synergy or two

I decided to break out my geek skills on the Genesis Coupe website music. Using a Shockwave decompiler I was able to isolate the tracks, and I reintegrated them with ACID 5.0. Now I don't have to worry about what they are or losing them when the website gets updated. Still no news on when the car goes into production.

Continuing with the geek theme, I worked out that my policy of leaving fans on 24/7 means they represent about a quarter of all the power I use. I picked up some digital timers and now they will shut off while I'm at work and snap back on an hour before I get off work. Assuming people don't pull any more surprise 5:00 meetings. Like today.

style to spare

I just figured out what that song stuck in my head was! And no wonder it couldn't be found in my iTunes collection - it's from the website for the Genesis Coupe.

nothing to do but believe

I have a song stuck in my head. Just five notes of it, but it's driving me crazy. It seems like it's from a soundtrack. I thought it was Auto Rock by Mogwai but it isn't.

I'm taking a pass again on the '86 Firebird due to the dodgy brakes - me having to deal with it is one thing, but I don't want to put my friend (who will have to drive it first) in a bad position. Also that one is red. I don't want red. I found an '83 Camaro Z/28 but it doesn't have t-tops.

Of the two trainings I was scheduled for this morning, I opted for the one offsite, which apparently caused a great deal of trouble at work as everyone had forgotten about the other training. Process guy postulated that I may have crashed my car and then helpfully pitched in by eating my lunch for me. I had no opportunity for that though - traffic was slow and spread out enough to prevent any exuberance.

wreaking havoc on our world

I am trying to update my MP3 CDs. It's a pain so I never bother...the main CD hasn't been updated in six months, and the other one in 14. First I have to clean up my playlists because they did weird things when I transferred computers. Then I have to take out all the old garbage and make sure the new stuff is updated. Then I take out the stuff I listen to but not in the car, and then I take out all the stuff that would be embarrasing with passengers (most of the video game music). Then I hope what's left over kind of flows together.

It's also hard because it's been long enough that I can watch old Top Gear episodes again without feeling like I just watched them.

In other news I am keeping my eye on classified ads for 3rd gen F-Bodies. There's a stone gray Firebird in McMinnville...

a place out by the sun

More Camaro spy shots this morning, notably at the Nurburgring sporting red Brembo brake calipers - presumably the SS is undergoing some hardcore track testing. Apparently the Genesis coupe will also have Brembo brakes, but they are so big they will only fit on the 19" wheels and not the standard 18".

In other car news, there is a new BMW M3 ad out showing a combustion cycle with no CGI - it's pretty cool in itself, but I also really like the music. Unfortunately I think the ad is brand new so nobody has music info - if it isn't custom. The Genesis coupe's website also has music I really like but can't find.

every color goes where you do

My DOA motherboard just made it to Newegg on Friday, so I probably won't see a new one until next weekend.

I saw a new XJR convertible today. That's the first interesting thing I've spotted in a while, although I did see a Delorean at the grocery store a while ago. I would upload the picture I took, but it's on my unhacked Razr so I am still under Verizon's tyranny.

I was hoping to burn some new MP3 CDs for the Malibu today, but I never got around to it. I don't know how to fix my playlists so I always just stick with the same ones.

when you walk away

The case I wanted for the new computer is apparently out of production, so finding it was kind of tricky. I tried Buy.com, but they spent two days sitting on their asses before coming back and telling me they didn't actually have it. I tried the Fry's website and actually found it for cheaper, although I'm going to two day it so it will get here with the rest of my components.

Seems like Newegg FINALLY added one of the processors I am considering for the primary.

In other news, the shuffle feature on the new iPod sucks, as it constantly keeps picking songs from the same album instead of actually shuffling. I am also still in the phase where I am removing hundreds of songs out of shuffle altogether.

the runway lights are the deepest blue

Everybody at work is getting sick. There was something going around and then my boss brought something back from his trip to Oklahoma. I have managed to avoid it so far as I do a lot by email and I'm wearing a mask half the time anyway. It may have finally caught up to me though, as I have a bit of a sore throat. I don't want the Oklahoma Flu.

I recently bought Command & Conquer: The First Decade. I already own almost all of the compilation except for the expansion pack to Tiberian Sun, which I have just finished playing. I thought the compilation would just be 10 CDs, but they've actually packaged everything from the original to Zero Hour on one DVD, which is extremely convenient.

Buying that game was interesting. It cost $24.99, but the first time it came up on the debit card reader it said $24,990,000,000,000.00. I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a picture on my new cell phone. I told the cashier I wasn't feeling generous enough to pay off the national debt. The second attempt was $0.02, but I didn't get to keep that.

I've pretty much sorted out the artwork in my music collection, but I haven't really sorted the collection itself. I did just get the Ace Combat 6 soundtrack, which some blog had packaged with the Halo 3 soundtrack for some reason. As far as the new iPod goes, I got an acrylic case so the stupid edge that kind of annoys me is covered up altogether. The menus are still a bit laggy at times though.

it's just not enough when i'm awake

IPod Mk. II has given me a great new game to play. The cover flow feature has revealed an entirely new layer in which my music is not sorted, as my odd taste in music means a lot of albums don't have artwork. Now I have to chase down every album and make sure something is uploaded to the iPod. It is tedious and yet I find a fun aspect in it.

The other new game is called convert videos. That game is not so fun because it sucks up all my CPU runtime for extended periods of time. I am starting with Top Gear Series 10.

two points never separate

I had a decent weekend. It was Superbowl Sunday, so I made an impromptu purchase of a USB TV tuner...then remembered I get almost no TV reception at my place...and then I got bored with the Superbowl after the kickoff and did more interesting things. Like fixing the toilet. I also started working on my taxes but this is the first time I've done them myself so I have no idea what I'm doing. I bought some DVDs as well, so I watched the first disc of Futurama.

More work tomorrow. I have to remember my iPod - I forgot it on Friday and if I don't have it I can't focus on computer work. Right now I've got five songs on loop I could listen to forever. I'm also going to bring in my Master's diploma that finally showed up so I can make a copy for my cube. I was maybe supposed to show up for work on Saturday, but that was a vague assertion by people who aren't my bosses and the MRB team made a pact to not go in. We couldn't have made a substantial dent in our work anyway.

broken already

I've used last.fm for barely a day and it's already screwing up. It apparently doesn't understand the concept of soundtracks, so it says things like Solaris is a Latvian band. I also can't wait to see the charts when it learns I will pick a song and listen to it twenty times in a row while doing computer work.

(Update: I was listening to some Half-Life music and the Last.fm application told me that I was 'incorrect' in tagging it as Half-Life and I should 'do last.fm and myself a favor' and change the tag to whatever composer I've never heard of who wrote it. So I went on the wiki and told last.fm to bite me.)

I have a mere four days of work between now and Christmas break, but it's going to be hectic. The new networked manufacturing system is entering its validation phase which means I get to help test it on top of doing whatever it takes to make sure the line keeps running. I'm also apparently the only one who knows most of the new process to release material for shipment.

inspired and organic

I installed Last.fm. We'll see how long that lasts with everyone being able to see what weird music I listen to. Maybe someone will figure out where these titles come from.

don't know where we're goin

Sunday night finds me trying to track down a flute concerto. I've had an mp3 for a while called Bach - Flute Concerto in G which I like quite a bit despite generally not taking to classical music. I've managed to further identify this track as the second movement of the work, but now I am trying to figure out who recorded this version because apparently just any version isn't good enough to make me happy. So now I am on Amazon.com hitting all the preview buttons and checking track lengths in hopes of finding the one I'm after. For example this French guy speeds it up to a point where the track is 7:09, when the one I like is 8:50. Someone else is 6:30.

Another interesting point is that it's not Bach Bach as I thought, but his son Bach.

And of course Amazon.com sees me doing these searches for more than thirty seconds so it fills everything on my front page with classical music items.

The upside of this quest is that it distracts me from the Top Gear torrent, which is on track to be done well before I intend to go to bed. This week's episode looks awesome.

My neighbors left more free stuff in the lobby this weekend, where I scored a USB floppy drive. Technology has reached a point where floppy disks are a novelty. Now that nobody has a disk drive I should start sending disks to people.

a different kind of sunday morning

I think I may have finally figured out how to disable the bastard auto-update on Google Toolbar. There's no option to make it not replace my nice version with their horrible new one, so I had to get clever. I have been idling in the lair of the beast (toolbar.google.com) and it still hasn't auto-updated, so maybe I am in the clear.

I made an impulse buy today. I was in Staples trying to find new red pens because grading exams used up the last of my good ones, and in the laptop accessories section they had solar chargers. They have a MSRP of $100, Staples originally had them for $80, but they were on clearance for $19.80. Solar power + 75% discount is something I can't pass up. Unfortunately it's night right now so I can't play with it. The website has pictures of people using it in weird places, like "extreme ironing" in the Himalayas. Maybe mine won't be used for that, but hey, if civilization collapses and the power grid goes down I can still listen to my iPod.

I found out last week that the Atlas Shrugged movie(s?) is finally being pulled together. Angelina Jolie has been confimed as Dagny Taggart, I think she'd be perfect. Brad Pitt as John Galt I don't buy as much. I don't know who would be better though. Michael Gambon would make a pretty good Hugh Akston, and Harrison Ford would be a good Hank Rearden if he were younger...Anyway, we'll have to wait until 2008 to see. One of the articles I saw also said a remake of The Fountainhead might also be done. I've seen the original and I've been waiting for it to come out on DVD for years, which is finally about to happen.

The movie news has sparked my interest enough to make me finally get around to my annual reading of Atlas Shrugged. This is the 5th year now. I'm not going for the speed record this time - currently set at 4 days, but I swear it can be done in 3 given nothing to do and the stamina to break through The Speech on Day 3. This time around I'm taking my time and reading a couple chapters a day. That's more than I can afford time-wise anyway.

I've had a cold all week and it's annoying the hell out of me. dHealth/dt > 0 but it's not over yet. Cute Fred Meyer Girl was also sick. We commiserated with each other briefly and she gave me a Halls.

I acquired some mp3s of the new albums by BT and Hybrid. The BT tracks aren't that great, he's gotten a little too artsy. They are spacey and ambient and the shortest one is over eight minutes long (with the longest one topping 14). The Hybrid album doesn't seem to stand out at first, but it got under my skin and I can't stop listening to it. Today's post title is stolen from one of those songs.

1111111

It's Friday night and I am cruising an obscure corner of the internet. I have been searching high and low for the original score to the movie Pi. I have the album, which contains bits of the score and is great in itself, but the score is really very powerful and I'd like to get my hands on it. One problem - it's unreleased. However, in the composer's online forum he posted:

"It's the 10th anniversary of π next year and there have been some rumblings about what to do to mark such an event. Over the next month or so Tezzer and myself will be launching www.clintmansell.com and by that time a few plans should be in place - and the release of the π score is on the 'to do' list."

That would be awesome.

I saw Fearless tonight and I have to say it was stunning. I didn't come out of it feeling slightly let down like I did with Hero. Better than Fist of Legend I don't know, I have to let it sink in. And maybe see it a couple more times. Definitely a good movie for Jet Li to go out on.

take a deep breath and dive right into it

I made it to another weekend somehow. February finally died, thankfully. Only three more weeks left in the term. Apparently the PSM seminar for spring term has been scheduled for one of the worst possible time slots, so there's yet another minor PSM uprising in the works. It also sounded like my 3-credit business class for next term will be scheduled all on one night per week, so that's not entirely cool.

I put up reviews of Civilization IV and Black & White 2. It's very odd - those games seem to be diametric opposites of each other. The one game is exactly what the other is not. CivIV has a lean two CD's, while BW2 has an epic 4. CivIV has a novel for a manual, while BW2 has a pamphlet. CivIV has skirmishes and multiplayer modes but not single player story, while BW2 has - you guessed it - single player story but no skirmish or multiplayer. CivIV has ridiculously simplistic graphics, while BW2 causes biblically slow framerates with its rendered beauty.

Another update I intend to make is to compile all the quotes from my EM class. Dr. Stetz is very amusing. Those quotes are what make that class not a total waste so far, although we are finally getting in EM waves which I have been waiting two whole terms for and is the only thing I want out of EM.

Pandora actually scored a hit for me the other day. It's amazing at how Pandora can pick up on all the 'genes' of a song and yet usually completely misunderstands the feeling of the song. It did give me one new song that I've been listening to endlessly - 68 times so far, according to iTunes.

Speaking of new things, this webcomic is AWESOME.

no war no wrapped in plastic

I stopped trying to make up titles to posts that actually make sense. Now I'm just pulling random lines from songs I'm listening to. It seemed like the hip thing to do. Or maybe I'm just lazy and like confusing people.

Idiot Neighbor Boy was at it earlier today with his incessant pounding bass, so I went over and yelled at him. This time I didn't ask him to turn it down, I ordered him. It's much quieter now. Hopefully it sticks in his damned head this time.

So far my schedule is not too hectic, but the labs I TA haven't started up yet. I was assigned to a section that conflicted with my schedule and it took me two days to get it sorted out. I have to move my office hours though, which means I'll probably get stuck with some awful time slot. I wish this crap had been taken care of ahead of time instead of waiting until classes have started.

My classes. Quantum and E&M are off and running again like we didn't have a break. They're both pounding away at Lagrangian stuff I should have learned somewhere but didn't. It doesn't seem too bad to pick up though. It always amazes me when several independent classes get hooked on the same topic at the same time. At least I only have to learn one thing instead of two.

My philosophy class looks kind of interesting, although I want to go back and read up on Objectivist moral theory. I believe most of it, but I can't debate because I never remember the specifics. Also, I don't really care what other people believe anyway so there's no point in debate. I also do that Roark thing where I don't pay attention to people in the street. I'm always worried philosophy classes will turn all socialist. They were already throwing the word 'selfish' around in the first class today. I'm not looking for trouble, but I won't go quietly.

PSM seminar is going to make a pain of itself to start with, but then the whole second half of the term is making web pages. Hell, I could sleep through that. Just knowing how to get into my OSU FTP is like a million bonus points.

Speaking of websites, I added a couple game reviews to my much neglected MSU site.

The Nice Device released a song that's going to be on their new album. I can't wait until I can get my hands on that. They apparently have the final mixes in hand. I'll probably have to go to a show to buy it though. I really liked them the first time I saw them, but the second show wasn't quite as good. Part of it was just the sound. "Girls and tuning don't mix." -- Alicia Gbur, retuning after a couple songs.

I saw the Miami Vice trailer online. I thought it looked pretty good, until I stripped out the Linkin Park song they used, the fact that I played Vice City and the Ferrari 360. Then it looked awful. I have never actually seen Miami Vice, so I have no idea what the show was supposed to be like. Remember, 'Miami' spelled backwards is ' I Maim'.

My wireless keyboard shipped and should be here Thursday. Should be cool.

I'm a good chunk of the way into my latest book, Germany's Last Mission To Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234. It's an interesting piece of history, but sadly you might not realize that from the book. It is kind of tepid when talking directly about U-234, and it also has a tendency to go off and talk about the war as a whole and make some sweeping claims in passing when it should be talking about rogue Nazi submarines. The book's organization is a little odd too. My tome on cryptology that I am excited to read arrived yesterday from UPS with the rest of my stuff from home, so I might start chipping away at that after I finish the U-234 book.

i fail at sleeping

So it's like quarter to 4 AM and I'm still up. I had a plan to go to bed an hour earlier each night until I got rid of my jet lag, but it's not working. I keep getting distracted when I should go to bed. I've been reading a bunch of books lately like Slaughterhouse-Five, Flatland, Sphereland, lots of interesting stuff. Tonight I was watching a clip of Top Gear and got sucked in by one of the songs, so I hunted it down, found the entire album it came off of, and found some other albums while I was at it, and now it's 4 AM. Damn. The one song in particular I found is classical / electronica from a movie that is supposedly set in the 1800's or something, so it kind of has a steampunk edge to it as well which I like. I do have to say that Top Gear is a very good source of new music for me, my old sources have been dried up for a while and I was sad. Also, I found that a good way to find mp3's online is to do a Google search for "Index of /mp3", it pulls up a lot of random stuff.

I've also been playing Generals again. I beat all 36 missions from Generals and Zero Hour, which is intense when you do it all at once. I've gotten pretty good, even the really hard missions didn't go too badly. I still have every intention of playing FFVIII, except I don't have a memory card here and Final Fantasy with no mem card is asking for trouble.

Tomorrow I should work on finishing Christmas shopping. I have half of it done. Thursday night is the Hard Lessons / Nice Device concert, but I haven't gotten around to making those plans yet. But it's happening. Two weeks from today (technically) I go back to Oregon. Bleh.

There were a couple other things I wanted to note, but coherency is not my strong point at 4 AM.

Yeah, I think I should sleep now.

top five

None of you care, but it's getting posted anyway.

Top 5 most influential songs to me:

- Children by Robert Miles, first song I heard on the radio and went mad hunting down, leading to the first CD I ever bought.

- Enervate on Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport, first Oakenfold song I heard and not the last.

- Piledriver by Amoebaassassin

- Offshore by Chicane

- In The End by Linkin Park

preflight

So yeah. I'm flying back to Michigan tomorrow. I am packing now because I put it off until the last minute. I was going to be finished, except by packing my small suitcase inside my larger one (because I don't have a lot to take home) it was more than 50 lb. per bag, which is over their arbitrary limit. Now I have to treat them separately, and I don't have anything to put in the big one. I should fill it with weights. How do you like that, Southwest Airlines? Because of your nonsense limit, you have to do twice as much work.

I am looking forward to being home for the holidays, but not to the travel it requires. Seriously, I have to get up at 5:30 AM tomorrow - a killer for a semi-nocturnal person like me - and I won't get home until midnight. A whole day gone! At least I bought a new book that will keep me distracted - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, a major cyberpunk novel that I haven't gotten around to reading until now.

I think I forgot and slept through a biodiesel meeting this morning. Oops. I know I still have to do some website work for them, but it'll be easy when I get the time to sit down and do it. I am thinking about moving some of my volunteer time over to Solar Creek though, it's more in line with what I want to be doing.

Concert update: the planets have aligned or something, for The Hard Lessons and The Nice Device will be playing together on Dec. 22 in Ann Arbor. Expect me to be there.