Remotes

Trying out a new universal remote… Adam bought the Logitec Harmony 880 remote a while back, tried it, and didn’t like it. So I bought it from him, and it’s been sitting around for a few months.


New Harmony Remote

Tonight I sat down and configured it. Kinda clunky setup software (java-based and web-driven), but I think I got it all set up.

I’m going to try using it day-to-day and see how it goes.


Old MX500 Remote

I think I still prefer my old Home Theater Master MX500 remote, since it has a nicer button layout and larger more tactile buttons. But I’ll give the Harmony a chance and see if it grows on me.

Adam’s B-Day

Had Adam’s birthday party last night.

It was a lot of fun, we all met at our house, then went to a place called the Alamo for dinner.

When I got my food, it was so much that after I had eaten my fill and passed it around so everyone could try some, there was still 2/3 of it left. Sarah and I ate the leftovers today for lunch. So it was literally enough food for a full meal for three people. And it was really yummy.

After the Alamo, we went to Pinz for bowling.
I bowled a 109, which for me is very good.

A buncha pics are up on flickr.

Garage Band

Garage Band is a fun app, which somehow simultaneously gives me the sense that putting together a song is easy, and that composing music is very hard.

Almost everyone I know can play an instrument, somehow music has always eluded me.

Maybe I’m too dumb to learn, or maybe I’ve been too lazy to try and learn.

Either way I feel like an idiot who missed out.

Here’s the start of a tune I did in Garage band last night.
I don’t know if you can really call it mine, since I just made a mix using the built-in loops.

Song1.mp3

Handy Tip

If you ever want to boost your productivity when programming, just pop in the Run Lola Run soundtrack. Your fingers will really want to get moving on that code.

Marketing Classic Books

So I had an idea that I thought I’d sketch out last night…

What if overzealous marketers wanted to promote classic books, but had never read them, and didn’t want to take the time to?

So here are some cover designs and taglines, based only on the book title.
They’re really rough, but convey the basic idea…

You can also see higher-res versions on Flickr.


“They were separated by age, but brought together by love. The tale of the forbidden passion that shocked a nation! – 19 / 84 – George Orwell”

“The life of a porn star is a hard one. – Moby Dick – A ribald romp by Herman Melville”


“Their mission: colonize Mercury. But they were not alone… – Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury”

“The FBI’s top agent has only 3 days to stop 22 criminal masterminds! – Catch-22 – Joseph Heller”


“Revenge is a drink best served with poison. – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck”

“When you want to get away from… your life. – Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe, the master of horror”


“He can see you, but you can’t see him. – The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger”

“The Jungle – A handy guide to visiting the Amazon. With full-color photos! – Upton Sinclair”


“An Oprah Book Club Selection! – Oliver Twist – He’ll dance his way to the top, and into your heart. – Charles Dickens”

“The Time Machine – An illustrated history of the wristwatch. – H.G. Wells”

“All he ever wanted was to play football. – The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo”

Dreams of Death

I died in my dream last night. And not a death at the end of the dream that snaps me awake, but a death at the beginning of the dream.

I was at Staples, and something happened. Not sure what, but I died. Scott found my body and was seriously freaked out by it. I was brought to the hospital, and was still sort of alive, but then I died, and was standing next to my body, a ghost.

I followed the doctor as she went out to tell Judy I was dead. She was upset, but I spoke to her, telling her I was still around. At first she couldn’t hear me, but eventually she could, and I was able to talk to her.

I knew that my body could be repaired, that I could come back to life, but that it was risky, because it would take a week to repair my body, and most spirits faded out after 3 or 4 days. I explained to Judy what needed to be done to my body to get it working again, and she agreed to take care of it.

Then I was on the beach, walking over the sand dunes with Snooj. He thought I should move on, that it was too risky to try to hold out for my body, that I should embrace the next plane. I nodded and pretended to agree with him, but I was still planning to try and last long enough to get back to my body.

I knew that if I failed, one of two things would happen, either I would dissapate completely, or I would lose my memories and become a haunt, thumping around between planes, bumping against reality like a moth against a windowpane, barely noticable but disturbing.

As time went on, I began to weaken. I watched over the proceedures done to my body. As I was about to fade away, I remembered something, some key truth that gave me power, and I re-formed, stronger than ever.

Finally my body was ready, repaired and in a temporary coma. I flowed back into it, feeling stiff but back on the material plane.

Then I woke up.

It left me feeling oddly refreshed, with an appreciation for life, and a carpe-deim sort of mood about me.

“I hate video games”

Sometimes, someone I know says something so unexpected that I am taken aback, momentarily literally stopped in my tracks.

We were walking downstairs to get coffee, when my co-worker Lyn says “I hate video games”. Now, she’s a smart person, and this kind of blanket statement struck me as so short-sighted and ignorant that I was momentarily stunned.

It is one thing to condemn a work, or even a theme, but to condemn an entire medium seems like an awfully broad stroke.

It frustrates me when people have a narrow view of a medium because it is “new”, treating it as special or different because it’s not exactly the same as what came before it.

Comic books/graphic novels, for example – people make assumptions like “they are just for kids” or “they are a waste of space” or “they aren’t art” just because the few they have seen are less sophisticated (if they have even seen any, many judgements of this type are based on second- or third-hand information). But if they were to read Maus, could they then say that comics were not art, and a waste of space?

Video games are now in the same spot. Recently, Roger Ebert declared “video games can never be high art”. I strongly disagree, for a number of reasons. His main arguement is that because video games are interactive, they cannot be art, because the artist doesn’t have complete control over the viewer. Does this mean that scuptures are not art, because the viewer is free to walk around and see it from any angle? Or interactive art installations are not art, because they are interactive? Saying that interaction negates art, or relegates it to “low art” seems like a very limited viewpoint.

The other part of his statement, that video games “will never be” high art, is similarly limited in vision. He is making a firm prediction for all of time. Video games are in their infancy, but even now there are games that I would say qualify as art, such as “Ico” or “Flow”. I think his exposure to video games is also pretty limited, he has seen a handful of games and is basing his views of the entire medium on that small group. That would be like seeing “Son of the Mask,” “3 Ninjas,” “Kazam,” and “Lawnmower Man 2” and declaring that movies can never be high art.

In the end, I cannot contridict the statements “I hate video games” or “I think video games will never be high art”, because they are opinions. What I can do is strongly disagree, and offer my own point of view.

Scannin’

I’ve been doing a little slide scanning, when I was at my grandfather’s house after the funeral, I found a few trays of slides in his basement, under some odds and ends. I’ve scanned about 60 so far. A lot of the photos are over or under exposed, to the point of not being useful, the slides weren’t sorted, just slapped into trays. There are even black slides and end-of-roll slides in there.

Right now I’m just scanning them in and saving them, I chose to do them at 600 DPI, seems a reasonable tradeoff between quality, size and speed. If there are any standout images I’ll do touch up and restoration work on them.

Here’s kind of a fun one, it appears to be my parents dressed up for halloween, my mom looks like she’s dressed as Rosie the Riveter, my dad looks like he’s dressed as a millionaire.

Cleaner Freezer

I bought some more plastic containers and finished converting from bagged storage to plastic bin. Much cleaner!

cleaner freezer

p.s. the bottom shelf is Adam’s.

p.p.s. The Skinny Cow ice cream cones are super-delicious. (150 Calories, 3g fat, 3g fiber = 3 points)