waiting for the light to come back

My new camera showed up earlier this week. Unfortunately it's always dark after I get back from work so I haven't been able to get out and play with it yet. I have tried it out a little though. It feels cheaper than I thought, which is pretty lame for the king of the A-series. Also I'm used to my old camera's manual flash open so I have to get used to autoflash again. It also has face detection, and was smart enough to work on an episode of Top Gear.

the stone gods did not make a sound

I randomly pulled up Top Gear's Africa special. Apart from the scenery I am amazed at how they were able to keep their heaps of junk moving every time they broke down. I know the presenters probably had car people with them but someone there was able to get them working again, and I admire that. It's also interesting how the cars evolve over time to adapt to whatever challenge they are taking on...at least two of them do.

I've been playing with the iPod touch for a few days, and unfortunately it doesn't work at work. There isn't a suitable WiFi network. Which I suppose makes sense, but it's no fun. So it's a funny thing. A cell phone, for example, is a cell phone 99% of the time because you can get a signal pretty much anywhere in the area. But with the iPod I am dependent on whatever WiFi signal I can get so half the time it's an amazing WiFi gadget and half the time it's just an over-designed iPod.

rss

It looks like Craigslist changed something about how they organize cars and it screwed up my RSS feeds, so now I have to go update all 9 of them.

On Friday I decided to clean up the Wikipedia entry for the Genesis Coupe. I didn't think it was that bad but I edited every section, then reorganized the whole thing, and the more I look the more there is to edit. It was just kind of thrown together.

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.

and in a moment i am gone

I am trying to load into my GPS the critical places for my friend's wedding in San Diego. It isn't going well. He is getting married on a beach - apparently beaches don't have addresses. I found coordinates on one website but they must have botched it because I put it six miles out in the Pacific.

My new headphones are too good for work. I can't hear a damn thing with them in. I will save those for the plane and break out the backup pair I also got.

when this is through

I've had my projector set up for my Xbox for a while now. My DVD player is also hooked up but I've never been able to use the upconvert feature. I primarily use component video but the player refused to upconvert except for HDMI, and the correct adapter doesn't seem to exist. I gradually pieced it together with DVI as an intermiediary, but it turned out one of my DVI cables had two more pins than the other so I had to get another adapter. I finally got that and hooked everything up...and it doesn't work. It turns out my DVD player is riddled with copyright protection and refuses to engage the HDMI port unless it gets a handshake from an equally paranoid TV. So now I have to see if I can find an upconvert DVD player without copyright protection.

Traffic was surprisingly stupid today. Going through town I hit every red light except for the ones where I actually wanted to stop - say, to take a picture of the V8 Vantage going the other way. Some cyclist decided it would be a good idea to cut across a busy road instead of waiting for a gap, and I got stuck behind a van with a bumper sticker saying 'SLOW DOWN'. Nobody seemed to know what lane they needed to be in either.

I went to Fry's this weekend for new headphones because my old foldable ones fell apart. I decided to go for the in-ear type, the kind usually blamed for causing hearing damage. I normally hate that type, but that is because I've only tried the hard plastic ones - all the decent sets have silicone padding. Surprisingly, the pair I got has a better frequency response than my old headphones, and since it's in-ear all that sound is pumped directly into my head. I can barely hear myself with them in. It's kind of a pain to get them both in correctly, which isn't helped by the fact that my hearing is very slightly asymmetric. There is still the problem of how to store the damn things without them getting tangled.

adventures in upgrading

I finally decided to upgrade from Office 2000. I considered the possibility of buying Office legit, until I saw the $500 price tage for the standalone version. So it's back to piracy then. I got a copy of Office 2007, but it had slipped my mind that Microsoft got the bright idea of changing everything that isn't broken. So I've now acquired a copy of Office 2003, which I use and tolerate at work, as it should be a happy compromise between obsolescent and newfangled. This also gives me access to Access, which should help me with various geeky databasing projects.

I also got my GPS and printer working on Gauss; pretty much the only thing left to change over is the pain of letting iTunes wipe my iPod and resync everything fresh.

superleggera

I saw this Gallardo Superleggera this morning, and was fortunately stuck at the light long enough to pull out my cell phone and take this crappy picture. Getting the picture transferred was another matter, as Verizon forbids it...fortunately I finally had some luck with the hack software. Bite me, Verizon.

On top of that, the Swiss suppliers visiting at work brought Toblerones (probably from the airport), we had Olive Garden catered for lunch, and it was payday. I think I'm going to suffer for everything tomorrow.

grown up in slow motion

I have been reading The Codebreakers, a huge tome on cryptology. I'm still in the old-timey stuff, although there are a couple ideas I haven't heard of before for the basic substitutions. I just got through the general solution to polyalphabetic ciphers, which was interesting.

Now that Gauss is up and running, I installed a couple games that Freeman really stuggled with and Gauss blows them away. That's what I was hoping for.

I've had the radar detector for over a month now. So far it has been totally useless. 99% of what I pick up has been grocery stores, and the two radar signs I've run across caught me off guard. If anything I have been driving more restrained because of the thing - I don't trust it and don't want to be caught off guard, whereas before I was blissfully unaware.

The weather here is back to cool and rainy - so much for the springtime euphoria.

i pray the wrecking ball is waning

I finally got Gauss to work. All it took was a mutant XP install disc combining my original XP CD, Service Pack 2 and some extra SATA drivers.

but our ship's not coming back

Gauss has turned into the worst project in the world. Let's review the disasters to date:

Intel are assholes and sit around not releasing the new 45nm CPUs, causing an eight month delay in the start of the project. When project starts, the desired case has gone out of production and has to be special ordered from Buy.com. Buy.com fails and does not actually have the case. Case has to be ordered again from Frys.com.

On the big day of assembly, motherboard turns out to be DOA. Motherboard is RMA'd to Newegg.com, who has run out of that type of motherboard. Have to go to Fry's and buy some other random motherboard. New motherboard works, but Windows XP does not recognize SATA drives.

Got internal floppy drive to hold SATA drivers. Windows XP setup says press F6 to load drivers but does not load USB keyboard drivers until after that. Rummaged up USB-PS/2 converter. Still cannot press F6. Got into menu. $28 floppy drive does not work. Tried flipping the power. $28 floppy drive fried.

XP setup also will not recognize more than 128GB of SATA drives. The solution is apparently an SP2 CD, which I do not have, and requires something called slipstreaming to merge an XP install disk with SP2.

I am never building a computer again.

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.

i've got to stop it somehow

I spent my weekend playing my new game on the old computer and trying to fix the new computer, which is the opposite of what I wanted to happen. I can't turn my pile of computer parts into a computer. I think it is the motherboard, or maybe I just want it to be the motherboard. I am going to RMA it to Newegg which means at least a week of delay.

she sang a short tune

More Camaro spy shots this morning, although the most entertaining thing was a burn in the comments:

"White Camaro has 1.8 liter four cylinder with no turbo (RS model), and the black one has a turbo charged 2.0 EcoTech (known as the SS "Maximum Bob special edition"). Neither can put over 200 hp on a chassis dyno."

However, the new pics do show pillarless windows. That's something. It looks like they also fixed the ugly tail light chrome on the black model.

Also seems like Newegg has already sold out of Q9450. I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled for when the Q9550 hits.

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.

yorkfield

I am tired of waiting and waiting for Intel to get its act together about the new processors, so I went to Newegg and bought everything else I need. It's some fairly serious firepower, with the exception of the $85 stand-in CPU.

metox

I bought a radar detector this weekend. This is not so much out of expectation of immediate benefits so much as learning the capabilities and idiosyncracies of the device for my next car, which will surely be a much better target for those who may not appreciate my exuberant driving style.

The CPU I want for my new PC is allegedly released, although I still don't see it anywhere. It also seems the case I was looking at is going out of production. I will probably have to throw out all my research and look at the newest parts and that sounds like way more of a pain than I want to get into right now.

My automotive dark horse has surfaced again - it is apparently being officially revealed in New York this week.

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.