Some of you may remember when the Internet Archive first allowed you to get all kinds of public domain films. Educational, instructional, crazy - They had it all.

Just stumbled across one of their newer projects: The Live Music Archive. It’s exciting because this is a chance to hear shows that were happening back when I was just a wee lad. A 1981 Minutemen show? 1984 Billy Bragg? I’m in and I’m on it.

The selection is seriously decent though heavy on bands that never acheived VH1 status due to the obvious legal issues.

Some favorite bands of mine:
Billy Bragg
The Minutemen
Mike Watt
Fugazi
The Toasters

So yesterday my Lacie Big Disk Extreme 500 arrived. The power plug was a bit confusing, so I called LaCie to check on the proper orientation.

Rob, the nice tech support guy, said that there was no way I should be able to plug the power cord in more ways than one. Obviously a defect. He gave me what should be the proper orientation, and I plugged it in. No dice. Drive was dead, and I’d have to RMA it.

I forgot to unplug it after trying to hook the drive up…. FIRE! Smoke and the smell of burning circuits started pouring out the back of the aluminum case. There was enough of a burnt smell to tell that there was obviously a small fire inside the hard drive.

Anyway, LaCie is issuing a repair number and I’ll finally have my new drive in about two weeks. I’m just glad that I didn’t have 500 gigs of video on the drive yet.

Just a quick one to mention that my mom came for a visit last night! She decided to come up and treat me to a belated birthday feast. Dinner at Liluma followed by ice cream at Coffee Cartel. We had a blast cause my momma is nice. The picture in the sidebar is of my mom and I.

I even made it a point to get up early and fetch breakfast while she was in the shower. She and I went shopping before she had to head home. Mom also cleaned my apartment while I was on the phone this morning… Thanks, Mom!

Pictures of my Mom’s visit

P.S. The bacon and egg souffles from St Louis Bread Co are A-OK.

I’ve been a touch busy with a couple of projects lately. I wiped my desktop and put the first clean install on since 2001. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been running the same install of Windows since it was first released. It’s all clean and pretty, and it runs FAST now that I don’t have five years worth of hidden background services lurking in the memory. (Also, I finally enabled my dual channel RAM)

Here’s my pretty new desktop. Wallpaper is from the Little Gamers download section:

I’ve also been working on an Open Office database project for a friend lately. Take it from me, Open Office is total junk. I really wish that Gobe Productive had taken off. It was such a better product, and it was so cheap that everyone could afford a copy. The license was so flexible that you only had to buy one copy. The company literally gave permission for a user to install the package on all of his personal computers, and one business machine. (P.S. My name is on the side of the box with a quote from the review I wrote)

I had a phone interview this morning for a Network Operations spot. It’s with a fantastic company, and I’m looking forward to the in-person interview. Hopefully that will be late this week or early next. The only slight downside is that it’s a 24×7 netops center. That means shift work, my friends. I may wind up working third shift for the first six months or so, but I don’t really mind.

Here’s a picture of where I’ll be working if I get the job…

It looks like Norad!

While digging through C:\TEMP I came across this great video of my buddy AndyFB from Arsclan shooting a tommy gun while on holiday from Dublin.

Hit the “Read More” link to see the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saw my buddy Phillipe on a set of crutches and covered in road rash. Apparently a hit and run driver T-boned him while riding his motorcycle. The little guy is lucky to be alive, honestly.

I’m just glad that he’s A-ok.

The first thing to do is start the day off right:

Then WadeMoney and I goofed around for the day talking to our nerdfriends on IRC, and went over to Rita’s house in the late afternoon for dinner. She spent two days cooking a traditional Mexican feast for me, and it was great.

My woman even made me a cake!

WadeMoney bought me a great SunBeam 20-in-1 panel for rerouting all my audio/USB/Firewire ports. Very thoughtful. Rita gave me an iTrip radio adapter for my car. Yay! I’m guessing that she was just sick of listening to the same three CD’s in the car all the time. Rita also gave me a couple of cowboy belt buckles, and a really nice gunslinger belt.

We hung out at Rita’s place watching TV for a bit and playing with Saffron, and then WadeMoney and I went off to find some birthday adventure. Went to the Pepper Lounge (Warning: Lots of Flash) where the doorman told me to take off my hat. I didn’t feel like removing my lid so we went down to Lucas Park to listen to a good band and drink a Glen Garioch 15. Wade and I aren’t heavy drinkers. We were just out for one, and then headed off to the casinos.

Where I was promptly turned away because I sat on my driver’s license and tried to fix it with tape. Apparently a slice of tape on a license makes it invalid proof that I’m 21. I don’t really like to gamble, but I like the hustle and bustle of a casino floor.

It was a great birthday, and thanks to Wade and Rita for making it special once again. I’d also like to thank all of mi amigos that threw me birthday greetings on IRC.

Today Rita and I went out to see two of our good friends get married. Mr. Cornelius Green hitched up with Ms. Steffani Wilson. Man, I wouldn’t have missed it for all the tea in China.

I haven’t known them very long, but I’ve been really impressed with how well they get along. Such a nice couple. There are some picture in the gallery, but somehow I managed to avoid getting a single picture of the bride and groom. Just a lot of pictures of the AngryBlack children, like this one: