinking about what is really important to me, I realized a couple of things. First off, I'm not really that guy. I have a big problem with getting hung up on things in a moment, but it is EXTREMELY rare that she and I disagree on something and after stepping back and thinking about it I still consider it an issue.
Also, she's smarter than that. I think about things that have happened between us over more than 5 years of dating and more than a decade of knowing each other, and it seems like she usually knows what's going on. It's an awesome thing. We will still fight and have trouble, but in the same way your parent's did things that upset you and you later look back and realize they really were doing what was best for you, she does these things a lot. I think she knows a lot more about what I'm thinking and doing that I even do, much less what I think she knows.
It's easy to take things like that for granted. I'm really blessed. I think it's bad to go off on how I don't deserve her, but I do sometimes wonder if I'm getting the better end of the deal.
And about the old Of music. I don't listen to it often, but I put on an old recording of a practice, (that I don't think anyone else has) and the demo type thing that we did, and I realized something I hadn't in years..... we were pretty good. I was always kinda the weakest link musician wise, but even my parts weren't bad, and going back and listening to Nick's song writing, and some of the little licks and hooks Mike and Shwin were doing was a lot of fun. We were all very jazz inspired and I guess I forgot how much we broke out of the modern rock mold and added some snazzy little bits that to me separate a good performance of a song from just a good song being reproduced. I miss that stuff a lot. Nick has sorta gone his own way now, but I feel like I still have a very good bond with Mike and Shwin.
I'm sure Katy will be able to tell me when I should try to go down that path again............
2005/10/18
"But it doesn't looks smaller"
OK, I really have all sorts of things I want to post, but because I have so much going on to post about, I haven't had as much time to post. But this is funny.
I've been pretty burned out at Kinko's lately. I'm starting to fall victim to a lot of the attitudes I hear Kinko's people talk about. Saturday night a lady came in with an oversize. I had seen one of our guys helping her the night before. As we often see she brought in an 8.5x11 piece of paper (probably designed in MS Word) and wanted it blown up to "poster" size. There is no official "poster" size. Many are either 18x24 or 24x36, but there certainly is no standard. So she had told the employee the night before to make it the same size as the promotional signs FedEx sends us to hang in the windows, because our in-house printing capabilities aren't good enough for us to use for promotion.
She has another oversize that she has somehow mounted to a precut 20"x30" board she bought at Wal-Mart. She shows me the one done for her the previous night, then shows me the board, and says "See, I told him this was too big for poster size."
At this point she has already lost me. Being the jaded punk I am, if someone gets stuck on this "poster size" pet peeve of mine, they have already lost my good favor. But I try to make people happy. At this point I told her I could try to fix it for her, but I couldn't do it as a free redo if the employee last night had done what she asked for to the best of his ability. She told me she asked him to size it to the promotional banners in the windows. I walked over to the window, pulled out my tape measurer, and it was 40"x30". That's TWICE the 20"x30" she wanted. I pointed this out and her response was "But I don't think they are that big!"
?????
Befuddled, and a bit offended someone of the same species as me could be quite so dense, I held out my tape measurer for her to use. She of course didn't like that and said that she didn't need to measure it, she just needed her copy made right.
So I made the copy for her, got it to exactly 20"x30", and didn't even charge her. It just wasn't worth it. I honestly felt kinda bad for her after realizing her capability to reason.
Bleh.
I've been pretty burned out at Kinko's lately. I'm starting to fall victim to a lot of the attitudes I hear Kinko's people talk about. Saturday night a lady came in with an oversize. I had seen one of our guys helping her the night before. As we often see she brought in an 8.5x11 piece of paper (probably designed in MS Word) and wanted it blown up to "poster" size. There is no official "poster" size. Many are either 18x24 or 24x36, but there certainly is no standard. So she had told the employee the night before to make it the same size as the promotional signs FedEx sends us to hang in the windows, because our in-house printing capabilities aren't good enough for us to use for promotion.
She has another oversize that she has somehow mounted to a precut 20"x30" board she bought at Wal-Mart. She shows me the one done for her the previous night, then shows me the board, and says "See, I told him this was too big for poster size."
At this point she has already lost me. Being the jaded punk I am, if someone gets stuck on this "poster size" pet peeve of mine, they have already lost my good favor. But I try to make people happy. At this point I told her I could try to fix it for her, but I couldn't do it as a free redo if the employee last night had done what she asked for to the best of his ability. She told me she asked him to size it to the promotional banners in the windows. I walked over to the window, pulled out my tape measurer, and it was 40"x30". That's TWICE the 20"x30" she wanted. I pointed this out and her response was "But I don't think they are that big!"
?????
Befuddled, and a bit offended someone of the same species as me could be quite so dense, I held out my tape measurer for her to use. She of course didn't like that and said that she didn't need to measure it, she just needed her copy made right.
So I made the copy for her, got it to exactly 20"x30", and didn't even charge her. It just wasn't worth it. I honestly felt kinda bad for her after realizing her capability to reason.
Bleh.
2005/07/05
me with missy. I'm starting to get interested in doing more photo stuff. I have this great digital camera that I basically have only used for holidays. I realized that I have had a lot of fun looking at other peoples pictures, so I'm gonna try to get more stuff up. My obsession with my dog will probably manifest itself quite a bit with my choice of photos. :P
2005/07/04
tale of two linux reviews: photos
This is the CDs for the live CD review.
This is my main desk setup in my room.
This is "the lab." Maybe I can call it "Jasonic Labs." I dunno.
The machine without a front is the Celeron 2.4 Ghz on an intel 865PERL board with 256MB of DDR400 and a GeForce FX 5600.
The black antec case is my server, running Tao Linux 4.01 with a proud uptime of about 50 days now. If you put laydros.org in your address bar to get here, the redirect you ran into is hosted on that server.
The machine under the table on the left is the PII 450, now running RedHat 7.3, to be my older test machine for the Linux Music and Sound review.
And the blue one is of course my Blue & White PowerMac G3.
2005/07/03
the tale of two linux reviews
ok, I'm gonna blog this stuff. Hopefully.
I'm doing two tipmonkies big reviews right now. After all the traffic generated from the linux distro's review i did, we had an offer from No Starch Press to do book reviews. This is the same company that did the Absolute BSD book that I loved, so I was all over it. I got the first book (hopefully of many) today, and its Linux Music and Sound. It already looks very good, but it's from 2000. For a linux software book that would be like getting a 60's book on cars. So I decided to set up two systems in my lab. A PII 450 running redhat 7.3 and a Celeron 2.4 running the newest Ubuntu. Hopefully this will let me judge the book both on how it applied when written, and how well it still applies.
The second project is a live cd distro review. We had lots of requests for this. Martin is going to do Deb/Knoppix based ones, I will do all of the others. I currently have downloaded about 10 different ones. I have two more coming through bit torrent right now. The idea is to get a bunch and pick the half-dozen or so most valid for the reviews. It will probably also be a dual machine review, both on my laptop (mainly to check for WiFi support) and on the Celeron box.
The reason I have no plans for this stuff on my main box?
I currently have an 11 Day, 21 Hour, 36 Minute uptime. And it's Windows XP! :)
I'm doing two tipmonkies big reviews right now. After all the traffic generated from the linux distro's review i did, we had an offer from No Starch Press to do book reviews. This is the same company that did the Absolute BSD book that I loved, so I was all over it. I got the first book (hopefully of many) today, and its Linux Music and Sound. It already looks very good, but it's from 2000. For a linux software book that would be like getting a 60's book on cars. So I decided to set up two systems in my lab. A PII 450 running redhat 7.3 and a Celeron 2.4 running the newest Ubuntu. Hopefully this will let me judge the book both on how it applied when written, and how well it still applies.
The second project is a live cd distro review. We had lots of requests for this. Martin is going to do Deb/Knoppix based ones, I will do all of the others. I currently have downloaded about 10 different ones. I have two more coming through bit torrent right now. The idea is to get a bunch and pick the half-dozen or so most valid for the reviews. It will probably also be a dual machine review, both on my laptop (mainly to check for WiFi support) and on the Celeron box.
The reason I have no plans for this stuff on my main box?
I currently have an 11 Day, 21 Hour, 36 Minute uptime. And it's Windows XP! :)
2005/06/24
Tipmonkies/OSNews/expert-zone
A lot has been happening with Tipmonkies lately. I did an article on different linux distros, which Martin submitted to Slashdot and OSNews, and we got slammed. We had been open for about 2 months and I think over the whole period had about 17,000 people. In a three day period we had over 300,000 hits, and not get about 30,000 hits per day. My article was all over blogs, and even was on some pretty big sites like the O'Reilly site OSdir and Linux Format Mag.
Martin also opened a new site in collaboration with Eugina from OSNews and Thom from Expert-zone. I didn't actually have anything to do with the new site, even though it's being promoted as a collaboration between the three sites, but I think it was more between those three individuals.
Martin and I did a podcast with Thom once, so I have sorta met him, but I've never talked to Eugina, apparently Martin and Thom do a bit. She was alwasys sorta a hero for me as the Editor-in-Chief at OSNews. But yesterday she revealed that she was quitting, which stinks. She always did a good job of helping keep that site more balanced, and she was willing to step out on a bit of a limb to speak her mind. She just took too much of a battering in the forums and comments. I got a taste of it when my article hit Slashdot. This was one of the best:
eh... (Score:5, Interesting)
by ltwally (313043) on Saturday June 18, @10:48PM (#12854222)
(mailto:ltwally@softhome.net | Last Journal: Tuesday March 04, @08:48PM)
"...The beauty of Slack is in its simplicity. The core of the OS is based off of BSD, whereas Debian and RedHat are based off of AT&T UNIX..."
eh... Is this guy smoking crack or something? I've played with Slack, and have multiple FreeBSD boxes. While Slackware might be the least graphical (and thus, more arcane -- like the BSD's) linux distro out there, it is not based off any BSD that I've ever seen. The kernel is linux, the userland utilities are all GNU, and the location and configuration of all the system files is definitely not BSD related.
I dunno... while much of this dude's article seemed accurate, after reading the above, I've come to the conclusion that even after all his years of experience, he's still a newb... or he's just plain smoking crack.
It's really hard not to take that personally. Overall, for a linux article on slashdot, I had relativly little flames, but there certainly were some.
And my grammer. Eww. My english teachers are probably screaming. I knew logically that it's is the contraction of it is, not the possesive of it. But I write with out much thinking, and often with little sleep. There were other little things, but I got roasted for the its. I guess sometimes you just have to learn from screwing up. ;)
And now it's (<----See thats right) very much time to get ready for work, and stop rambleing.
Martin also opened a new site in collaboration with Eugina from OSNews and Thom from Expert-zone. I didn't actually have anything to do with the new site, even though it's being promoted as a collaboration between the three sites, but I think it was more between those three individuals.
Martin and I did a podcast with Thom once, so I have sorta met him, but I've never talked to Eugina, apparently Martin and Thom do a bit. She was alwasys sorta a hero for me as the Editor-in-Chief at OSNews. But yesterday she revealed that she was quitting, which stinks. She always did a good job of helping keep that site more balanced, and she was willing to step out on a bit of a limb to speak her mind. She just took too much of a battering in the forums and comments. I got a taste of it when my article hit Slashdot. This was one of the best:
eh... (Score:5, Interesting)
by ltwally (313043) on Saturday June 18, @10:48PM (#12854222)
(mailto:ltwally@softhome.net | Last Journal: Tuesday March 04, @08:48PM)
"...The beauty of Slack is in its simplicity. The core of the OS is based off of BSD, whereas Debian and RedHat are based off of AT&T UNIX..."
eh... Is this guy smoking crack or something? I've played with Slack, and have multiple FreeBSD boxes. While Slackware might be the least graphical (and thus, more arcane -- like the BSD's) linux distro out there, it is not based off any BSD that I've ever seen. The kernel is linux, the userland utilities are all GNU, and the location and configuration of all the system files is definitely not BSD related.
I dunno... while much of this dude's article seemed accurate, after reading the above, I've come to the conclusion that even after all his years of experience, he's still a newb... or he's just plain smoking crack.
It's really hard not to take that personally. Overall, for a linux article on slashdot, I had relativly little flames, but there certainly were some.
And my grammer. Eww. My english teachers are probably screaming. I knew logically that it's is the contraction of it is, not the possesive of it. But I write with out much thinking, and often with little sleep. There were other little things, but I got roasted for the its. I guess sometimes you just have to learn from screwing up. ;)
And now it's (<----See thats right) very much time to get ready for work, and stop rambleing.
Strange night
Last night at Kinko's was very strange. We were relativly slow most of the day, then all of the sudden at about 10 (when the other two working with me left) I had a rush. It was during about the 5th group or pair of students requesting a bound color document that I realized there must be something big due at State. In addition, a young lady called around 8 to ask for a very short turnaround time on an oversize color poster. Jody, my manager, told her we could do 3 hours, even though oversize color is typically 24 hours. When she arrived at 9 she basically asked for us to have it done by about 10, despite what Jody told her on the phone. We explained that we would try, but we have to take care of other customers in the building, especially since Jody knew it would be just me soon. She was nice, even a bit meek, but stood around asking if the file opened, then if we set it up, then if it was to the printer yet. About the 6th time in a row that she asked me if it was at the printer yet (it was like a child askingn "are we there yet?") I basically barked back that I was working on setting the file up. What I said was ok, but my tone was harsh with frustration. Jody then stepped in the situation and told her that it would take a while to print, then quite a while to dry, and reccmended she leave for a while and come back. So she left, and I managed to get her poster printed right about the time my little student rush started, only a little after 10. I called to tell her it was ready and she said she wouldn't come till the next morning. ARG!
So finally my third shift showed up, and with all the students it was almost 45 minutes after I was supposed to have left that I finally counted my till, and didn't walk out to my car until 1AM. There is a Papa John's directly beside our store, and on the way out to the parking lot. As I walked past it I saw a group of about 9 women and girls. Probably 6 teenage girls and 3 women that looked like they could be the girls mothers. The girls all had on prom-looking formal dresses, and the women had on very 80sish southern looking formal clothes. Sequins and shoulder pads. They were getting pizza at 1AM on Hillsborough St., which is a little scary even for me. And then they all piled (some sitting on top of each other) into a single Cadillac. It was a very quick and fluid motion, like it had been done before, and it made me think of clowns loading into a VW at the circus, except these were clowns in formal wear. I dare say they even did it elegantly.
I guess that doesn't sound like the whole night was really strange, but there was just an aura to the whole night that was capped off in that migration via Cadillac. I then got home and of course couldn't go to sleep.
So finally my third shift showed up, and with all the students it was almost 45 minutes after I was supposed to have left that I finally counted my till, and didn't walk out to my car until 1AM. There is a Papa John's directly beside our store, and on the way out to the parking lot. As I walked past it I saw a group of about 9 women and girls. Probably 6 teenage girls and 3 women that looked like they could be the girls mothers. The girls all had on prom-looking formal dresses, and the women had on very 80sish southern looking formal clothes. Sequins and shoulder pads. They were getting pizza at 1AM on Hillsborough St., which is a little scary even for me. And then they all piled (some sitting on top of each other) into a single Cadillac. It was a very quick and fluid motion, like it had been done before, and it made me think of clowns loading into a VW at the circus, except these were clowns in formal wear. I dare say they even did it elegantly.
I guess that doesn't sound like the whole night was really strange, but there was just an aura to the whole night that was capped off in that migration via Cadillac. I then got home and of course couldn't go to sleep.
2005/06/16
In Your Honor
The new Foo Fighters CD is out. It's pretty impressive. I think I would already go as far as to say this is their best. They have always been pretty eclectic and they took it to an extreame with this one, it's a double album with one CD all acoustic and one CD all heavy. This with a bit less middle ground than previous records. The electric is pure 4 piece heavy pop-rock. The acoustic side is very strong stuff, and has some pretty big guests on it (John Paul Jones even). I picked up the fancy Dual-Disc version with a DVD on one side and audio on the other. The only actual video is a 20 minute making of, which was fun to watch. If it carried on much longer it would have been pretty stupid, but the length was about right. Dave says he hopes that 20 years from now when a kid says "Dad, which one Foo Fighters record should I get?" this will be the one. The scary thing he says is that he thinks every Foo Fighters record will be the last. The band is somewhat of a supergroup, all 4 members came from a successful prior career, and these supergroups tend to be short lived.
I of course hope thats not the case, and I certainly chew on every song they publish. One neat thing about this one is that I'm pretty sure one of the acoustic songs will hit top 40 stations and Katy will be singing something off of it soon. :)
I of course hope thats not the case, and I certainly chew on every song they publish. One neat thing about this one is that I'm pretty sure one of the acoustic songs will hit top 40 stations and Katy will be singing something off of it soon. :)
2005/04/26
new music
I've been struck recently. No really, a coworker hit me the other day for saying something stupid.
But figuratively too.
Most of the music I really love I hated at one point. Three artists that come to mind are Tool, Steely Dan, and Radiohead. I used to not just dislike those bands, but really hated them. Now they are some of my favorites. Well, I have been speaking the terrors of Emo type music for some time now. My first major exposure to it (I had seen something about it on MTV in the late 90's, but that was just like one MTV news break) was Katy's dorm roomate Kerry. She had Coldplay and Dashboard Confessional posters up on the wall.
Then the stuff picks up some mainstream push. It's starting to show up on soundtracks, and there is a bunch of it on the "Modern Rock Alt" Muzak station at Kinko's. I'm certainly not smitten yet. My coworked Cameron loves this stuff. Still not getting me. Then two key things happen. My longtime friend Maggie and particuarly her boyfriend Josh are really into this stuff. They played a few things for me including "The Fire Theft." That's the new album by the band of the same name, and its a recoup of an old Sub-Pop band called "Sunny Day Real Estate." I love that record so much I go out and buy it the night they play it for me, and read up on the guys a little. Turns out Sunny Day is sorta the forebearer of modern Emo.
Then on sorta the other end of the Emo spectrum, my mom's BF John loans me the Snapcase record "End Transmission." Wow. That one is a blow to the head. It's just a balls-to-the-wall screaming hardcore band. Great catchy riffs. Incredibly melodic, but really pushing the envelope of music, and lots of Pink Floyd-ish spacey stuff inbetween brutal guitars.
So one day, a pay day, as I often make the mistake of doing, I go into Best Buy. I was about to leave, but they had a Victory Records table at the front with a number of these bands I've been hearing about. I just suddenly decided to take a leap of faith and bought a record from Thursday, whom Josh had mentioned. It even had a song on it that gets played on the Kink's "Mdn Rock Alt" alot that I hated but suddenly really like.
Just like "Stinkfist," "Karma Police," and "Aja." Hmmm............
So, I start talking to Cameron about this stuff more, and it's kinda like a new door opens. This isn't just a band that I have been pushing off, it's a very large genre, with relativly large sub-genres. Theres the pure Emo, which I haven't really hit on yet, then theres ScrEmo, like Thursday, and then hardcore, like Snapcase, sorta. Snapcase has actually been around for like 15 years and according to what I have read they change genres for each record, but "End Transmission" is all I've heard.
Cameron brought his collection in for me to flip through and explained to me that a good bunch of the ones he listens to are actually Christian bands. For some reason this type of music has caught on really well as Christian music.
So, that's where this situation sits up to now. I'll try to kinda update this soon. Maybe I'll keep listening, maybe I'll get really sick of it. The key thing to remember is that I even think N'Sync and then Justin Timberlake's solo stuff is great pop music. I hated it at first too. ;)
But figuratively too.
Most of the music I really love I hated at one point. Three artists that come to mind are Tool, Steely Dan, and Radiohead. I used to not just dislike those bands, but really hated them. Now they are some of my favorites. Well, I have been speaking the terrors of Emo type music for some time now. My first major exposure to it (I had seen something about it on MTV in the late 90's, but that was just like one MTV news break) was Katy's dorm roomate Kerry. She had Coldplay and Dashboard Confessional posters up on the wall.
Then the stuff picks up some mainstream push. It's starting to show up on soundtracks, and there is a bunch of it on the "Modern Rock Alt" Muzak station at Kinko's. I'm certainly not smitten yet. My coworked Cameron loves this stuff. Still not getting me. Then two key things happen. My longtime friend Maggie and particuarly her boyfriend Josh are really into this stuff. They played a few things for me including "The Fire Theft." That's the new album by the band of the same name, and its a recoup of an old Sub-Pop band called "Sunny Day Real Estate." I love that record so much I go out and buy it the night they play it for me, and read up on the guys a little. Turns out Sunny Day is sorta the forebearer of modern Emo.
Then on sorta the other end of the Emo spectrum, my mom's BF John loans me the Snapcase record "End Transmission." Wow. That one is a blow to the head. It's just a balls-to-the-wall screaming hardcore band. Great catchy riffs. Incredibly melodic, but really pushing the envelope of music, and lots of Pink Floyd-ish spacey stuff inbetween brutal guitars.
So one day, a pay day, as I often make the mistake of doing, I go into Best Buy. I was about to leave, but they had a Victory Records table at the front with a number of these bands I've been hearing about. I just suddenly decided to take a leap of faith and bought a record from Thursday, whom Josh had mentioned. It even had a song on it that gets played on the Kink's "Mdn Rock Alt" alot that I hated but suddenly really like.
Just like "Stinkfist," "Karma Police," and "Aja." Hmmm............
So, I start talking to Cameron about this stuff more, and it's kinda like a new door opens. This isn't just a band that I have been pushing off, it's a very large genre, with relativly large sub-genres. Theres the pure Emo, which I haven't really hit on yet, then theres ScrEmo, like Thursday, and then hardcore, like Snapcase, sorta. Snapcase has actually been around for like 15 years and according to what I have read they change genres for each record, but "End Transmission" is all I've heard.
Cameron brought his collection in for me to flip through and explained to me that a good bunch of the ones he listens to are actually Christian bands. For some reason this type of music has caught on really well as Christian music.
So, that's where this situation sits up to now. I'll try to kinda update this soon. Maybe I'll keep listening, maybe I'll get really sick of it. The key thing to remember is that I even think N'Sync and then Justin Timberlake's solo stuff is great pop music. I hated it at first too. ;)
2005/04/19
ahh, the phones
so i've got cell phones on my mind right now. i love my ipaq that i just got, but phones are starting to take all the great gadgets and put them into one. pda, digital camera, mp3 player, portable music player (which, unlike the other devices, are happening on phones at the same time they are happening standalone) and, oh yeah, phones. Right now I have a pretty kick-ass, albeit modest, phone. The LG L1200. Its a tight little clamshell with a VGA cam, a great screen, sorta mp3 ringtones, and IR. That last part is quite important, as I use IR to connect my iPaq.
I should be able to get an upgraded phone through cingular soon, and I'm not quite sure what to get. I don't really have any money to spend on it, so I'm hoping to get a freebee. But they sure run this stuff in circles. The site and phone said starting in like January that I would be eligible for an upgrade March 31 2005. On April 2nd I went back to look at it and it still said "You are not eligible, but will be March 31." OK. So I called. One person told me I was eligible, one told me April 31 (which doesn't exist) and one told me not till my contract ran totally out on July 31. WTF?
So anyway, I'm pretty happy with my phone right now, which makes me think I should let the contract expire and see if they start trying really hard to get you to stay. Hell, I dunno.
I should be able to get an upgraded phone through cingular soon, and I'm not quite sure what to get. I don't really have any money to spend on it, so I'm hoping to get a freebee. But they sure run this stuff in circles. The site and phone said starting in like January that I would be eligible for an upgrade March 31 2005. On April 2nd I went back to look at it and it still said "You are not eligible, but will be March 31." OK. So I called. One person told me I was eligible, one told me April 31 (which doesn't exist) and one told me not till my contract ran totally out on July 31. WTF?
So anyway, I'm pretty happy with my phone right now, which makes me think I should let the contract expire and see if they start trying really hard to get you to stay. Hell, I dunno.
2005/04/16
it can always get worse.....
One of the worst periods of my life, no, the worst period of my life was when my mother was sick and my parents divorce which her sickness led into. It's a whole long complicated story, but there are two major points to take from it. First off is that a persons experiences good and bad are what shape them. Sounds obvious, but you have to bear in mind that when you meet someone and like them, it may be some tragic events in their life that formed them into the person that you like. Second off, and one thing that I will always stand by, is that no matter what happens to you, things can be exponintially worse.
I apologize for this blog becomeing more and more personal, but I use it to basically cover what is on my mind.
Anyway, I went to my future brother-in-law/coworker/friend Alex's house after work today to check out his MAME box, then came home around 1AM. Not long before I got home I noticed my car was pulling right. I figured I just need to get it realigned. Then I heard a rumbling noise. So I pulled off the road and saw my front passenger side tire was basically on the rim. Luckily there was a service station about a 1/4 mile away so I went there, got air, but it was quickly loosing it, so I bought fix-a-flat, used it, and it was still making the lead sound. I figured I just wasted $5, but since I was near home I filled it back up with air and drove home. Figured I could just put on the doughnut in the morning and take it to get it fixed.
I got home, and it wasn't making the noise as far as I could tell, and actually had a decent amount of air in it, so it might just be the way that stuff worked. The directions did say to drive a short distance after using the can. I will know in the AM.
So anyway, not a huge deal, but sucked. The biggest problem was being alone at a service station at 1AM. I get home and my friend Martin is on IM. I haven't talked to him at all much in the past 6 months, so I said hey. He tells me his brother's 22 year old fiancee died suddenly today. She had some heart condition, but they were just riding to McDonald's and she turned blue, they rushed to the hospital but by the time they got there she was gone.
I don't really know how to end this post. It's crazy how life works. God has his hand on every movement and every moment of our lives, and has total control over it all. The real lesson, I think, is to remember that this kind of stuff happens when we get so strung out on the little things in life. You have to enjoy what you have, who you are around, and who you are when you can. Most things just aren't worth getting upset about.
I apologize for this blog becomeing more and more personal, but I use it to basically cover what is on my mind.
Anyway, I went to my future brother-in-law/coworker/friend Alex's house after work today to check out his MAME box, then came home around 1AM. Not long before I got home I noticed my car was pulling right. I figured I just need to get it realigned. Then I heard a rumbling noise. So I pulled off the road and saw my front passenger side tire was basically on the rim. Luckily there was a service station about a 1/4 mile away so I went there, got air, but it was quickly loosing it, so I bought fix-a-flat, used it, and it was still making the lead sound. I figured I just wasted $5, but since I was near home I filled it back up with air and drove home. Figured I could just put on the doughnut in the morning and take it to get it fixed.
I got home, and it wasn't making the noise as far as I could tell, and actually had a decent amount of air in it, so it might just be the way that stuff worked. The directions did say to drive a short distance after using the can. I will know in the AM.
So anyway, not a huge deal, but sucked. The biggest problem was being alone at a service station at 1AM. I get home and my friend Martin is on IM. I haven't talked to him at all much in the past 6 months, so I said hey. He tells me his brother's 22 year old fiancee died suddenly today. She had some heart condition, but they were just riding to McDonald's and she turned blue, they rushed to the hospital but by the time they got there she was gone.
I don't really know how to end this post. It's crazy how life works. God has his hand on every movement and every moment of our lives, and has total control over it all. The real lesson, I think, is to remember that this kind of stuff happens when we get so strung out on the little things in life. You have to enjoy what you have, who you are around, and who you are when you can. Most things just aren't worth getting upset about.
2005/04/13
new toy
this is definitly wicked. I can now sit on a bench in the park and post to my blog! How liberating! It means I can just get away from it all, and... um, get back to it all?
At any rate, i got a new toy: hp iPaq H1910.
The really killer part is i can use ir to get on the web with it. Basically there isn't much that i do on a computer on a daily basis. I listen to music, chat on aim, and surf the web. That is a big part of my argument for linux. It's also why this sucker can be pretty useful. I can do all that stuff and do it anywhere.
There definitly are some limits to this though.
-speed: i actually tried to do all that at once and the music got choppy. It wasn't overclocked at the time though.
-input: the onscreen keyboard won't cut it for much. I have learned palms graffiti pretty well on prior pda's, and i can use it on here, but it certainly isn't as fast as typing
-storage: absolutly not an iPod! At best it will store 1/30 of my current iPod. (i don't think this device will accept a 1gb sd card)
-bandwidth: eep! I pay cingular $9.99/month for a whopping 3mb! That just ain't gonna get me much. My 2yr contract with them is almost up, and i think the bandwidth issue will definatly play a role in what service i go with, but then again , i kinda don't think any other service is really any better.
So there's the initial reaction to this sucker. By the way, i wrote this entire post on the iPaq ;)
At any rate, i got a new toy: hp iPaq H1910.
The really killer part is i can use ir to get on the web with it. Basically there isn't much that i do on a computer on a daily basis. I listen to music, chat on aim, and surf the web. That is a big part of my argument for linux. It's also why this sucker can be pretty useful. I can do all that stuff and do it anywhere.
There definitly are some limits to this though.
-speed: i actually tried to do all that at once and the music got choppy. It wasn't overclocked at the time though.
-input: the onscreen keyboard won't cut it for much. I have learned palms graffiti pretty well on prior pda's, and i can use it on here, but it certainly isn't as fast as typing
-storage: absolutly not an iPod! At best it will store 1/30 of my current iPod. (i don't think this device will accept a 1gb sd card)
-bandwidth: eep! I pay cingular $9.99/month for a whopping 3mb! That just ain't gonna get me much. My 2yr contract with them is almost up, and i think the bandwidth issue will definatly play a role in what service i go with, but then again , i kinda don't think any other service is really any better.
So there's the initial reaction to this sucker. By the way, i wrote this entire post on the iPaq ;)
2005/04/02
homeless nerd
Maybe its an April Fools joke, but the same blog had a post about this guy a couple of days prior:
http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/mt/archives/001763.php
This guy drags a full desktop PC into starbucks and surfs the web during the day, and sleeps in a Kinko's at night.
Speaking of April Fool's, One thing did get me yesterday. the radio station that I listen to a lot 96rock did a special on the opening of a new amusement park, right out here in Raleigh, Mayberry USA. I was even telling everybody at work about it, and asking where it must be.
hehe.....
http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/mt/archives/001763.php
This guy drags a full desktop PC into starbucks and surfs the web during the day, and sleeps in a Kinko's at night.
Speaking of April Fool's, One thing did get me yesterday. the radio station that I listen to a lot 96rock did a special on the opening of a new amusement park, right out here in Raleigh, Mayberry USA. I was even telling everybody at work about it, and asking where it must be.
hehe.....
2005/03/24
now this is getting silly
So yeah, posts haven't been happening. I've been busy with school and work and stuff like that, but there has also been a lot going on that I want to write about, and when that happens, I tend to just put off writing until I feel like I have more time. Alas I never get back to it.
One biggy in mind right now. I used to be a Moderator at AquaXP.com. It was a site devoted to modding the Windows GUI to look like the aqua interface from OSX. Seems kinda wierd to have a whole community around, but it was something I became very interested in, and for a period of time it was a fairly major community. There was even an article in Wired.com about the site. But things got old after a while, most of us who were major players became disinterested and things sorta dissolved. The entire time we were sorta in the shadow of Aqua-soft.org, which aquaxp was almost a spin off of.
But recently I've started to miss the community part of it. One of the main reasons I really got out of the community was I quit using Windows, and then two of the guys there and I started Stylix.org, which dealt with themeing Linux, but never really took off the way we hoped it would. I then started running OSX as my main system and basically left the whole scene totally.
Well I don't really have any real intrest in skinning any more, I only do it to a minor degree, but I'd like to have some people to talk to again. I talked to Shak last night, the guy that ran AXP, and he is thinking basically the same thing. He wants to see it up again, but with a broader tech focus. So hopefully that will be happening soon. If you are interested in learning more, check in the #aquaxp channel on freenode, we are trying to get that chatroom back up, for a long time it was a really lively hang out area.
As I kinda said before, I've had a bunch of things that I wanted to post on before, but can't remember much of any of them now, so I'll bail at this point, but hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.
One biggy in mind right now. I used to be a Moderator at AquaXP.com. It was a site devoted to modding the Windows GUI to look like the aqua interface from OSX. Seems kinda wierd to have a whole community around, but it was something I became very interested in, and for a period of time it was a fairly major community. There was even an article in Wired.com about the site. But things got old after a while, most of us who were major players became disinterested and things sorta dissolved. The entire time we were sorta in the shadow of Aqua-soft.org, which aquaxp was almost a spin off of.
But recently I've started to miss the community part of it. One of the main reasons I really got out of the community was I quit using Windows, and then two of the guys there and I started Stylix.org, which dealt with themeing Linux, but never really took off the way we hoped it would. I then started running OSX as my main system and basically left the whole scene totally.
Well I don't really have any real intrest in skinning any more, I only do it to a minor degree, but I'd like to have some people to talk to again. I talked to Shak last night, the guy that ran AXP, and he is thinking basically the same thing. He wants to see it up again, but with a broader tech focus. So hopefully that will be happening soon. If you are interested in learning more, check in the #aquaxp channel on freenode, we are trying to get that chatroom back up, for a long time it was a really lively hang out area.
As I kinda said before, I've had a bunch of things that I wanted to post on before, but can't remember much of any of them now, so I'll bail at this point, but hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon.
2005/03/05
The Shredder
I just saw this one over at Engadget. It's an industrial shredder. The gears in it work just like a $15 paper shredder from OfficeMax. Make sure to watch the refrigerator and the washing machine. You even get to hear someone say "shred it!" for the washing machcine.
The Shredder
Theres also this little number. When your doctor wants to know just what's going on inside your digestive tract and wants to know right now damnit, she can have you take this pill, wear a harddrive on your belt, and a few hours later shes got her own little tunnel of love pictures.
I'll let you guess which one of these I really want for my birthday.
The Shredder
Theres also this little number. When your doctor wants to know just what's going on inside your digestive tract and wants to know right now damnit, she can have you take this pill, wear a harddrive on your belt, and a few hours later shes got her own little tunnel of love pictures.
I'll let you guess which one of these I really want for my birthday.
2005/02/17
out to lunch?
No, there just hasn't been anything good to post on lately. Nothing particuarly exciting in tech or world news, or my life. I did join the church that I have been going to. It's a great place that doesn't have so many of the hangups I see in most mainstream or fringe Christian churches.
And I got a Kinko's clock! Even though the buyout of Kinko's officially happened in May of 2004, it was January of 2005 before they finally sent us new clocks. Kinko's is big on clocks and there are about 5 up in our fairly small store, so seeing the old logo that much certainly doesn't help with brand recognition. At any rate, I got to take one home.
Of course, the front door and marquee still just say "Kinko's" but I guess thats how these things work. Along with all of our shirts......
Ah yes, I do have one link:
the phone glove
I saw this on Engadget, and of course they made some references to Maxwell Smart. This is great stuff. Thumb in the ear and pinky for a mic. Priceless!
And I got a Kinko's clock! Even though the buyout of Kinko's officially happened in May of 2004, it was January of 2005 before they finally sent us new clocks. Kinko's is big on clocks and there are about 5 up in our fairly small store, so seeing the old logo that much certainly doesn't help with brand recognition. At any rate, I got to take one home.
Of course, the front door and marquee still just say "Kinko's" but I guess thats how these things work. Along with all of our shirts......
Ah yes, I do have one link:
the phone glove
I saw this on Engadget, and of course they made some references to Maxwell Smart. This is great stuff. Thumb in the ear and pinky for a mic. Priceless!
2005/02/02
Mac Mini: The Emperor's New Computer
Oh this is great. It just brightened up my night a little just make sure you actually read it.
I miss music
So after much back and forth with Kinkos and Intrex and all that good stuff, I'm getting pretty settled into being at Kinko's for a long haul like I did at OfficeMax, which is good.
but there's something I just can't shake.
I started Intrex in February of 2003, and that was when my band broke up. I remember that becuase it was going to be a scheduling issue, then never was. Then I started Kinko's in May of 2004. Seems like I haven't been there that long, but this has been a pretty crazy few months, mainly because of my little brother and best friend. At any rate, I know that was when our band get back together came up and then split up. Because again I saw scheduling at Kinko's as being a possible issue, then it wasn't. My band in it's first form was Of,go listen to our music. It was my best friend and a couple of other guys, and we had a lot of fun, and made some decent music. I love it. I love playing music. I don't really care what instrument I am playing. I even love it so much that I love to see a band play live, even if I can't play with them. I used to go to friends band practices, basically because it's almost like a drug to me. I love how things just fall into place in a group, and the way things sound. I really loved the companionship of hanging out with those three guys. We tore each other to pieces for different stuff, both seriously and jokingly, but it was so much fun.
What drags this up.... well on a more mundane level someone loaned me a Creed Greatest Hits and DVD to go with it. I'm not a big Creed fan. I didn't get into their first CD until the second came out, at which point I decided it was about the only good thing they did. There were a couple more decent songs out of them, but after "Arms Wide Open" I couldn't stand them anymore. Not that the song was that terrible the first 6,546,983 times, but after that it got more than a bit tireing. And Scott Stapp is just worthless. He's a bad example of a Christian, which he doesn't seem to really be, but somehow became a bit of a symbol for a period of time. In the end hes just a narcissistic drunkard. I don't care for the guy much at all. And for the most part their music goes into the suck category. But there is one truely saving grace for that band: Mark Tremonti. He is one of the only mainstream shred guys we have had since Slash. He's also one of those not-lead-singer-but-lead-guitarist band leaders that I like so much, like Jimmy Page or Pete Townsend. In fact it appears in the Creed without Stapp band Alter Bridge that he is the main songwriter, and does a good bit of the vocal harmonies and whatnot. I love that stuff. And he always has the quiet cool to him.
So thats tonight and a more tangible bit. But the whole music thing is somethign that nags at me daily. I think about my grandmother that passed away almost two years ago every day. I think about being in debt every day. Its that kind of thing. I love music. I love people, then music, then everything else (including computers, by the way).
I still sorta keep up with the bass player, Ashwin. He's one of those people like Michelle Levo who I always felt could be a really close friend, but never was more than a buddy. I love to play guitar with him. Anytime he and I talk we say we need to "get together soon and play" but it never happens. I need to make it happen.
But the problem is theres not really a creative force there, which is needed in a band. Maybe if I got some guys together to do some covers it would work. But I don't know. Ashwin has done a couple of songs, but not many, and not much complete. I can crap out a song, but that's exactly what it is, crap.
Maybe now that I've whined I can go to sleep. But it's all about the guitar track in "What If." That's the stuff I love to play. I can sit here and listen to it, or I can get my guitar, wipe the dust off of it, get the tab, and play it.
P.S. After publishing a post, I reguarly go through and test the links. Well, the only link here was to Of's old website at Tripod. I hit the link and Tripod says it's not there. The main page is still up at google cache from Jan 29 2005, and at archive.org for Feb 04. This is sad.
but there's something I just can't shake.
I started Intrex in February of 2003, and that was when my band broke up. I remember that becuase it was going to be a scheduling issue, then never was. Then I started Kinko's in May of 2004. Seems like I haven't been there that long, but this has been a pretty crazy few months, mainly because of my little brother and best friend. At any rate, I know that was when our band get back together came up and then split up. Because again I saw scheduling at Kinko's as being a possible issue, then it wasn't. My band in it's first form was Of,go listen to our music. It was my best friend and a couple of other guys, and we had a lot of fun, and made some decent music. I love it. I love playing music. I don't really care what instrument I am playing. I even love it so much that I love to see a band play live, even if I can't play with them. I used to go to friends band practices, basically because it's almost like a drug to me. I love how things just fall into place in a group, and the way things sound. I really loved the companionship of hanging out with those three guys. We tore each other to pieces for different stuff, both seriously and jokingly, but it was so much fun.
What drags this up.... well on a more mundane level someone loaned me a Creed Greatest Hits and DVD to go with it. I'm not a big Creed fan. I didn't get into their first CD until the second came out, at which point I decided it was about the only good thing they did. There were a couple more decent songs out of them, but after "Arms Wide Open" I couldn't stand them anymore. Not that the song was that terrible the first 6,546,983 times, but after that it got more than a bit tireing. And Scott Stapp is just worthless. He's a bad example of a Christian, which he doesn't seem to really be, but somehow became a bit of a symbol for a period of time. In the end hes just a narcissistic drunkard. I don't care for the guy much at all. And for the most part their music goes into the suck category. But there is one truely saving grace for that band: Mark Tremonti. He is one of the only mainstream shred guys we have had since Slash. He's also one of those not-lead-singer-but-lead-guitarist band leaders that I like so much, like Jimmy Page or Pete Townsend. In fact it appears in the Creed without Stapp band Alter Bridge that he is the main songwriter, and does a good bit of the vocal harmonies and whatnot. I love that stuff. And he always has the quiet cool to him.
So thats tonight and a more tangible bit. But the whole music thing is somethign that nags at me daily. I think about my grandmother that passed away almost two years ago every day. I think about being in debt every day. Its that kind of thing. I love music. I love people, then music, then everything else (including computers, by the way).
I still sorta keep up with the bass player, Ashwin. He's one of those people like Michelle Levo who I always felt could be a really close friend, but never was more than a buddy. I love to play guitar with him. Anytime he and I talk we say we need to "get together soon and play" but it never happens. I need to make it happen.
But the problem is theres not really a creative force there, which is needed in a band. Maybe if I got some guys together to do some covers it would work. But I don't know. Ashwin has done a couple of songs, but not many, and not much complete. I can crap out a song, but that's exactly what it is, crap.
Maybe now that I've whined I can go to sleep. But it's all about the guitar track in "What If." That's the stuff I love to play. I can sit here and listen to it, or I can get my guitar, wipe the dust off of it, get the tab, and play it.
P.S. After publishing a post, I reguarly go through and test the links. Well, the only link here was to Of's old website at Tripod. I hit the link and Tripod says it's not there. The main page is still up at google cache from Jan 29 2005, and at archive.org for Feb 04. This is sad.
2005/01/29
I, Hamilton
I love reading Robert Cringley. This is the second one he has done recently dealing mainly with Apple products. The article is primarily about the Gillette give away the razor and make money on the blade business model and comparing it to the iPod/iTunes deal. But he talks for a minute about the Mac Mini as a server.
"Imagine a Mac Minicluster running Apple's xGrid software. Start with a 16-port fast Ethernet switch and stack 16 Mac Minis on top. That's a 720 gigaflop micro-supercomputer that costs less than $9,000, can fit on a bookshelf, and can be up and running in as little time as it takes to connect the network cables. High schools will be sequencing genes."
Check out the rest of the article here.
"Imagine a Mac Minicluster running Apple's xGrid software. Start with a 16-port fast Ethernet switch and stack 16 Mac Minis on top. That's a 720 gigaflop micro-supercomputer that costs less than $9,000, can fit on a bookshelf, and can be up and running in as little time as it takes to connect the network cables. High schools will be sequencing genes."
Check out the rest of the article here.
Intrex
A coworker sorta prepared me for it, but I was offered a full-time job at intrex.net this past week. It was good enough money wise to match and slightly better what I make at Kinko's, but it would have been mainly tech support. I'm very tired of tech support, as is seen in a recent post. I did a lot of debating, but when my boss called and said it would be 80-90% tech support, I knew it wasn't going to be the thing for me.
I promised him an answer today, and one of my coworkers last day was today, so I actually went in the office and had a brownie and told Camil in person that I wasn't going to accept his offer. Despite the fact that a couple of weeks ago he told me he was interested in me staying on staff to work a couple of mornings a week and even yesterday told me the same thing, today he said he didn't really have a need for that, and he would keep me on staff for when people need time off, but the HR person might have a problem with that.
It's a bit tough that my two biggest jobs have been fade aways instead of burn-outs. I watched many many people leave OfficeMax with balloons and cake, but I was basically kicked out because of conflict of intrest. I started hearing rumors that the district manager didn't like me working both there and Kinko's, and when I went back in a few days later, they told me that I was gonna be dropped, so I didn't wait and left that day. I was at a differnt store, that I had only been at for a few weeks, and knew some people there, but especially with such a short notice, I was just gone.
Intrex is looking the same way. In some sort of Jason being sappy and symbolic sort of way, I had two of Aaron's leaving brownies. One for him, and one for me. There really is a chance that I will stay on payroll for a long time, and maybe at some point down the road, work there more again, but I would imagine that this is probably when my path there just kinda fades away, instead of ending. What an interesting day for a hard drive to bite the dust.
I promised him an answer today, and one of my coworkers last day was today, so I actually went in the office and had a brownie and told Camil in person that I wasn't going to accept his offer. Despite the fact that a couple of weeks ago he told me he was interested in me staying on staff to work a couple of mornings a week and even yesterday told me the same thing, today he said he didn't really have a need for that, and he would keep me on staff for when people need time off, but the HR person might have a problem with that.
It's a bit tough that my two biggest jobs have been fade aways instead of burn-outs. I watched many many people leave OfficeMax with balloons and cake, but I was basically kicked out because of conflict of intrest. I started hearing rumors that the district manager didn't like me working both there and Kinko's, and when I went back in a few days later, they told me that I was gonna be dropped, so I didn't wait and left that day. I was at a differnt store, that I had only been at for a few weeks, and knew some people there, but especially with such a short notice, I was just gone.
Intrex is looking the same way. In some sort of Jason being sappy and symbolic sort of way, I had two of Aaron's leaving brownies. One for him, and one for me. There really is a chance that I will stay on payroll for a long time, and maybe at some point down the road, work there more again, but I would imagine that this is probably when my path there just kinda fades away, instead of ending. What an interesting day for a hard drive to bite the dust.
companies on Jason's bad list
People who know me and know my experience with my Old's Cutty Supreme would probably expect GM to top this list, but the jury is still out on that one. My first car (the spotted avenger) was a Buick LeSabre that should have been laid to rest LONG before I ever had the chance to enjoy its duct-taped goodness, but for some reason continued to run despite me showing my friends that I could spin brand new tires. I have seen other GM cars hold up fairly well.
But there was one pretty serious computer company, and a second one just hit the list. The first motherboard I ever bought new in box was from MSI. It was right when MSI started to become a major player like abit, asus, tyan, etc. I bought the board, which had a disappointing chipset on it (that was VIA's fault, not MSI) and ended up RMAing it after a few months. Then the same thing happened again. Then again. Then my year was up. No product should break 3 times in a year. And bear in mind, this wasn't the same board, it was a replacement each time. There was obviously something wrong, and MSI didn't fix it. The guy at the shop I bought it from told me they had trouble with that board. That was the only motherboard that I have ever had just die when it was still well within its lifetime. (This is gussing a 3-5 year lifetime on computer hardware. Most stuff I have encountered has even done a good deal better than that, but most stuff isn't really considered modern after about a 3-5 year period.)
So there is a new one. I'll probably upload the sound file soon. I bought a SATA hard drive from Intrex in August of 2003. I actually sold an older WD 80gig to nick at that time (which is still running) and bought a Seagate 80gig 8mb buffer SATA drive. Recently I have been having some very strange issues, that I was pretty sure were drive related. No real lost data, just issues. I run iTunes a lot, and I would wake up in the middle of the night and a song was stuck in a 1 second loop. I have wierd freezes for short periods of time, and the real tell-tell sign was when the computer would reboot, and on rare occation, not find a device to boot off of. Then last night the problems got real bad. I was running Fedora and I was getting 5 minute freezes. That was when I started hearing not-so-good noises. I opened up the side of the case to hear better and sure enough it was a squeek followed by a thump, and coming from my hard drive. Shortly after, that, I couldn't even boot the machine. Because I had things to do before going to work, I left without trying to replace it and reload the machine. I stopped in at Intrex to see if they still had the reciept, which they did, and is how I know I got it in August of 03. The good news is that I had recently backed up everything. The only thing on the drive was a totally fresh install of Fedora.
So tonight, after moving some stuff around and getting a drive into the machine, I went to seagates site to check out my old drive, and see if it was one of the 3 year warrenties, or a 1 year. Seagate's site says
Out of Warranty
This drive is out of warranty with Seagate. Repair service for out of warranty products is available only to contracted customers.
Which means 1 year. And I'm not a contracted customer.
The end result is a very expensive paperweight.
But there was one pretty serious computer company, and a second one just hit the list. The first motherboard I ever bought new in box was from MSI. It was right when MSI started to become a major player like abit, asus, tyan, etc. I bought the board, which had a disappointing chipset on it (that was VIA's fault, not MSI) and ended up RMAing it after a few months. Then the same thing happened again. Then again. Then my year was up. No product should break 3 times in a year. And bear in mind, this wasn't the same board, it was a replacement each time. There was obviously something wrong, and MSI didn't fix it. The guy at the shop I bought it from told me they had trouble with that board. That was the only motherboard that I have ever had just die when it was still well within its lifetime. (This is gussing a 3-5 year lifetime on computer hardware. Most stuff I have encountered has even done a good deal better than that, but most stuff isn't really considered modern after about a 3-5 year period.)
So there is a new one. I'll probably upload the sound file soon. I bought a SATA hard drive from Intrex in August of 2003. I actually sold an older WD 80gig to nick at that time (which is still running) and bought a Seagate 80gig 8mb buffer SATA drive. Recently I have been having some very strange issues, that I was pretty sure were drive related. No real lost data, just issues. I run iTunes a lot, and I would wake up in the middle of the night and a song was stuck in a 1 second loop. I have wierd freezes for short periods of time, and the real tell-tell sign was when the computer would reboot, and on rare occation, not find a device to boot off of. Then last night the problems got real bad. I was running Fedora and I was getting 5 minute freezes. That was when I started hearing not-so-good noises. I opened up the side of the case to hear better and sure enough it was a squeek followed by a thump, and coming from my hard drive. Shortly after, that, I couldn't even boot the machine. Because I had things to do before going to work, I left without trying to replace it and reload the machine. I stopped in at Intrex to see if they still had the reciept, which they did, and is how I know I got it in August of 03. The good news is that I had recently backed up everything. The only thing on the drive was a totally fresh install of Fedora.
So tonight, after moving some stuff around and getting a drive into the machine, I went to seagates site to check out my old drive, and see if it was one of the 3 year warrenties, or a 1 year. Seagate's site says
Out of Warranty
This drive is out of warranty with Seagate. Repair service for out of warranty products is available only to contracted customers.
Which means 1 year. And I'm not a contracted customer.
The end result is a very expensive paperweight.
2005/01/23
necco, target, and things that go bump in the night
I love Target stores. I don't really know why, but I do. When I was a kid it was K-Mart becuase Target didn't exist (at least not in North Carolina) and there weren't any Wal-Mart's around. The K-Mart in rich north Raleigh was actually pretty nice anyway, and always had a good supply of TMNT action figures in the back, and ICEEs in the front. When I was in VA they opened a Target there and I remember going some. But it really sank in when I moved to Garner and started driving and working at OfficeMax. OfficeMax and Target are in the same shopping center that is walking distance from my house. They have good stuff, decent prices, its always clean, and easier to find what you need. My favorite store manager at Omax would always want to do stuff the way Target did it, because Target was retail done right.
So to dig somewhat deeper in this.. I'm very much a creature of habit, and have a bit of an obsessive compulsive nature. I like things to be right and to be the same way. I also LOVE Necco Sweetheart candies. The conversation hearts, but the original ones that taste like 15 year old chalk. Especially the orange ones. One of the best gifts I ever recieved was when my truly caring fiancee (then girlfriend) gave me a container full of JUST THE ORANGE ONES!
OK, so part three of this stupid journy into my sick mind. This morning was my first trip into my Garner Target since the Christmas stuff came out and the Valentines Day stuff went up. I was running in to grab some stuff before my day at intrex (more on that later) and decided to grab some conversation hearts, which I have been buying at that same Target for about 5-6 years now, and I eat a lot of these suckers. But, they only had Brach's. There was the mini-packet bag, with a bunch of individually wrapped packs, but they are usually really dry (the best Necco Conversation hearts are when they are nice and damp), and when there are a bunch of little packets, it's much more difficult to eat all the colors except orange first and then leave all the orange for last. Not to mention about 1/3 of the candy as the normal bag at the same price.
This is a major strike against Target. No person, or entity for that matter, is perfect, but this is certainly hersey in my book.
So I go to work, a bit miffed. Things are somewhat slow for the first hour or so. I put in some good time playing Super Mario 64 DS (stupid name) on my DS. Its the Super Mario 64 game from the N64 redone for the DS. I think they could have called it something different, but I guess Nintento isn't exactly winning too many wars nowadays. Then the calls begin. There weren't that many (except one at the end) that actually made me angry, but they were almost all really frustrating. It was a very stereotypical tech support day, and my only solace was from reading some BOFH and sharing my experiences with some of my Kinko's coworkers. As much as Rey complains about Kinko's (he's certainly not the only one, just the most drastic one), he even admitted that he wouldn't do tech support the way that I do.
It was just one of those days where nobody believed me, nobody wanted to actually go to their computer for me to walk them through something, and the best part was at least 3 calls I had today had the approach of "my email isn't working, why can't I receive email?!" I'm sure the neanderthal on the other end is envisioning me with my finger on a button that says "NO EMAIL FOR YOU!" with an evil grin on my face. All the while I envision someone... damnit I'm not a writer.... but inserts some witty term for some really stupid person here. The Email Nazi line was about as good as I get.
So, anyway, the way these people approach these things would be like calling a mechanic who has never met you before, never seen your car, nor knows what it is, and simply calling him and saying "my car won't start, tell me how to fix it over the phone." Then when you ask them to click with the left mouse button on the start menu and hover the little arrow over "All Programs" they tell you not to be so technical because they are illiterate, (no, they don't say computer illiterate, they really do just say illiterate) which is a whole funny, paradoxical statement unto itself.
from dictionary.com
Grrr. I think I am a very patient person. And I am totally comfortable with dealing with someone who is truly ignorent of computers, as long as they are somewhat intelligent in general, and willing to work with me. In fact, I would much rather the person on the other end needs explicit instructions instead of jumping ahead of me.
The good news is this is not really the norm. Most days there are a handful of decent people, 1 or maybe 2 bad ones, and a decent amount of free time to surf the web. But days like this are certainly detrimental to my ability to deal with people.
I think to close I will give a link that I had to show someone yesterday. Alex is a friend of mine at work (and my fiancee's brother) and when someone we like to give a hard time asked him how to send a single fax to a number of people (broadcast faxing) he said that she could do it with the RTFM feature. It's a phrase I hold near and dear to my heart, but have never seen a really appropriate usage of it, and Alex's execution was superb.
Cheers.
So to dig somewhat deeper in this.. I'm very much a creature of habit, and have a bit of an obsessive compulsive nature. I like things to be right and to be the same way. I also LOVE Necco Sweetheart candies. The conversation hearts, but the original ones that taste like 15 year old chalk. Especially the orange ones. One of the best gifts I ever recieved was when my truly caring fiancee (then girlfriend) gave me a container full of JUST THE ORANGE ONES!
OK, so part three of this stupid journy into my sick mind. This morning was my first trip into my Garner Target since the Christmas stuff came out and the Valentines Day stuff went up. I was running in to grab some stuff before my day at intrex (more on that later) and decided to grab some conversation hearts, which I have been buying at that same Target for about 5-6 years now, and I eat a lot of these suckers. But, they only had Brach's. There was the mini-packet bag, with a bunch of individually wrapped packs, but they are usually really dry (the best Necco Conversation hearts are when they are nice and damp), and when there are a bunch of little packets, it's much more difficult to eat all the colors except orange first and then leave all the orange for last. Not to mention about 1/3 of the candy as the normal bag at the same price.
This is a major strike against Target. No person, or entity for that matter, is perfect, but this is certainly hersey in my book.
So I go to work, a bit miffed. Things are somewhat slow for the first hour or so. I put in some good time playing Super Mario 64 DS (stupid name) on my DS. Its the Super Mario 64 game from the N64 redone for the DS. I think they could have called it something different, but I guess Nintento isn't exactly winning too many wars nowadays. Then the calls begin. There weren't that many (except one at the end) that actually made me angry, but they were almost all really frustrating. It was a very stereotypical tech support day, and my only solace was from reading some BOFH and sharing my experiences with some of my Kinko's coworkers. As much as Rey complains about Kinko's (he's certainly not the only one, just the most drastic one), he even admitted that he wouldn't do tech support the way that I do.
It was just one of those days where nobody believed me, nobody wanted to actually go to their computer for me to walk them through something, and the best part was at least 3 calls I had today had the approach of "my email isn't working, why can't I receive email?!" I'm sure the neanderthal on the other end is envisioning me with my finger on a button that says "NO EMAIL FOR YOU!" with an evil grin on my face. All the while I envision someone... damnit I'm not a writer.... but inserts some witty term for some really stupid person here. The Email Nazi line was about as good as I get.
So, anyway, the way these people approach these things would be like calling a mechanic who has never met you before, never seen your car, nor knows what it is, and simply calling him and saying "my car won't start, tell me how to fix it over the phone." Then when you ask them to click with the left mouse button on the start menu and hover the little arrow over "All Programs" they tell you not to be so technical because they are illiterate, (no, they don't say computer illiterate, they really do just say illiterate) which is a whole funny, paradoxical statement unto itself.
from dictionary.com
il·lit·er·ate adj.
I.
1. Unable to read and write.
2. Having little or no formal education.
II.
1. Marked by inferiority to an expected standard of familiarity with language and literature.
2. Violating prescribed standards of speech or writing.
Grrr. I think I am a very patient person. And I am totally comfortable with dealing with someone who is truly ignorent of computers, as long as they are somewhat intelligent in general, and willing to work with me. In fact, I would much rather the person on the other end needs explicit instructions instead of jumping ahead of me.
The good news is this is not really the norm. Most days there are a handful of decent people, 1 or maybe 2 bad ones, and a decent amount of free time to surf the web. But days like this are certainly detrimental to my ability to deal with people.
I think to close I will give a link that I had to show someone yesterday. Alex is a friend of mine at work (and my fiancee's brother) and when someone we like to give a hard time asked him how to send a single fax to a number of people (broadcast faxing) he said that she could do it with the RTFM feature. It's a phrase I hold near and dear to my heart, but have never seen a really appropriate usage of it, and Alex's execution was superb.
Cheers.
2005/01/15
linky time
So I have a few today. The best one is here. The site is in Russian, but the pics are all you need. These are fish that the tsunami drug up. I don't know if these are things we already knew about and just rarely saw, or if these are all totally new species. They sure are strange looking.
I have a couple more, probably less serious ones.
A really portable computer
The perfect vehicle for droid harvesting on a desert planet with 2 suns
Now that's a mutha fukkin toaster!
I have a couple more, probably less serious ones.
A really portable computer
The perfect vehicle for droid harvesting on a desert planet with 2 suns
Now that's a mutha fukkin toaster!
2005/01/13
they just don't seem to get it
So I posted a couple of days ago on the new Mac Mini, and the possibilities it has. This won't be a suprise, but over the past 48 hours I've seen two different external PVR setups for Macs.
But I have also heard both in person and now in a CNET article the backlash. Anytime Apple puts out a new product, there is backlash. At least since the revolution that started with the original iMac. Steve Jobs really has his hand on the pulse of the market and knows what people want, but up until these two new products, he has stayed in the higher end. But after every release the media says the new stuff is crap, then a bunch sell. One of the biggest exceptions was the G4 cube, which probably had a decent amount of good media. It flopped. The reason was he marketed the Mac Mini to the high end crowd, and it didn't work. People who want to pay $2k for a computer system want the cheese-grater G5, not something small and hidden.
Anyway, here's the article:
linky
Basically they say that you can get a PC for cheaper when you consider that you have to buy a keyboard and mouse and monitor. They compare it to deals that already come with a monitor, and also the fact that almost any computer you buy at least comes with keyboard and mouse.
Thats the point though. I sold computers for a few years. At this point in the game, most people have a home PC. Said home PC has a monitor, and in many cases a USB keyboard and mouse, (the USB part WILL be an issue with this machine, I'm glad I dont' have to sell them for that reason). This person has also heard about the iPod, and may even own an iPod or a Mini (going forward the iPod Shuffle) and notices the quality involved in Apple products. They are elegant and work the way they should.
So this same person goes to Best Buy to get a new machine. They could spend a lot and get a new monitor with it, but all they really need is the computer (which they may refer to as the "modem," "CPU," "drive," "CD-Rom," or something worse.) They will see that if you buy a monitor and computer seperate it will cost $1000 and if they buy them together it will be $700-$800. So the package seems like a better deal.
Now with that in mind, they see an ad for the Mac Mini (they have to see the ad first, which is another place the Mini might fail). It's that cool Apple brand, and its $500. And its tiny. Nothing else is that cool when it comes to size. There will be copy-cat's very soon, but because Apple managed to keep the size of this sucker under wraps until it was released, they have a chance to take the market before the copy-cats come out. They won't have the headway they had with the first iMac because everyone is watching now, but it should be enough.
The article says that people looking for a package don't want to pay so much. The machine isn't a good deal for that situation. but for those people looking for a full package, there is the eMac. Its all in one for $800. The author of this article is obviously not aware of that machine.
I am, admittedly, a Mac fanboy. But not way out there, I'm actually more of an OSS fanboy, and I tend to view these market things from a more neutral point of view.
So, kinda repeating what I said before. There is a strong possibility for this thing to be major. Lots of blocks have to fall in place. I think Apple has the name, and the engineering, and the style needed on this thing. And so far the marketing is just right. But so far we have only had the release. Computers are like cars... unless you are paying attention to the industry, you only know what is out there when you are looking. If there is a big deal around the release, but little afterwards, when Aunt Tilley goes to upgrade her machine she won't remember that nifty looking tiny machine she saw in the paper back in January. Apple has been a niche product for a long time, and they didn't really need to market. When someone had an Apple, they replaced it with an Apple. The switchers campaign hardly worked, there wasn't a product like this to switch to. The iPod has had a wave of word of mouth marketing becuase of timing. Not becuase of the Apple marketing, but becuase of the "digital music revolution."
The Windows monopoly is at it's weakest right now. Apple and the OSS guys know this. They also know that the market for personal computers that sit in the office with a monitor and keyboard is about to crash. Somebody is going to make a few good guesses and come out on top, and I would be willing to say that all three sides have an even chance at this point.
It should be interesting. There will be a made for TV movie (like Pirates of Silicon Valley) one day about the second half of this decade.
But I have also heard both in person and now in a CNET article the backlash. Anytime Apple puts out a new product, there is backlash. At least since the revolution that started with the original iMac. Steve Jobs really has his hand on the pulse of the market and knows what people want, but up until these two new products, he has stayed in the higher end. But after every release the media says the new stuff is crap, then a bunch sell. One of the biggest exceptions was the G4 cube, which probably had a decent amount of good media. It flopped. The reason was he marketed the Mac Mini to the high end crowd, and it didn't work. People who want to pay $2k for a computer system want the cheese-grater G5, not something small and hidden.
Anyway, here's the article:
linky
Basically they say that you can get a PC for cheaper when you consider that you have to buy a keyboard and mouse and monitor. They compare it to deals that already come with a monitor, and also the fact that almost any computer you buy at least comes with keyboard and mouse.
Thats the point though. I sold computers for a few years. At this point in the game, most people have a home PC. Said home PC has a monitor, and in many cases a USB keyboard and mouse, (the USB part WILL be an issue with this machine, I'm glad I dont' have to sell them for that reason). This person has also heard about the iPod, and may even own an iPod or a Mini (going forward the iPod Shuffle) and notices the quality involved in Apple products. They are elegant and work the way they should.
So this same person goes to Best Buy to get a new machine. They could spend a lot and get a new monitor with it, but all they really need is the computer (which they may refer to as the "modem," "CPU," "drive," "CD-Rom," or something worse.) They will see that if you buy a monitor and computer seperate it will cost $1000 and if they buy them together it will be $700-$800. So the package seems like a better deal.
Now with that in mind, they see an ad for the Mac Mini (they have to see the ad first, which is another place the Mini might fail). It's that cool Apple brand, and its $500. And its tiny. Nothing else is that cool when it comes to size. There will be copy-cat's very soon, but because Apple managed to keep the size of this sucker under wraps until it was released, they have a chance to take the market before the copy-cats come out. They won't have the headway they had with the first iMac because everyone is watching now, but it should be enough.
The article says that people looking for a package don't want to pay so much. The machine isn't a good deal for that situation. but for those people looking for a full package, there is the eMac. Its all in one for $800. The author of this article is obviously not aware of that machine.
I am, admittedly, a Mac fanboy. But not way out there, I'm actually more of an OSS fanboy, and I tend to view these market things from a more neutral point of view.
So, kinda repeating what I said before. There is a strong possibility for this thing to be major. Lots of blocks have to fall in place. I think Apple has the name, and the engineering, and the style needed on this thing. And so far the marketing is just right. But so far we have only had the release. Computers are like cars... unless you are paying attention to the industry, you only know what is out there when you are looking. If there is a big deal around the release, but little afterwards, when Aunt Tilley goes to upgrade her machine she won't remember that nifty looking tiny machine she saw in the paper back in January. Apple has been a niche product for a long time, and they didn't really need to market. When someone had an Apple, they replaced it with an Apple. The switchers campaign hardly worked, there wasn't a product like this to switch to. The iPod has had a wave of word of mouth marketing becuase of timing. Not becuase of the Apple marketing, but becuase of the "digital music revolution."
The Windows monopoly is at it's weakest right now. Apple and the OSS guys know this. They also know that the market for personal computers that sit in the office with a monitor and keyboard is about to crash. Somebody is going to make a few good guesses and come out on top, and I would be willing to say that all three sides have an even chance at this point.
It should be interesting. There will be a made for TV movie (like Pirates of Silicon Valley) one day about the second half of this decade.
2005/01/11
Stevie's keynote
Well, Apple may have done something big. Like as big as the first iMac. We're yet to see. They have not only finally released the long called for headless consumer Mac, but at the same time the first consumer mini-computer. There are a few on the market right now but they are either by unknown brands, or aimed at gamers or some other niche. The iMac mini is 6.5"x6.5"x2." And a whopping $499. And its not the lowest machine in their line up. There are certainly faster models, but this is enough power to hold its own. And the Superdrive (DVD writer) is available.
Why COULD this be as big of a deal as the original iMac, or even the original Macintosh. The biggest reason is that people are now really longing for a highly compact computer. PC's are becoming a commodity, and people are ready to buy a compact box that works for a few years, then throw it away. The mini-pc thing is really taking off at this time, and this is certainly one of the smallest. Also people have been begging for a more affordable mac for a long time. Lots of people have a keyboard and monitor, so they don't want to pay for new stuff. This lets the PC users that enjoy their iPod go out and drop less they would on a comperable wintel machine.
But there's a lurking killer app here, and ties to the whole PC's as a commodity thing. MS knows this already. The next big thing (TM) is the media center PC. If someone puts out the proper outboard tv-tuner/PVR software combo, this thing could take off. I think even without that it will help apple increase market share, and will push the entire industry to small form factor the way the iMac pushed the whole industry from boring beige boxes.
We'll see...
Why COULD this be as big of a deal as the original iMac, or even the original Macintosh. The biggest reason is that people are now really longing for a highly compact computer. PC's are becoming a commodity, and people are ready to buy a compact box that works for a few years, then throw it away. The mini-pc thing is really taking off at this time, and this is certainly one of the smallest. Also people have been begging for a more affordable mac for a long time. Lots of people have a keyboard and monitor, so they don't want to pay for new stuff. This lets the PC users that enjoy their iPod go out and drop less they would on a comperable wintel machine.
But there's a lurking killer app here, and ties to the whole PC's as a commodity thing. MS knows this already. The next big thing (TM) is the media center PC. If someone puts out the proper outboard tv-tuner/PVR software combo, this thing could take off. I think even without that it will help apple increase market share, and will push the entire industry to small form factor the way the iMac pushed the whole industry from boring beige boxes.
We'll see...
2005/01/10
stuff
well, its now 2005. quite scary for me to think that 1995, which seems like some sort of dividing line to me, was 10 years ago. if i went to college full time, i would have been the class of 2005. its all somewhat crazy. and, at this point katy and i have begun to plan to get married this year.
my brother kyle on the other hand, got married in 2004. since my last post as a matter of fact. he got married a couple of days after christmas. i don't even remember what day. i found out after the fact. and his (now) wife is with child. I should be an uncle sometime in August.
Macworld kicks off tomorrow. The current expectations for Stevie's keynote is an iPod flash (something about a radio is probably in the works) and a new iPod theme
(Life is Random.) There should be a sub-$500 headless Mac also.
CES was last week, there was nothing in particular of intrest, but engadget has plenty of coverage.
And I should be kicking off a diet on Wed, hopefully leading to better wedding pictures ;)
my brother kyle on the other hand, got married in 2004. since my last post as a matter of fact. he got married a couple of days after christmas. i don't even remember what day. i found out after the fact. and his (now) wife is with child. I should be an uncle sometime in August.
Macworld kicks off tomorrow. The current expectations for Stevie's keynote is an iPod flash (something about a radio is probably in the works) and a new iPod theme
(Life is Random.) There should be a sub-$500 headless Mac also.
CES was last week, there was nothing in particular of intrest, but engadget has plenty of coverage.
And I should be kicking off a diet on Wed, hopefully leading to better wedding pictures ;)
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