Muy Caliente!

Woohoo! I get to do this twice!!

Four Jobs I’ve Had

1. Parked Cars @ Stult’s Farm
2. Lab Technician @ University of Hartford
3. Cashier/Customer Service Rep @ Best Buy
4. Construction Support @ CUH2A

Four Films I Can Watch Over and Over

1. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
2. Big Labowski
3. Monty Python/Holy Grail
4. Pearl Jam Concert DVDs

Four Places I’ve Lived

1. West Windsor, NJ
2. Farmington, CT
3. Hartford, CT
4. Princeton, NJ

Four Current TV Shows I Enjoy

1. This Old House
2. Simpsons
3. Family Guy
4. Globe Trekker

Four Foods I Like

1. California Burrito @ Tortuga’s
2. My Mom’s Lasagna
3. Chuck’s (in Princeton) Wings
4. Spicy Tuna Rolls

Four Places I’ve Vacationed

1. Hermosa Beach, CA
2. Key West, FL
3. Montreal
4. Long Beach Island, NJ

Four Websites I Visit Daily

1. Literal Barrage
2. Agent Orange
3. Red Swingline
4. Fuzzy Bunny

Four Things I’d Like to Do Before I Die

1. Marry Sara and have kids
2. Win the lottery (and before I’m old, too)
3. Drive cross country and hit every state in the US
4. Build a kick-ass custom home

Four Things I Miss From College

1. Bro’s (Jeff, Steve, Isaac, Nat, Aaron, Aric, Jocko, Shawn, Joe, and their friends)
2. Bra’s (Kate, Janelle, Kellie, Mary, and their group)
3. Cool bar (Rue Bar) across the street
4. Jammin’ with Jeff, Steve, Doug, John, or anyone else who wanted to play

Four Video Games I Love

1. HoMM3 WoG
2. Gran Turismo x
3. Katamari Damacy
4. EA Sports NHL 200x

Four Favorite Bands

1. Pearl Jam
2. Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
3. The Flaming Lips
4. Red Hot Chili Peppers

Four People I am Tagging

1. Shamino’s Page
2. Jeff
3. Steve
4. Adam

My FuzzyBunny is home today because she is not feeling good. We made some kickin’ chickn’ strips last night and that was probably the root of the problem. Anyways, I hope you feel better soon, I love you!

Sorry, I can’t type the rest of this post, I have to run out to my local perfume store and pic me up some of this!

Just a little update on the computer excitement:

1. Upgraded to dual Compaq V1000 21” monitors.

2. Upgraded to a second P4 2GHz Xeon Processor.

(Note that although they are supposed to be identical, they are listed as: “GENUINEINTEL_-_X86_FAMILY_15_MODEL_2\_2” and “GENUINEINTEL_-_X86_FAMILY_15_MODEL_2\_0”. I don’t know if this will cause any problems although I have developed a new problem which I will discuss later.)

3. When I was in my BIOS seeing if I needed to do anything to add a second processor, I noticed that Hyperthreading was switched off. Since I notice that all the new computers seem to promote this feature, I switched it on. I haven’t seen any improvement in performance, but I’m not really pushing my system yet.

Now, the problem I am having has to do with a game I play. The game in question is Heroes of Might and Magic III with the Wake of Gods expansion pack. I’ve never had any problems with this game before and always ran rock solid. Now, it seems I am getting random errors and the game usually crashes after a battle sequence about once an hour. I don’t know if this is due to upgrading #1, 2, or 3.

Well, I need to start shopping for a good audio editing equipment. I am thinking about Protools Digi002R which is $1200 for the regular version and $1550 for the same package plus a bunch of good plugins. I know Protools might not be the best sequencer out there today, but it is still the industry standard and it is what I was trained in school on so I know how to use it. Plus my friend’s bands uses MBOX’s and 002’s and they seem to put out good stuff. I am also considering either Cakewalk SX3 or Steinberg SONAR 5 for sequencing software and probably the MOTU Traveler or the Presonus FIREPOD for the DAC’s. Need to save some bucks (probably wait until after the wedding) but at least my computer is almost ready.

I still need:

Firewire card – $35

160GB SCSI HD – $90

CD/DVD Burner – $45

Here’s a question to (all) my readers:

What do you use to play digital music? I am currently in the process of burning all my CDs (about 500-600) onto my 400GB firewire drive. I am ripping them in the WAV format (lossless uncompressed CD format) because I want to keep them as direct off the CD as possible. I don’t want my computer “processing” the signal by downsampling, converting, mutating, and compressing or anything!

Right now I currently use the latest version of Winamp to rip the CDs and I just put the whole HD as a playlist as well as creating album playlists for every album I rip.

The reason I am questioning my method is ITunes. The theory behind it is good, and it seems to organize music rather well. I also like the idea of being able to buy albums and songs directly online and with bands releasing singles and videos and such direct to ITunes, it seem very attractive. The main problem I have with it is that it rips (as well as downloads) to only MP3 or AAC format. I’ve never listened to anything in AAC format but since they say right on Apple’s site that you can fit twice as many AAC format songs on a CD versus a standard CD, there is obvious compression even though they claim it is lossless. I will not use MP3’s for any song I really want to listen to. Granted I have a boatload of MP3s around from my file-sharing college days but anything I really wanted to listen to I bought on CD. Actually most of my MP3s are from live shows or songs that were never released on a CD to begin with. For all intents and purposes – I will never pay for a MP3. The only use I can think of I have for MP3s are if I ever get a CD player in my car that can play MP3 CDs, I don’t need audiophile sound in a car. I CAN hear a difference between CD quality and MP3s and it’s not matter how high the bit and sampling rates are set at. That is also my concern for AAC. I obviously don’t have an IPOD or MP3 player!

Also, is it possible to rip DVD-Audio or SACD discs? What format do they get ripped as?

In any event, I was just wondering what programs you all used and what you thought of them. I know not everyone is as anal about their music as I am, but I know some of you are!