Saturday, June 24, 2006

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Animator vs. Animation

My favorite find of the week: When CGI characters try to escape.

Besides hilarious escape attempting animations, the summer has been decent so far. Nothing too new at the college...Spanish is Spanish and Matalon is Matalon. The textbook definition of a good summer: lazy and relaxing, but not overly so. Sleep, food, eb clarinets, ER reruns, and Linux...the good life.

Speaking of Linux...I'm going to take this opportunity to plug a new (for me at least) distro. Kubuntu: its the KDE version of Ubuntu (probably the most popular distro out there now). It has a great live CD that lets you test drive it, and if you like, do a full install straight from the live CD. The latest version is Dapper Drake- check it out...it's pretty nice.

There's a section leader meeting tomorrow where we're supposed to get the music and rosters. Sectionals shouldn't be too long after that (gulp). Stay tuned for updates on that front.

DirecTV is offering a new programming service: DirecTV Titanium. Now, what exactly does Titanium get you? Try every SD and HD channel, all pay-per-view offerings, all sports, up to 10 HD DVRs, and a 24/7 "concierge service." All yours for only $7500 a year.

A few weeks ago I head a mp3 online of a guy trying to cancel his AOL account...and needless to say he had a fairly difficult time. I never got around to posting it, but this morning I heard him on Today talking about his "experience." Apparently he's finally brought forth a pretty big problem...and it's about time. This particular incident actually ended up with the AOL rep getting fired. Here's the original audio and the Today clip.

That's all for now...I have to go rig up a PA for some horse racing gig that's going to take over my house Saturday. Don't ask.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

La Clase de Español

School gets out...and then starts again.

Spanish at AVC started today, and between the course itself and the people in the course it will be...well..."interesting." [EDIT: But, we also can't forget those who keep me company and are always filled with the hilariously witty and cynical comments that contribute to my summer sanity.] I have to admit, I don't mind it (yet). It's actually kind of nice to have something to do. In addition to the Spanish, I'm also taking First Aid & CPR and Intermediate Jazz Ensemble.

I couldn't contain my excitement last night after winning the Ebay bid on my new Eb clarinet. Even though I've never actually played one, it looked like too good of a deal to pass up. Within the next few weeks I should be in possession of Tiny Tim...a Leblanc Noblet Eb Clarinet (aged grenadilla wood, 14.85mm bore...all that good stuff you don't care about). So, needless to say, I am very happy.

If your fake government ID says you live on "123 Fraud Blvd" in "Tijuana, B.C." you can apparently stride right into the Homeland Security offices. Maybe stuff like that will work for the required ID's we have to wear at school next year.

This is a cool little site that will let you listen to practically every radio station in the world. It's a pretty nice little find.

I was browsing though YouTube and came across this old Screen Savers clip of Leo and Pat overclocking a P4 with liquid nitrogen coolant. Maybe if I get really bored this summer...

Google released a new beta of Google Earth yesterday. It has a ton of updated imagery (including the AV). It's a nice, beefy update, but beware bugs and don't even try if you have under 512MB ram.

I find this just plain amusing: Some geek out there (like me) developed a ring tone that is inaudible to adults. The purpose: texting in school...and the teacher can't even hear it. It is a high pitched "buzz" that can only be heard by kids because adults lose the ability to hear high pitched noises as the ear ages. Good stuff.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Leblanc Noblet Eb Clarinet

The newest member of my clarinet family:


More details coming soon...

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

US Border Patrol

http://www.break.com/index/theboarderpatrol.html

Hilarious interview with George Bush talking about the US stepping up our efforts to increase border patrol with Mexico. Keep a close eye on the fence in the background during the interview.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Section Leader!

The Band Banquet was Tuesday night, and if you read last week's comments (or just read the title of this post) you probably realized I made clarinet section leader for next year. Although unexpected, it's still pretty exciting. Despite dealing with some "issues" (gotta love band drama), I guess I'm looking forward to it although it will be a new and challenging experience. The rest of the banquet was good with the wonderful mixed aromas of a potluck, the video which was awesome (as usual), and it was just neat to see the year pull to a nice close. We're doing a Zorro show next year (you can listen to it here) so that will be pretty cool.

Only one week to go...then school's out! I can't wait....I just have to survive through finals this week and then we're home free...until band camp at least. Summer will be so nice...except for the heat. It's already 100° outside. Ugh.

On kind of a cool note, the QHHS Rebel baseball team took home the CIF-Div. 3 championship yesterday. They are the first ever from the Valley to do so...so that's kind of cool. It would have made it even better if they didn't play "Take me out to the ball game" every passing period.

The Windows Vista sneak preview of the week: Only seven simple steps to simply delete a file! Oh boy...that should be fun! Hopefully they get that fixed, because I'm already dreading having to give Windows "permission" every five minutes.

Cool videos for the week:
An amazing hole in one...I had to watch that a few times to believe it. Too bad stuff like that never happens to me (not that I've been golfing in the past 4 years).
I haven't been flying remote control airplanes either, but this is some pretty awesome piloting.

That's if for now...I'm off to go cram for Chem.