Soupergenius

I was very lucky this Christmas holiday. My mom was able to find some pictures of My first dog, Shaman. I got him from the Fairfax County Animal shelter when he was just a puppy. He was extremely cute and I have no idea how he ended up there. His head was smaller than a tv remote, his first chew toy. He lived with me for about three years before his untimely passing. He was a very interesting puppy. My guess is that he was mostly Australian Shepherd with a little English Setter in him. He grew to be about 65 pounds and was pretty athletic. Unfortunately I was not well versed in the different methods of dog training so he kind of did what he wanted, but I did not mind to much. He got along with most other animals, including my old roommate’s beagle and cat. I posted pictures in my gallery and hope to get more.

Well, I finally decided to organize all of my mp3’s. I decided to use iTunes because of the iPod. The one thing that I wish I could control is how files are stored on my hard drive. I am sure if I turn off the keep my music organized option that I could do that, but then I have to manually remember to put files into the right folder, etc. It is kind of nice to be able to drag the music into iTunes and have it place it into folders. I just want to be able to use album artist instead of artist, due to the large number of compilations that I have. I also have been using a program called TuneSleeve to import album art into the mp3’s that I have. It works pretty well, better than iTunes. So far I am about 1/3 of the way towards getting everything organized. I had music on two computers and 3 hard drives that I am trying to consolidate. I have had some duplication, but not too bad so far. I have also been getting some of my album art online manually. That is a real pain, but I think it will be worth it when I am done.

I have also been thinking about getting a mac mini to play with. Mac’s are something that I am not too familiar with. I know pretty much all versions of windows very well and am becoming a lot better with Linux. I usually use Ubuntu or Fedora. I have been trying to get Fedora Core 6 to run under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, but can not get past the login screen yet. I will probably try vmware and see how that works next.

I was just browsing the different options that Cingular has for data plans. I don’t understand what all the different options mean. There is the media connect that says you can browse the internet, check mail, send im’s, etc. Then there is the smartphone connect that says it does the same things, except you can check your work email, and then there is the data connect which lets you do what you want up to a certain amount of data transfer. Is the data connect more for the phone tethering to your laptop? Is this just a ploy to get me to spend money on something I won’t use? It would be great to check email from my phone, but it looks like I am going to need to talk to someone to have them really tell me what the differences are. Hopefully they know, because I don’t.

Every year I keep up on most of the new tech gadgets. Unfortunately, most are just a little better than the ones from the previous year. I can’t justify giving a new camera or mp3 player as a gift just because it is new. At least this year, there are new game systems and the games are more next generation, so these are ideas. Other newer technology is still overpriced. Bluetooth headsets are neat, but are they worth the price? I think about HD receivers, but to me there is not enough programming to justify it yet, soon, but not yet. Some of the new phones are really cool and have some really neat features, but these are kind of hard to give as gifts if you don’t know what service the person is on. I still don’t know which new dvd format to invest in, Blu-Ray or HDDVD. I don’t want to make the mistake of buying the Betamax version, so I am waiting for this format war to play out. Now with Microsoft entering the mp3 player market, are they going to make the splash that they did in the video game market? Early returns are not promising, but it is still a first generation product and there is no competition for the Nano from them. I am happy for competition, but I wish the better products would stand out more to help make purchasing decisions easier.

Sometimes watching movies can be educational. I knew that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, but I didn’t realize it was in 1947. I figured that it happened in the 60’s and was even more impressed when I found out the truth. In the movie I ws confused because they said they were only paying Yeager $258 a month. That seems so little for the job that was done. I guess that was not bad pay for the day, but it sounds so little. I bet that the experimental pilots get paid a lot more now. I wonder how accurate the movie is though.

Wow, how can someone lose half of their body weight. I wish I knew how long it took them to accomplish that. It seems like just a few weeks due to the wonder of television but safely it had to be a lot longer than that. The winner lost 200+ pounds, that is almost as much as I weigh. It will be interesting if they do a follow up to see if these individuals keep the weight off for an extended amount of time. I wish they would have talked about how much healthier they were and if they were still diabetic or had recovered from any of the other issues that might have plagued them.

JP of the Junkies boxing.

I watched the youtube video of JP Boxing and for an amateur he did a very commendable job. I also read some of the comments of the video and just don’t get what people think. They are very good at talking smack when they don’t have to back up what they say. At least JP jumped in the ring with a professional (albeit not very good one) boxer and walked the walk. For a month of training he did good, he needed to keep his hands up more and work on his foot work a little bit but over all I was pretty impressed. Good Job JP.

I was listening to a classic radio station and it was a playlist of all the music that I listened to when I was in high school. First it was Metallica, then the Scorpions, Great White, Guns n’ Roses, and then Led Zepplin. It took 5 songs until I heard a song that I felt was classic. Then I started to think about how long until they come up with a really classic radio station that is going to play the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, CCR, and all the other great bands from the 60’s and 70’s and if they are going to call it the Golden Oldies station. Then you start to think about what classic rock is going to be for the next generation. Is that going to be Audioslave, Hinder, Nickleback, and Justin Timberlake? Oh, the horror. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to the current music and like some of it, but I don’t think that I could listen to it if I was in the mood for Classic Rock.

Yesterday I was watching the Ironman Triathlon on NBC. I was very impressed with the number of stories of personal triumph and personal sacrifice. There was a guy who ran the entire triathlon as a guide for a blind man and the guide was not entered, only the blind guy. There was a 72 year old nun who had been entered 19 times previously, and there was a guy who attempted to do it with his son who had cerebral palsy, so he towed him in a raft during the swim. Unfortunately he was unable to complete the swim before time ran out. There were a lot more stories, because any one who competes at this deserves a lot of respect. 2.4 mile run, 112 mile bike and 26 mile run in one day in a hot, humid, windy place like Hawaii is incredible. I don’t know if I will ever be able to do something like that, but it would be a life changer. To overcome everything that you would have to to complete this in a day is amazing.

It is very convenient to be able to watch tv shows on dvd. When there is nothing on tv you can always re watch a great show like The Wire or The Shield. The only bad thing is getting drawn into the whole series again. That could be 13 hours of wasted time if you let it. Unfortunately I have other things that I really should be attending too, like making sure this new blogging software is working. I see that there are a lot of customizable items with this software and I will probably try some of them out. I still don’t understand some of the things like the blogroll, but I hope to understand soon.