Archive for April, 2009
Music Has Returned
The iPod Nano 16GB has arrived…and dear lord is it small. I knew it was going to be small, but seeing one and really holding it on your hand are two different things. I'm sorta afraid I'm going to stick a piece of paper over it and totally lose it.
First of all, I have to say I'm really impressed by Apple's refurbished products. The nano is in perfect condition. No scratches on the case or the screen, looks like new, works exactly like it should.
I'm really enjoying the updates to the iPod interface from my 4th gen standard iPod. Things like being able to turn the shuffle mode on and off from within the playlist are awesome. And it sounds like the sound quality is a little bit better than what I had before. Also, really liking the Cover Flow teacher more than I thought I would. Basically it lets you tilt the iPod to the side and it pops up a line of all of your album covers which you scroll through and can pick songs to listen to that way. It works way better on the iPod than it does on iTunes.
Overall, very happy with the purchase. Well, not that I had to make it, but now that I have it, things worked out pretty well. Just need to tweak my playlists a bit so I get the right subset of my 25GB library onto the 15GB of storage it has. I got it close, but it looks like I missed a few things when I was setting it up.
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Nano Update
Just posting a quick update to my iPod story from yesterday. I put in an order for a refurbished 16GB iPod Nano (in black) yesterday morning. It should be arriving tomorrow. And it can't come soon enough as I'm going a little crazy without being able to listen to some music over here.
I keep thinking things like "oh, I should go to the gym…ah crap" or "Man, it's quiet in here, I should put on my headphones and— daaaah!"
Soooooon…
In other news, the tour dates for ProgNation 09 have been announced and there's a show at a nice place in albany. Waiting on the ticket prices and such to finalize plans for that show. But it's such a nice venue (with fairly crappy parking near it, unfortunetly) and close enough where we wouldn't have to stay overnight or something. A definite option anyway. We shall see how things develop
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Stupid iPod
I was at work yesterday going to listen to some music on my iPod while I did some boring type stuff and, come to find out, it looks like the headphone jack is busted now 😦
I only get sound out of the left speaker of whatever I plug into it. The right speaker works if I push the jack it a certain way, but it doesn't keep working after I stop pushing. I don't recall dropping it recently so I'm not entirely sure what happened to it. This one's lasted me about 3 years which is 2 years longer than my previous iPods. So that works out pretty well
Needless to say, this is some pretty bad timing since my hours are getting cut next week. Thankfully May is also a 3 paycheck month, so I have that little bit of extra money floating around.
After doing some calculating, I'm thinking about picking up a refurbished 16GB iPod Nano just to toss my essential songs on it, along with a smaller random playlist so I can listen at work/at the gym/in bed to drown out the next door neighbor's subwoofer. Music is pretty important to me, so I'm willing to toss some other stuff to work this into the budget.
It's probably going to be my one big leisure expense coming up and I'll put the rest of the extra cash into savings to try to offset any unforseen varriations while I'm dealing with my reduced income.
A Very Welcome Weekend
Last week was pretty darn crappy, so the arrival of the weekend was very welcome. A chance to catch my breath a bit and do a little relaxation (while still getting some work done) was needed.
The fun started on friday when Wassy hinted she was working on a little art related project for me. She had just gotten a set of Copic Sketch Markers and she wanted to try them out on something. So she took one of the sketches she had been working on for an upcoming piece for me (using the markers) and did a ink and marker test run with it. Of course she didn't tell me that right off the bat. Just hinted she was up to something and made me guess what it was. I'm really impressed by how it ended up looking using the markers. I'm looking forward to the full piece and to seeing more copic colored pieces in the future.
It's just really nice to have a crappy week end with a little gift artwork. I really appreciate it because she was extremely busy with her school work and other commissions, so to take that much time out of that stuff and work up something for me means an awful lot to me.
Techy paragraph time: I decided this weekend that I wanted to learn C# and .NET. I never really got around to looking at .NET seriously and C# seems to be in demand these days, so I figured it was time to update myself. If you're into software development it's really necessary to update your skillset every couple of years to keep up with the ever advancing march of technology. So I figure it's time to get on the bandwagon and check it out. Went out to the store and picked up a hefty book and I've been working my way through it pretty quickly. It's a cool language and I'm starting to see why people like using .NET so much.
In less techy news, my friends and I were going to have this braised chicken recipie and I was sent in search of the fresh vegetable type ingredients on friday evening. I had some trouble finding a chili pepper though. I've never had to go buy one, you see, and when I went to the store nothing was labled correctly. I ended up getting two peppers, neither of which ended up being the correct peppers. We had no idea what they were, so naturally, we made Jay try them out. He's got a high tolerance for spicy foods, so we figured this was the best option.
He took one bite out of the first pepper and was fine. Then one out of the second pepper and was fine again. And then…he took a second bite and dove for sink for a glass of water. It seems that this pepper was "really f'ing hot". I thought he was kidding for a second there, but then realized that his eyes were watering…oops. I do feel bad about it, but it was EXTREMELY entertaining. I need to bring more random peppers home sometime…
Overall, a very nice relaxing weekend.
Music QotD: First Concert
What was your first concert?
My first real concert (not counting things like school concerts and stuff like that) was Dream Theater in Worchester, MA at The Palladium on 8/21/2004. Originally it was intended to be a couple weeks later at the new york state fair on September 2nd 2004, with Dream Theater opening for Yes. But they added a headlining date to the tour and I just had to go there.
The venue was a bit of a dump, an old converted opera house with all the seats removed. General Admission, complete with mosh pits, a horrible opening band and a guy behind me smoking pot and asking me what the name of each song was…
But it was AWESOME. From opening with Metropolis Part 1 to the warped version of Pull Me Under to A Fortune In Lies…the setlist was awesome. Especially Fatal Tragedy, the song that had gotten me into the band originally played at my first live rock show. It's a weird feeling when you first realize that the people on the stage are the people you've listened to on the CD and they're actually playing the music for you right there.
The keyboards were broke for the entire first half of Metropolis, but I didn't even really notice at the time. I was too busy being excited.
Culture QotD: What food reminds you of your childhood?
What food reminds you of your childhood?
That would probably be Spanish Rice. Over Easter when I was at my parents house going through boxes of my old school stuff, I came across something that I had obviously done in elementary school where I declared my favorite food to be spanish rice. I used to have it all the time.
And the sad thing (well, I guess it's not really a sad thing, exactly) is I really haven't had it at all since I stopped living with my parents. Mostly because I never really got the hang of cooking rice on the stove (Ready Rice for the win!).
Well…It Could Have Been Worse
I haven't posted much of anything since Monday I know, but I've been pretty busy with various things.
The main update is that the morning meeting on Tuesday wasn't good. In addition to the layoffs, they're cutting everybody's hours by 10%. Which, frankly sucks. I get paid on the very low end of the computer programmer pay scale for a bunch of reasons (started part time here, with no degree…pay scale never really adjusted to where it should be and by the time I got my degree there were financial troubles in the company and they couldn't give me a raise to compensate) and now with this cut it's basically erasing the past 2 years worth of raises and then some.
My budget has always been a little tight and with the decreased income it's going to pretty much chop off whatever free spending money I had. Which isn't going to work.
At least I still have a job but this isn't going to work long term, so it's finally time to start trying to figure out something else.
Over The Edge
Just wanted to update my last posting. I've still got a job, and aside from a company wide meeting that's happening tomorrow regarding the situation and some changes that might be happening to save money, looks like most of it is over.
I just feel very drained right now though. I work in a small office, so you really get to know your co-workers so you can't help but feel really bad for the people that got let go. Especially in a situation like this where it's all about the finances…not job performance.
Ah well. I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow in order to make it into the meeting on time. It's scheduled for 30 minutes before the time I get in to work.
The Precipice
Two basic things that are being mentioned today.
First off, the wine and chocolate festival that I went to on Saturday was very awesome. There was much sampling of wines, and a few new wineries discovered which is always good. Upstate New York has a thriving wine country which is handy for me since I enjoy a glass on occasion and there's a lot of good stuff being produced right in the area.
We ended up buying a bunch of bottles for future consumption. Lakeland Winery had some really awesome fruity wines. Especially a melon flavored one. And the other big find was Tickle Hill for their Peach Fuzz and Hector Nectar. And a bunch of other things too. I'm doing this from memory and I can't remember them all.
We also sampled the cheese, chocolate and olive oil/hot sauce booths. Found some really awesome champagne cheese which I was tempted to buy, along with some all natural fudge sauce and actual fudge which I REALLY wanted to buy. I managed to hold off because I knew that if I did actually buy it, it'd be gone in about 3 hours. Which would be ungood for me. I did get their card though, so I know where to go if I ever do want some for something.
Sunday was mostly spent relaxing and watching South Park. I made my chicken alfredo for dinner which went over really well. I'm still getting used to the stove so I had the sauce done a lot faster than the pasta, but I'll adjust that one and get it right the next time I do it.
Now for the second thing. We've got some impending staff reductions going on at work today. I hesitate to say this, but I'm not terribly worried for my job considering the big projects that I just started. But you never know with these things. I won't know much of anything until this afternoon and even then there's a company meeting tomorrow morning so it probably won't be totally over until then.
We'll see what happens…
Vox Hunt: Say Cheese.
It's National Cheeseball Day. Show us something cheesy.
Cultivated Nonsense 