Oops. Sorry.

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 17
Trombone 11
Tuba 15
French Horn 8
Violin 3 <--
Viola 6
Harp 11

As Andrew pointed out, I forgot to decrement a point from someone else. So, here's the correction. Sorry for the slippage of the transmission. :)

Hooray for Jason!

Thanks for doing your part! One question though, who did you take a point away from?

Now, on with the game!!

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 17
Trombone 11
Tuba 15
French Horn 8
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

There. I certainly feel better now.

Blasted embedded Flash movies!!

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 16
Trombone 11
Tuba 15
French Horn 9
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

I voted for trumpets! I voted for trumpets!

If anyone is looking for a really good meal, you need to try TGI Friday's Jack Daniels Sampler. It hits the spot. Mmmmmm.

And embedded Flash movies (like the ones on MySpace and YouTube) are good for one thing: heating up my CPU! So, I have FlashBlock!

Chao!

Ok, I'll do my duty.

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 15
Trombone 11
Tuba 15
French Horn 9
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

Now see what you made ME do.

Do your duty!

Vote for trumpets!! Don't make me keep doing it (but I will anyway).

Flute 10
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 15
Trombone 11
Tuba 14
French Horn 9
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

There, now see what you've made me do?

Clarineh-eh-eh-eh-t + / Saxophone -

Just evening out the reed instruments a little bit.

Flute 10
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 11
Trumpet 14
Trombone 11
Tuba 14
French Horn 10
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

Good to see you Andrew. Yes, I know - I also feel bad about never coming down to visit. Curse my lack of self-discipline! I haven't seen a lot of my friends for a while now. :(

Graduation = job_opportunities^2 - social_life

For a few pictures from Resonance 2006, head on over to my photo blog.

Up with trumpets!!

Well, hello my band geeky friends. It's been quite a while since I checked into the virtual band hall. I thought I would take a break between procrastinating on my 14 page paper and procrastinating on my film to swing by and say hello.

What does it take to ever get anyone to show a little love and visit me here in Salt Lake? I sure to miss all of you, my dear band friends.

So, as the first order of busines, here is my response to Ben's game:

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 14
Trombone 11
Tuba 14
French Horn 10
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

If you know anything about me, you know my undying hatred for french horns, so I had to stick it to them by stealing their point and giving to the greatest instrument of all time, the trumpet.

Ah, I have a random joke to tell you:
A pirate walks into a bar and has a ships wheel shoved down the front of his pants. He sits down at the bar and orders a drink. The bartender says, "Hey, you know, you've got a ships wheel down your pants?" And the pirate says, "Yarrr. I know, and it's drivin' me nuts."

Let's see, what else? Oh! I went out to a couple movies recently which I feel you all need to see. First, Casino Royale. It's possibly the best 007 film I have seen in a long time, and maybe even ever. They just nailed it. The action is awesome, and Daniel Craig makes one mean Bond. Kudos to the James Bond team and a nice achievement. Second, The Fountain. What an incredible film. If you have been paying attention to the reviews, you know what I mean. Darren Aranofski is best known for Requiem for a Dream, which is the best anti-drug film ever made (it'll scare the crap out of you and make you never ever want to take drugs). Here, he continues to push film in new and interesting directions. Check it out.

Website of the day: http://www.boingboing.net

Okay! That's all I have. Go go trumpet!!

Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for trombones and not for violas

You know, Thanksgiving is great: long weekend with no school/work, family, a big feast, pie! So, in light of the pending holiday, I'd like to say that I'm thankful for the pilgrims and what they continue to do for me.

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 13
Trombone 11
Tuba 14
French Horn 11
Violin 4
Viola 6
Harp 11

UP WITH TUBAS, down with violins

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 13
Trombone 10
Tuba 14
French Horn 11
Violin 4
Viola 7
Harp 11

That is all.

Trumpets up, violins down

Flute 10
Clarinet 8
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 13
Trombone 10
Tuba 13
French Horn 11
Violin 5
Viola 7
Harp 11

And thus we see that something will happen.

So, I have a question. What the heck do you do with 60GB or 80GB of storage for music? I have an mp3 collection that spans two DVDs, and now about 7 CDs. I don't think that's even approaching 30 GB yet. You'd have to have an enormous music collection to fill one of those bigger iPods. Now, I understand that many folks have movies on them, and I can easily see taking up 80 gigs with movies, but if I just wanted to have music on it, how many songs is that? Wow! I think with that much space, I could put enough music to listen to it for two or three weeks straight and never hear the same song twice. That blows me away.

I'm not criticizing it in any way. I'm just saying that it's incredible to have that much space devoted to music. And I'm sure there are geeks out there with iPods chock full of music, most of which they've never listened to.

To put it into perspective, I can stuff about 150 songs onto a CD in mp3 format. That's 150 songs per 800MB or ~.8GB. Now, that's about 1% of an 80GB iPod capacity. By that logic, I think you might be able to fit 15,000 songs onto an 80GB iPod, assuming AAC requires approximately the same storage as mp3 and WMA. Wow. That's a crapload of music.

IPOd Stuff

My wife and I recently aquired a 60 gig video ipod (2 weeks before the 80 came out). We love it. If we can put a song on itunes, we can put it on our ipod.
Also, I do see the point of itunes not remembering the songs you buy, but as with other important things, I like to always have a hard copy as a back up. A hard copy, in this case, being a cd.
Now, I don't want to force my beliefs or knowledge on anybody, but Apple is the best company ever!!!
That's all.
Cheers

1,000

Cory, I appreciate the insights into your iPod. They must've changed something along the way since the early iPods, because everything I've read recently about them is that they're very proprietary to iTunes and won't play straight mp3s, wavs, etc. So, if you have an older iPod and it does play those other formats and uses other software, more power to you! I'm also pretty sure there are hacks available for newer iPods that allow them to play all kinds of stuff.

Oh, and this is post #1,000. It sure has been an interesting journey and I hope that the journey will continue for several more thousand.

Lost Fingertips

For anyone who enjoys that one show that reminds me a lot of Gilligan's Island and/or who likes that one band that sings about that one star and how it works, I suggest you check out this creative mix of the two.

trumpet++; violin--;

Flute 10
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 12
Trombone 10
Tuba 13
French Horn 10
Violin 6
Viola 7
Harp 11
(this is going to go on for a really long time)

Jon, I do admit that Apple does produce some world-class products. I wish they were more affordable. I might actually buy a Mac if I felt like I could afford it. I don't want a Mac mini; I want a freaking powerhouse box. And I don't want to spend $8,000 on it. Of course, to get a real powerhouse box on the PC side, I'd spend about that much too. :) So, I guess I'm stuck, eh. Geez! $8,000 is about as much as I have tied up in my two cars! That's right. I have less-expensive vehicles. At least MacOS X isn't the hack job that Windows Veesta is. I feel bad for all those who will be upgrading anytime soon. Having been using the next Windows for quite some time now, let me tell you that it's nothing but pain. I think the minimum system requirements for it should list IBM DeepBlue as the base hardware.

My issue with the iPod is just like you said: Apple doesn't remember if you have purchased a song or not. Also, I don't like being forced to use iTunes when it is almost unusably slow. I will give it this: it pegs my CPU at nearly 100%, so it is getting good mileage out of my CPU. The same can be said with QuickTime.

So, Jon, what is Vista 4? Is that the new WebCT system?

...and when you're a Professional Pirate, you don't have to wear a suit.

Viola ++; Flute--;

Hooray for the underdog!

Flute 10
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 11
Trombone 10
Tuba 13
French Horn 10
Violin 7
Viola 7
Harp 11

Jason, I also do not own an Eye-Pawd. But I will give apple this: they wait and do things right, even if it means they're slow on getting things to market. That said, it is indeed annoying that you have to purchase songs again if you lose the file. For now, I guess I'll stick with my nearly-ancient RCA Lyra. It has downsides which are numerous. But I'll probably still keep it around for until it breaks for one reason - I can dump my digicam's memory card onto it w/o using a computer. Still, it would be nice if there were a feasable way to get it to do voice recording. iPod has an add-on (maybe third-party?) to allow that. I'm sure the Zune will as well. As with computers I'll wait until something decent appears before making my next purchase. For the computer, I will buy a McBook for myself when I actually buy one (the one I'm using now is WSU property).

Anywho - Vista 4 is going to be used starting next semester. The kick-off luncheon was today.

I have a sick. It is a cough and general tiredness. Go away, sick! :(

Ok, bye.

Now this is something I can get excited about

I hate to say it, but I think Microsoft actually has me impressed. They do that from time to time. Windows doesn't even raise my heart rate any more. But, this looks like it might be kind of cool. It's called Zune. It's supposed to be Microsoft's iPod killer. I doubt that it will seriously dent Apple's iPod sales, but it looks to be a really cool digital music player.

I, personally, have never been able to get excited about the iPod. I think Apple puts too many restrictions on it. For one, it won't play mp3 files; you have to convert everything using iTunes to AAC format and then dump it to your iPod. Also, if your computer ever has problems and you lose your music library (that you paid $1 per song), you lose everything. Period. Apple doesn't remember that you purchased those tracks and so you have to purchase them again. For someone with a couple thousand songs, the reality of that is painful. Also, I don't know how iTunes is on a Mac, but on a Windows machine, it's downright slow. For me, at least, it's very overblown and too slow to actually use. Granted, I don't have the latest, greatest quad-processor Intel Core 2 Duo (that's a really stupid name, by the way) machine. But, I do have a 1GHz Pentium III with 512MB of RAM. What is it about iTunes that doesn't work right on that platform? Anyhow, I digress... Please correct me if any of the above information is not correct. I don't actually own an iPod.

With Zune, Microsoft remembers what songs you have purchased, so in the event of an incident, all you need is a bit of extra bandwidth to download the songs again. Also, Zune plays lots of different formats, including mp3 and AAC. It also has a built-in radio tuner and 802.11b/g wi-fi capability to "beam" content to other Zune users. Granted, I'm sure Apple will build in some of these features to their venerable music player (and it will be a hit, of course.) I guess the real bone of contention for me is the universality of Zune as opposed to the highly closed architecture of iPod. I'm sure Zune users will be required to use the Zune software to update their players, but at least they can use existing music formats and not have to worry about losing their libraries in the event of a boo-boo.

Anyhow, be that as it may, Zune appears to be a great product. I don't think it will unseat iPod as the reigning heavyweight champion of digital music players, but I do think that users will have a much better offering in the non-iPod corner. Maybe, just maybe, I'll actually look into buying a digital music player, though I really do still like my CD player.

Norton Internet Security Design Document

The following is an actual* design document from Symantec documenting how their Norton Internet Security Suite should work.

int main()
{ // This gives the impression of something important
long wasteTime = 100000000000;

for(int i = 0; i <>
{
// Insert code to make the hard drive chatter a lot but not do any work.
// This should take about two minutes.
// block all other processes from running.
i++;
}
// Pop up the icon in the system tray
}

As you can see from this highly detailed design document, Norton Internet Security doesn't really do anything. When you turn your computer on, it only *appears* to be doing any work, when in reality it is just causing the hard drive to chatter a lot and block other processes from their opportunity to start. So, boycott Norton! Get a real anti-virus software like AVG and then put a decent firewall on your network.

Oh, and that last posting by RMT CTL was not mine. It was Kristin's. Jon, will you create her a login so that she can do her own posts? From the look of things, we can all see who we don't like. (ahem, VIOLINS/VIOLAS!) :)

*actual as in Jason made this up because he hates Norton Internet Security.

Viola -1, Harp +1

I must apologize for the lack of percussive instruments here. Sheesh, I'm a moron. It was in my initial intention to not forget drums, but when I wrote up my blog, I forgot in the heat of the moment. Maybe next game we do all percussive insturments? or we could add purcussion on here with the original 10 because we aren't THAT far into the game. Please way in...
Oh, and Jason, it doesn't matter if Kristen posted, just as long as there is someone else that has posted in between when you (Jason) posts, its fine.


Flute 11
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 11
Trombone 10
Tuba 13
French Horn 10
Violin 7
Viola 6
Harp 11

Saxophones +1 Viola -1

Flute 11
Clarinet 9
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 11
Trombone 10
Tuba 13
French Horn 10
Violin 7
Viola 7
Harp 10

stuff

Based on what Ben said I was thinking it was ok to duplicate what someone did, just not ok to undo it in the very next post. Either way, you're certainly welcome, Ricky.

I like my new job, for the most part. It's more work than I had before, but I'm fine with that. The part I don't like as much is that it's much more loosely structured. I'm in charge of managing my time between many different projects whose respective urgencies are rather fuzzy. That I don't like as much. I'm getting more used to it, though.

I'm looking forward to the Resonance concert tonight. Which reminds me - I need to charge up my camera batteries for the event. If anyone has a tripod they'd care to loan me, I'd be obliged, as I was unable to locate the one I had borrowed from my dad.

Ramblin' ramblin' ramblin'...

Hooray for sNOw. (emphasis on NO) :(