Tape Select B - Side A

In cleaning out my room to do renovation work I came across a case full of cassette tapes, as well as some 8-tracks I swiped from my parents' collections when I was a kid. Some of the cassettes, I can honestly say, I didn't know I had, including gems from Rob Van Winkle, MC Hammer, and the king of pop himitself. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with owning 8-track copies of Bat Out of Hell, or Supertramp's Crime of the Century.

Along with the legit (2 legit 2 quit?) tapes though, I also came across my collections of mix tapes, some of them with the tracks written out in neat handwriting as I had nothing better to do at 12 years old, others printed off from some of the earliest versions of MS Publisher. These were the tapes that were nearly worn out listening to All Apologies or Black Hole Sun or One. If you're picturing me now as one of those kids walking around in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans, a few years behind the actual 'grunge' peak, you'd be absolutely right. Don't forget the quasi Kurt undercut.

Anyways, I found my mix tapes, and having just put the stock radio and tape deck back into my old van before its as yet unspecified date with the junkyard, I decided to throw one in the other day. Its remarkable how many of the songs I actually still enjoy, even with the tone not fading in and out from heating and cooling of the tape sitting in the sweltering car or being constantly fast-forwarded or rewound.

It was almost enough to make me want to bust out a tape deck and make a new one for this era. Which brings us to the new Matt Good single, and how I'd consider registering on iTunes and buying it, if it weren't for all the digital rights management crap. I like to be able to move my music around, between my PC and my laptop, or occasionally a memory stick to listen at school, and on to mp3 mix discs which have taken over for me from tapes. See I buy mp3 capable DVD and CD players for my car and home entertainment system for a reason, and to have to worry about whether the song will actually play because of the DRM is just a big pain in the ass. I ran into a similar problem with the Foo Fighters two years ago with the copy protection on the actual physical CD.

Its no fault of the artists either in most cases, but the money grubbing execs, who I guess aren't making enough off the $100's concert tickets and $billions in music sales still, despite file sharing. Nonetheless, I will be grabbing a copy of the CD the day it comes out anyways, as I'm still a sucker for the tangible, and for album art, and so feel no guilt about acquiring a copy of the track in other ways, perhaps to make myself a mix tape circa 2007.

Financial Crisis Averted

After taking a look at some $1000 SLR camera options, I'm glad to have my old camera back. It turns out I really can't hold my liquor as well as in days passed, and I simply left my camera at the bar. Yes the camera has certainly seen better days, and it seems to take grainier shots every time I turn it on, but I can't really ask much more for all the times I've dropped it while pushing cars, or stumbling around bonfires.

I will have to sink some of the money saved in not having to buy a new camera into building up my tolerance again though; an insurance policy against leaving my camera, or any other valuables behind at the bar in the future.

Getting the camera back also allowed me to take some shots of my room before I begin the reconstruction. After disturbing at least one family of mice in my attic last week moving insulation aside to knock down the plaster ceiling, I found that there was already strapping in place for the drop-ceiling that was up. So I've decided that instead of moving around a bunch more insulation, and sweating my balls off in the 40+ degree attic, I'll just hang drywall from the strapping and be done with it.

Of course all that doesn't really interest you, but the pencil sketch of Adolf on the inside of the wall sheathing from the 1940's might? If not that, you can trace the history of colours in the room on the back side of the radiator.

Beer, the Cause of, and Solution to All Life's Problems

It would seem that some time between going out for some beer on Thursday night and now I lost my camera. While I remember having it on the patio, and taking pictures while up there, the point after that is somewhat of a blur. What confuses me is that I had less than a pitcher of beer, which is generally nowhere near enough to make me leave my camera on the patio table. Yet I still have barely any recollection of the night.

After this morning checking all the usual key and wallet drop locations around the house, where my camera also ends up getting emptied from my pocket, I have no other explanation though besides that I left it at the bar, or it fell out in the backseat of my buddy's car who is now gone to be A Ho at Boise State University for a few weeks.

While I'd love to take it all as a sign that I finally need to get myself the digital SLR I want, I simply don't have the money for those kinds of things at the moment. And so its off to do another sweep of the house.

Drought Over

After not winning a night of poker since around the christmas season, I finally managed to make it out of heads up and not get burned by some ridiculous card on the river, thus making myself a hard earned $6 richer. Of course poker makes me thirsty, and I drank more like $15 worth of beer in playing, but that, and the lingering headache this morning were a small price to pay for the glory.

On top of that, I may have some work lined up for later in the summer, pending a meeting with the department's resident paleoclimate professor. Today would have been my convocation, had I had the interest in attending, or had I yet completed my still outstanding thesis. Instead I'm looking just far enough past all that to get some money in my pocket, and dwell on what exactly it is I want to do for at least the next 2 years.

While sitting around not writing more important, but less entertaining things, I ended up stumbling across a do-it-yourself improvement for wireless routers that might as well have come straight from the 3 'Lone Gunmen' nerds from the X-Files. I have yet to test it myself, although a buddy of mine has already tried a similar approach, and found a dramatic increase to the strength of his wireless signal. It costs about a half hour of time, a few pieces of cardboard, and some tinfoil, so for any of you out there with issues with getting a good signal to your laptop wireless card, or to a remote PC, I'd give it a try before dropping money on antennas and other crap they'll try to push on you at Future Shop or Best Buy. Its not a technological marvel on par with say a 'gay bomb', but its something.

I'll post the successfulness of my attempts later, but now its time to grill some meat while continuing my march towards skin cancer.

Abusive Relationship

Well, the paramedics were sent in to Kanata, Ontario last night some time in the late second period, and prevented a mass choking event that appeared to be well on its way. The obstruction of the Senators' airways could be heard across Canada (that is if you could block out the sound of Harry Neale and Bob Cole's atrocious play-by-play). But now instead of 3-0, its 2-1 and a series has broken out. Pronger should get suspended for at least a game for his elbow to McAmmond, more if you take into consideration the proximity to his hit from behind in the Detroit series. Its one thing to play aggressively and with fire, its another to play dangerously. Add to that the events around his departure from Edmonton after a season last year, and you're looking at one unclassy player.

Speaking of dangerous blows to the head, Carolyn needs a two game suspension for her actions. I took a Chronicles of Narnia DVD in the nose thrown by her while I had dozed off on the futon waiting for her to pick a movie. The claim is that it was intended to land on my chest, but I am not willing to believe that. Abuse I tell you.

The movie itself was okay, for the parts where I wasn't asleep, but talk about some bad green-screen special effects. Maybe the people at the Weta workshop responsible for LOTR have set the bar too high for themselves with effects in these fantasy movies now, but there were some moments in there that look like they could have come straight off the same special effects stage as some 80's classic like Willow or Labyrinth, without the additional bonus of David Bowie in an 80's power rock mullet wig or little people midgets.

As an aside, you haven't seen anything until you've seen a midget with a mullet.