Segmented Thoughts

The End of This Blog

2009-12-02T13:57:00.002-05:00

In an effort to consolidate my online accounts, I have moved this blog to http://ithinkiminthewrongroom.blogspot.com.

New Word!

2009-11-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks be to Ron for teaching me a new word:

soupçon

From Wiktionary.com

Alternative spellings

* soupcon

Etymology

From French soupçon
Pronunciation

* IPA: /supsɔ̃/ or /supsɔn/

Noun

Singular
soupçon

Plural
soupçons

soupçon (plural soupçons)

1. A very small amount; a hint; a trace

Borrowed words are awesome!

I just have to use it. Right now.

He indulges in a soupçon of epicaricacy.

Pow! I love it...

Blackberry Storm OS 5.0.0.328 : YOU BASTARDS!

2009-11-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

Can you tell that I'm upset? Just a little?

I updated my Blackberry Storm OS the other day to 5.0.0.328. A whole new version, it is. The whole experience has been terrible.

First of all, it took me four hours to do it. In my opinion, that is unacceptable. But the worst is yet to come.

My beloved calendar is broken. It is not fully compatible with the OS update. The agenda view is broken. It doesn't pull in tasks with due dates. It doesn't display all of my new appointments. It is basically useless to me now.

I looked into other free calendar apps and there are none. So I added my stuff to Google calendar and found a third party app to access it on my BB. Yeah...it doesn't work very well. I don't know anything about programming, but it seems that someone rigged up an app to read the calendar, but not use any sort of API.

Appointments I add through the app wouldn't save all the time. Other times, they did save, but wouldn't allow me to set the time of the appointment. Additionally, Google Tasks isn't integrated into it, like it is when I am at my computer.

I gave up and went back to using the Blackberry calendar app. I am using Google Sync though. I like being able to access my calendar on my computer.

Back to the OS problems. Once the install was done, I noticed that the Blackberry messenger was gone. Apparently, it is not compatible with the release, so it was removed. It is, however, compatible with it once it is installed. Whatever, I don't get it.

I says to myself, "OK, simple fix here. Just go to App World and download it."

It did not work. As it turns out, the incompatibility issue exists with this method as well. Eventually, I found out that I needed to go to Blackberry's website with my phone's browser and download it that way. I did this and finally achieved success.

The OS boasts an improvement in typing and menus. In my opinion, they are smoother, but not better. Things flow on the screen better, the menu is bouncier. But these aren't real improvements, just enhancements of animation. Meh.

Perhaps there are security and other improvements behind the scenes that I don't know about. Perhaps this is why they upgraded their version number to 5. If not, I can't explain why a whole new OS needed to be installed on my phone.

Where Did the Past Month Go?

2009-11-11T08:10:00.000-05:00

It has been one month since my last post here. Man oh man, time sure flies. I have a couple things to cover here.

First, I beat Call of Duty 3 on October 4. That was on easy mode. Naturally, I returned to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I completed the Thieves Guild missions and returned to COD3.

There is an achievement for completing the game on Veteran mode. I don't normally seek out achievements on any game, but I really wanted more time with the game. I made the attempt.

Epic Fail! I couldn't get through the first field and into the church. If you have never played the game, this is the first thing you have to do. It is not even an objective, just the place that you are supposed to head to first. It seemed like the most realistic war game I've ever played. Essentially, a German popped out from the edge of a doorway in the graveyard and fired his automatic rifle at me. I didn't have time to fire back, duck or anything. His aim was true and my character perished. This happened all over the graveyard outside the church, no matter what route I wished to take. I gave up.

So, I am playing on the second to hardest difficulty. There is no achievement for that, but I really don't care. I just want to play the game more. This difficulty setting is pretty hard. I routinely die several times in each mission before I get through. I am making progress and enjoying my time. I can do this. Really, it's a great game.

Moving on...

I watched Taken last night. Awesome movie! I haven't witnessed a movie this tense in a while. The last one that comes to mind at the moment was Children of Men.

What can I say? Liam Neeson is a badass. Plain and simple. I don't know if this movie would have worked with any other guy. It needed an aging badass. He fit the role perfectly.

My only complaints about it are (mini spoiler included, it's not much, but you've been warned):

1. It was too short. One hour and twenty five minutes. I wanted more!
2. There were some unexplained objects in his possession throughout the movie. Where did he get that forged police ID? Where did he get the medicine he gave to the girl he rescued? Sure, he was a CIA operative before he retired. I'm sure he has contacts all over the world that can get him stuff on the sly. However, he only had 96 hours to rescue his daughter. Stuff like that takes time. Whatever.

They are minor complaints. All in all, I give it... I dunno... Eleventy-seven stars.

Tweet.im

2009-10-11T12:07:00.000-04:00

I have two Twitter accounts. When at my computer, I use Tweetdeck. It can handle both of them. But there are no Blackberry apps that can handle more than one account. For my primary one, I use Yatca and Ubertwitter. I like to receive updates on my phone like emails. A count at the top accompanied by a notification sound. Yatca is awesome, but it is missing a few things. When I need those, I use Ubertwitter.

For my other account, I tried Tinytwitter. It kept crashing my phone.

Then I tried Twibble. It worked well for a while, but eventually stopped working. I couldn't open it anymore.

Then I went to Snaptu. This app is great! But there is notification involved. To access those tweets, I need to open Snaptu, then open the Twitter app.

I started to wonder if I could receive tweets via IM. It turns out that I can. I enabled Google Talk and used a service called Tweet.im. It bridges Twitter and my IM client.

Huzzah!

Call of Duty 3

2009-10-04T10:25:00.002-04:00

I beat Call of Duty 3 on easy mode last night. Great game! I recommend it to all. It was too short though, just like Halo 3.

I don't have Xbox Live Gold, so I don't play multi-player games online with others. I am guessing that the multi-player functionality of CoD3 is quite robust and because of this, they have to make the story mode shorter. This way it all fits on one disk.

I bought the Platinum Hits version of the game for $30. It only took me 8 days to complete. In single player, it has good replay value though. I may actually restart it on the next difficulty setting.

The Simpsons

2009-09-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

The Simpsons Season 20 premiered last night. I laughed a few times, but the golden age of the show is long over. I've been watching it for twenty years, so I'm not about to stop now.

However, I think that they should maybe end it after this season, before it's too late. I don't want the show to become pure crap. I want it to end with its dignity.

On the other hand, I've been watching it for twenty years. I can't imagine new shows not being made!

What a conundrum...

Call of Duty 3

2009-09-25T07:38:00.000-04:00

In the wake of the Halo 3 tragedy, I started Call of Duty 3, which is a WWII game. The way that WWII media goes for me is this: if it isn't a complete suck or impossible, I WILL like it.

So yeah, I love it. In one respect, I like it better than the last WWII game I played, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. It's because there are a lot more allies with me. It makes for bigger battles. However I really dug the dig in function of BiA:HH (did you see what I did there?). CoD3 doesn't have that. You just strafe in and out of cover.

Whatever.

I can't wait to get back to it. I think my boss should pay me to play it. I'll just tell her that France needs liberated and they need my help. That should get me out of work today.

A side thought:

I've never played Halo 1 or 2. I've never played Call of Duty 1 or 2. In both series, I've started with the threequels (I'm so clever!). I wonder if their predecessors were any good...

Spaghetti Tacos

2009-09-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

My daughter watches a show on Nickelodeon called iCarly. The main character's brother makes Spaghetti Tacos for dinner sometimes. I thought that it actually sounded like a good dinner, so I convinced my wife to make them.

My wife is a wonderful cook. In the twelve years we've been living together, she has only made two dinners that were truly horrible. They were experimental recipes and so I do not blame her for the disasters.

To start with, the brand new package of taco shells was stale. That doesn't help. Eating the taco as pictured above is actually quite difficult. Tacos aren't easy to begin with and the spaghetti significantly increases the difficulty. I ate two like this.

For the rest of them, I broke up the shells and mixed them in with spaghetti on my plate. This way, I'm still eating the food, just in an easier manner.

Conclusion: I give the recipe a B+. The corn shells were good, but didn't mix too well with the spaghetti. I suggested to my wife that next time we use soft taco shells. I imagine that would be a lot tastier and easier to eat as well.

Halo 3 Fail

2009-09-24T07:53:00.000-04:00

I gave up on Halo 3 last night. I am on the second to last battlefield of the game. So close to beating it! The other night, I completed a particularly difficult fight with a bunch of tanks versus me with a rifle. I then went to bed.

The next day, my save was gone. It took me back to where I was the day before that tank fight. So, two days ago, I fought my all the way back through to the area with the tank fight. I attempted it and lost. Then, I went to bed.

Yesterday, I tried again. I defeated the first one and then had trouble with the others. I thought about restarting the battlefield to try to end up with more support troops to help me out. I selected the SAVE AND EXIT option from the menu and then restarted the level. Things didn't go well, so I selected the RELOAD LAST SAVE option. This should have taken me back to the tank fight.

It did not. Instead, I was back at the begin of the battlefield. I said, "That's it. I'm done. Halo 3, it was fun while it lasted, but you're just screwing with me now. Goodbye."

Evidently, the game saves whenever it wants to, not when I want it to. I wish the instruction book described this. Instead, there is nothing...NOTHING...in there about saving the game. It's a shame because I was really enjoying the game. Oh, well...time to move on.

Voltaire's Blog

2009-09-22T08:18:00.000-04:00

Thanks be to Ron for the tip that Voltaire has a blog. It's rather new, so get in now!

Voltaire

Halo 3

2009-09-21T07:10:00.000-04:00

I got a lot done in Oblivion in the past month, so I moved on to Halo 3 this past Saturday. I love it. I don't do online multiplayer games, but the story mode is just awesome. Sure, my favorite games are RPGs, but FPSs come in second. There's lots of action, great graphics, inventive situations. Just superb.

It's also hard as hell. I'm playing on Normal mode, which is the second from the easiest mode. I spent 45 minutes on one little mission last night. Throughout the course of the fight, I lost all of my troops. There was just me vs an anti-aircraft tank. It wasn't easy, but I prevailed. It required a lot of patience.

Anyway, I'm really digging it, but once I've completed the main story in Normal mode, I'll be done and ready to give it back.

Opera Mini 5

2009-09-16T07:39:00.001-04:00

I received word that Opera Mini 5 is out. I went to the site and they have my phone pictured there running the app.

I have excitements!

I have a Blackberry Storm and the browser on it just sucks. I don't have a verdict on Opera Mini yet. I'll be sure to update when I do.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2009-09-14T07:20:00.000-04:00

...was my movie for last night. My verdict? It was awful. Just plain awful.

It was two hours and forty minutes of people looking at each other sadly or angrily. There was little dialogue. There were a couple gun fights, though they didn't last long. Oh, and there was a lot of riding horses.

Casey Affleck did well though as Robert Ford. Suitably creepy and such. Brad Pitt was a good Jesse James, I suppose. He is charismatic enough, but he didn't say enough to really get me into the character. He did enough to say to the audience, "Look at me, I'm kind of nuts and pretty scary."

Just read the previous two paragraphs and go do something better with your 160 minutes.

Jim Butler

2009-09-10T07:52:00.002-04:00

I've added two new podcasts to my list. Both are by Jim Butler:

Dark Ambient Podcast

and

Deep Energy Podcast

Today is 9

2009-09-09T10:00:00.003-04:00

Today is 9/9/09. I shall endeavor to examine this phenomenon and extract use(less) information about it. Let us begin.

9x9x9 = 729
7+2+9 = 18
1+8 = 9

Aha!

The word, September, has nine letters in it. Thus, it effectively replaces the numeric representation of the month by maintaining the use of '9.'

Ooh!

9+9+9 = 27
2+7 = 9

Aah!

According to Wikipedia, nothing of importance happened on this date in 1909.

Uhh...

9/9/09 is the 252nd day of the year. 2+5+2 = 9.

Oh really, now...

Here is an entry from Telegraph.co.uk:

9/9/09: Will the world end today?

Some doom-mongers are predicting the end of the world today...but, so far, they will have been greatly disappointed.

You should stop.

OK, I'm done now.

Wall-E

2009-09-06T09:27:00.002-04:00

I finally saw Wall-E last night. It was unexpectedly good. I've never had any intention of seeing it, but I'm glad that I did. I like action in my movies as much as the next guy. But Wall-E was a great example of how good a movie can be that doesn't have any violence in it.

Sure the captain wrestles with his steering wheel, but that isn't too much. It just goes to show that violence, even tame violence via Disney, isn't needed in movies.

Aahh...the conundrum of the American male. I think that violence is wrong and we would do well to avoid glorifying it and only present it in a horrifying manner. But what would our TV, movies and video games be without it? The conflict presented these media would be less dull. But perhaps that would foster more creativity in writing. Imagine a world where writers have to think of a way to challenge the audience, to challenge their characters without presenting violence in a glorified manner.

Sure, violence is a part of human nature. But I don't see why that can't be changed. I feel that this is the right way to proceed, but do I actually want it to happen? Let's file this one under hypocrisy and let it be. I need to move on. I've got some bandits to kill in my video games.

Nevertheless - An Update

2009-09-03T07:52:00.002-04:00

I mentioned Nevertheless the other day. I've looked online and can not find it. Last.fm doesn't have it. iTunes doesn't have it. Wikipedia makes no mention of it or the composer. I may have to locate a physical copy, perhaps through WQED's website.

Adagio for Strings

2009-09-03T07:41:00.003-04:00

I've loved this song, ever since I first heard it used in the movie Platoon. It was on the radio yesterday and I finally found out who composed it.

Samuel Barber - Adagio for Strings

Stocks

2009-09-02T07:17:00.002-04:00

I heard on the news this morning that in an Australian location of a certain worldwide company, there was an accident. A worker had been hurt/killed. I don't know the details. They were predicting the company's stocks would drop severely because of this.

It's a shame that someone was hurt or worse. I feel bad for them. I don't understand how that would affect the worth of a company's stocks though. Of course, there is no price that can be attached to a human life, but how does that make the company worth less?

I'm going to describe a hypothetical situation:

In a box factory, a worker suffers a heart attack and falls into a machine. He perishes. Suddenly, the box factory's products are less valuable? I would like to think that they wouldn't have little pieces of the guy in the boxes. Is the company less trustworthy to supply boxes to fulfill the world's need to box things up? Probably not.

All that I know for sure is that this world is needlessly complicated. I like those commercials where they show situations like firefighters running a town or a studio crew running a wedding. Things just get done and they get done quickly and efficiently. No fluff. No needless confusion or detail.

This is all just a dream. Things will only get more complicated as time goes by.

Nevertheless

2009-09-01T08:51:00.002-04:00

I was out driving last night, listening to our local classical music radio station. This song came on and it was just absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, being radio, I missed who it was composed by. All I knew is that it was from 1993. Ooh, contemporary classical, I thought. I need to find out what this is. I took note of the time and vowed to try to look it up today.

I have achieved success. It was Georgs Pelecis: Nevertheless (Concerto, violin, piano, strings); performed by Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie with Vadim Sacharov on piano and Gidon Kremer on violin.

I can perhaps purchase a CD from the radio station, but being an Interneter, I want to find a way to stream it or download it. I'll post a link if I find one. I don't have time to check right now.

New Book

2009-08-31T08:50:00.001-04:00

I started reading Benjamen Franklin, An American Life today. I've been looking forward to reading this for a while, but just picked it up this past weekend.

Crap! I'm dead!

2009-08-27T09:34:00.004-04:00

My friends and I were playing D&D last night. I play a cleric of Lathander in a Forgotten Realms campaign. Apparently, we reached a point of climax in the overall story and found ourselves in hell fighting a demon. My character invoked the name of his god and was slain by the demon.

The DM rolled for it during the fight. I could tell by looking at his face that something didn't turn out too well. He broke the news to the group. I was dead. In D&D 3E, you have Hit Points that work like they do in video games. You take damage and your score goes down. Once you reach zero, you are unconscious. From there, your HP go down by one point every round. This is you dying. Once you get to -10, you are dead.

My character was wounded, taken down to 3 HP. He healed himself and his score became 17. The next round, he was struck again and lost -27 HP. Just like that, I was dead. There were no ten rounds of panic, hoping that my friends could perform first aid and stop the bleeding. There was none of that. I was just...plain...dead.

Things got better, though. I won't go into it here because I already covered it in another blog.

Now, in gaming, character death is traumatic. I admit that I was distraught at hearing that Tambar Ghanvir had perished. However, it opens up the door to try out a new character race and class. After the game, I thought about what I would have chosen if my character were still dead. I'd probably go with a Paladin or a Thief. Those would be fun.

I don't normally play clerics. I am more of a wizard or sorcerer kind of guy. My group needed a healer though. I am involved with another campaign with the same group. In that game, I play a sorcerer. So in this game, I didn't mind the unique challenge that playing a cleric provides. I have to admit, I don't particularly care for it. Don't get me wrong, I love the game and will play any character just for a chance to game.

I think that I need to read up on religion in the Forgotten Realms. Perhaps I need to shift my way of thinking about it.

Sindarin vs. Quenya

2009-08-27T08:46:00.002-04:00

Geekdad published a post today entitled Top 10 Geekiest Constructed Languages. To this, I say, huzzah! Finally, ConLangs are getting some mainstream(ish) attention. Yay.

However, he writes of Sindarin:

While Tolkien created several languages for his various Lord of the Rings books, Sindarin, the language of the elves, is not only his most beautiful but also his most fully realized invented language. Typically, Tolkien and his language-nerd adherents have developed the tongue’s grammar and orthography to almost headache-inducing levels.

I must heartily disagree! He says that it is the most beautiful. That is clearly a subjective observation. Quenya is more beautiful, in my opinion. He claims that Sindarin is "his most fully realized invented language." Wrong! Quenya is much more fully realized. It has a larger lexicon. It has a complete syntax, which Sindarin lacks. Unfortunately, Tolkien's death halted work on Sindarin, otherwise I wouldn't be making this point.

Destroy Twitter

2009-08-25T11:50:00.002-04:00

I may have finally given up on Tweetdeck. I'm tired of it not updating regularly. Today, it kept flashing this sign in to Facebook box. I couldn't make it stop. I already had another client installed on my machine, so I closed Tweetdeck and fired up Destroy Twitter. So far, so good.

Vlingo

2009-08-24T08:53:00.002-04:00

I downloaded the Vlingo app for my Blackberry. It was free. It lets me command the phone with my voice. I can add tasks, memos, make calls, search the Internets and more. The paid version lets me send texts or emails. It costs $17.99, but it might be worth it. The app works surprisingly well with no training. I mean that I don't have to train the app to understand what I'm saying. It just knows. For things that it might be confused about, it will teach itself.

Home of the Brave

2009-08-24T07:49:00.003-04:00

Last night, I watched Home of the Brave. This was a mistake. It wasn't a bad movie, just not what I was expecting. At the movie store, I looked at the cover and thought it was something else. I don't know which movie I thought it was. I was expecting a shoot 'em up war movie. It was the other kind of war movie.

It was about four soldiers that served in Iraq and came home. The movie followed their lives after they came home. It was a good movie, but the characters had a very hard time adjusting. It was a drama and didn't quite have a happy ending.

Still...I'd recommend it. I got it from the $1 rack at the store. Don't spend more on it than that.

Wish for a Domain Name

2009-08-22T21:36:00.004-04:00

I decided that I want to register the domain http://pirates.arg. Don't try going to that site, it doesn't exist. According to Wikipedia, the top level domain .arg doesn't exist. The closest thing is a secondary domain for Argentina, .ar. The Pirates website wouldn't be hosted there, it would be here. Even if it was there, there is no tertiary top level domain .g. I guess I'm out of luck.

I'm filing this one under "thoughts I should have kept to myself."

Epicaricacy

2009-08-19T12:02:00.001-04:00

Epicaricacy - pleasure with other's misfortune

Just say it. Out loud. That is an awesome word!

Introduced to me by The Ragbag.

Further explored on Wikipedia.

Podcasts

2009-08-19T09:14:00.003-04:00

I've really been getting into podcasts lately. I've decided to keep a list of them here. In my opinion, these aren't just ok, they are GREAT. Please give them a try:

This American Life
Cartalk
Wait wait... Don't tell me
Buddhist Geeks
The Clockwork Cabaret
Role Playing Public Radio
Dark Ambient Podcast
Deep Energy Podcast

Hurricane Names

2009-08-17T09:06:00.002-04:00

I saw that the current hurricane that people are watching at the moment is named Bill. I thought to myself, "Hmm, Bill, eh? Sounds like a nice guy, not so much like a terrible kill-storm of doom. I wonder why they name hurricanes?"

So I trundled off to Wikipedia to find out.

It turns out that the reason is not all that interesting, even for a wordnerd.

Have a peaksy, if you care.

Dark Sun

2009-08-17T08:54:00.003-04:00

According to Geekdad, Wizards of the Coast is bringing back Dark Sun for D&D 4E in 2010.

This is both awesome and befuddling to me. It is awesome because I remember playing that setting back in the day. It came out in 1991 and we eagerly played it then. It was run by the best DM I've ever known and it was a lot of fun. I'd like to get a copy just to read it. My group plays 3E, so it wouldn't fit in without modification.

However, even run by the best DM, Dark Sun wasn't that great of a campaign setting. Perhaps it was the post-apocalyptic setting. Perhaps it was the strange restrictions on items (no metal) and magic (it is life draining). I'm not sure. It was a really long time ago. Honestly, I'd like to see them revive Planescape or Dragonlance more.

Kodu, Oblivion and Call of Duty 3

2009-08-16T08:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to Fable 2 after having completed it the other day. I did the last bit of new stuff that came with defeating the boss of the game. Then I thought about doing more missions. I started out on some stuff but quickly grew bored. What's the point? There is nothing to look forward to except making more money and buying ultra expensive properties. (Fairfax Castle = 1,000,000 gold. It just might be worth it, but it's not worth my time.)

So I downloaded a game I've been wanting to check out: Kodu Game Lab. It's an indie game of sorts. When I started it up, I got a nice warning from Microsoft saying that it wasn't officially tested or anything.

The game is about making a game. You start out with a blank globe and put land in it, sculpt hills, add water, trees, roads, walls, etc. You play as a character which seems to be limited to a floating thing. I haven't explored all of the characters yet.

You program the character and the game mechanics using a visual method. You can have a battle game, RPG (sort of), race and more. However I found playing through some samples to be pretty boring. This game is meant for all ages. I got it since I enjoy world creation activities. Aside from a few glitchy bits, it may be fun for that purpose only.

So...I may dabble in it here and there, but I'll be going back to Oblivion. Yay.

Regarding Call of Duty 3: I picked it up last night for playing after Oblivion. WWII. Normandy. Xbox. I should enjoy it as long as the game mechanics aren't too messed up. From what I understand, the CoD series is excellent.

Mr. Brooks

2009-08-16T08:34:00.002-04:00

The latest movie that I've born witness to was Mr. Brooks, which was very good. This was surprising because it starred Kevin Costner. He is a good actor, but in my experience, his movies are less than awesome. Anyway, I say go for it if you're interested in a dark dramaction movie.

The Shadow of the Torturer

2009-08-14T08:47:00.002-04:00

Alas! I have run out of new books to read. So I am rereading an excellent book by Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer. It is book one of four in a series. I highly recommend all four.

He also wrote a fifth book that is separate from the previous four. It is called The Urth of the New Sun. This one was not quite as good. I may give it another chance after I finish the first four. Perhaps I just didn't get it the first time. The story is pretty far out.

Fable 2

2009-08-14T08:43:00.002-04:00

I finished the main quest in Fable 2 last night. As I was warned, it was indeed rather anticlimactic. I plan on playing some more. Mostly to see what the world is like with the bad guy out of the way. I haven't finished everything there is in the game. I doubt that I will. I'm not the type of person that needs to obtain every achievement or get 100% completion of a game. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. That's just not my style.

Emergency

2009-08-13T08:51:00.001-04:00

I finished reading Emergency this morning. Unlike the past few movies I watched, I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

The World of Synnibarr

2009-08-13T08:48:00.003-04:00

I was listening to Role Playing Public Radio today. They often mention a game called The World of Synnibarr. I decided to look it up.

I went to the Wikipedia page and read the brief entry. My favorite part is this:

It is frequently criticized as being exceptionally poorly-designed.

No wonder. The stuff they mention on the podcast about the game is just crazy. The parts they read don't make any sense.

The New Album Format

2009-08-12T07:19:00.003-04:00

There has been talk going around about the major record labels selling a new file format (.CMX) starting in November. This format will essentially replace the album. You purchase the file from them and get MP3s, lyrics, videos, art, etc. From what I understand, they don't plan on pushing it very much. They are just going to put a few releases out in this format to test the waters.

Apple is working on their own version, called Cocktail that will directly compete with the major labels. Additionally, the .CMX file format will not be compatible with iPods. This whole thing sounds like a mess to me.

This all stems from the idea that the album as an organizing principle is dead. More and more, people are buying single songs online and not albums.

All of this got me thinking. Perhaps the album is a dying concept. But the major labels and Apple are right to attempt to resuscitate it. I feel that some sort of organizing principle is needed.

As a musician, I release albums that contain a theme. Sometimes, I can't get out what needs to be said in a single song. Thus a new theme album is born. All of the songs that I write that don't fit a theme, or tell a whole story from start to finish are released singly.

Another problem I have with the lack of an organizing principle is that songs won't be bundled together into one product anymore. If a new fan comes along and ten years of songs aren't bundled in any way, it will take them a long time to acquire that band's catalog. Is it worth it to spend so much time downloading it all, even if it's a free download? Probably not.

My solution to this issue is to release albums and single songs. After I have a good amount of single songs, I bundle them together into a compilation of sorts for ease of acquisition.

Ex-Nazi Officer Gets Life Sentence

2009-08-11T07:53:00.001-04:00

"A Munich court on Tuesday sentenced a 90-year-year-old former Nazi officer, Josef Scheungraber, to life in prison for murdering Italian civilians as a reprisal for the killing of two Nazi soldiers."

NYTimes.com

I'm Glad He is Out of Office

2009-08-10T08:18:00.003-04:00

The truth has come out! Former President Bush apparently started the the war in Iraq to fight against Satan's agents Gog and Magog.

If we supposedly won the war, does that mean that Gog and Magog were vanquished?

Anyway, I'm weirded out by the fact that an American President started a real war against supernatural foes.

Read more about it here.

Babel

2009-08-10T08:13:00.002-04:00

I watched Babel this past weekend. It is another movie that was pretty good, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone. I believe the whole point to the movie was, "look how stupid people can be."

Modern Elvish

2009-08-04T08:16:00.003-04:00

"Tengwar New Light and Tengwar New Bold

This project is a kind of playing with typography.

J.R.R. Tolkien created new race - Elves with their language, culture and stylish alphabet. But did you ever imagine that the Elves evolve to present time ? Would they have their own Helvetica ? How their „Hengwar” typeface would develop ?
I made two modern elvish „Tengwar” typfaces (Tengwar New Light and Tengwar New Bold)."

(via Behance Network)

Akai Professional APC40

2009-08-03T07:58:00.003-04:00

YAY!!! I FINALLY GOT ONE!!!

Here is a video of someone that already knows how to use it. I don't make this kind of music and I'm still learning to use it. It is kind of like playing an instrument, so it will take practice.

3:10 to Yuma

2009-08-03T07:55:00.002-04:00

I watched 3:10 to Yuma last night. It was pretty good. Actually, it was quite enjoyable. There were a few moments of Hollywood cliche, but they did not detract too much from the movie.

There Will Be Blood

2009-07-25T08:11:00.002-04:00

I watched There Will Be Blood last night. It was pretty good. I'm not sure that I would recommend it to anyone, though.

Emergency

2009-07-25T08:04:00.000-04:00

I started reading Emergency, by Neil Strauss today. It categorized as a memoir, but it seems to be less than a memoir and more of a story with a single theme.

Luck

2009-07-20T09:33:00.002-04:00

While driving home from Kennywood on Saturday, we lucky enough to see two things that are pretty rare.

We saw a rainbow. Not just a dinky little thing, but a full rainbow arcing across the sky. It was amazing.

Then a little bit later, we saw the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile parked in a hotel lot. Just amazing.

I said to my wife how lucky we were. She said that I should buy a scratch off lottery ticket. So that is what I did. I took $5 into the gas station and returned with three tickets. Two of them were losers, but the third yielded a win of $5!

I realized that though I won our money back on what we spent, all I succeeded in doing was creating a chore. Now, I have to take the ticket back to the gas station to get my cash. It would have been easier to just go home without buying any. Now if I won $6, I would have a profit.

Maybe not, I do have to pay for gas to drive there to redeem it. We should have just skipped it.

No Country For Old Men and Pineapple Express

2009-07-20T09:29:00.002-04:00

My wife and I watched these movies over the weekend. Actually, I watched them. She watched Pineapple Express and slept through most of No Country For Old Men. Not her fault though, she was very tired when I put it on.

Both movies were very good. I was especially surprised by Pineapple Express. If you can get past all of the pot smoking scenes, it is actually a really good and unique action movie. Granted, it is about pot, so I suppose they are necessary for character development.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to WWII

2009-07-19T09:40:00.000-04:00

I finished this book this morning. Great book, just great! If you want a simple, but complete, overview of the entirety of World War II, this book is the way to go. It even has a chronology at the end.

Blog Converter

2009-07-17T11:27:00.003-04:00

I was interested in moving a Wordpress.com blog over here to Blogger. I'm sure that many people will be wondering why. Simple: Blogger is free and they allow ads. Also, if I purchase a domain name, it's free to use it. Sure, I lose some functionality, but it's not that big of a deal.

Anyway, I downloaded the XML file from Wordpress and tried to upload it to Blogger. That's when (after a little research) that Blogger and Wordpress export files are not compatible. It was starting look like I was going to have to put each of my Wordpress posts into Blogger by hand. I was not particularly pleased. I decided to look into it a bit more.

I found out that the lovely folks at Google made three online apps to convert the files for you. You simply go to the website listed below and follow the instructions. I only tested the Wordpress to Blogger one. It worked.

Here are those links:

http://blogger2wordpress.appspot.com/
http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/
http://livejournal2blogger.appspot.com/

Enjoy!

Pandæmonium

2009-07-16T09:52:00.000-04:00

Pandæmonium is the capital of Hell in the epic poem Paradise Lost by the 17th century English poet John Milton.

“Pandæmonium” (American English “Pandemonium”) stems from Greek “παν”, meaning “all” or “every”, and “δαιμόνιον”, meaning “little spirit” or “little angel”, or, as Christians interpreted it, “little daemon”, and later, “demon” (thus roughly translated as “All Demons”); or it can be interpreted as Παν-δαιμον-ειον = “all-demon-place”. It is the name invented by John Milton for the capital of Hell, “the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers”, built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon at the end of Book I, Paradise Lost (1667). A comparison in meaning can be made with “pantheon”, which refers to all of the gods. Book II begins with the debate among the demons in the council-chamber of Pandæmonium. The demons built it in about an hour, but it far surpassed all human palaces or dwellings; it may have been small, though, since the demons are described as shrinking from their titanic size in order to fit in

via Pandæmonium (Paradise Lost) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Graham Crackers

2009-07-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was enjoying some graham crackers with milk. I wondered who this “Graham” person was. Let’s ask Wikipedia:

The graham cracker was developed in 1829 in Bound Brook, New Jersey, by Presbyterian minister Rev. Sylvester Graham.

Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!

2009-07-10T09:52:00.000-04:00

He would have been 153 years old today.

Tesla Fun Fact:

He invented a death ray. Yeah, a freaking death ray.

The Time

2009-07-08T12:34:00.000-04:00

The time is now

123456789

or

12:34:56 7/8/09

Harry Shearer's Many Voices

2009-07-08T09:53:00.000-04:00

The other day, @stephenfry said on Twitter that he ate lunch with or next to (I can’t remember) Harry Shearer. He mentioned that Mr. Shearer does many voices on The Simpsons. I decided to look him up to see which ones.

As it turns out, he does thirty-nine character voices on the show. Some are pretty minor or even one shots, but still. Thirty-nine distinct voices! That’s craziness.

You can see the list on Harry Shearer’s website.

Five Years Already?

2009-07-07T09:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, it’s true. Angel has been our dog for five years this month. In case you don’t recall the scant details, here they be:

She was born in 2000.

We adopted her from the Humane Society in July 2004. They had told us that she was taken to the shelter because the family had a child and Angel was not good with kids.

Bella was born in 2005 and proved them wrong. Angel is wonderful with kids. She is wonderful with everyone except for a handful of people, motorcyclists, bicyclists, squirrels, rabbits and Snowball.

That’s ok, though. It’s their loss.

Congrats on five years, Angel!!!

Fable 2

2009-07-03T13:13:00.000-04:00

Last night, I finished all of the Fighter’s Guild missions in Oblivion. So, tonight, I started playing Fable 2. Much fun!

Augmented Reality

2009-07-02T09:59:00.000-04:00

Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time. The term is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time[1].

At present, most AR research is concerned with the use of live video imagery which is digitally processed and “augmented” by the addition of computer-generated graphics. Advanced research includes the use of motion-tracking data, fiducial markers recognition using machine vision, and the construction of controlled environments containing any number of sensors and actuators.

via Augmented reality – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Marc Johns - Serious Drawings

2009-07-02T09:47:00.000-04:00

I received my Father’s Day gift in the mail yesterday. It was this book: Serious Drawings, by Marc Johns.

I’ve only just started looking through it, but I am rather pleased. Also, I ordered directly from Mr. Johns, so I got a signed copy with a little drawing in the front that he drew directly on the page.

I paid a lot for shipping ($15) but that’s because he mailed it from his local post office. In British Columbia, Canada. It was worth it, though.

My Cyborg Name

2009-07-02T09:46:00.000-04:00

Get Your Cyborg Name

Time Displacement

2009-07-01T09:59:00.000-04:00

Time displacement in sociology refers to the idea that new forms of activities may replace older ones. For example, Internet users may substitute time online for attention to functionally equivalent social and media activities (face to face interaction, watching television, reading printed media, etc.). Earlier, television had a similar effect, shifting people’s time from listening to radio or attending movie theaters to watching television in their homes. Those technologies have shown to lead to significant declines in out-of-home socializing, in-home conversation, housework, personal care activities, and even sleep.

via Time displacement – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Giovanni's Pizza

2009-06-24T09:49:00.000-04:00

Last night, we ordered some grub from Giovanni’s Pizza. I called in and the guy confirmed my address. Apparently, my phone number brings up my address in their system. Nice, saves me a step. No big deal, though. Other places do the same thing.

He said, “How was that seafood calzone last time?”

I was taken aback. How did he know what we ordered last time? We don’t order from them very often. My first thought was that he was some sort of wizard. But then common sense took over. Clearly, their system also maintains our order history. That is a neat bit of customer service.

…or it is a plot to monitor us. Perhaps Giovanni works for the PIA division of the CIA, PIA of course stands for Pizza Intelligence Agency.

The Judging Eye

2009-05-09T13:06:00.000-04:00

I finished The Judging Eye, by R. Scott Bakker, this morning. It was awful. Such a let down. It was missing everything that made The Prince of Nothing so awesome. All of the philosophy, religion, battle, magic and sex. All gone. I mean, there was a little bit, but not enough.

The Water Meter

2009-04-21T12:48:00.000-04:00

The water company replaced our water meter today. Apparently it’s been malfunctioning for a few months.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

2009-04-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

I beat Brothers in Arms last night. I’m going back to Oblivion now. Fighter's Guild, here I come!

Tires

2009-03-27T12:49:00.000-04:00

I just heard on Car Talk that AWD vehicles generally need all 4 tires replaced at the same time to maintain the same diameter to maintain the differential or some crap.

That sucks.

Video Games

2009-03-22T13:08:00.001-04:00

I received my Xbox 360 for Christmas 2008. I immediately started to play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Best. Game. Ever.

It seems to be never ending though, so I decided that I accomplish a set of missions in the game and then put it away. I don't want to get tired of it. I want to complete it.

So now, I am going to play Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. It is set in WWII era Europe, specifically mission within Operation Market Garden. This basically means that no matter how bad it is, I'm going to like it at least a little bit.