12 posts tagged “computers”

First things first: this song rules. I love silly-ass Ramones style pop-punk, especially when it's both this good and this Swedish. I've had this CD since like 2005 or 2006. And it took me forever to really "get it." Now that I do, I really love it.

Razorblade

Randy

Not to mention that, since I upgraded, my hard drive has gotten really cluttered, so it's time to just back my shit up and format, anyway.

Anyone tried Fedora?

Because unless someone's had a really bad experience with it, I'm about to.

(I have a couple hours before this thing is even done downloading, though).

Last night was fun. Hung out at Mulligan's with Alex and Jake. Saw Dave and Boone there. It was $1 Pabst night, so we drank a lot of Pabst.

Well, I recently upgraded to the Hardy Heron beta (recently being last night), and I have to say, I like it quite a bit, so far.

The Firefox 3 beta comes installed by default, and it's a hell of a lot faster than Firefox 2. Unfortunately, it's also not compatible with a lot of the plugins yet, so for the time being, I'm seeing the internet with ads, just like everyone else. Still, the extra speed is nice. I think they may have even fixed that nasty memory leak that plagued Firefox 2, but I'm not gonna say for sure just yet, 'cause I haven't given it too thorough of a testing.

Also, a few of the other applications are changed around. I haven't played around much with them, though.

You can download the live CD over at the official site, if you're so inclined, and check it out for yourself.

So I'm dual-booting my iPod now. Fucking seriously! I installed Rockbox on it for the OggVorbis support. Now I can listen to all the Brian Jonestown Massacre in OggVorbis format I want (note: most of their discography is available free from their website, and they're definitely a band you should listen to; I'd recommend "Talk-Action=Shit" for a good first song).

Now I understand a normal person would just convert the files, but I'm kind of a nerd. Plus I figured converting a gig's worth of .ogg files to mp3 would take way longer than installing new firmware on my iPod, anyway.

Also worth noting: Electric Fields of the Sun got some radio play! Thanks to Miss Mess, a.k.a. Kendra for playing my song alongside a bunch of musicians that are far more talented than I am! Much appreciated!

Also, for some reason, the back of my mouth kinda tastes like ranch dressing. Which is strange because I haven't eaten ranch dressing in well over two years.

This week I picked up tickets to see They Might Be Giants and Built to Spill, both at the Egyptian Theater. My two favorite bands of all time playing the same venue within a few weeks of each other! I'm pretty goddamn excited. Next ticket I've gotta buy: Interpol/Liars. I'm not an Interpol fan at all, but Liars will probably be worth the $30, alone.

Kind of a bummer, though: I'm running out of hard drive space. That, of course, means that the porn stash is the first thing to go (or, at least, get cut down a bit). Anyone know a good freeware based way to transfer it to DVD's (watchable in a DVD player preferred)? I'm thinking I'm going to convert it all to mpeg and burn it, but does Windows XP have any built-in DVD burning features? Or is there a good freeware program that could do that shit in a way that even a dumbass like me could understand?

Erik wanted to hang out tonight. So that'll probably be pretty cool. I think we were gonna hang out with some dude he knows, too. A guy who went to some bike race today. I'd imagine it'll involve getting beer. Possibly not, though. We'll find out later, I guess.

Okay, first off, I'm not in San Diego. Neat.

Second, I'm now a two-OS man. I'm running Ubuntu again. I'm thinking I'll stick with it this time, and maybe even stop dual-booting XP unless I run into lots of huge annoyances again, this time. So far, though, it's working just like it should've last time. Having a motherboard that doesn't suck balls and fuck up every 10 minutes makes all the difference.

Third, Thursday night. I went and hung out with Dave. He was too scared/clumsy to come out to spots that I would've been afraid of a couple years ago. We ended up making a Del Taco run and then wandering around 'til we got bored. Not a terribly exciting night by a lot of peoples' standards, but it was kinda nice to not be all excited for once.

A Love of Shared Disasters

Fourth, last night. Erik called me up and we went to the Record Exchange. I picked up a record involving Justin Greaves from Electric Wizard and Dominic Aitchison from Mogwai. The band is called Crippled Black Phoenix, and, well, I'm listening to it now and can't really talk about it in detail (although I will, once I give it a few listens), but I dig it so far. It's definitely softer and poppier than I expected. But it's kinda softer and poppier in more of a "Mogwai" way than in some way you'd expect from a band that has a dude from Electric Wizard in it. Oh, and there are vocals on most of the tracks, which I didn't expect at all. Thanks go out to Justin at the Record Exchange for telling me about this one last time I saw him.

After that, we went and got drunk. Then we went back to Erik's house, where I ended up giving drunken tarot card readings all around (I'm good at bullshitting cards I don't know sober; suck at it drunk), and then I ended up hanging out with Dustin and Mike (not that Mike) for a while, while I slowly sobered up enough to drive home.

This morning, I woke up, and no one was around. I fed my sister's fish, her frogs, the cats, and not the dog 'cause she'd already been fed. Her hamster's cage (complete with hamster!) is on the floor in the other room. I have to keep shooing the cats away from it.

Anyway, I guess that can only mean one thing: naked week has begun! I'm sitting around sipping a Sierra Nevada, but since I've only had one, I'm gonna put some clothes on and go record shopping.

Oh, and I'll probably be at the Viva Voce/Aqueduct show at Neurolux. Boise kids, mark your calendars, 'cause you should probably be there! Unless you're actually kids, 'cause it's 21+. Smoosh was originally on the show, but they got pulled from it 'cause they couldn't legally play at Neurolux, since they're like 13 and 15 or something like that. Also, I'll probably make it out to La Piovra at Veterans Park, even though I have no idea where that is right now. Hardcore, Italian, Youth Attack, etc. Probably worth checking out, and I think Pussygutt and Manville (with a new-ish singer, I heard - last time I saw 'em, Jamie was still in the band, vag-ing it up) are playing it, too.

I have no idea how Coors Light can afford to advertise. In fact, I don't even think I've ever actually seen a can of Coors light outside of a supermarket before. But yet, whenever I turn on the TV, there are usually two or three ads for the shit per hour.

Not only Coors, but Michelob! I'd actually forgotten Michelob existed, but I laughed my ass off when the commercial showed a glass of this fizzy yellow piss water and called it a beer for "connoisseurs." I'd laugh my ass off at anyone drinking that shit who thinks they know shit about beer.

So I have a computer again, now. That's pretty nice. Ain't the best on Earth, but I'm just glad to have it. It's my sister's old Dell laptop. I can actually play "Pirates!" on it without my motherboard shittin' the bed on me. Awesome.

I'm not really looking forward to going to San Diego on Saturday. Just seems like it's going to be a week of me being really hungry, since I'm going with my parents and sister, and I'm the only vegan in the group. While everyone else will be eating out every night, I'll be staying behind at the hotel, wondering why the fuck I'm even here. I guess the intention is that I visit my aunt and uncle, but since most of that will most likely be done over dinner, it creates a bit of a problem, since I'm sure as hell not going to sit at a steakhouse and be all polite and shit about it and leave sober. Most of the planned activities are totally not my thing, either. Horse races? Yeah, fuck that. I might go to the beach a bit, and I managed to coerce my mom into planning on a brewery tour and dinner at the Stone brewery. So maybe it won't be all bad. Still, I wish she'd asked me before buying the damn plane ticket. Nothing sucks quite like spending a week with no one but family with no time to myself.

Maybe I'll do one of those "A Day in My Life" posts down there.

My sister might actually be coming through and hooking me up with her computer. It's not the best computer on the planet, but it's better than nothing, and she doesn't actually use it anyway.

Today Alex and I played some rock music in his parents' living room. That was pretty sweet.

Then I ate three massive burritos (my stomach still hates me a little bit for all the sweet, beany goodness I gave it).

After that, I watched some movies.

And now I'm online.

Today was pretty low-key, I guess.

So maybe tomorrow or the day after, I'll have my own computer again. Maybe.

Time for bed, now.

So today, my hard drive decided to finally just die. Apparently that huge amount of fragmentation wasn't caused by negligence (it seemed fine yesterday), it was just caused by my hard drive being about to kick the bucket. Honestly, it's almost kind of a relief. All my frustrations with that computer finally came to a head, and then I took a screwdriver to them. After some coercion, I finally had the whole thing taken apart, and, slightly tipsy, and totally ready both to rock and to roll, I took a hammer to all the parts. The hard drive's casing sounded like it was filled with a fine powder when I was done with it.

And damn, that felt good, especially after all the crap that computer's given me over the past couple weeks or so.

Anyway, after I was done with that, I went for a bike ride. I ran into Chris downtown. He wanted to go home, but then ended up getting dragged to Neurolux by his friends.

That said, my online presence will probably be a tad sporadic for a while. Or maybe for good. Who knows? I sure as hell don't.

Oh, and my sister's roommates kicked her out of the house. With absolutely no notice. Aren't there laws against that? I have no idea, but she's going to be living with us, now. My parents are going to try and convince her to give her computer to me. This is actually something my mom suggested without any prompting whatsoever (in fact, I could really give a fuck about getting a new computer at this point). Why? Because my sister claims it's broken because it's kinda slow sometimes (there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, aside from it being a Dell, but that's not its fault). So, she never uses it. At all. My parents pay for her to have internet on it and everything. So maybe I'll get it. I'm not holding my breath, though. And really, I don't care that much.

So apparently computers don't like being punched. Who knew? So yeah, there goes my DVD drive. It's making some real strange noises now. Well, not so much strange, but less obnoxiously loud than usual. It's actually kinda nice. Ironically, the hard drive is still fine. Honestly, though, I don't really care. Actually, I could really give a fuck if this computer dies (which is the only reason I decided that punching it may be a viable solution to the problems I was having with it). Also, my built-in laptop mouse has decided that it would be real fun to do that annoying thing where it constantly registers clicks for no apparent reason, and when I tried to kill its driver, Windows just reinstalled it for me. Fuck you, Windows, seriously. Luckily, reinstalling its driver seemed to have helped more than punching the actual mouse on the computer (which only seemed to stun it temporarily). On top of that, my ISP has decided it no longer provides internet service so much as it provides cables to jiggle while cursing at your computer. They're quite therapeutic, at least, but there comes a point where I decide to go ride my bike, or sit around and play guitar and stop worrying about the damn computer. Sorry, CableNone, but I win this round!

I have a date-ish thing tomorrow, probably. I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a good, long time since I've dated anyone here. Long distance is just too frustrating anymore, and since I'm just coming out of something long distance, after a year of basically nothing, I have to say, it's about damn time.

So yeah. I go from a rather shockingly un-messy break-up to still being able to be picky about the girls I date. I guess it's true: not giving a fuck about whether or not a girl likes you makes her like you, or, at least, drastically improves your chances. I'm quickly finding that out with Jessica. I'm really glad that she digs me, and I definitely like her a lot, too. It's just that it's not something I was too worried about until it happened. And honestly, I'm still not too worried about it. I'm losing a dangerous amount of emo points. I'll probably turn into a ska kid (again).

I've also got a bunch of un-drank alcohol in the garage. I think I'll leave it un-drank for now. And maybe get more tomorrow. And after that, I doubt any of it will go un-drank for long. I had a can of PBR with dinner. I still have about 8 cans left. Yeee-haw!