March 2006

So, as some of you have surmised, I use a service called BlogExplosion.

Part of the service pack there allows us to ‘rent’ space to other users of the service, to bring them more advertising.
I’ve rented some space to a rather amusing user, with a blog entitled ‘grand-pa‘.
I’ve dropped by, personally, to see what’s there, and found myself amused.

Feel free to visit - you might end up adding someone else to your blogroll.

So, a few posts back, I mentioned I was looking for free, legal music to listen to.
The guys over at OverClocked Remix haven’t released a torrent for 1250-1500 yet, which would make for tedious work, finding where the last torrent left off, and picking up from there, downloading each song manually.

Magnatune has nice music, but to get a download that doesn’t have a bunch of junk appended to it requires money.

Weed is defintely not an option - not only does it cost me something, it’s also DRM’ed, AND Windows Media. That means I’d have hell playing it where I’d like. I think my Lyra’s too old to even support WMA DRM, which really rules it out.

So, that left me something to ponder as I was surfing around on BlogExplosion. I regret not blogmarking the blog that had the link, but one blog I was reading through had a link to a service named Jamendo.
Read the rest of this entry »

I need more time in a day.

Give me 48 hours in a day for my birthday.

That’s this Saturday.

I even went a whole day without going to BlogExplosion. This is pretty sad. ;(

Also, a request.
I need a banner of some sort for this blog.
Please feel free to generate one or more.
I accept most standard formats — buttons, 468 x 60 standards, the 120 px square ‘blog’, and even the skyscrapers.
Spanks.

Well, I’ve added in a few things for WordPress, mostly on my end. Some of it will be visible to you all, though.

I think I’ve finally found a Technorati plugin that shouldn’t screw up everything and a half here. It also has the added benefits of working with del.icio.us and Flickr, though I rarely use either service.

I’ve also added a Backlog page, which should get you easier access to my archives, especially if you’re NOT using a browser that is Javascript-friendly (ie: you turned it off).

I’m also generating FOAF data again. How accurate it will be, I don’t know for now.

I put in Gravatar support, for those of you who have Gravatars (Keilaron…).
I even made it super easy for those of you who’d like to get a Gravatar to get one while you’re commenting.

Finally in the list of things worth announcing:
I am now able to post things here that will require registration.
Essentially, the equivalent of LiveJournal’s “Friends Only” posts.
My transition is now complete — I have all the features, save for voice posting, polls, and entry avatars, that I desired from LiveJournal.

Enjoy, have a good night, and check out the guy who’s renting my blog, will ya?

So, I followed a link from another blog, to this: Feature - Fuse.tv - f.y.e. Downloads

Now, free, legal music is always nice, or so I thought.
I would have been impressed, if it weren’t for the glaring ‘requirements’ they foist upon seekers of new music:

• Microsoft Windows XP
• Windows Media Player 10

So, now only people who have either pirated or legally purchased an Operating System I WILL NOT pirate, do not want to use, and could NOT afford to even buy can download music from there.

It almost reads as a green light to pirate everything on that page through alternate means, simply because they deny the legal method based on operating system and media player. It’s almost like racism again, really. What about users who have Windows 2000? What about users of Apple’s OS X? What about the Linux and FreeBSD users? This DRM bullshit’s already gone too far, and this is a prime example.

The next restriction will be that your Windows Vista (© ™, etc etc) enabled computer must be in a licensed, registered pink case, and be equipped with two biometric devices, as well as a DNA sampling laboratory.

I guess I’ll have to go find myself another source of legal music, because, strangely enough, I don’t listen to pirated music nearly that much. I’ve only got a little of it here and there, and I generally skip over it for things I have paid for.

Weird that someone actually likes it legal, isn’t it?

So, I was in Britton Plaza yesterday, trying to find a parking space.

So, here I am, trying to turn right, and this idiot pulls up…
Perhaps I should describe the area:
In front of Albertsons, where everyone crosses the road to get to their cars, there’s a fire lane strip, as well as enough space for a car to get by in each direction. See this picture?

I’m the blue rectangle, wanting to turn right.
The red rectangle is this idiot who thinks he can make that spot a parking space.

I just snapped at the guy, “THAT’S NOT A PARKING SPACE, YOU FUCKER.”, and drove off to the left instead to find a space.
I’ll be asking our parking lot officer if people can be ticketed for that - it’s obstructing the right-of-way, and putting our customers at risk.

More at Eleven.

So, I got lucky:

I went to the thrift store yesterday, as well as a few other places to price monitors.

When I walked into the computer stores, the prices of monitors made me angry. $175 for a brand new 17" CRT? $300 for one of those fancy flat screen monitors? WHAT?!

Needless to say, the sticker shock had me doing anything but looking up yesterday. So, I went into the thrift store. I’m glad I thought of that, too:

There was a monitor sitting there with a big red $20.02 scrawled on its face in whatever that stuff is they use to write on glass (wax pencil?). Of course, I came home, bummed $30 off my grandmother, and went back to get it. So, for under $30, I got one used monitor in significantly better shape than my old clunker.

I’m happy, because it makes the search for a job so much easier.