crapulent.com

Seems that anybody in Spokane will follow somebody else in Spokane. Even the fucking mayor is following me on Twitter. I haven't twitted in a while, guess I should so the mayor and some ass from KXLY knows what I'm up to.

I saw two post-it notes stuck to LCD screens today at work. What is wrong with you people? You aren't supposed to even touch an LCD screen, let alone put something sticky on it. I'm going to send everybody at work this link from Purdue University. It basically tells you don't touch the screen, don't tape things to it, or put post-it notes on it. I chose that link because my dad went to Purdue. Fuckers better not complain that their screens look weird and they need a new monitor now.

David Bowie overload

Soon to be in my library.

Strange things have happened in the last few days. Kinda think the world is trying to tell me something.

Last week the bank I usually make a daily deposit at got shut down. Shut down because it's on the same block as the currently empty Joel building which was on fire, and the entire block was surrounded by fire trucks and TV news vans.

Yesterday while I was driving home from work, I'm stopped at a red light, an old 60's era VW Van sort of exploded and caught on fire while in a McDonald's drive through lane, pretty much directly to my left and over a lane of traffic going the other way. A family of four ran out of the van and nobody got hurt that I know of. I almost got a picture of the smoking van but the light changed and had to keep up with traffic.

Today, someone at the company across the street from my job cut a gas line and they all had to be evacuated. There were three fire trucks, several other fire support vehicles, firemen sort of took over our parking lot until the emergency was over. Kinda scary because there are all kinds of huge petroleum refueling / storage tanks in the area.

Wonder what will happen tomorrow?

I can't get enough of this song. I've been hunting Grizzly on the net looking for that Two Weeks song, but I guess they haven't released it yet on an album or cd or ep or whatever. Here's a link to the song from the Letterman show. I'd embed it or something but I'm kinda tired right now.

Oh! (feigns shock and disgust) They are a gay band. No matter, will fit right in next to my Erasure, Bronski Beat, Elton John, YAZ, Judas Priest (don't have any of that, but wouldn't mind it), Depeche Mode (they aren't gay just sound gay), Scissor Sisters, The Beautiful South (not gay despite The Madrigals background), John Doe of X (totally gay), R.E.M. (Stipe only) and who knows what else, Phranc is a lesbo. Kinda thought they might be a fag group just from the name of the band, Grizzly Bear. Sounds kinda gay, in a big hairy gay guy kinda way. For those who don't know, there is a portion of the gay male community who identify themselves as Bears. That should be enough to look it up for yourself.

Some Grizzly Bear songs remind me of Alex Chilton, or Jeff Buckley.

I've been driving on an expired license since my birthday back in mid May. I think it costs a bunch to renew it if its been over 3 months since it expired. If I wait too long I'll probably have to retake the tests. Those driver's license photos always look awful so I'm trying to make it look as bad as possible by not shaving and getting super fat, and I'll have hat hair for the photo. Haven't shaved for a week and a half and it's driving me nuts. I better get to the DMV soon because I want to shave and get a haircut.

Just remembered that when you get a job you almost always have to let them photocopy your driver's license. I don't want to be stuck for 5 years with a scummy photo on purpose.

There you go. That's the only reason you need to buy a Roku Netflix player. Charles in Charge. Charles is a male nanny / babysitter / college student. One of the worst sitcoms ever, but you can watch episodes of it whenever you want. Look for Meg Ryan as one of Charles' dates. The theme song is great, sort of a bondage, BDSM groove to it, "I want Charles in Charge of Me". The parents of the kids change in the middle of the series, some of the kids change in mid stream too. Scott Baio, your best work is to be found where Charles is in charge.

I don't know what to say about this movie. Ben Kingsley with a wig and he's a hippy psychiatrist. It's set in the age of walkman tape players, yet the protagonist has a very modern haircut. Loads of drug deals, stuff that can't happen if you think about it. Dude is selling pot from an ice cream cart, sometimes he chains it up so nobody can steal the cart. What about all the pot in the cart? There's nothing stopping somebody from opening the lids and stealing his dope. Wackness is the right title for this film.

http://rapidshare.com/files/130736459/mvs-wackness.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130736508/mvs-wackness.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130734743/mvs-wackness.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130733353/mvs-wackness.part4.rar

I've discovered a flaw I should've anticipated in the netflix player. Downloading something via Rapidshare while watching some other thing on the netflix box will really degrade the video quality of the netflix stream. It might actually stop to rebuffer. Wonder if I could add ram to the netflix box... Geez, now it looks awful, like some youtube video put fullscreen. Maybe not that bad, but I can clearly see that it has degraded while downloading a big file. I suppose I could give the netflix box priority on the router.

Glad I have no roommates and don't have to worry about others in the house using the internet while I watch stuff on my netflix player.

Netflix player wired with no other activity on the network, highest possible quality. Downloading via rapidshare and watching netflix player, lowest possible quality.

Originally uploaded by vanvalkinburgh

What a nice photo. Dual tails in air, heads pointed left, no screen in the screen door. Taken with a nikon camera bought at a discount store by my neph. Damn kinda looks better if the background is dark.

Odd, everything I added from the iTunes App Store to my iPhone isn't working anymore. Click an icon and the app looks like it'll launch, but goes right back to the main screen, it rebooted once instead of going back to the main screen. Syncing didn't change anything. Going to do a restore and see if that helps.

Update: Restore with the "official" firmware didn't help. Took all the apps off and back on via iTunes, they still won't work, actually only put one back on. This sucks. Glad I didn't buy a new iPhone yet.

Update: Looks like I'm not the only one with the Apps not running problem.

Update: Adding an app from the iPhone seems to work, it won't sync most of the apps I downloaded already back because it sez my computer isn't authorized. Hmm.

That burn I gave myself a week or so ago is starting to heal over finally. Glad it didn't get infected yet. Burns take a long time to heal apparently, can't imagine how awful it'd be to have a major burn. The cheap band-aids I'm using to cover it while it still slightly oozes are causing more pain than the burn iteself.

Indymac Bank fails, gets taken over by the government. I'm still getting bills from them, so it's not like they've totally gone away. My debt is still going to be collected by somebody. For now I pay Indymac Bank until further notice. They can't blame me for their failure, always paid almost twice the minimum amount. Must be a bunch of other dead beats that didn't pay their bills.

Got my Netflix Player by Roku today and I didn't break it yet. And yes I've opened it and have used it to watch "King of Kong". "King of Kong" is a documentary about the best Donkey Kong players in the world. Seems lame, but these dudes score over a million points, well one dude does for sure, the other dude may have cheated. The guy who lives in Florida comes off as such a jackass, not willing to play in a live tournament even though he lives in the same town where the tourney is being held.

Picture wise it looks just as good as a DVD or DirecTV does on my standard definition TV. Couldn't get the wireless to work so I've got it hardwired at the moment. That may help in the picture quality as well.

Don't know why, I gave the router the Netflix box's MAC address, gave my pre-shared key. Still wouldn't connect. Maybe need to update my DD-WRT.

Got my cable to play 360 on a 19" monitor I "borrowed" from work. Now I need an rca female to female thing for the audio cables so I can get the monitor close enough to me. It already looks tons better. Lost at bowling, I blame the fact that I need the monitor closer to my failing eyes. What I really need is a big ass LCD HDTV. Hmm, buy gas to get back and forth to work or a TV.

Update: ARRRGHH, I broke off the end of one of the RCA audio jacks on the cable I just got trying to get the monitor as close to my face as possible. Actually broke both of them. That was either a very cheaply made cable, or I'm an idiot, or both. I say both. My only hope now is to figure out how to enable digital audio on my receiver without the remote control that I lost years ago, or I could just splice new longer RCA ends on the cable I waited over a week for and broke within three hours of having. I'm done for today. So pissed I'd end up breaking something else.

"You shall not steal (Exodus 20:15)"

I'm not a christian but I know it's not ok to steal. I do steal stuff off the internet and I'm willing to deal with any consequences in the real world, like fines, or jail time. A christian that steals stuff, or directs others to steal for them, wow, have fun in hell, or you don't really believe so stop going to church. Catholics have a built in loop hole with confession, they tell the Priest they have sinned and have to do push-ups or something to atone for the sin. Bah, you still stole something and got away with it by confessing.

I have a dead pixel in the upper left corner when I run QuickTime full screen, but not when I run Front Row full screen. Interesting... guess I'll just play stuff through Front Row, didn't check out VLC if it has a dead pixel full screen, yep dead pixel in VLC too. Front Row must not use the entire screen to display stuff. This doesn't make sense, the pixel is full on white in QuickTime and VLC but not in Front Row, which is full screen period, you have no choice. Whatever, I don't get it, I'll just use Front Row. Wish the Remote App for the iPhone worked in Front Row on my MacBook, not just iTunes.

Installed the new 2.0 firmware on my iPhone and I am blown away by all the Apps available from the iTunes Music Store on day one. I've only looked at the free ones so far, I don't recommend Jared (stupid), or Blip Solitaire (almost impossible to see what's going on in the game). These non-jailbroke apps are really cool because some of them add stuff to your settings. Save Benjis is a program that will search the web for the best pricing on items based on a UPC or general description, one of the things it adds to your settings is the ability to filter which stores it searches. For example, I told Save Benjis not to look at Walmart because I'll never shop there no matter how much money I can save.


Originally uploaded by crapulent

My 360 VGA cable shipped today via DHL. Wonder what I'll get first, the Netflix player, or the cable I bought to play 360 on a monitor? I can't track the cable yet, too early, just don't know, the Netflix player is coming 2day but hasn't shipped yet.

Roku Netflix Player. C'mon, it's only 100 bucks. That's why I ordered one, plus it's a little fanless linux box that outputs HDMI, component and standard rca (aka composite), forgot it does S-video too. I'm fairly confident it will get hacked at some point. If the picture quality is good enough I'll downgrade my DirecTV package. 10,000 plus titles almost instantly available from Netflix should be enough to keep my TV habit going for a little while.

My sis got her Netflix player today and my nephew reports that he can't see a difference between it and a DVD on a standard definition TV. When you order they say it will ship in a week, but it arrived less than a week after she placed the order. If that's the case I might see it Monday, just waiting on the email from FedX telling me the roku is on it's way.

Best combo yet for downloading TV shows and torrent clients. Ted will find the best torrent for lots of shows, shows like Weeds and Top Gear, and will automatically launch your torrent client of choice. I had it set on the bloated Azureus, which has now changed names, then Azureus or whatever got hung up so it switched to the original Bittorrent. I don't like that one, too simple, how about a compromise, Transmission doesn't seem bloated with useless features, so it is now my default handler of torrent files, and Ted is feeding it with torrents just fine. Now I don't have to wait for BBC America to show new episodes of Top Gear.

Damn TV dinner, spilled a little on my thigh, piping hot. Now I've got about a 3 inch at least 2nd degree burn. Skin bubbled up and some came off, red as heck. That fucking hurts, I don't recommend spilling hot stuff on yourself. I would recommend spilling hot stuff on somebody else if you don't like them at the moment, claim it was an accident. No, don't do it, it hurts a lot.

There needs to be an Apple Store in my town. I know a perfect spot, the empty CompUsa store. It probably has too much floor space for an Apple Store, but they could put a cafe in there. C'mon Apple, give us a store. I'll work there, my neph would too.

I love when bands do their own take on some other band's songs. Absolutely love when the deftones cover Depeche Mode or Duran Duran or Weezer. Found this site that has rapidshare links to some hard to find deftones music. I should've known deftones were awesome when my niece asked for "White Pony" for xmas many years ago. Change is probably the best original Deftones song.

One of my favorite cover albums is If I Were A Carpenter, gotta love Redd Kross and Sonic Youth doing Carpenter songs. I put If I Were A Carpenter on that dude's iPod, surprise, no porn though.

Borrowed a 19 inch widescreen monitor to play GTA4 on, it makes me not want to play if I can't decipher the map or read the text. What a dope, my neph had to buy a cable to do the same thing. There is a how-to on how to make one yourself, involves soldering, so not real confident I could pull it off.

update: Not paying almost 40 bucks for a cable, I will and did pay just over 10 on ebay, now I just have to wait for it to arrive in the post. If I get too antsy waiting I might try to make one, just need a vga dealy off an old video card.

Do pugs ever stop shedding? Sheesh, hair everywhere. Staying at my folks place for who knows how long and they've got a couple of pugs. I would think that in the cold weather they'd keep as much hair as possible. Maybe when it gets colder.

iPhone glass replacement kit showed up today. The glass in the kit was broken. Shoot.

Dummy at work told me that today. He voted, but didn't vote for president, just local elections. All because of the electoral college system we have, his lame state of Idaho only has 4. He claims that he hates the electoral college system and would rather that the popular vote would prevail. Hey dummy, you didn't vote for president, so yours didn't count period. Obama won the popular vote as well.

The movie still sucks, but it looks a lot better in Blu-Ray. I will say that you can sort of tell the bad guys from the good guys in the higher def version. Viewing the DVD version I couldn't really follow the action, or tell which robot was which. To be honest I was catching up on email and stuff during the heavy CGI scenes. Just wanted to see what's her name in a belly shirt and short skirt in high def.

I've seen that people take credit for my work. Not difficult work, took me 15 minutes or less to do it, squeezed it out before I left on Friday. Emailed the result of my work to the coworker that requested it. Subsequently read an email where that coworker claimed that they created it, they may have edited it, but don't take full credit. Just gives me more reason to hate on folk. This particular coworker couldn't have created it ever. Best to move on if able. Will be with some folk this weekend that might have some options.

It's obvious. Why even debate it? If you look at Kristen Wiig's nose in "Walk Hard" and how it looks on the most recent episodes of SNL, it's clear that she had a nose job. I personally think she looks better.

WTF does "opposed defending marriage" mean? Does that mean he or she thinks homos should be able to get married? Fucking christians need to learn that America isn't a theocracy yet. Are there any non-religious congresspersons or senators?

I just bought a new glass screen and tools to replace it off eBay. Shit is coming from Hong Kong. Why do they call it 2G? That 2G stuff confuses me. Anyway, even if it's the wrong size it was only around 14 bucks. Isn't the 3G iPhone the second generation? They claim it fits a 4 gig iPhone, so that would be a first generation iPhone.

A local company can replace the busted glass screen on my iPhone for "... $65 (parts), $10.88 Shipping, and $35 labor...", so hmm, math, let's see 110.88. Cheaper than sending it back to Apple. Too bad I don't have some other phone lying around I could put the sim card into during the repair time. They say 5-10 days turnaround. Would they need to have my iPhone the whole time? Need to find out what it would cost to get out of my ATT contract. Then go T-Mobile and G1, depending on what it costs to dump ATT. Although, I'm liking an App on the iPhone called GasHog that helps you track how many miles per gallon you get, and what the fuel costs per mile.

That G1 looks goofy, has no standard headphone jack, doesn't play video, not truly open thanks to T-Mobile, has a 2 year contract like ATT.

Fuck it, I'm stuck. Maybe I'll get the 3G iPhone instead and sell the busted one to help offset the cost. I'll have to make sure to take blurry pictures of it.

It was very easy to setup the first 3 times. Why 3 times? Well, I'm trying to use Boxee on it and that requires some work, not really, but I tried it over again when samba wasn't working. Still need some work to get samba shares to load. All the iTunes stuff works great, I can stream any media in my iTunes library fine, movies I've bought, podcasts, music I've bought. What I really want is samba shares to work. That will involve some ssh and ftp work. NitoTV may be the answer. Not a novice to ssh or ftp so I'm not scared about it, just too late in the day to tackle it tonight.

BTW: Never knew I could boot from a USB card reader.

BTW 2: The 2.2 Apple TV update included 1080p.