I’m off to Austin for the night. Gonna party on 6th street and take some pics. Hopefully I’ll be back alive and well by tomorrow night!
Month: October 2003
I’m a Geek
Although I just posted something, I’m compelled to write one more entry this evening before I lose myself to slumber.
Think back to high school. Remember those social values which cornered each person with a label? Popular, nerd, jock, freak, geek; just to name a few. It was difficult sometimes to bear these names and wonderful at other times.
In television history, I believe there’s one short lived series which delineated in almost scary accuracy the trials and tribulations which many people experienced in high school. This series, called Freaks and Geeks was absolutely brilliant. I was hooked by the first few minutes of the pilot episode and eagerly sought each episode out on the confusing television schedule. This series made a huge fight to stay alive but was defeated because of poor marketing and advertising. As tragic as this was, I fought with them to the end and continue to endear the series as a great story and representation of some of my experiences in high school.
Thus, I want to bring to your attention the fact that this series is coming to DVD! It was long speculated that it would be impossible to release the entire series on DVD because of bad expense, but through some effort of the producers and writers, this saga will live on! A great article on the expenses of this show’s release tells the expenses faced in licensing music for DVD (a great read for those who have are interested).
For those who have not heard of Freaks and Geeks, please be sure to ask me to see some of the episodes when they quickly become part of my collection. Cost will not be a factor in my purchasing decision so I will be snatching these as soon as they come out! This was a great treasure and shall be a nice reference and piece of history to recall from time to time!
Hooooo!!
No, I’m not trying to be impolite and cursing as my subject. This is, rather, a term of endearment to all the years I watched and worshiped that cartoon called the Thundercats!
I recently downloaded the entire collection of Thundercats episodes. Through all the years that I have seen these cartoons, I had never seen the very first episodes which introduce the Thundercats to everyone. I was happliy surprised at how complicated and well thought out this cartoon was. It’s too bad that the Silverhawks couldn’t have had such a convincing story (however, I believe there should be a live-action remake of the Silverhawks). Anywho, if you ever get the chance to see the first few episodes of Thundercats, I highly recommend it!
Is there anyone out there who wants to make an investment in me?
legendary announcer
This is a sad evening/day indeed. One of the best game shows ever has lost its announcer. Rod Roddy has passed away from colon and breast cancer. His voice and presence will be missed. I wonder what’s going to happen to The Price is Right?
painfully excited!
Got a flu shot today. I hate shots. Sitting in the waiting room for the nurse to attend me, I sat there a little nervously knowing that I would momentarily be injected with medicine to help protect my frail, exercise free body from the ugly flu.
Ever since I was young, I have hated getting shots. I don’t like the pain. I am a sissy when it comes to pain and shots are just one more way for me to hurt. Nevertheless, as I’ve grown and endured more shots, they become more mundane. I know the pain is on its way but it doesn’t bother me as much. Despite this fact, I still do not want my eyes to ever see that needle as it thrusts through my skin into my veins and muscle. Even the thought of it just bothers me.
On a different note, I just recently got ahold of every episode of the Thundercats!! Talk about excitement, I am psyched about sitting down for many hours reliving my past watching these cartoons. It’ll be interesting to see how awesome they were even if they are a little silly. Sometimes, being sentimental isn’t so bad. This is one of those times.
the new napster 2.0
I have come upon so many new ideas and innovations recently about how the digital media such as mp3s should be treated and stored, but there’s one reeeeeally awesome device that I would love to own . . . sorta.
It’s called the Samsung YP-910GS and it’s a HOSS!! Out of all the functions that it has, my favorite and most exciting is the FM transmitter. What does that mean exactly? Let’s find out!
Aftering buying the YP-910GS and loading the new software to the computer, you transfer the files of all the songs you just absolutely love (up to 20GB worth). You can plug in headphones to the player and listen to your song of the moment on your way to your car to head to your destination which you had already made plans to do. As you open the car door, you take the player and place it in the seat next to you. After starting the car and buckling your seatbelt, you look at the player’s menu to select an FM station which is not being used in your town or city. After enabling the FM transmission, you turn your car radio onto the exact same FM station and BAM, you are listening to your media player through your radio WITHOUT any wires going to the radio. This baby is sending a nice little Frequency Modulated signal to your radio player’s antenna which travels to your radio station for you to enjoy, no hassles!!!!
I swear to you, the minute I see something like this to my liking, I am SO THERE. This thing is going to be a HIT with the new Napster users.
Now, what are the potential drawbacks? You must use the new Napster 2.0 software (which hopefully will be proven wrong soon). You must download the files they offer, and you probably can ONLY use those files in the player (although it’s possible that I might be wrong). And lastly, this player costs $400 MSRP.
Despite the possible negative side to this player, I am in love! I believe that this is absolutely the beginning of the future of where media players should and will head. Wireless technologies are becoming the norm with regular computer networks, so why shouldn’t it be adapted for media players and home audio systems? You can’t go wrong with these kinds of things!
edit 1-6-03: Be sure to check out this other review for another story on the same player.
I am all about free downloads from software like KAZAA and others. However, if software like Napster 2.0 offer the convenience and abundance of the new technologies (without too much embedded copyright protection), then the future is here! I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next couple of years or so with this new revolution.
I highly recommend you check out what’s going on because someday this will probably affect your decisions on how you should treat property rights.
Professor Lawrence Lessig
Creative Commons
CC License
Electronic Frontier Foundation
the cutest sound
If I were to ask a random number of people this one question, I’m sure that I could guess many people’s answers.
What instrument that creates music sounds the cutest?
Flute? Oboe? Nah, those are cute. But there’s one instrument that is quite often used in movies and in music in general that always portrays cute. It’s called the bells, similar to the xylophone but much smaller. You hear this instrument in such movies as the recent Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. One of my favorite all time uses of this instrument was in the glowing, feel-good movie Home Alone. And another classic containing the light-hearted strum is Edward Scissorhands.
Speaking of percussive instruments:
*warning* , the following link contains explicit language not suitable for children.
I found myself wasting 5 minutes playing with this xylophone. Interesting the kind of things you find on google.
Speaking of music, it’s been a very long time since I’ve really played. I don’t practice the piano very much these days. I haven’t touched the French Horn in a few years. I just don’t make the time for those things at the moment as sad as it is. I wish I could live in a huge studio apartment and spread everything out so that I could do whatever I wanted, whenever. There are many more things I would probably do in the privacy of my own home than I will in someone else’s house. Well, someday maybe that will be.
geek holloween costume
Man, talk about nightmares!
austin
I went to Austin on Saturday with chuk (aka dzuy). We spent the day taking photos with our digi-cams. Fun times. I include a nice pic of what I took.
I have no news really. Still same old as before. No job, still looking, still working as much as I can.
america’s favorite pastime
I didn’t get to watch every single game in the baseball playoffs. I didn’t really keep up with all the happenings with each playoff series. But since a week ago, there were two teams I was rooting for to make the world series. Both teams were the underdogs in both series but both had a really good chance of making it.
Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. The Marlins made their way into Wrigley field and came out on top, so easily (in the 8th inning of the 6th game) that it seemed that the Cubs wanted to give it away. This is beside the fact that a brave, unknowing Cubs fan might have helped prevent the whole catastrophy. Yet, it’s inevitable that Chicago’s favorite losers remain such, and the new fish in the game make their catch once again.
I now see that the boys from the Bronx made the right play first and beat the Red Sox by one. If you are a Boston fan, your newest enemy is Aaron Boone. The lovable losers from Beantown come up short yet again.
Two teams who were the underdogs, two teams who just couldn’t make it happen. It’s almost a story written for big screen, yet the outcome is always the same. No matter how hard you try, the odds are always against you. Maybe next year.