What I do while my wife studies for her exams

I could do more productive things, but that's what work is for, right? So here are a few things that have been helping me unwind lately.

National Geographic

I have a subscription. My grandpa had a subscription, and I've always been fascinated by the golden rectangle. The problem is they don't come often enough-- only once a month. It doesn't even take a couple nights to get through. If you can limit yourself to one article a night, you can stretch it out. Sometimes I skip articles though. Philippine eagles just don't capture my attention. Maybe I'll go back and read it some day.

Zeta Gundam

I pretty much love anything Gundam.

Tape Op

My other subscription. This one is actually free. If you're into recording, this publication is indispensable.

Flight of the Conchords

My sister got me the first season for my birthday, so I felt obligated to watch it. It was kinda funny actually. It's the Kiwi version of Tenacious D back when they were on HBO.

Extras

I bought season one and two as a gift for my family's Dirty Santa gift exchange. My poor grandma picked it. I could tell she wasn't pleased for some reason. She was stuck with it for a while until Michelle swooped in to save her. So I got to watch season two, which I hadn't seen yet. There are only six episodes though, so it's not enough to cover months of lonely nights unless you watch it over and over again.

Casio PX-200 Digital Piano

I picked up one of these for my birthday. Lately I've been teaching myself Satie's Three Gymnopedies. Not being a pianist, prior to this, the only thing I could really play on the piano was "Hey Jude". I figured the Gymnopedies would be good pieces to work on for someone who doesn't really play before I start diving into some crazy Chopin preludes.

Netvibes

I keep all my RSS feeds organized on Netvibes. I can go deep, or I can graze depending on my mood.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report

I get my national and world news and laugh a little at the same time-- what a combo.

Blade Runner

I got the four-disc set for Xmas. As to be expected, it's loaded with making-of documentary footage to help you literally pick up the craft of film making.

Books

I've actually had time to finish the book my buddy at work lent me like a year ago. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon is an epic story of two Jewish cousins in WWII New York who take on the Nazis through their popular superhero comic, The Escapist. As a work of fiction, it's meticulously researched and feels more like a true stylized biography of these characters as they interact with real people and events of the time. It was little too tidy and straight-forward for me, but I was still able to enjoy many sections.

So that's what I've been up to. Now you can go off and be me. I'll try to be more exciting for the next time.

EO

Sunday

Let's all work together to get this film a distribution deal.

Sunday

Ryan, you've made us proud.

I'm acceptable for all audiences

Full-size Gundam created for GUNDAM CRISIS attraction - Engadget

Full-size Gundam created for GUNDAM CRISIS attraction - Engadget

Video podcasters on youtube, please start using blip.tv

I have a simple request to all video podcasters who upload their videos exclusively to youtube: upload 'em to blip.tv as well. I'm asking you to do this so I can subscribe to your feed outside of the youtube domain using whatever viewing mechanism pleases me. I happen to have a Windows media center rig plugged into my TV with TV Tonic installed, but I'm sure my request applies to owners of the new iTV thing as well since one can use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts. Thanks.

Oh, and youtube, I realize you like to keep people hanging out on your site, but I bet I'm not the only one who would really dig it if you offered RSS feeds for your channels. Millions read my blog, and by tomorrow, every serial video poster will abandon your site in favor of blip.tv unless you do something now. (blip.tv, get ready for the huge bandwidth increase.)

Movin' time

The Magnificent M has new digs. Go there.

http://iovuf.blogspot.com/index.html

mp3's of me

http://pacificarms.magnaband.com/mp3/

I just realized my host allows me an insane amount of storage and bandwidth. So here are a bunch of original songs I've recorded throughout the years.

'Bout time

The Famous (and mysterious) M has finally stepped up to the blogosphere. What's up with the anonymity? He used to put together a much-loved 'zine every quarter for his friends and family, culling together rare tidbits from around the funnyspace. It is sorely missed. Hopefully Living-to-die will fill that void. Perhaps, it can fill some of your voids as well.

LA Movie

Mike D. is a movie-making machine. Check out the first video episode from Cloak and Dagger Media.

Gundam greets the new year

Gundam Lantern

Anyone want to help me build one? Thanks for the link, Dan.

time-lapse overload

A friend of mine volunteered her time schlepping chunks of concrete to help get Malibu Creek back to where she once belonged. This is the incredible time-lapse video of the monumental task.

she speaks in tongues

Click To Play

dan, thanks for posting this. i can't stop watching this. my kid is awesome.

Sunshine is not free

Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream

I totally dreamed this up ages ago. And I had the same conversation in my own head. When everyone shows up for their free solar panels, how am I going to pay for them all? We're talking enormous up front costs. Am I willing to wait a long time to get my money back and make a profit? What will Edison do to try to stop me?

It's a great idea, but it doesn't look like these are the guys to get it done. Yeah, the more you make, the cheaper they get. But pyramid scheme? Come on. This thing will sell itself once it gets rolling. Why bog it down. Someone else with a little more legitimacy please step up to the plate.

I say we look at these homeowner contracts as securities. Bundle 'em up and securitize. They're essentially low-yield, low-risk bonds. They already do this with home loans. Environmentally-conscious investors could jump all over these. Et voila! There's your financing. Maybe your local bank or lender will be where you go to get your free solar panel.

War

The rawest depiction ever digitized.

Dude Shoes 0001

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. Be on the look-out for episode 0003 when I attempt to use Youtube's direct record thing as DL suggested.

I'm now able to more effectively manipulate minds through face-to-face contact.

Digital Entertainment Center Part 3

I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas. I'm always a little late to the party. In addition to being a powerful gaming platform, the Xbox 360 can also perform as a Windows Media Center extender. After updating my OS, and getting a unique code from the Xbox, I was able to install the media center extender interface on my recently acquired 255z. It's pretty amazing. Once you fire up the media center on the Xbox, it's nearly indiscernible from the original media center interface. I could watch TV live or recorded, watch video, listen to music, and look at pictures just like on my media center. I'm not sure how well the live TV thing will work over wi-fi though. This is a great option for folks with multiple big-ass TV's. I only have one big-ass TV though, so it's kinda pointless for me. But I'm loving the Xbox no less. I held my own against some pre-pubes in a Call of Duty deathmatch. And I'm racking up the points in Need for Speed. Pretty soon, with those points, I'll be renting some high-def movies from the Xbox marketplace. Or I could get that episode of South Park I've always wanted. I'll have to take the 360 with me if I want to watch it on the go. With those points I could finally get past the second level of Frogger and pay for the full version.

A little update on the media center itself: dvd surround sound audio does indeed work and cd/dvd burning works. I was enjoying the Beatles/Gearge Martin's Love in 5.1 just the other day. And a little movie I edited in Windows Movie Maker and then authored into a dvd with Nero turned out great. My masterpiece has been likened to watching ice melt by more than one person.

Another media center update: for the paranoid and the packrats, the 255z (z552) comes with a slot for an HP personal media drive. I got one of these to back up my valuables. It's pretty handy-- slides right in. I'm using Allway Sync to automatically back stuff up. Thanks again for the idea, Dan. As always, you are the tech man.

Rotted Brain

A couple of my good buddies have been diligently producing a tech-focused podcast every weekday for a couple months now. Being on vacation, I had the opportunity to sit in on the last two episodes to demonstrate my complete ignorance. Check them out at rottedbrain.com. In the latest episode we discussed a painstakingly crafted "top ten websites of 2006" list.

Digital Entertainment Center Part 2

About a week ago I installed Windows XP MCE on my new HP debranded digital entertainment center. It definitely was the right call. The remote control started working instantly with no fuss. Once you get that remote in your hand, you want to avoid the trackball at all costs. It prompted me to do some things I hadn't originally planned on doing like tweaking MCE to support OGM and AAC files.

Drivers

Again I was clueless. I thought all the device drivers would somehow be included with the OEM version of MCE that I had purchased. I'm an unrealistic optimist I guess. Again none of the custom devices, except for the remote and the wireless keyboard, worked. But fortunately since I had a legitimate copy of MCE installed, I was able to go to HP, and get pretty much everything I needed. This of course was after I got the network card working. It was nice to see the led display tell me something other than the default welcome message. In addition to the drivers at the HP site, I went ahead and got the latest Catalyst driver from ATI.

DVD decoder

Yep. I needed on of these. Couldn't play DVD's or watch TV without it. I got the bronze level NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder for $19.99. That did the trick. I also got a coax splitter to take advantage of the dual tuners.

Windows Media Center

Dang! The green button rocks. I was so impressed with this interface, I wanted to be able to access all my video, music, and pictures using it. Like I mentioned earlier, it's all about the remote control. For those of you with TiVo's and the like, you know the feeling. You get big friendly menus browseable from your couch with the click of a remote. It's like the DVD menu of your life. And underneath it all, I still have a PC that does everything a PC does. I don't have to be stuck in the world of big menus. I can run uTorrent while I'm recording Oprah and flipping through pictures of my vacation and listening to ABBA.

Do you need MCE? No. But the interface is worth the extra bucks in my opinion. Running the latest Nero or Beyond TV are viable alternatives. I've tried Nero, and it does the trick. Its friendly interface is even skinnable. MCE probably has both alternatives beat on website integration though. A lot of sites have content accessible through MCE. Through the MTV and VH1 links, I can click through a treasure trove of videos new and old. This was an unexpected surprise.

I could've saved a little money using Linux and some open source Linux media center app. (Google "Linux media center." There's a lot out there.) But I really wanted to replicate what you get with the HP branded z552. I'm borderline OCD and 100% lazy.

File formats

A while ago when I got my iPod, I ended up ripping my entire cd collection into AAC files. AAC is handled perfectly by iTunes. WMP needs a little tweaking to properly deal with AAC. If WMP can't see them, than MCE can't see them. So I grabbed an AAC codec here and a WMP plugin to display AAC tags here. It took forever for the tags to populate in WMP with my paltry 6,387 songs. The plugin crashed WMP more than once. But I had to have all my music in MCE. I just had to. The only ones that don't show up now are the ones with DRM from the iTunes store. I got a $50 iTunes gift card last Xmas, and I've gotten codes from a few bottle and box tops. I have yet to free these files. But it will happen.

So you already know I have an iPod and a Windows Media Center machine. I might as well spill everything and tell you I'm a fan of mecha anime. A lot of video procured online, especially anime, is encoded as OGM. With the right codec, OGM files play just fine in WMP. But you can't add them to the library. Subsequently, MCE doesn't recognize them. Well, some hotshot at this forum created a .reg file that solves this problem. Thanks guy.

The Future

I still have to test a surround sound DVD. You'd think this would be one of the first things I'd check. But I have a nice DVD player already, so it's not a priority.

I haven't tried to burn a CD or DVD yet.

If I go HD with my cable company, I'll have to upgrade the tuner card and employ the IR blaster, which I'm currently not using, to switch channels on the converter box. HD would mean bigger files. Bigger files would need to be stored on a bigger hard drive. I can't predict who's going to win between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. So I'm hoping online delivery will be perfected sooner rather than later.

Conclusion

I'd have a hard time finding a new HP z552 for under $1,000. This is essentially what I have. I got half off. That's rad.

My digital entertainment center adventure -- Part 1

I snagged probably the last HP Debranded P4 3.0GHz 200GB Digital Entertainment Center TS-255z from the ComputerGeeks the other day. Just take a look at the specs and then marvel at the $435.50 price. My buddy knew I was in the market for some sort of computer-plugged-into-my-TV thing. It took a while for the awesomeness of this to sink in after he shared the link.

The Mac mini was pretty high on my list once Boot Camp entered the picture. (My lady can't handle the OS X for some reason; she fears change.) But the mini's lack of video capture sort of bothered me. I'm not much for recording, but rewinding makes me feel like God.

The 255z is the HP z552 without the OS, instruction booklet, and support from HP. It's the same exact hardware. I figured I'd just install the XP Home that came with my laptop and be done with it. Yes, laugh at my naivete. I haven't put a system together since I've been on laptops. A hardcore gamer I am not. So I plugged in the serial number to activate Windows-- no dice. I called the 800 number and got an education on the Windows world today. Apparently the Windows installed on my laptop (included in the price of my laptop) is only good for that laptop. "If the laptop dies, the Windows dies with it." Yes, he said that. According to the MS customer service rep, OEM versions are tied to the hardware they're installed on. He mentioned that if I had purchased a standalone version, they could've given me another license. I didn't want to mess around with some workaround, so I started shopping for an OS I already had. I thought about Linux for second, and then moved on. The going rate around town for the full version of XP Home seemed to be around $200. I settled on an OEM version of Windows XP Media Center Edition for $109. The Home OEM was cheaper, but I figured I could exploit the hardware more with the OS it was designed around. The little platter is in transit now. I'll document the post-MCE experience in part 2.

In the meantime, I still had an OS that would work for 30 days, so I started tinkering. The remote keyboard worked immediately. The remote control didn't. The network card driver didn't install automatically, so I was a little stuck. My friend, who lives and breathes the internet, found the Marvell network card driver and sent me the link. I performed a thumb drive transfer and began rocking cyberspace in no time. I found the obvious video and sound drivers from ATI and Realtek. Using a digital coax connection to my surround system, I was able to get stereo sound to work but not 5.1. :(. I'm pretty sure the two video capture devices are from Hauppauge, but exactly which driver to use I wasn't sure about. I'm hoping the XP MCE install will solve these issues. If it has all the plug-and-play drivers, I should be golden.

Am I happy? Considering I was plugging my laptop into my HDTV via a VGA cable to watch HD files surrounded by black bars, and I was listening to music through an Apple AirPort, I'm more than stoked. I have a powerful computer that is always hooked up to my TV, sound system, and the interweb for a little over $500. I can take advantage of the TV's full resolution. Once I get the DVR cards working, I can rewind again (the Moxi box from Adelphia and all that came with it was getting ridiculously expensive, so we cancelled). I even installed Call of Cthulhu to see how a game would work on the new system. This game used to freeze on my weak laptop at the lowest settings. I used to see floating eyeballs where heads should be. Now on my bigass TV, this game can be enjoyed in all its macabre glory. It was nightmare-inducing.