Saturday, October 11th, 2008
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12:23 PM - Beat n' Groove n' Freeze
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I just downloaded and tried out the Beat n' Groove demo. Now my XBox freezes during the autologin. WTF
Update: It corrupted the hard drive. Support says to ship them my hard drive at my cost and they send me a formatted hard drive a week later. :(
Update 2: I think I fixed it! The problem was during the login. If I hit 'X' to logout midway through the autologin, I was able access the hard drive. I turned auto-login off. Logging in sometimes caused a freeze after that, but that was better than always freezing. Anyway, I started deleting a bunch of stuff and I noticed that one of the demos had a long string of numbers for its name, so I'm hoping that everything is fixed now that it is deleted.
I called back support as a courtesy to tell them that I didn't need to send back the hard drive. Useless ESL guy. Yeah, I eventually hung up on them during the screeching guitars hold music.
Update 3: It's lucky that Beat n' Groove sucked as I'm not installing that again.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, October 4th, 2008
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7:52 PM - Canadian Debates
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Hey, does anyone know where I can find downloadable video of the two Canadian leadership debates? I tried watching the streaming video at ctv, but like all streaming video it is unwatchable buffering shit.
I planned to be smart about it and watch the english debate and download the Palin-Biden debate, but then we all started talking about Palin, so I ended up watching that instead.
Update: Got 'em.
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(6 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
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9:20 PM - What Can Brown Do To You
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3:19 PM - Uggh AC/DC
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The biggest annoyance with Rock Band 2 is that the AC/DC track keeps popping up. I don't get it. They are repetitive, boring, and repetitive. I have to nominate them as THE most overrated band in all of history. For Bruford's sake, add in a drum fill or something. Give me something to do rather than have to sit there bored hearing the same damn riff over and over again. I have nothing to do when I am playing it that I am left pondering with my utter dismay why people actually like them.
So no, I am not particularly excited about the new announcements and I won't be buying it.
Now, track packs from King Crimson, Yes, Doors, U2, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Frank Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Spock's Beard, Gong, Magma, Marillion, iQ, Porcupine Tree, and Flower Kings would be appreciated.
current music: Oceansize - Everyone into Position
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(4 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, September 26th, 2008
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9:52 PM - Grading
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Tonight was the brown belt grading.
It felt different than the other gradings. First off, we have to be blue belts for at least six months and there isn't more material than for the other belts, so I was a lot more prepared this time. There wasn't any real need for a lot of last minute cramming. Second, I helped out with the kids grading immediately before, so there wasn't really any opportunity to get anxious.
I assisted the kids' grading by reading out the basics, in English for the younger group (3 kids) and in Japanese for the older group (6 kids), and giving the count in Japanese. I was supposed to show them the moves as well, but I screwed that up twice, so they actually did better when I let them figure it out themselves. :) I also ran the sparring matches with the kids. I just starting doing that two weeks ago. That part went well.
For my own grading, the basics and group kata went fine. I don't know what I did for the second flying hands in shishoshin. I had a bad pause where I wondered what the hell I just did, where I was in the kata, and oh ya, I should carry on to the next move. I wasn't asked to do the kata a second time, so it couldn't have been that bad. Matsu Higa no Sai went really well. I added in some intensity and some of the parts I was concerned about (e.g., balancing on one foot) weren't issues.
The last bit was sparring. There was four of us in the adult grading and each of them fought once and I fought three times. After I fought the guy, Sensei decided that it would be more meaningful for the twin 15 year old girls to spar against a man as sparring against each other doesn't show him anything. That wasn't an issue for them. Actually, I was stepping back most of the time with one of the twins. (Hey, when I spar, I like to create a lot of space and then jump in for a combination.)
Overall, it went pretty well.
current music: Tricky - Knowle West Boy
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Monday, September 22nd, 2008
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7:12 PM - PILF? BHABILF? GRILF?
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I'm not sure if I mentioned the Hot Chick That Always Has A Gaggle Of Young Boys Ten Paces Behind Her or not. Well, she is pregnant and is now apparently gaggle-free. We can't say "And here comes the gaggle, in four, three, two..." whenever she walks into the room anymore.
I'm not sure why she lost the gaggle. Some might say that being pregnant is the height of unavailability, but to me it only proves that she puts out.
I called her a 'pre-MILF' today, but that doesn't seem like the right term. Maybe it is PILF (Prego...), AMILF (Almost Mother...), MTBILF (Mother To Be...), BHABILF (Baby Having A Baby...), STBMILF (Soon To Be Mother...), GRILF (Gaggle wRangler...), JILF (Juno...), HWSHHFATBMILF (Hopefully Will Still Have Her Figure After The Baby Mother...), or TGWPNTBTAABAWILF (Teenaged Girl Who Probably Needed To Be Taught About Abortion But Apparently Wasn't....) I'm not sure.
current music: Marillion - Hard Shoulder
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2008
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8:33 AM
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"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"
"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."
"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."
"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink." (Link)
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(3 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, September 19th, 2008
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9:45 AM - Picture Meme
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| Thursday, September 18th, 2008
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4:55 PM
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Dear Memeverse,
I can't "Take a picture of yourself right now" as lost my BlackBerry (w/ camera) somewhere today. Sorry.
Update: Found!
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Monday, September 15th, 2008
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1:54 PM
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1:37 PM - Too Human Numbers
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I mentioned before that I was interested to see how Too Human does well as I know people who work at Silicon Knights and if it did as well as they hoped, it could change the local programming scene.
Demo downloads: Over 900,000
Pre-orders: Over a million
Actual Sales in August: 168,201
Five-out-of-six canceled their pre-order? Ouch. Those numbers suck.
I liked the game. There are some frustrating bits, but overall I liked the game.
The two biggest annoyances for me was that 1) they explain how to play the game at the end of the first level and since I'm watching it on a TV, I can't read it and 2) I can't really read the weapons menu either and you have to go that menu all the time. Reading the game guide really helped me out with the first annoyance and an auto upgrade feature would really truly be helpful if they would add that. I expect that if they make a second and third game, it'll get rid of a lot of the kinks in the game. They got to start selling a hell of a lot more copies before they can think of releasing sequels though.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
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5:33 PM - My favourite quote about the LHC today
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| Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
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10:15 AM - Source Control
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Now that I have other people working on my projects, I want to use some sort of source/versioning/revision control integrated into Visual Studio to make it easier for the others to work on them at the same time as me. It'll only be another one or two people accessing them.
I'm playing with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe right now and I don't know if it'll work. I'm the only one working on the code now and it sometimes locks me out of editing files (!) and such.
Should I figure out SourceSafe, switch to something else (Team System, Subversion with AnkhSVN?), or skip versioning control all together? I'd specifically like to hear if anyone actually completed a project in Visual Studio using one.
current music: Marillion - Happiness Is The Road
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(4 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, September 7th, 2008
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6:55 PM - XBox Setup Pictures
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| Thursday, September 4th, 2008
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8:45 PM - Periodic Update
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I guess I should update.
Did I mention I joined a gym? The plan was to come in a half hour early by bus to go on the treadmill for 20 minutes each morning. It takes longer than 10 minutes to change twice and shower, so it gets me in late. I haven't quite got the timing right yet. I had a free hour of with a trainer, but she mercifully let me go after a half hour as my body obviously had enough. One interesting thing is that the owner had a lot of interesting things he would like to do with his BlackBerry.
I assist with the kids karate classes on Tuesday and I come in an hour early to practice alone and the have a class after the kids classes. Since I'm there 3.5 hours then, I have a hard time coming in other days. I probably should step it up if I'm grading at the end of the month.
I joined another self-help thingie. It's an occult one this time. I'll see how this one goes.
In Rock Band, I just finished Guitar on Medium. I'm two songs from finishing Expert on vocals and I'm 8 songs from finishing Hard on drums. I wanted to finish hard drums before Rock Band 2 came out, but I've kinda hit a wall. I have been leaving it alone and improving songs I've done and worked on the guitar and vocals solo careers in the meantime.
I die a lot in Too Human. I'm only on level three (3.4 I think) and I'm about to hit 100 deaths. I just picked up the Prima guidebook and already I'm doing better. I'm playing the 360 on a TV, so the text on the screen is almost readable but not quite. I bugged the guy from Silicon Knights I know for tips again tonight (Kill the Spiders first? Oh.)
I think I have 50/60 on the puzzles in Braid.
I haven't been listening to a lot of new music lately. It's been mostly Oceansize with some new Frost* and Magenta.
I've been at the College a bit lately. I met my student and they are still setting up the room beside my old office for us. All the monkeys are coming to me stressed out that they are going to be kicked out and I tell them that yes, they are gone and those who stay can't play games, make out in the dark, or be noisy. Deal with it. I might get a Web Developer student as well.
Two of my nieces are going to schools near our house, so they are going to be dropped off so one can walk to school and the other be picked up by the bus. They are also going to wait at the house for a few hours after school before being picked up. That'll change things around here. The joke is that this will get me into shape as I'll go to the gym after work now instead of coming straight home to the girls.
I picked up a few more scholarly books on the Bible this week. I also preordered the paperback version of God Is Not Great, so I'm finally reading that now.
current music: Oceansize - Effloresce
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, August 24th, 2008
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1:55 PM - Comedy Central Celebrity Roasts
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The Friar's Club had a slogan for their comedy roasts: "We only roasts those we love"
When Comedy Central broke off and starting making their own, they changed the slogan to: "We only roasts those media whores who are are so desperate to get on TV they actually agree to be on our roasts."
In their defense, getting famous, talented, or funny people to their events costs money.
Update: Oh, in looking up the link, I learned of a celebrity roast I hadn't heard of... Flavor Flav. *cough*
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, August 23rd, 2008
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1:04 PM - Who Wrote The Bible (or at least the first 13 books)
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I just finished reading Who Wrote The Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman. It was good book. I really find these popular scholarly books interesting.
Since we talked about about this before, I was interested to read about Friedman's opinions on whether Deuterontomy was a 'pious fraud' or not. ( Read more... )
Loose summary of authors with dates:( Read more... )
current music: iQ - The Lush Attic
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(Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
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9:32 AM - Rant of the hour
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Dear third-party app I'm supposed to use,
CSV files should have commas in them. XML files shouldn't have pretty much every tag be an invalid tag. I'm still not sure why these text email attachments are "application/octet-stream;", but I'll assume you have a valid reason for that one.
Thank you,
Jamie
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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8:42 AM - Too Human Release Event
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Guy in line: Wow. This is exciting. This is really exciting. I thought something like this would happen since you're local. This is exciting. Can I take a picture of all of you? I'd like to take a picture of all of you.
Denis: *Shrug* Sure. That's why we are here.
[None of the Silicon Knighters nor the Silicon Maiden moved as they were already in picture pose]
Guy in line: This is exciting. This is really exciting.
Silicon Maiden: You really need to get out more.
[Everyone laughs]
Guy in line: Let me just get out my camera. This is exciting.
Another guy in line: Yeah. Is it okay if I take a picture as well?
Denis: *Shrug* Yeah. Since everyone else was taking pictures, I took out my berry and snapped a few myself.
Got some swag. A Too Human bookbag, a Silicon Knights teeshirt, and a Silicon Knights pen. I also got two codes for those 5 armours you get for pre-ordering, but neither worked. They all signed my insert.
I wouldn't say it was exciting, as my line buddy did repeatedly, but it was a nice surprise to grab some free swag.
( Blurry Berry Pictures )
current music: Echolyn - The End Is Beautiful
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
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12:46 PM - Tons of Upcoming Programming Jobs in... St. Catharines?
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It's odd enough seeing St. Catharines (my hometown and where I live) being mentioned in the news, it's even stranger to have it talked about as a place that's going to need a lot of programmers.
He's an example from G4TV from Yesterday:Silicon Knights's upcoming action adventure title, Too Human, is set to hit retail shelves tomorrow. Not only will the game's potential success affect company president Denis Dyack's reputation, but it could also change the economy in the company's home at St. Catharines.
“If Too Human does what we expect it will, then it can change the world for St Catharines and Niagara,” said Dyack in an interview with The Standard. Dyack credited the video game industry as a "maturing" form of media, so if Baldur's adventures turns out to be a profitable hit, then it would allow Dyack to expand his company further around his surrounding area. "I've said this before. I want to see a campus here in Niagara dedicated to interactive information technology," said Dyack. (Link) He usually adds that they expect to go from 100 employees to something like 500.
I went to buy Too Human at lunch at Future Shop and it was "in transit", so I tried EB Games. They won't have it until 1pm, but they are having a bunch of people (including Mr. Dyack) at 4-6pm to sign the game and answer questions. (I've already bugged a Silicon Knighter at karate with a few questions.) There were still taking pre-orders, so I did that and I'll pick it up during the event.
I'm very curious to see how well the game does this week.
current music: Magenta - The Collection
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, August 17th, 2008
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10:41 AM - Season Two
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I watched the second season of How I Met Your Mother. I liken my interest in the show as to why I am interested in religion. It's not that I find the show funny or the Bible relevant to our lives, but it confuses me why other people find it funny or relevant. I want to understand why they do so.
My theory about How I Met Your Mother is that they are mixing up two different emotions. They aren't saying "Hey, that's really funny!", but they are turning to their significant other and saying "That's nice. Isn't that right, honey?". It validates the cuteness of their own relationship. I can't think of any other possible explaination to why people like it. The show isn't funny, the characters are boring and lack any real depth, the storylines are meh, and the non-linear storytelling would have been innovative decades ago. It is, however, relationshippie cute.
I'm curious if any single person actually finds it funny. A person in a relationship who is watching it alone might still like it, but my guess is that you really have to watch it as a couple to find it "funny".
current music: Oceansize - Effloresce
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, August 16th, 2008
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4:03 PM - The Bible For People For People Who Hate The Bible and other secondary sources
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| Friday, August 15th, 2008
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12:32 PM - New Word - Clarstrophobia
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Clarstrophobia (alternatively Carstrophobia) - The fear of parking near the front of a building where there are already a lot of cars and instead parking where there is plenty of room, even though it involves a longer walk. People find it weird that I don't circle around up and down the parking aisles looking for a close spot. I'd rather go where I know there is plenty of parking and I don't have to worry about getting in and out of the car because another car is too close to mine. There is more walking, but less time circling around, so it is a wash.
current music: Beardfish - The Sane Day
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(5 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
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10:52 PM - Dream Theater
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Pleasant surprise when I looked to see what today's new Rock Band tracks included. Hey, Dream Theater is finally there. Half price as well. Sweet.
I'm still working on Hard on drums. Go With The Flow is the one I'm stuck on now. To mix things up, I'm also going back to Medium to upgrade to five stars (hey, I must be improving) and working through Expert on the Mic.
My Omega Pedal is still back ordered. It doesn't look like it'll work with the Drum Rocker, which is probably good as it makes me hesitate to buy that as well.
current music: Beardfish - Från En Plats Du Ej Kan Se
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(Give your own rant)
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8:27 PM - Kime
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We had three assistants at the kids classes tonight, but only two kids in the first class and three in the second. Sensei used the opportunity to talk to the assistant individually about grading.
We have to be blue belts for at least six months, so I'm able to grade for brown belt at the end of September. He told me that I have the moves for the katas and the basics in the katas are fine, except that I have the tendency to not tuck in my elbow for kake uke. What I should be working on now is adding in kime into my katas and increasing the intensity. I should be imagining that I am actually performing the bunkai on someone. Not just visualizing them, but using all the senses--smelling them and and tasting their sweat. When we do a kata correctly, we shouldn't be thinking about the moves at all and just doing in subconsciously, such that at the end of it you really have no idea if you did all the moves or not. He hasn't failed someone on their black belt grading because they had their chamber hand at the wrong spot, but he has failed them because they failed to add intensity to their katas.
current music: Beardfish - Från En Plats Du Ej Kan Se
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(4 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Monday, August 11th, 2008
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12:15 AM - Missing Leading Headline
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| Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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1:26 PM - Writer's Block: God For a Day
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| Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
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9:31 PM - TV
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I've been hearing good things about How I Met Your Mother. I dunno. I watched the pilot and was bored. Sometimes when someone is going on how great it is, they'll link to the most anti-funny clip ever made in history. I don't think ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) boffo's friend list will forgive him for linking to the slapping song.
Dr. Horrible had me in a generous mood towards Doogie, so I watched the first season yesterday. Meh. It's tolerable there-is-nothing-on-during-the-summer fare. (Two augusts ago I watched two seasons of Grey's Anatomy. That'll give you a gage to my August entertainment desperation.) It's more romantic than funny. Well, it's also more of an astronaut than funny. It is kinda sorta amusing, though, in a maple syrup sort of tripe. I won't be watching it during the tv seasons, but I'll waste some of August catching up. Oh ya, I think I'm over my Willow crush. Like all the characters in the show, her's also lacks any depth or interesting qualities. No, drinking and doing the robot doesn't count as either (Whoops, spoiler!).
Shrug. Maybe other people will get it. Romantic crap on me is like showing a dog a card trick.
On the plus side, some of the dates are kinda hot.
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Weeds, on the other hand, is crazy awesome and you should feel bad about yourself if you aren't watching it.
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Since you weren't watching How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria, I should have noted that my sister's friend was the runner up.
current music: Spring Awakening - Off-Broadway Soundtrack
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Thursday, July 31st, 2008
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1:27 PM - Is that a BlackBerry in your pocket or is your sperm viable?
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| Sunday, July 27th, 2008
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2:52 PM - Breaking The Spell
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I haven't been reading all that much and I haven't particularly been in the mood to post anything. College sure gave me a lot of recreational reading and writing time.
I did read Daniel Dennett's Breaking The Spell this week (after the comments in radiantsun's post reminded me that I haven't read it yet). I wish I was in the mood to post a long entry as it was an interesting book. It is an interesting contrast to Harris and Dawkins as those books were intentionally provocative, whereas Dennett keeps calmly talking the reader down. The spells that he wishes to break are not religion or faith per se. They are the ideas that religion, ethics, and the humanities in general should be completely separate from science. After those spells are broken, we can evaluate religion on the same level as biology, archeology, and history. He is preaching to the choir here (except I do believe in the is/ought gap to a certain extent), so I didn't need to be talked down from shouting at the book. (Okay, I did get a little excited after reading the quote at the end from a former-terrorist who apparently doesn't know the difference between the Tabernacle and the Temple, but that was more me being excitedly pedantic than genuinely angry.)
I read Deuteronomy yesterday, so I finally finished reading the Torah. The first half was kinda boring as it was a review of things we already have gone through ("Previously on The Torah..."). Later it went into the laws which is basically a review of the laws in Exodus. It ends with songs, blessings, and curses. Meh. Not particularly interesting. It was better than the P stuff (which isn't hard to do), but no where as interesting as J and E.
One interesting aside in How To Read The [Hebrew] Bible concerning Deuteronomy had to do with love (pp. 353-5). A Jesuit scholar, William L. Morgan, noticed that 'love' ('ahab) is used in the same way with the similar Assuranipal treaties and he doubted that they meant 'love' as we now know it. Similarly, he noticed that all the uses of 'love' in Deuteronomy could be translated to something like 'be loyal to', 'serve', or 'obey'. This leads to a very different reading to the Shema.
current music: Apple Pie - Crossroad
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(9 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, July 25th, 2008
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10:27 AM - Tracks From Experiments In Mass Appeal
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For a limited time, you can listen to a few streaming tracks of Frost*'s upcoming album Experiments In Mass Appeal on their MySpace page. Nice.
current music: Frost* - [Tracks on their MySpace Page]
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(Give your own rant)
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| Monday, July 21st, 2008
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10:09 PM - Maidment Kali Knife Seminar
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Saturday we had a two-hour Kali seminar with Guro John Maidment. He is a certified instructor under Dan Inosanto. The first hour was on defense against someone with a knife and the second hour was some empty hand defense. I think there was around 30 people who came to the seminar, which is a pretty good turnout. They videotaped it and that's the first seminar here I've been to that they have done that. I was in right front of the camera while we practiced, so if I get a copy, I'll see how much I did wrong.
With Kali, they have a numbering system of attacks. 1 is attacking from your right-to-left high in a downward stroke and 2 is left-to-right 3 is right-to-left straight across the belly and 4 is left-to-right. There are more, but that is what we focused on in this seminar. For this system, it doesn't matter if you are holding the blade up, holding in down in a stabbing motion, or holding it down in a slashing motion (for this last one, your thumb is pointing into the motion).
We were told that our main objective is to run away, if possible You can't exactly run if your with someone young/old who can't run or defend themselves. The first non-fleeing bit was avoiding slashes when unarmed. When they are attacking high (1 or 2), step back and bring your head back. For the middle (3 or 4), step back “hollow out” your middle. That is, arching your back to bring you torso back, but without putting your face and arms in closer to the attacker. For thigh attacks, it is simply stepping back.
Next, we looked at when you are against a wall and can't step back. First of all, you shouldn't let the back of your head hit the wall, so there should be a little bit of room to move your head back when you maneuver. Next thing to do is hit their arm to avoid them from hitting you. One thing I kept doing at first is hitting the knife itself with my hand to deflect it. That was retarded and I had to fix that. When you move their arm, you want to either push their arm (1) or flip their arm (2) so that you are crossing their arms. This blocks their other arm from punching you and gives you an opportunity to hit or flee.
When you have a knife, you want to push/reflect with your open hand and slash their forearm with your knife. You also want to follow that up with a strike with the knife. Another thing is to slash their knife hand with a quick wrist motion. Attacking the closest part of their body is a big part of kali.
We also had our partners grab us at the throat and stick our plastic knife at our throats. He is where that tiny bit of space behind our head is important. He also noted that it is good to distract them and to try to do your counter mid-sentence. If possible we want to push their arm so that their knife slashes their forearm that is choking us. At one point, I noted that the blade was turned in the opposite direction, so I pushed the knife the other way. Guro Maidment noted that I should, if possible, still move his arm that way as it blocks their other arm from punching me and their is still the possibility to turn their wrist around in the struggle.
The second hour was empty hand techniques. He has a special name for it, but I didn't catch it. There was around four moves to each set of techniques. However, they changed slightly depending on how his attacker moves.
The first set of techniques went like this: 1. Attacker jabs with their left. Block with your right. 2. Attacker crosses. Block with left and palm them in the face with with right. 3. Knee them with right knee. Step your right foot just outside their left foot and do something with your left hand, like an elbow to their face, to put them out of balance.
The next set starts off the same, but has the attacker turns CW to avoid the knee to the groin. Here we place our foot between their legs instead of outside their left. Our right hand scoops under their left hand to bring their arm behind their back and push their shoulder to your left. As you are doing this, your right leg is sweeping their left leg out to their left. If they are still standing, knee them in the face with your right knee and place your foot outside their right foot and sweep it towards you.
He noted that a lot of these moves involve distracting the attacker, so these won't work if they are on amphetamines.
The third set of moves starts off the same, but changes after palming their face. You can hit their with your left to distract them here, but you want to push up on their chin and grab the back of their head with left hand. You turn CCW to flip them on their back. Press your left knee into the face. Their right arm should be free, so you can hyper-extend their elbow against your knee.
At one point he jokingly referred to himself as Rampage when talking about pounding on a guy on the ground. He thought for a second and said, except I don't have a huge pick-up truck. That got a big laugh.
current music: John Coltrane - Blue Train
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(Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, July 19th, 2008
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9:04 PM - Rock Band 2
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I can't say that the Rock Band 2 song list particularly excited me. There are around 7 songs I like. There are a few more I'd wouldn't listen to on the radio if them came on, yet I suspect might be fun to play. While the set list didn't particularly excite me, the Export Disc feature and news that they will have the 500 songs available by the end of the year did. I really thought they wouldn't let us import the songs from Rock Band into Rock Band 2. I'll be able to yet a set together that I actually like to both hear and play.
All the interface changes, the no-fail, the Ion drum set ($300), drum training, and pretty much all the changes they mentioend are exciting as well.
There are still a large number of big artists that surprisingly are not available yet. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Yes, Michael Jackson, and Prince to name a few. (Also Van Halen is exclusive to Guitar Hero unfortunately.)
I guess I need to make the prerequisite wish list of songs for Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour. The songs I want the most don't really fit the way they are doing things. They are focusing on band songs rather than drum solos. I also want 20+ minutes songs, but yet I find the 9 minutes in the game to be too long. I might have to make two lists.
The thing that I keep expecting is a drum solo setlist, but this isn't Drum Hero. If it was Drum Hero rather than Rock Band, there are obvious “drum songs” I would want. For instance, The Rhythm Method, YYX, Wipeout, Toad, and Moby Dick. I would also want some of my favourite drummers featured more, like Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, OSI, Neal Morse), Billy Cobham (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Tony Williams (Miles Davis), Carl Palmer (ELP), Neil Peart (Rush), Pip Pyle (Gong, National Health), Pierre Moerlen (Gong), Andy Edwards (Frost*, iQ), Christian Vander (Magma), and Morgan Ågren (Mats/Morgan Band). I'm tempted to list Frank Zappa up as he wrote up the drum solos and I don't want to list only one or two of his drummers. You'd also have to add Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, and a host of other jazz, fusion, and post-rock drummers. Hell, they could do Jazz Band along with Rock Band.
For bands, there are the no brainers like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. Maybe I should be thinking in band 12-Packs.
A Bill Bruford pack (including tracks from his book When In Doubt Roll plus some newer stuff like from Upper Extremities) or Yes and King Crimson Packs. Either would be good.
A Frank Zappa pack. Some Montana, Yellow Snow, Peaches, and to be evil Black Page.
While Nick Mason is not a virtuoso, I'd love a Pink Floyd 12-pack.
I'd also like to see some newer prog. Porcupine Tree, Marillion, non-Dream Theater Portnoy, Frost*, iQ, and so on.
Hopefully prog and fusion will be well represented in those 500 songs.
current music: Oceanside - Everyone Into Position
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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8:31 PM - More Xbox Stuff
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Besides being a way to play Rock Band, it turns out the the Xbox 360 has other uses. The thing we are playing with now is amusing the nieces, nephews, and their friends. The new no-fail feature in Rock Band 2 will be a blessing for their self-esteem when it comes out. But besides that, the various demo are helpful to entertain them and limiting them torturing us.
I was at Future Shop getting my price protection and I noticed that Rayman Raving Rabbids was only $25. Or at least I thought. It was at the wrong spot, so that wasn't the price. I ask a clerk and he said $21. Cool. "Oh wait, that's wrong.... $59.99" Dammit. My nephew is obsessed with Rayman. The thing that entertains him the most is watching videos about the game. He'll go to their website and watch the promo videos for hours. He's been watching those videos for it must a year now. Anyway, I've ordered the game from ebay for $25. They made the mistake of telling him as he wants the game NOW.
I also discovered that entering '360 lot' into ebay gives me a lot of interesting hits and I've made a lot of bids that have eventually were out bidded. Lots of 7, 15, 20, or 28 games are a tempting way to get my collection up. Too bad most of them are filled with sports games that I have no appeal to me. I am getting, however, Dance Dance Revolution Universe 2 with a pad for the nieces. (It would be great for them if I could get the PS2 Disney Channel songs working with it.) Also that Xbox 360 Live Arcade Unplugged pack and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Maybe more if I'm not completely out bidded.
It doesn't really make sense to buy more games for myself as I have barely touched GTA4, Halo3, and Gears Of War. It's been mostly Rock Band (where I'm slowly going through hard). If anyone has any game recommendations either for me or the kids (ranging from 4 to 13), feel free to add them to the comments.
current music: Muth Math - Muth Math
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Thursday, July 17th, 2008
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11:57 AM - Jo
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I think the Jo (4-foot staff) is the kobudo weapon for me. We were doing weapon sparring this week with Tonfas going against Jos. My tonfa skills weren't all that hot and once I switched I got a lot of surprised positive comments from the peanut gallery. Sensei Toth (Sensei's wife) added "You can tell he's done this before" and "It's interesting how more comfortable some weapons are with people".
When I graded for Blue Belt, one of the Black Belts noted that I looked significantly more comfortable with the Tonfa rather than the Bo and Tonbo. Now they are telling me that my Jo is signicantly better that my Tonfa skills.
We don't often work with the Jo, so I should keep it up on my own. I need to remind myself when I grade for Black Belt to pick a Jo kata for my personal weapons kata. (On the other hand, this also shows that I need to spend considerably more time on the other weapons.)
The thing I like about the Jo is that it's in the middle, so I can use it as a light Bo or a long solid Tonbo. Use it one-handed or two-handed. Do those fancy twirlly things. If there are any good telescoping Jos out there that looks like an umbrella, it might be a good self-defence weapon.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
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12:50 PM - How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria
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If anyone is watching CBC's How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria, one of the four final girls Janna is a friend of my sister. They were in The Last Resort together last year. Another friend of the family Stacy was in it as well, but she got her shoulder padded in the first episode (yes, that only makes sense if you saw it).
Everyone from my sister's dinner theater show in Niagara Falls went to see the live show on Sunday. One of the clips from a previous episode shown in that episode included the line "You sing like you're in a dinner theater show.... in Niagara Falls". Ouch.
(Since you are probably not watching it, I'll note that one of the judges is Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood.)
current music: Opeth - Watershed
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
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2:17 PM - Wondering... why... people think... str...eaming video is a... good... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
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I just tried attending the online BlackBerry Technical Seminar 2008 hosted on virtualevents365.
The last 15 minutes or so of each presentation was unlistenable. The Q&A started promptly right after when the presentation should have ended if there was no lag. There was plenty of lag, so the Q&A audio ran on top of atleast the last 15 minutes of the presentation. I can't listen to two conversations in the same voice at the same time. All I got out of that was a headache.
The lag was so bad for the Exploring Advanced User Interface APIs presention that it never finished even though there is a 30 minute window after when the presentation should have ended. I gave up attempting to watch the seminar after this.
Why do people think streaming video is a good thing? What is wrong with downloadable AVI or dvd ISO files and having a forum for Q&A? Do they hate us so much that they want to give us headaches and bore us by waiting for the next damn bit of the video to start back up? The content seemed like it would be good, but the virtual event was a failure.
I could also complain that their scrollbars barely worked and some of the PDFs timed out before you can download them, but that's just really really annoying rather than being unusable like the main part of their site, so I won't complain about those.
It was just like a conference, but with unwatchable content, no free stuff, and no hookers. (Yes RIM, you may use that in your promotional material.) What was the point?
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, July 4th, 2008
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1:38 PM - Zappa Play Zappa Tonight!
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I'll be in Kitchener tonight for the ZPZ concert. Steve Vai might be joining them on stage, just as he did a few days ago.
Any locals care to join me?
(BTW, they have a free concert coming up in Buffalo. Any one want to go to that one?)
current music: Frank Zappa - [Tracks based on the current ZPZ setlist]
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(Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
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3:15 PM - Maybe the next one will be non-Rock Band
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I finished the drums on medium.
There is one groove that kills me. It's also the basic rock groove. Quarters on high-hat with alternating bass and snare. It's usually trivial, but speed it up really fast as in Green Grass and High Tides and while I think I'm doing it, I'm not. Every time I fail, it's this fast groove that does me in. The second half of Grass Green is the worst as it is so long, but it has caught me on Blitzkrieg Bop and Day Late, Dollar Short as well.
I guess, on the plus side, I only really have one groove I need to work on from medium before moving on to hard. I also have some 3 stars I need to increase to 4 or 5.
I ordered an Omega Pedal (which is a modded Pearl 120P) with the splitter, so I will be able to work dual bass pedals. Maybe a real drum pedal will make those fast bass pedal thumps a little easier. It'll also let me switch to my left foot when (not if) my right foot gets tired.
I also ordered some Dual Micro-Cellular Urethane Pads to cover the drum pads. That should reduce the noise quite a bit.
current music: Oceanside - Music for Nurses EP
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(Give your own rant)
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| Friday, June 27th, 2008
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6:38 PM - I promise there will be a non-Rock Band entry soon
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Rock Band has magic healing power. I developed a Stye (eyelid pimple) back in Feburary and ever since I started playing Rock Band a week ago it has shrunk down considerably. I expect that'll be gone by the time I get to Hard.
I kinda laughed at all the accessories for Rock Band, but I want a lot of them now. I had a hard time with the bass pedal when I was using a chair and it was considerably easier after I got my Rock Throne. The booming mic stand I got will come in handy once I do more singing and drumming at the same time. I'll find out if the Game Guide is useful as I read it. I also bought a few exta songs as well. Oh ya, I've been getting real drum instructional books/videos from library.
What else is there? ernunnos mentions a few: Pork Pie Big Boy throne, Zildjian 5B anti-vibe or ahead sticks, sensors hard-mounted to a DW7000 pedal (my tiny size 7 feet won't need the Axis X-L2), gum rubber pads on the heads, and Alesis USB Pro kit (or Roland V-Drums). Yes, a full electronic drum kit is an "accessory". I still think that drumstick holders, guitar stands, and guitar straps are excessive, but I thought all of these were before. There is also the do-it-yourself project building cymbals out of frisbees.
current music: iQ - Subterrania
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(Give your own rant)
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| Thursday, June 26th, 2008
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6:55 PM - Many A Friend
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Jay: Are you sticking around?
other: I'm not sure. I'm debating it. You see, I just bought Rock Band.
Jay: Ah, I understand. I've lost many a friend to Rock Band.
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
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10:23 PM - 360ed
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I've been playing with some of the media components of the 360. I wasn't even thinking about that when I got it. Oh ya, they have video rentals and such. Interesting. I think I'm gonna get a 500GB external drive to attach to it, which will hold such things as TV shows, movie, yoga videos, and kid videos for when the nieces and nephews are over.
One of things that prompted me to get it was that I was thinking about those new supercomputer GPU units, like the upcoming Nvidia Tesla. They are relatively cheap and their main problem is that software doesn't support them yet. I was wondering if there was some application I could use for. Well, no. One thing which would be very cool, however, that needs that kind of horsepower would be an universal emulator gaming system. A system that can emulate all the various console gaming systems. Have it play cracked games and have a grey-market download manager (or just be continuely leeching torrents from underground gamer) to quickly fill your game library. As cool as it would be and as cheap as the Nvidia Tesla will be, it'll probably cheaper just to buy all the consoles separately. Oh. I guess it makes more sense to buy one then. (Though I'd still spend a premium on a Linux box that could play the latest console games out of sheer geekiness.)
We tried the multi-player Rock Band with four people this morning. We did pretty well on the first song. We then switched instruments and utterly failed each and every time. Utterly failing seem to amuse people more than getting through a song.
I finished the drum solo career on easy (again, I'm not bragging; I'm just making conversation), but I still have a few bonus songs to go through. It's not bad when I don't have to hit the bass pedal. I'll need a bit of practice before I can have the foot working a bit more independently. I'm also probably gonna need a drum throne and mic booming stand (to sing and drum at the same time).
I should also note that there is a serious lack of Zappa songs on Rock Band.
current music: Marillion - This Strange Engine
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(Give your own rant)
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| Friday, June 20th, 2008
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9:46 PM - Bad Week + Unexpected Money = Consumer Electronics
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It turns out that they have been paying me $4.60 less an hour than I was supposed to be getting and this will be corrected. Oh. Nice.
I've been bored lately, it's been a bad week, and now there is some unexpected money... so I went out and bought an Xbox 360 Pro. It came with Halo 3 and Gears of War. I also picked up Rock Band Special Edition and GTA4.
Umm, bye for a while.
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(2 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, June 14th, 2008
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5:06 PM - Priestly Source
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I haven't talk about reading the bible lately because I've been knee deep in the Priestly source writings, so it’s been slow going. He is defined as the writer who writes the repetitive, boring, and repetitive parts of the Torah. Some people talk of the parts of the bible they want to get rid of because it is crazy or just plain immoral, but it's the Priestly source that I'd like to get rid of for the sin of being boring. I ended up reading along with the audio bible as I thought I'd let them do the leg work for these parts.
Along these lines, I'm reading a chronological edition of the bible, but this doesn't really affect the Torah all that much. They just added in Job, move a bit of Numbers earlier, and added in a dash of Chronicles. It was already edited to be in chronological order by the Redactor. The whole time I'm reading to Torah, I'm thinking that it would be a big improvement if it was unredacted and divided into its J, E, P, H, and D parts. Not only is the P stuff boring, the parts he smooched in between other people bits (e.g., the first creation story or adding in that Moses’ God is the God of Abraham) create their own problems. Furthermore, many people still believe that Moses wrote the whole Torah (including the part he dies in!) and this would help dismiss that. If I want an unredacted torah, maybe it was a mistake to get a chronological bible. I might switch to canonical order once I get to the historical books.
I forgot how funny God’s speech in Job is. Job brings up a lot of legitimate issues with faith and with God and God replies with basically “Isn’t Leviathan really really big?” A Christian philosophy student cited this speech to me as a real reason to believe in God. He didn’t like my interpretation of the speech and unfortunately neither of us had a bible handy to discuss the issue further. After I reread Job, I wrote up a post with the entire text of God’s speech and added sarcastic comments in the margin. That post got lost somehow and it’s probably for the best as it didn’t end up being as funny as I hoped it would come out.
I’m really liking How To Read The [Hebrew] Bible. Most of my exposure to the Bible has been from atheists and they usually just point the crazy and contradictory bits and leave it at that. This book, written by an orthodox Jew, notes that people of faith have seen these problems from the get go and have dealt with them in various ways. What we need to do is not just point out the problems as believers have answers for those, but to look at the different ways to try deal with those problems and compare those approaches. When comparing approaches as such, typological/foreshadowing methods should seem silly when compared to the modern historical approach. He is going to end up telling us that the ancient interpreters are the way to go with rather than the modern protestian historical approach, which seems odd, but we'll see how that goes.
current music: Frank Zappa - [Tracks based on the current ZPZ setlist]
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Friday, June 13th, 2008
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5:39 PM - Zappa
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Whoa, I've been out of the Zappa loop. I didn't realize that there has been a bunch of releases this last year.
Finally a live recording of the Grand Wazoo band. They just came out with album with the Petit Wazoo band a little while ago and now the full 20-piece band. Awesome. Waka/Jawaka and Grand Wazoo are near the top of my favourite Zappa albums. They are right up there for me as the Flo & Eddy and Roxy lineups.
I didn't realize that the Zappa Plays Zappa DVD came out. I've seen the free videos a while ago, but I hadn't seen the whole thing. Wow! I had a huge smile going on while I was watching it. The young unknown band backing Dweezil were tight. Another way they could have gone was that, instead of playing the solos as real solos, they could have played recorded solos note-for-note. This DVD has a great live feel and energy that a note-for-note performance wouldn't have had. It also featured Napoleon Murphy Brock, Steve Vai, and Terry Bozzio--who all sounded amazing. The set list is awesome and picks out some of my overlooked favourites, like Inca Roads and Eat That Question. Just wow.
I was totally jealous of those seeing it until I noticed that they are playing in Kitchener in three weeks(!). Any locals going? I noticed that the focus seems to be more towards the 78-81 periods (esp. SY, JG, YAWYI), which I'm less versed in. I guess I need to listen to more of that period leading up to it.
current music: Zappa Plays Zappa DVD
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(Give your own rant)
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| Thursday, June 12th, 2008
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8:24 PM - I kinda hate ceremony of all kind
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Some people find it strange that I found my convocation so incredibly boring.
I mean, amanda42 had JK freakin' Rowling give the commencement speech at her convocation. We got the guy who runs the hotel right across the road from us and he got an honourary hotel management diploma for his effort. He told us some statistics of how many of us would be listening to his speech. I think. I was busy trying to figure out how bad it would be if I pulled out my ipod.
We had to be there an hour early, so we stood around for an hour. I was bored even before the thing started. We processioned in to the cafe to a bagpipe. A bagpipe is never a good idea. A bunch of speeches I think. Well, that's what the program said.
At one point we had to stand up and wave to our family. I was nice and told my family they didn't have to come and that I didn't particularly want them to come. My folks still have to go to my niece's grade 8 graduation (as my dad put it, everyone is legally obligated to finish grade 8, so what's the big deal?) and another niece's highschool graduation. Not to mention their dance recital is coming up. My whole family came to my grade eight graduation way back when, despite my protests, and they were upset with me because I didn't make a big deal about it and wanted to talk to my friends instead of posing for pictures. I told them I didn't want them there.
We eventually got to the point where we had to wait in line to go on stage. I was on stage for, maybe, 30 seconds. Shook four hands. Then we waited an hour or so for the rest of the people to get their papers. More speeches I think. The reception was okay. The food was good, but it was too crowded that there was no point waiting in line anymore.
None of the people I hung out were there. I was the only one from my program who had a dagger (80+ in every terms) or an asterix (90+ in last term) who bothered to show up. I think I spoke to the others at the ceremony ("So, what are you doing now?") more then I have during our whole program. I don't even have a nickname for anyone who was there. Oh wait, Security Officer Steve and Pink Floyd Hat Guy were there, but I never had a class with them. They are work people.
current music: Frank Zappa - Wazoo
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(Give your own rant)
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| Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
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9:43 PM - Stamped
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Humans are strange. Some of them at our convocation weren't completely bored and didn't think it was a complete waste of time. I'm pretty sure that no one thought that the bagpipes were a good idea however.
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(Give your own rant)
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| Sunday, June 8th, 2008
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10:33 PM - Mskala
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ChessVille.com describes mskala as a "Canadian graduate student, computer and astrology maven, egghead (literally and figuratively), creator of the wicked online comic Bonobo Conspiracy". Anyway, his PhD thesis was recently posted online. I downloaded and went to start reading it, but I zoned out about halfway through the first sentence of the abstract. Guilt set in with my lack of focus, so I ordered his book Chessudoku and that seemed to be a good compromise between reading his thesis and not. There was some guilt as I am mentioned in the acknowledgements. Okay, I'm not mentioned in particular, but qua a former IC member.
Ordering Chessudoku made me think about Chess, so I played a few rounds against the computer. Losing every single round on easy made me remember that I know just enough Chess to lose every time.
Since I'm plugging mskala, I should add that his webcomic recently hit 1000 (daily) episodes and he has recently released software to typeset natal charts.
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(1 counter-rant | Give your own rant)
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| Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
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8:17 PM
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The client wanted me to work at their location, for impromptu white board sessions. It has turned out great as the location is quite good. It's right beside the bus station (okay, there is a chip wagon in between), so it is much more convenient to get to.
It's also two blocks from my dojo, so I can go at lunch, staying late to make up the long lunch. That frees me up at night.
Just to try it out, I went both at lunch and at night today and killed time downtown instead of going home in between. I ended up heading in the dojo very early, so I was used to assist in the kids class right before our class. I'm now assisting every Tuesday.
current music: Adrian Belew - Side One
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(3 counter-rants | Give your own rant)
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| Saturday, May 24th, 2008
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10:44 PM - Trivia Night III
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Our third trivia night was tonight. My dad writes the questions and MCs it. I do the powerpoint, which involves 259 slides with 16 audio clips and screenshots.
It went over really well, as it usually does, and it looks like we actually made money for the social committee this time.
I don't really have much to report about it as my time is mainly spent hitting 'space' over and over.
One thing that went over really well, which surprised me, was that each table has a team name (e.g., "The Ringers") and I kept changing the name of one team. I didn't even come up with most of them. I would just overhear them say something starting with "We really should be called..." and I'd change it. After each round I'd put up the score and a new name would appear. Their team name started with "Pretty Close To The Bar" and Lee answered most of the questions, so it turned to "Lee is Pretty Close To The Bar". Martin was upset as other people answered some of them, so I changed it to "Martin Got One". Then it was "Way Too Close To The Bar". My sister was at that table and she went into a laughing fit over nothing, so it turned to "Cut Off From The Bar". "Under The Table" and "We're Taking Your Keys" for the last two rounds.
current music: Frank Zappa - Make A Jazz Noise Here
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(Give your own rant)
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disappointed