Yearly Archives: 2006

Ipod

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For christmas, i had gotten an iPod video (30 gig)… I hadnt done too much with this until recently, and that was mainly because i didnt have any means of playing it in my car. I bought the “itrip” FM transmitter, but that blew harder than the eyewall of hurricane katrina. Literally. It was nearly impossible to hear clear music. So, as a result of that, the ipod has really just kind of sat on my computer desk.

Well, i somehow got re-aquainted with my ipod recently and really started using it to its full potential. First, i tried to put linux on it. I downloaded the ipodlinux installer, and clicked ‘next next next finish’. Had I read the documentation on thier site, i would have clearly noticed that the 5g video ipods are not yet supported… What happened? Well, my ipod rebooted, and then simply displayed a screen that said “www.apple.com/support/ipod”.
After a brief lol, i commenced trying to fix it.

I figured “i’ll just restore it”. So i start up the apple restore utility which says “cannot mount ipod”…. at which point i started to worry a bit. “Maybe i need to reformat the hd first, i thought”… “Please insert a disk into drive ‘G’ ” my computer asked me… now i seriously started to panic.

I resorted to forums, where i came across an HP utility that is used to format external usb storage devices. I used that to format the ipod Fat32. Then the apple restore utility worked like a charm and my ipod works again like new 🙂

Then i bought dLo Transpod. Which works 100 times better than the itrip did. It plugs into the cig lighter, so it uses the cars juice and not the ipods. Plus it charges the ipod, has preset stations, a nice backlit display. pwns.

Then i spent probably 4 hours getting album art from www.images.google.com. And then vanlandw pointed me onto a neat trick to put menu icons onto an ipod. so, i did that today as well 🙂

The point of this post is essentially to say that i used to not really think about or use my ipod. Now, i take it to work with me, take it out to eat with me, in general i am obsessed with it.

Guitar Hero

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Guitar Hero
I had heard a few people mention the game “Guitar Hero” for playsation 2. I never really thought much of it… I used to somewhat play guitar when I could leech on enfuego’s Ibanez’s… Learned the chords to a few easy songs, etc. That was years ago. I am far from a guitar enthusiast.

So, on Saturday at Best buy; they had the Guitar Hero game on demonstration. There were a couple of guys playing and I thought “Hmm… that looks pretty cool”. This game has an actual guitar that acts as the controller, with 6 fret buttons and a little fin that flips up and down (to act like you strumming the strings). I wandered around for a bit, and finally the guys left and i grabbed the guitar (controller) to start playing. Instantly, I was severely addicted to this game. I first played “I love rock an roll” by Joan Jett… It was one of the easier songs so I could quickly get the hang of how the game played. Then I played “Iron Man”… The game was just absolute fun. A functional whammy bar… the sound in the game is amazing… the controls of the ‘guitar’ are very fluid. Basically, i took saturday night to read some reviews, do a little research into the song listing, and to sleep on it (and see if i could maybe get it for valentines day). c 8 on that.

So, Sunday I purchased it. The cost seems maybe 10 dollars too steep at 70 bucks… But already this game is worth every penny. I spent 10 hours rifling from everything through “Thunderkiss 65” by White Zombie to “Unsung” by helmet. The songs in the game are really well picked. There is a great mix of some various different kinds of music (Boston, Sum41, etc.). Although I dont necessarily like all of the songs on there, they are still totally fun to play. Obviously i’m not serious about becoming a rockstar… It’s never been a dream of mine. But you can’t help bobbing your head and jamming out a little. Guitar Hero does a pretty damn good job of making you feel like a rockstar. I suppose 5.1 surround sound cranked way the ef up doesn’t hurt either.

IGN rated this game at a 9.2. That’s right on the heels of games like Halo 2 and GTA San Andreas. I agree with the ratings completely. This game totally took me by surprise and I absolutely love it. When I get paid this week I’m going to purchase an additional guitar controller – as I’ve read (and it looks like) the multiplayer aspect of the game is what really does it.

Quick Changes.

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It’s hard to think back over the past few weeks and come to the realization that i (we) are about 98% done buying a home. I’ve never done this before, so it’s great to work with people who answer my questions and who are actually out to help me vs. make a ton of money off me. I really had no idea how fast things would move once you pick out the home.

That entire process is an absolute pain. Looking on line for hours… mapping out areas… finally checking a few out in person… just thinking about that is exhausting. All that just to finally walk into a home and have it hit you… “this is home”. Then you have inspections… appraisals… insurance… etc. ung.

We’ll hopefully be moving in the first week of march – and anybody who wants to help will get a buffet of free pizza and free beer.

Besides buying a home… I’m definitely enjoying 24. I’m definitely enjoying The Shield. I’m using google ads and I think I already hate them. Noob update.

Internet Explorer 7

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So M$ has released internet explorer 7 in beta… Since it requires validation, I installed it on my work computer.

I took some screenshots… check them out.

Basically, it adds tabbed browsing and a new look/feel. However, they did try to outdo firefox’s tabbed browsing with a thumbnail view of all open tabs… Overall, I kind of like it 🙁

Super Bowl Party

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Next Sunday is super bowl sunday. Last year, this resulted in a moderately sized get together at my place where food, barley, football, and vanhood were all consumed.

This year, the plan is the same. Anyone who wants to come over next sunday, feel free. Just contact me at some junction.

The agenda will include the ever famous cheese dogs, marshmellow dipped carmel krispy treats, etc, etc This year however, will bring the addition of a chocolate fountain. So, food will be flowing – but BYOB.