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About
My Infrequently Updated Blog. The web-based journal of M. Forde, computer nerd, endurance athlete, and DeLorean owner
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An Awesome Christmas Present
I waited until to today to verify that it wasn't just a random
occurrence. I checked again this morning and it was the same as
yesterday.
I gave myself one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received. It
took me about nine months to accomplish it, but I gave myself a new
body, and more positive perspective on life.
As of yesterday, I have lost 101 pounds (45.8Kg for those of you who
prefer the metric system) and over nine inches (22.86 cm) from my
waistline.
A friend of mine told me tonight that, her doctor had told her recently
that people can live much better lives, with fewer ailments, if they
just made simple life changes. She said that having watched me over the
last year transform my body, my mind, and my life, she found me to be a
good model for positive changes people can make in their lives. As much
as hitting the century mark meant to me, her words meant even more.
I've been thinking about this for a while and I think I'm going to
become a motivational speaker. I want to help people change their lives
for the better.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Season's Greetings
To my Democrat friends:
Please accept (with no obligation, implied or implicit) best wishes for
an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress,
non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice
holiday,practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious
persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with
respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of
others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions
at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling
and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally
accepted calendar year 2009, with due respect for the calendars of
choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make
America great (This is not to imply that America is necessarily greater
than any other country, nor that America is the only country in the
Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age,
physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By
accepting these greetings, you are accepting these terms. This greeting
is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable
with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by
the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for himself, herself,
or others. This greeting is void where prohibited by law and is
revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted
to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for
a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday
greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement
of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the
wisher.
To my Republican friends:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
[/musings]
[permanent link]
A Strange Encounter
Yesterday morning at work I was walking back to my cubical from the
cafeteria with a bottle of water in my hand and a woman from another
department stopped me in the corridor.
She said (roughly), "I've seen you over the last few months and you've
lost a lot of weight and I just wanted to tell you you look great."
To which I replied (roughly), "Thank you," and I smiled.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
It's snowing!
Okay, it's not snowing right now, but it was earlier. I took some
vacation time and cut out of work early today. I spent an hour and a
half driving 11 miles home. By time I got home the snow was already 3 to
4 inches deep and still coming down.
So what did I do? I put on my normal cold weather running gear, put on
sweat pants and a sweat shirt over that, and took off running.
After the first mile, I was a lot warmer than I thought I'd be. There
was a big difference between running today at 28F and running last week
at 20F. I took off the sweat shirt and continued running. Along the way
I got a lot of strange looks from people shoveling their driveways, but
I suppose that is to be expected.
I ran about 6K and while it wasn't my best run, it was good fun.
[/running]
[permanent link]
Coding Soundtrack
Two albums that are great for background music while coding:
- The Matrix Soundtrack
- Spawn: The Album
The industrial/metal/techno mix on these two just fades into the
background. The music is repetitive enough to not require direct
attention, but not so repetitive that it draws attention to itself.
If anyone has any other good suggestions for background music while
coding, I'd love to hear them.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Running...
On Saturday I ran in the Beavertown 5K Fall Classic. The run took place
in near my home, so I ran the two miles to the registration
location. About a half hour after I signed in, the 5K started. Once I
finished, I ran the I ran the (roughly) two and a half miles back home.
I did much better than in my previous 5K runs this year. I took almost
12 and half minutes off my time from the Lincoln Tunnel 5K, and over 4
minutes from my previous best.
I think a lot of the improvement in the shorter distances can be
attributed to the fact that I've been training on longer distances
lately. In the past two months I've been running about eight to ten
miles each day.
A few weeks ago I ran my first half marathon distance. About 10 days ago
I ran 20 miles, and took 15 minutes off my time in the half marathon. I
promptly fell apart after that and my pace slowed dramatically.
Yesterday I attempted another 20 miles and did not fall apart completely
after the first 13. I made it to the 15 mile mark before I had any
problems. I managed to finish the run and take a half hour off my
previous time.
[/running]
[permanent link]
BSD v. GPL
Jason Dixon gave a talk at this year's NYCBSDCon entitled "BSD v. GPL
(a.k.a. not the sequel to "BSD is Dying")." It's a humorous look at the
differences between the licenses and their supporters. Despite the
humor, he made some good points.
You can find a copy of the presentation at The Dixon Group
website.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
camaraderie
Over the past few weeks, I've been running longer loops than I used to.
While out and about on these loops, I often come across other runners.
There are a few who I see frequently, and others I see not quite as
often. Some have obviously been running for quite a long time while
others seem to be just starting out.
One thing I've noticed is that almost all of these people will wave to
other runners as they pass each other. It's like when two motorcycles
pass each other on the highway, or when a corvette driver sees another
on the road.
There's a feeling on camaraderie; a feeling that, despite having never
spoken to any of these people, we share a bond.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Mailman
The other night I installed mailman on my server. I integrated it into the
apache configuration and restarted that. The mailman web interface became
available as expected.
I used the web interface to subscribe to the one list I had set up and I
received an email asking me to confirm my subscription. I went to the
included link, and all seemed to be good.
Another person joined the list successfully, then sent an email to the list.
This email never arrived in her inbox. She told me about it, and I checked
only to find I did not have a copy either. I sent a mail to the list and
promptly received a message saying that [listname] was not a valid recipient
at the domain.
That's when I realized I had forgotten to tell the mail server (postfix) about
mailman. I had told apache about mailman, and mailman about postfix, but not
postfix about mailman.
I used mailman to create an alias database for its single list, then updated
postfix's configuration to use that as one of its alias maps. All seems to be
working now.
In conclusion, I learned two things. One is always test your configuration
before telling people it's ready. The other is, "I'm an idiot."
[/unix]
[permanent link]
Writing
"You need strong emotion, whether it's fiery or depressed, an extreme
state of mind. I think in any art form it's the case."
-- Daniel Ash
Maybe it's my lack of experience. Maybe it's my lack of talent.
I tried to sit down and write music for the song known as Ravage in the
new naming scheme, but I failed miserably. When I try to force it, like
I did tonight, nothing comes out right. I have ideas, I can hear them in
my head, but without that inspiration, without that emotion, nothing I
produce sounds right.
I've been too happy recently and it's destroyed my creativity. I get the
urge, I have the inspiration, to write when I feel negative emotions. I
need anger; I need depression. It is in dealing with these emotions that
I am able to write.
I have tried several times to force myself to feel this way. This
usually buys me a few minutes in which I can write, but it often fails.
Because the emotions are artificial, the results are mediocre at best.
I find this situation to be quite frustrating. I want to move forward
with this album, but without that inspiration I am unable to do
anything.
In the meantime, I'm slowly teaching myself to play guitar and, to a
much lesser extent, a keyboard-style synthesizer. I've also been going
through materials my music teacher friend gave me to learn some basic
music theory. Hopefully once I find that needed inspiration, or find a
way to work without being angry or depressed, this new knowledge will
make things easier.
[/album]
[permanent link]
NIN
On August 27th, I attended the Nine Inch Nails concert in East
Rutherford, NJ held at the arena. I think I enjoyed it.
I ordered a pair of tickets through nin.com during the presale. Tickets
went on sale at 5:00PM, I managed to get through by 5:05 and ended up
with two tickets for Section 121, Row 8, opting not to purchase floor
seats. I went with a friend with whom I've attended a number of
concerts, including the Bauhaus/NIN show at PNC Arts Center in 2006.
As per the terms of the nin.com presale, we had to pick up the tickets
at the venue. Because of this fact, and the massive amount of pointless
and unnecessary construction at the Meadowlands, we decided it would be
best to get there early.
My friend took the night off from work and I picked him up at his
apartment after I got out of work. We grabbed a quick meal at a nearby
Wendy's (which I'm still paying for...) and then headed over to the
arena.
We arrived around 5:30PM, about two hours before the show. We asked one
of the security staff if the box office was open because we had tickets
waiting at Will Call. He informed us that the box office opened several
hours prior and we could pick up our tickets.
We headed toward the box office and found a long line. We waited for a
few minutes and noticed that the line had not moved at all. Figuring
that a line for Will Call would be moving slightly faster than
not-at-all, I went to investigate while my friend saved our place in
line.
After a short walk I found another line marked by a sign reading
"NIN.COM PRESALE TICKET HOLDERS." I asked the event staff member near
the line if that was the line to pick up the tickets. He explained the
procedure to me.
I went and got my friend from the other line and explained to him what
the staff had just told me. He then waited outside while I walked into
the box office, passing event staff who asked if I was picking up the
presale tickets. Inside, another staff member indicated I could pick up
the tickets on line 13 or 14. I picked up the tickets, went back outside
and we got on line. The staff member who had explained the procedure to
me came over to us, checked our tickets, and gave us wrist bands.
A little while later, just before the gates were set to open, another
staff member came down the line checking people's tickets. He looked at
ours, cut off our wrist bands, and told us to skip the line and enter
the arena through the box office lobby. It seems people with lower
section tickets were let in while people with General Admission floor
tickets remained on the line.
Once inside the door, we waited on another line for about 30 seconds to
have our tickets scanned for entry into the arena. On the other side of
the turnstile, an escalator brought us up to the main floor. We walked
around realizing we came in almost directly opposite our section. We
stopped at one of the entry ways to have a look at the stage. The staff
member at the entry asked to see our tickets. We told him we were on the
other side but just wanted to take a quick look at the stage. He had no
problem with this. I asked him if he new what time the opening act would
be start and he replied, "7:30." I then asked if he knew what time Nine
Inch Nails would go on. He took a piece of paper from his pocket,
unfolded it, then said, "They'll be on from 8:40 to 10:55." I thanked
him and we moved on. We found our section and went down to our seats.
It turns out that row 8 is actually row 3. We were at the level of the
stage and about a hundred feet away. We were angled enough to have a
view of almost the entire stage (the lights on the stage right we facing
away from us).
After that we then decided to walk around for a while since we had quite
a while until the openers started.
I stopped and purchased an overpriced souvenir t-shirt at one of the
merchandise stands. I should have gotten it a size smaller than I did.
I'm still not used to not being overweight. We stopped at a concession
stand and payed way too much for water, then did a few more laps around
the arena. Finally we went back to our seats.
At 7:30 the opening act, Does it Offend You, Yeah?, took the stage. They
were pretty good. I enjoyed their music despite having heard only one
song prior to that evening. It was hard to hear their vocals because the
gain on the microphones seemed to be a lot lower than it should have
been, especially while they were playing. They thanked the crowd for not
booing. When the announced that their next song would be their last for
the evening, people cheered. The guitarist quickly replied, "Thank you
to all the people who cheered because they like us."
I was fairly impressed by their set and wish it had been a little bit
longer, maybe another song or two.
At 8:45 Nine Inch Nails took the stage as 999,999 played. As soon as it
ended, 1,000,000 started. The continued with a few more songs from The
Slip. After Discipline, the band tore into March of the Pigs. The crowd
exploded.
The band made extensive use of three screens, which could be raised and
lowered, throughout the night. During The Warning and Vessel, the
screen to the front of the stage obscured most of the stage as the
instruments used for the almost-acoustic Ghosts set were set up. Justin
Meldal-Johnsen played a bass violin during the Ghosts set, which
included a new rendition of Piggy.
After that part of the evening's set, the front screen was used again to
hide the stage as the instruments were removed during the next song,
which featured an animation set to the music and live video of Trent
Reznor being processed on-the-fly to distort his image. I think the only
way to describe the processed video is to say it looked like white noise
in the shape of a person's face.
At the end of that song the screen turned completely blue. As Pinion
played, the screen's lights were turned off in a rather unique way until
the screen did little to obscure the band. The screen was raised quickly
as the band tore into Wish, followed quickly by the classic Terrible Lie.
The entire 31 song set, including the five song obligatory encore was
about 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was an amazing show. The set
highlighted the musical ability and range of the performers and featured
songs from all of NIN's major releases. The visual element of the show
was well thought out and very well executed, adding to the music rather
than distracting from it.
I took a few pictures using the low-res camera built into my phone.
There is one of the stage, the foremost screen, and Trent
during Hurt.
Setlist:
- 999,999
- 1,000,000
- Letting You
- Discipline
- March of the Pigs
- Head Down
- The Frail
- Reptile
- Closer
- Gave Up
- The Warning
- Vessel
- 5 Ghosts I
- 17 Ghosts II
- 19 Ghosts III
- Ghosts Piggy
- The Greater Good
- Pinion
- Wish
- Terrible Lie
- Survivalism
- The Big Come Down
- 31 Ghosts IV
- Only
- The Hand That Feeds
- Head Like a Hole
- Encore -
- Echoplex
- God Given
- The Good Soldier
- Hurt
- In This Twilight
[/musings]
[permanent link]
JTHM
There's nothing terribly wrong with feeling lost, so long as that
feeling precedes some plan on your part to actually do something about
it. Too often a person grows complacent with their disillusionment,
perpetually wearing their "discomfort" like a favorite shirt. I can't
say that I'm very pleased with where my life is just now... But I can't
help but look forward to where it's going.
-- Jhonen Vasquez, "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut"
[/musings]
[permanent link]
The DNC Hates Unix Users Pt 2
Looking through this script,
it appears that DNC is relying on Microsoft's Silverlight plugin.
Currently, this browser plugin is supported for a limited selection of
browsers on a limited selection of operating systems. A relatively
complete list of supported platforms can be found here.
Knowing full well how limited the support for this technology, the DNC
still decided this was the best solution.
I hope the RNC will use technologies that are more cross-platform than
this. Currently the video available at their site is based on Flash.
While Flash support is a bit shaky outside of Windows and Mac OS, it is
supported in Unix.
[/politics]
[permanent link]
The DNC Hates Unix Users
Just confirming the Slashdot story
(http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/25/229210.shtml):
We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following:
Compatible operating systems:
Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5).
Compatible browsers:
Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works.
My User Agent string is currently "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US;
rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070527 Firefox/2.0.0.3"
So not only does the Vice Presidential nominee want to expand the powers
of the DMCA, the entire party wants to prevent Unix users from obtaining
information.
[/politics]
[permanent link]
FreeBSD 7 SATA Weirdness
Over the weekend I installed the x86-64 build of FreeBSD 7 on my
workstation, dib. I haven't had time yet to configure everything to my
liking yet, but almost everything works.
The one really annoying issue centers around a SATA DVD burner. When
this device is attached to the primary SATA controller (ICH7), the
system refuses to boot from the hard drive. It reports that no system
disk has been found. I've tried all of the SATA settings options in the
BIOS and none work.
If I connect the SATA burner to the secondary Marvell "RAID" controller
the system boots from the hard drive without issue. In Windows, this
requires another driver (which for some reason installed a copy of
apache along with it). Under FreeBSD 7; however, this second controller
seems to be currently unsupported, leaving me with only the IDE burner
available.
I may spend the $20 and get another IDE burner and just forget about the
SATA issue, but I really would like to know what the problem is. If any
one has any idea why the system would fail to boot from a SATA hard
drive when a SATA optical drive is attached, please email me and give me
some insight into this issue.
Maybe the Unix category wasn't the best for this. I spent more time
discussing the hardware/BIOS weirdness than the installation or
configuration of FreeBSD7. In fact, FreeBSD 7 isn't a very good title
for this either. I'm going to change that.
[/unix]
[permanent link]
A little less evil
Another posting on Slashdot
reports that YouTube (owned by Google) contacted the IOC concerning the
take down notice recently filed. After being contacted, the IOC backed
down. YouTube (owned by Google) restored the video.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Don't be evil?
There's a story over on slashdot
about the International Olympic Committee demanding YouTube (owned by
Google) remove a video of a Free Tibet protest. Of course YouTube (owned
by Google) removed the video immediately.
The video of the protest was filmed in New York, because the protest was
in New York near the Chinese Consulate. Last time I checked, which
granted was a while ago, New York was in the United States. Also the
last time I checked, we had the right to free speech in this country.
Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm just dumb. To me, this sounds like the IOC
and Google denying the protesters their freedom of speech.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Cuban Pete's
Last night I went to dinner with some friends. After debating for a
while, we finally decided on Cuban Pete's on Bloomfield Ave. in
Montclair.
We arrived and the restaurant was a little crowded, but the three of us
were seated in the outdoor dining area rather quickly. The weather at
the time was nice, with clear skies and a comfortable temperature in the
mid- to upper-seventies; beautiful Autumn weather.
We looked over the menus and made our decisions and then waited. And
waited. And waited a little more. Eventually our waiter, Miguel, came
over to the table and took our order. My one friend attempted to order
the breaded steak. Miguel quickly said, "You don't want that. It's not
very good." My friend took his advise and ordered something else
instead. After Miguel took our order he quickly came back with our
drinks.
We then waited. And waited. And waited some more. After about 25
minutes, the tapas we had ordered as appetizers finally came out. We
split orders of chicken empanadas, beef empanadas, fish fritatas, and
goat cheese fritters. All of these were quite tasty in my opinion and
only to make us hungrier. At this point we had arrived at the restaurant
a little over an hour prior.
As we waited for our entrees, the sun set and the air became rather cold
for August. Eventually our food arrived. We were all very hungry at this
point and starting to run short on time as well.
The food was all quite good. One
friend had a Cuban burger made from beef and pork served with potato
sticks. He said he liked the burger a lot, but the roll left a lot to be
desired. My other friend and I both ordered the marinated skirt steak.
The steaks were served with rice, black beans, and fried plantains. All
of the side dishes were good. I was less than thrilled with the
plantains, but then again, I've never really liked plantains. My friend
liked her plantains even less than I did. The steak
was quite good and the best I've had in a very long time; however, it
was the first steak I've had in several months.
As we were finishing our meals, it began to rain. Apparently some clouds
rolled in as the sun was setting. We quickly finished the last few bites
and we ran inside. We got our bill from Miguel, paid, and headed back to
the car while the rain was still just a drizzle.
Overall, I enjoyed the evening. The food was good. Miguel was friendly.
The service was a little slow. We were there for a good two hours, an
hour and a half of that waiting for our meals. On yelp.com there's more details of other
people's experiences at Cuban Pete's; a lot of them more opinionated
than mine. Some people loved it, others hated it. I thought it was okay.
I'd like to go there again, when I have three or four hours to sit and
wait for food. I've heard good things about the paella there and I'd
like to try it.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Revision Control
One could argue that this should be filed under the Unix category, but
this post is more about the album than it is about the Concurrent
Versions System.
Friday night I created a CVS repository on this server to manage album
related files. After discussing it with rskutins, we agreed on several
key points.
First, with changes being made a little more frequently than before, it
would be best to have some way to track what was going on, and to be
able to roll back to a previous version if the changes don't quite work
out. Second, we wanted to have a way to organize several files for each
song, for instance, lyrics, notes, bass tabs, drum tabs, etc. Last, and
maybe the most important reason for the reorganization, we wanted to
move away from the numbering scheme that was in place. Each song was
numbered from 0 to 17. This was fine until we realized 11 was likely to
be the first track on the album.
Now the album is stored in a CVS repository. This will keep a version
history of each file, allow us to simultaneously work on parts of the
album, and merge our changes.
Within this repository we now have a tree structure where each song has
its own directory. The directory will hold any and all files related to
that song. In an effort to move away from the numbering scheme, an
arbitrary naming convention was mutually agreed upon. The songs are now
known by names such as Soundwave, Ravage, Frenzy, and Rumble.
The album is starting to come together. I feel motivated to work on it
and recently I've found myself inspired to write. Now if only I had
time.
Omlette listened to the Accidental Mix I posted (of the song now known
as Soundwave) and gave me some feedback.
It sounded ominous. I don't know how else to describe it since I'm not
familiar w/ either artist. Oh wait. Were you mixing your own stuff?
Ominous seems like it could be a good thing given the current direction
of the album.
If anyone else takes the time to listen to it, I'd appreciate any
comments or suggestions. If you don't have it, my contact information is
on this page.
[/album]
[permanent link]
Another Demo Update
Two weeks! Ha! It's been closer to two months.
A few days ago I had some time so I sat down with the ProTools set up
again. After considering some advice from jlight, I decided to record a
second track of the bass line. I decided to use my Yamaha for the second
track, as I had used my Fender for the original recording back in June.
The two instruments have different characteristics in their sounds and
the two playing together seems to add a "fullness" to the sound.
So all I had to do was record 24 seconds of bass and put together a mix.
This should take, what, 15 minutes? It took 45 just to record. Once
again ProTools repeatedly crashed. When it wasn't crashing, it would
report an error and stop recording. Does anyone know if there are
updates for ProTools LE 7.1 that will fix this issue? As it stands now,
I can't run ProTools for more than a few seconds without disabling
multi-core support on my CPU. I have multiple processors. It is a
multi-threaded application. It should run better... But I'll save this
for that upcoming ProTools rant I keep promising.
Anyway, after about an hour and fifteen minutes, I got two mixes
complete. One of them was accidental and sounds, "interesting." The
other is closer to what I had in mind. While I wait for feedback on the
actual mix from certain people, everyone is free to enjoy the accidental
mix found here.
If anyone actually listens to it, I'd be happy to accept any comments
and criticism.
[/album]
[permanent link]
CS115
A number of years ago, Stephen Bloom taught CS115 at Stevens Institute
of Technology. Any one familiar with his teaching style is well aware
of how "animated" he can be in class. In this particular course, one
student made some recordings of the lectures.
Copies circulated around campus, but over time these recordings became
harder to find. In an effort to preserve a piece of history, I present
to you The Bloom
MP3s.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Yet Another Charity 5K
On August 4th I will be participating in Hoboken's 17th Annual 5K
Run/Walk Against Crime & Drugs.
Some police officers told me about the run on Tuesday after I finished
the Party With Purpose run. They said the money raised would be donated
to various Veterans' organizations.
This run in August will be the same course as this week's, a map of
which can be found here. I
enjoyed the course. It was rather flat (especially compared to the
Lincoln Tunnel Run) and there was a nice breeze coming off the Hudson.
I urge any and all of you who will be in the area to participate in the
event. More information can be found at Active.com.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
5K Run for Charity
I have entered a 5K run sponsored by Party With Purpose. The run is
tonight in Hoboken and all donations are going to the Hoboken Boys and
Girls Club.
Registration starts at 5:30PM and the run begins at 7:00PM on Pier A.
For more information, including info about making donations, please
visit www.partywithpurpose.org.
Thank you.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Happy Birthday
Friday night was the Birthday Massacre/Mindless Self Indulgence show.
Due to various circumstances and events, my friends and I made it to
the venue just in time to see the last 3 minutes of TBM's set.
I made an attempt to see The Birthday Massacre last August in new York
but that attempt failed due to prior commitments. So for two years in a
row I tried to see them, and for two years in a row I failed. Sorta.
After seeing the last 3 minutes of the set and being very disappointed, I went
over to the merchandise booth to buy a souvenir T-shirt. My friend James joined
me and we, mostly James because of his gregarious nature, started a
conversation with the guy at the counter, whose name was Zimmy. We told him
what had happened and asked if there was any chance of catching the band as
their equipment was being packed up.
He told us their gear had already be packed, but if we hung out after the show
they'd be coming out to meet the fans. So we hung out after the show.
After the crowd dissipated, we went back into the venue's main room. Sure
enough, several members of The Birthday Massacre were standing around, signing
autographs, and talking to the fans. James and I went up to O-En first. He was
very friendly and talked with us for ten or fifteen minutes. I told him about
missing the show two years running and he gave me his sympathies and thanked me
for trying to get to the shows. I asked him if he had any idea when they'd be
in the area again and he gave me a general idea of when to expect them to be
back. He was nice enough to sign my copy of Violet and let us take a
photograph.
Next we went over and talked with Chibi. She was also very friendly although we
didn't speak to her for quite as long as we did O-En. She signed Violet
and took a photo with me and thanked us for coming to see them, even though we
missed the set.
The last member of the band I got to see was Rainbow. Like O-En and Chibi, he
too was very friendly. We talked to him for several minutes and I collected
another autograph and photo.
All three of them were very friendly with every one and they all seemed to
genuinely care about their fans. I had heard from some one who had met them
before that they were some of the nicest people you could ever meet. O-En,
Chibi, and Rainbow confirmed that on Friday night. Now that I've met them, I
can't wait for the next opportunity to finally catch their set.
Not that anyone really cares, but these are the photos James took. If you view
the full version, be warned that I'm in the photos too.
[/tbm]
[permanent link]
Happy Birthday
Friday night was the Birthday Massacre/Mindless Self Indulgence show.
Due to various circumstances and events, my friends and I made it to
the venue just in time to see the last 3 minutes of TBM's set.
I made an attempt to see The Birthday Massacre last August in new York
but that attempt failed due to prior commitments. So for two years in a
row I tried to see them, and for two years in a row I failed. Sorta.
After seeing the last 3 minutes of the set and being very disappointed, I went
over to the merchandise booth to buy a souvenir T-shirt. My friend James joined
me and we, mostly James because of his gregarious nature, started a
conversation with the guy at the counter, whose name was Zimmy. We told him
what had happened and asked if there was any chance of catching the band as
their equipment was being packed up.
He told us their gear had already be packed, but if we hung out after the show
they'd be coming out to meet the fans. So we hung out after the show.
After the crowd dissipated, we went back into the venue's main room. Sure
enough, several members of The Birthday Massacre were standing around, signing
autographs, and talking to the fans. James and I went up to O-En first. He was
very friendly and talked with us for ten or fifteen minutes. I told him about
missing the show two years running and he gave me his sympathies and thanked me
for trying to get to the shows. I asked him if he had any idea when they'd be
in the area again and he gave me a general idea of when to expect them to be
back. He was nice enough to sign my copy of Violet and let us take a
photograph.
Next we went over and talked with Chibi. She was also very friendly although we
didn't speak to her for quite as long as we did O-En. She signed Violet
and took a photo with me and thanked us for coming to see them, even though we
missed the set.
The last member of the band I got to see was Rainbow. Like O-En and Chibi, he
too was very friendly. We talked to him for several minutes and I collected
another autograph and photo.
All three of them were very friendly with every one and they all seemed to
genuinely care about their fans. I had heard from some one who had met them
before that they were some of the nicest people you could ever meet. O-En,
Chibi, and Rainbow confirmed that on Friday night. Now that I've met them, I
can't wait for the next opportunity to finally catch their set.
Not that anyone really cares, but these are the photos James took. If you view
the full version, be warned that I'm in the photos too.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Demo -- Update
Rskutins recorded his drum part and sent it to me via the wonders of
TCP/IP netowrking. On Friday night I finally had enough time (and
motivation) to start recording.
I spent a lot of time fighting with ProTools. It repeatedly crashed.
Often, when it didn't crash, it simply stopped recording and reported
that an error had occurred. I'm remembering this for the ProTools rant
that will be coming in the future.
After 45 minutes I had recorded about 6 seconds of vocals and the 24
second bass line. The next block of Copious Free Time(TM) I have, I'll
begin the rough mix of the three parts. Hopefully ProTools won't crash
as often during that phase.
With any luck, it'll be mixed in the next week or two.
[/album]
[permanent link]
Demo
In the next few weeks we are going to attempt to record and roughly mix
a demo of a short track which will serve as an introduction to the
album.
Currently known as 11, it is a very short piece in 4/4 time at
80bpm. It is in the key of B minor and the spoken words are taken from a
quote attributed to Nietzsche.
What upsets me is not that you lied to me,
but that from now on I can no longer believe you.
This short demo will hopefully get me motivated enough to put more time
into the album.
More information will be posted when it becomes available.
[/album]
[permanent link]
A Brief History
Last Summer, my friend, rskutins, and I decided we were going to write
an album. He got out his drum machine, being smaller and easier to store
and carry than a full kit, and I got out my bass and we started putting
together some pieces that were... not good.
We had little direction, I was afraid to play things outside of my
comfort zone, and we had some problems communicating. This project
quickly fell apart, but we never completely gave up the idea.
In March I found the inspiration I needed. I talked to rskutins and we
started working on an album again. This time, fueled by strong emotion,
both fiery and depressed, I started by writing lyrics.
Not all are complete, but there are about 15 sets of lyrics for us to
use as a starting point. Rskutins has tweaked the lyrics in some places
to make them fit a better rhythm while still maintaining the intent of
the words. I am quite pleased by what he has done.
Based on these lyrics we have begun writing short pieces here and there
when we feel inspired. Rskutins has laid down some pretty good beats to
start with. I've been attempting to learn some basic music theory and
trying to apply those ideas to the layers on top of what rskutins has
written already.
And that's where we are now. Still learning, still writing. Our day jobs
have slowed down our progress considerably so it could very well take
until the Autumn before we're ready to record and mix the album.
[/album]
[permanent link]
New Addiction
After many months of speaking with coworkers and friends, I gave in to peer
pressure and purchased an Nintendo DS. My decision was based on more than just
the games available, as I've considered myself to be only a casual gamer.
DSLinux has a set up for running
GNU/Linux on the DS hardware, which includes support for the touch screen and
the 802.11b wireless network. If it hasn't been done already, I'd like to port
the drivers and the on-screen keyboard application from Linux to
NetBSD and run that on the DS.
But before that happens, I'm going to have to complete the game I'm currently
playing. As a result of giving in to peer pressure, the first game I purchased
for the DS was Pokemon Pearl. It is very addictive. So far I've logged about 31
hours, obtained 7 of 8 gym badges, traded pokemon with and battled against
friends and coworkers.
I am eagerly awaiting the Nintendo event at Toys R Us at the end of the month
which will unlock Darkrai.
Yes, I am a loser. I never said I wasn't.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Best Buy Charges Customers for Exchanges
This weekend I witnessed a friend try to exchange an item at Best Buy.
He had mistakenly purchased the full-screen version and wanted to
exchange it for the wide-screen version. While he did not have his
receipt, it still had the Best Buy sticker on the shrink wrap as well as
the $19.99 price tag.
The signs on the shelf indicated that the wide-screen version was also
$19.99 and as of January 22, both versions are $19.99 on the
Best Buy website.
My friend waited online patiently for about 15 minutes to make his
exchange. He handed the Blue Shirt both the full-screen version he had
purchased and the wide-screen copy he picked up before going to the
customer service line. The Blue Shirt asked if he had paid cash or
credit and when my friend said credit, the Blue Shirt asked for his
card.
The Blue Shirt swiped the card and pushed a bunch of buttons then told
my friend he'd have to pay $5.35 ($5 plus 7% sales tax) due to a
"difference in price."
When we questioned this "difference in price" we were told, "Wide-screen
always costs more than full-screen."
I am boycotting Best Buy and I urge others to do the same. This company
has a long history of using underhanded tactics to increase
profitability at the expense of its employees and its customers.
[/musings]
[permanent link]
Google blocks browsers
Netmeister
has an interesting blurb about experience with Google blocking various
UserAgents.
From the posting:
For example, perl's LWP::UserAgent sets the agent string per default to
"libwww-perl/#.#". Google apparently doesn't like that and will not
return results to you. Setting it to something like "Mozilla/5.0 (X11;
U; NetBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3)" would work.
Interestingly, they appear to whitelist agents, rather than blacklisting
them.
What was that about not being evil?
[/musings]
[permanent link]
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