Songbird Singin’ In The Dead Of Night June 30, 2008
Posted by Andrew in apple, computers, songbird.1 comment so far
When I realized that Apple software doesn’t work very well on a windows OS, and all microsoft programs are ridiculously slow, I began googling for alternatives to iTunes. Originally I discovered Foobar2000, and decided that I didn’t like it. Today I discovered something incredible.
SONGBIRD 0.6
This is being created in cahoots with Mozilla, pretty much the greatest software developers/perfectors of all time. Songbird is still in development (hence 0.6), but it’s making good progress. At the moment it’s a open-source music managing and playing program that supports themes, add-ons, and even web-browsing (think Winamp web browser), music downloading, FLAC support, and iPod/MP3 player support.
I’m not making it my replacement-iTunes just yet, because it’s missing some very key features that aren’t done being made yet (again hence 0.6). They still need CD ripping, CD burning, podcast support, and watch folders (something that iTunes has yet to pick up on). Then I’ll say bye bye to iTunes for good.
Until then, I’m very mad that I found out about this software while it’s still in development. The waiting is going to kill me. This is going to rock so much.
New Song Idea June 29, 2008
Posted by Andrew in idea, morals, music.add a comment
I was reading up on profanity today (don’t ask why…haha) and I cane across this article.
Music: Profanity, Addiction, Piracy
The part that struck me was the addiction paragraph. And I qutote:
“Another problem that is sometimes caused by people’s musical tastes is an addiction to music. Some people simply cannot get enough music. They walk around with headphones in their ears, they turn on the stereos in their rooms, they listen to the radio in their cars, and they go to concerts when available, rarely taking the time to give their ears a rest!
Not only can this cause physical problems (i.e. deafness or impaired hearing abilities), it can also cause other non-physical problems. Once we ‘Lose ourselves’ to the music, we have given up a part of what makes us humans. We are admitting that we are dependent on music, as we could be dependent on a drug. If a person is listening to music so much that he ‘loses himself’ to it, he has put himself in a weary situation indeed!
There is a certain amount of music that can be healthy for a person, and this amount differs for every person. But a common problem amongst the people of our modern American society is their inability to cope with silence. Some people even have silonophobia (“fear of silence”), and become tense when there is no ambient sound. Jesus himself knew the importance of silence: “he would withdraw to deserted placed to pray” (Luke 5:16). Without this respect and acceptance of silence, we cannot truly have some time to ourselves—to actually think things over and pray.”
I put these words in a text to speech and recorded my computer reading them. I think I’m going to make a long instrumental song and play the words over it, because of how increddibly ignorant and ironic it is. I might put it over a video I’m going to shoot as well. I really like this idea though, who knows what’ll come out of it.
Babelfish Translate: English –> Strength June 26, 2008
Posted by Andrew in life, politics.add a comment
Today while on the treadmill at the gym, I was watching some news headline. Now, I haven’t done my homework on this in any form, so this is going to be pretty vague, but I assure you it was on the news and it really got me thinking. The guy was talking about some Eastern country that was threatening the US. He was talking to another news anchor who was a woman.
The woman asked something along the lines of “why do you think that we can’t reason with these people and just find a solution through communication?”
The man replied with something along the lines of “these people aren’t going to listen to us. The only language they understand is strength, and we’re just going to have to show them who is the more powerful country in this situation.”
And that’s when I said, “WAIT A MINUTE.”
Just because another country is from another part of the world, and they speak a different language than us, do we really think that they are speaking less intelligently than us? Do we think that they aren’t as rational as us? Does this guy really think that if we were to talk this over carefully with the opposing country, it would end badly just because they are who they are and we’re better?
Sometimes I wonder if there are news stations in other parts of the world that talk about plans to wage war on the US. Was there a news headline about the 9/11 bombings somewhere before they happened? Did someone say “The only language that the US understands is strength,” and then bomb us?
I don’t know. Maybe the only language we understand is strength.
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven June 25, 2008
Posted by Andrew in godspeed you! black emperor, music.add a comment
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antenna To Heaven
I actually haven’t listened to this all the way through yet (it’s 2 hours long), but I’m in the middle of the 4th track, and I think I’ve heard enough to say that it’s fantastic. Really moving music.
The Green Day Blog June 24, 2008
Posted by Andrew in green day, music.2 comments
I love Green Day. For me, these guys are the best band to come out of the 90s, hands down. Catchy, simple, aggressive and fun. Plus they were one of the first rock bands I listened to. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there who have never actually given Green Day a good listen because you immediately dismissed it as emo teenage girl rock, but they’ve made a lot of good music. Most people will say that their best album is Dookie, and while I agree that it’s a great album, I’m going to have to disagree and say that their best work is Nimrod.
Nimrod is their only album that I think mixes the style up a lot throughout the entire thing. All the songs are enjoyable, and it’s the only record of theirs that I can listen to without skipping a song. Although I still like all of their albums, they all have a few clunker songs on them, except Nimrod, imo.
Pre-Dookie (1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours & Kerplunk): Totally raw, recorded-in-their-basement punk rock.
Dookie: Probably their biggest album. Somewhat-poppy, catchy, and aggressive tunes about about growing up, getting stoned, masturbation, and being bored.
Insomniac: Their heaviest album. In-your-face punk rock from beginning to end, no slow songs needed.
Nimrod: Best album. Lots of experimentation with their sound in this one.
Warning: Kind of hit or miss. It has their poppiest songs on it (yes, moreso than American Idiot), but it also has a few of my favorites (“Blood, Sex & Booze”, “Fashion Victim”)
American Idiot: Their worst album. I’m sure everyone here has listened to it at least once because of all the hype. Though it’s still kind of fun, it’s over-commercialized and gave Green Day a bad name as being emo pop-machines.
Green Day is awesome.
Stuff I Bought Today June 20, 2008
Posted by Andrew in buying, music, video games.add a comment
I went to the greatest pawn shop ever today with my good buddy Dominick and I bought two awesome things at awesome prices.
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2.99
5.99
Dominick bought The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Master Quest) for Gamecube for 5.99, cause he saw it first.
That is all.
Amplification For Us All, It’s A New Way June 19, 2008
Posted by Andrew in buying, guitar.add a comment
I’ve decided I need a new amplifier. I have a really great guitar which I love, but my amp is sub-par and I think I would sound a thousand times better out of a higher quality amp. Right now I use a Fender Frontman 25R.
It has 25 watts and a 10″ speaker, with two channels, a drive channel and a clean channel. The clean channel is pretty good, and the drive channel is allllright I guess. But I get all of my distortion and effects from a Line6 Floorpod.
At the moment I have $___ (to be edited in later). My mom owes me $40. I have an extra Mars Volta ticket to that show that I’m not going to in Atlanta that I’m going to sell. If I sell it, I’ll probably get about $65-70 out of it, maybe. If I don’t sell it, I’ll get $50 for it because it’s under insurance by ticketmaster and I can get a refund If I no longer can go to the show. I’m going to sell my Frontman 25R to the guitar shop in town, and they told me today that they’d give me $100 for it. (It’s $140 retail, so I say good deal)
My dad’s going to be paying me $5 an hour for doing matic work in the front yard, and I’m guessing I’ll probably do at least 10 hours of that. So that’s $50 at bare minimum. Plus I can do extra chores and help out around the house if I want some extra money. If I’m really desperat I can work for my grandpa for $4 an hour for the rest of the summer. Last year I worked for him all summer and earned $500, which I used to buy this laptop that I am typing on right now.
So I say that at bare minimum I’m going to have somewhere around $400 to spend on an amp. Here’s what I’m looking at.
VOX AD50VT :: $379
50W :: 1×12″
CRATE FLEXWAVE FW120 :: $399
120W :: 2×12″
IBANEZ TBX150R :: $349
150W :: 2×12″
FENDER FRONTMAN 212R :: $329
100W :: 2×12″
Or, I could wait a few months longer, save up about 200 more dollars, and buy this. But is it worth the $200 more?
VOX AC15CC1 :: $599
15W TUBE POWER :: 1×12″
At the moment, I’m leaning toward the Ibanez.
S60eth5ng was n6t q45te r5ght June 18, 2008
Posted by Andrew in computers.add a comment
Somehow today I pressed the wrong combination of buttons, and this happened to me. I was just typing on a message board and I noticed that what I was typing wasn’t…what I was typing.
Luckily I figured out how to fix it. I googled it (with the onscreen keyboard, thank god for that) and found out that if you press ALT+NUM LOCK at the same time, it makes your i, o, p, k, l, m, and the number 0 type 56*230 and /, respectively. But until I figured this out, I was definitely freaking out.
So Hip June 17, 2008
Posted by Andrew in music.1 comment so far
I think that Hip-Hop might be my favorite genre at the moment. I have a pretty big wish list of CDs that I want to buy and listen to.
Madvilliany – MF Doom & Madvillan
Late Orchestration – KanYe West
6 Feet Deep – Gravediggaz
Stankonia – OutKast
Power In Numbers – Jurassic 5
Exit – K-OS
Falls Apart – The Roots
MM..Food? – MF Doom
Enter The Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers) – Wu-Tang Clan
None Shall Pass – Aesop Rock
I Wish – Skee-Lo
…and I just got NiggyTardust by Saul Williams. Great album, I highly recommend it.
6_18_08 (Photos: XI) June 15, 2008
Posted by Andrew in photography.add a comment
“a spider series”
“that’s a–”
“through the wire”
“sun wave”
“NESkimotion”
Af Lawn Your Plan June 14, 2008
Posted by Andrew in thoughts.add a comment
I was mowing today, and I wondered: why do people have lawns? What can I use a lawn for? I could see if you had children, you could use a backyard for them to play in. You could have a swingset or a trampoline or a playground or a slipnslide. But front lawns? What is the point? I realized that the only time that anyone in my family is in the front lawn is to mow it.
So a lawn is a chore.
It’s nothing more.
(See what I just did there?) Since we have lawns we therefore have driveways. Which makes me wonder: why do we have driveways? All it does is cost you money when you need to get it repaved or re-blackened or whatever the hell you do to a driveway. People should just have their garages right on the side of the street. There would be no driveways, and there would be no lawns. And there would be happiness.
365 June 13, 2008
Posted by Andrew in blogging.add a comment
I was at my friends house yesterday, and forgot to blog, for the second day in a row. As I was trying to go to sleep last night, I thought to myself: why am I still blogging? It’s becoming more of a hassle than it is something fun now.
Then I thought to myself: well, I’m still doing it because the goal was to have a blog a day for a year. A year of my life documented. Pretty cool when you think about it. When I’m 80 I can go back and read this to see what I was like at 16.
Then I thought to myself: I could still quit, we’re in the 6th month of the year. I never told my readers that the goal was to go for a year, so what they don’t know won’t hurt them. How about 6 months?
Then I thought to myself: What readers? I’m really just doing this to prove to myself that I can make a commitment and stick to it. If I quit now, what was the point?
Then I thought to myself: good point.
NOT GIVING UP.
Things That I Have Realized Exist Today June 10, 2008
Posted by Andrew in computers.add a comment
In an attempt to keep my computer organized and simple and fast, I have been looking for stuff to aid me in my quest. Today I struck a gold mine. I got to get rid of Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Mail, AIM, and I was able to clean up my desktop, so now I only have 8 icons on it. So here’s my 3 not-so-life-changing discoveries.
ROCKETDOCK
Gives your windows XP/Vista desktop a mac-esque dock bar. It’s awesome and everyone should get one. End of story.
THUNDERBIRD
Not as awesome as Rocketdock, but it’s way way better than Windows Live Mail and it’s pretty awesome. I also paired this up with a new e-mail account, this time at GMail. Also much better than Windows Live Hotmail.
PIDGEN
Pidgin is an IM client that lets you use ALL your IM clients at once. It also runs much faster than any of my IM clients, so this is a big plus. I need to get a skin for it though, it’s a little boring looking.
Check this stuff out if you haven’t already.
Bleep, Boo Boo Bop, Boo Boo Beep. June 9, 2008
Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized.add a comment
I WANT THISI WANT THISI WANT THIS
I live about 30 minutes from somewhere that sells retro gaming stuff, so I’m gonna go down there and get an extra NES controller for about 5 bucks. And apparently, it costs about 30 to get the supplies needed to make this bad boy. I.E., headphone jack, wiring, stuff like that.
My best friend Travis, his dad is an electrician, so theres all kinds of supplies and stuff lying around his garage. So I’m gonna get what we don’t have, go over to his house with a controller and my old shuffle, and follow these instructions.
I’ll get back to you.
CoolNESs June 8, 2008
Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized.add a comment
Yesterday I bought an NES.
I love it.
I got the console, 5/6 games (depending on what you call a game), two controllers, a zapper gun, and a power pad, all for 23 dollars. I’m so happy with what I got.
Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt
Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet
Jurassic Park
Star Force
Abadox
Mario Bros. is awesome, of course. Duck hunt, though, I can’t get to work, because I have and HDTV, and apparently (thanks google) the zapper doesn’t work on HDTVs because they send out different kinds of aweso-rays. World Class Track meet I tried for the first time today. You have to use the power pad to play it, which is essentially a bigger DDR board that has 12 squares instead of 9. You use it to run and jump and things of that nature, and it’s extremely exhausting. But very interesting, and very cool.
Jurassic Park is hard. It looks like it’s on a game engine similar to Toejam And Earl, except there’s a point. It’s a lot of fun, but the bosses are really tough. I dunno if I’ll ever get good at it.
Star Force is really fun. If Star FOX had been a top-down shooter, then it would be this. It’s like Galaga except it scrolls and there’s bosses and power ups and stuff like that. Very Star Fox-esque. I like it a lot.
Abadox…is the weirdest game I have ever played. It’s like R-Type. Except the premise is different. You are a space-cadet dude, and you’re traveling through the intestines of a giant monster that ate a planet or something. The goal is to get to his center and destroy him. Things attack you like tiny eyeballs, disembodied faces, and arms. It’s strange. It’s also very hard. I’ve gotten to the beginning of the second level, and couldn’t get farther than that. There’s seven levels that get harder and harder. So I dunno about that one.
The NES is awesome! I want to turn one of my controllers into an MP3 player.
A New Deal June 7, 2008
Posted by Andrew in concert, the mars volta.add a comment
There are so many things I want to blog about right now, but first comes first.
So the Atlanta Volta show got rescheduled to September. This time I have a ride, and permission to go. So I bought a ticket for that show. I got ticket insurance so I can get a refund at any time, because the person said that there’s a slim chance something may happen and he wouldn’t be able to go. After I bought the ticket, they called me and let me know that The Volta are playing in North Carolina the night before, and that would be a better concert to go to. Smaller venue, safer part of town, somewhat shorter drive.
So, the plan is this. I am keeping my Atlanta ticket. I just bought a North Carolina ticket. Once the Atlanta show sells out (it will.) I’ll sell this ticket either on eBay or over The Comatorium, The Mars Volta message board. I’ll probably get about 50-75 dollars out of that deal, and I might break even and get to go to the Volta show, losing no money. If the ticket doesn’t sell, I just use my ticket insurance and get a full refund.
Sounds good.
What’s My Age Again? June 5, 2008
Posted by Andrew in blink-182, music.add a comment
Blink-182 was one of the first bands that I listened to that I still listen to today. I’ve been listening to them for probably a little over 4 years, but I haven’t listened to them for a good long time, with the exception of their live album, which is phenomenal. When I got into Blink at first, my mom was really strict about what I listened to because I was young and just getting into the music scene, so I was forced to buy edited versions of all my Blink albums.
Today, I downloaded torrents of the explicit versions of Enema Of The State, Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, and their self titled one. Unfortunately, they don’t hold up as well as I had hoped. There’s a few really songs on each album that are really good, but I’m not a big fan of the fart and penis jokes that inhabit a good portion of Enema and Take Off. I was a little dissapointed.
Fortunately, the self titled album is still great. This is Blink-182 going out on top, before splitting up and forming two vastly inferior bands. Every song, except for a few (Go, All Of This, and Easy Target) are really really good. I recommend this album to anyone who tried Blink before this album and disliked them.
Another thing to listen is The Mark, Tom, And Travis Show, their live album. Really good, really hilarious, pretty long concert, which is good. So, those are two great albums by a pretty good punk band. Check ‘em out.
The Land Of The Man June 4, 2008
Posted by Andrew in Uncategorized.add a comment
So, I went on vacation, and now I’m back. I was right. No internet connection down there. Though I did walk down to the nature center of where I was staying and got some internet for a short time, only to have my laptop die before I could finish a blog. It was about this.
I canoe with my dad. We’ve been canoing (that’s spelled so weird, but spell check says it’s right) for about 3 or 4 years now. The vacation was to a cabin on a lake, so we brought our canoe with us. We put it in the water, and go fishing on it, and while we’re gone, a park ranger is knocking door to door. He’s asking everyone “who owns that canoe out on the lake right now?”
So anyway, he finds out it’s us, and goes and scares the crap out of my mom by knocking on the door and telling her that it is illegal to bring a privately-owned canoe to this lake, because there’s canoes for rent there. Basically it’s a scheme to get more money out of us. Unfair. I thought buying a canoe meant that we’d never have to rent one again, but apparently this guy thinks differently.
Then I thought, well, I guess they can do that. They bought the lake. It’s their property, they can have their own rules.
THEN I thought, should you be able to buy a lake? Should you be able to tell people what they can and can’t do out in nature? We’ve ALREADY paid a lot of money to rent the lakeside cabin, shouldn’t that give us some rights to use the lake how we want?
I don’t know. I took some pretty sweet pictures on vacation. I’ll share tomorrow.
