All posts by archangel

Internet, Music

Rhapsody.com Review

2 Comments

On a lark, I subscribed to the Rhapsody Unlimited music subscription service, lured in the by their 14-day free trial ($10/month after that). I had fun with Pandora, but wanted to try something that gave me more control over what I listened to. In this case, complete control. Rhapsody has over 1.3M songs, and gives you the power to listen to any of them in any order. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but you’ll still run across missing albums, and occasionally missing artists. At least they have a button that reveals all of an artist’s missing albums.

Listening on the go

One of the benefits of the Unlimited service is Rhapsody To Go, which allows you to download tracks to a compatible portable device (the ones that say Subscription). There are 3 catches in that statement: 1) you are a current Rhapsody Unlimited subscriber, 2) your MP3 player is Janus/PlaysForSure compatible (iPods aren’t), and 3) you’re using Windows XP. And 4 catches if you include the fact that not all Rhapsody tracks are Subscription tracks, but in my experience almost all are. The quality of purchased and downloaded tracks is 128K, in WMA, AAC, or MP3.

Since I don’t see myself dropping the service anytime soon, I’m highly motivated to get a Subscription compatible player. Because I’d like an expandable player, I’m leaning towards the Sandisk e200 with a microSD slot, removable recharbable battery, FM tuner, and voice recorder, due out in March (happy birthday to me). [Attention Sandisk: when your marketing dept. launches a product at CES, without so much as a press release on your website, it’s time to fire them.]

Listening at home

You can listen two ways, through their web interface or their dedicated client. I usually use the client/jukebox software for its interface and convenience features. If you add a track to your library, it can download it so you can listen to it even when the site is down (which happens occasionally). Assuming you’re a current subscriber, of course, and are using Windows XP (I’m guessing it’s a DRM issue). You can purchase tracks for $.89 and albums for $7.99.

I don’t know how much music I listened to before, but I find with Rhapsody I listen to about 3 albums a night. It allows me to more thoroughly explore artists and genres. I find I’ll listen to classic rock musicians from past to present, until they start sucking (which happens pretty consistently as they approach the 1980s), and indie musicians from present to past, for pretty much the same reasons. I’m generalizing, but there’s definitely a pattern there, and it’s cool to see how the artists evolve (or devolve).

They also have several pre-programmed radio stations to help you explore new stuff, and allow you to create a station based on your tastes, like Pandora. I haven’t tried the custom station feature, and would be impressed if it was as good as Pandora, but I’ve been too busy albums to check.

Share/Bookmark
Humor, Internet

MySpace Is Glorious!

Within a day of creating an account (had to use work, I’ll be fired soon I’m sure), I am getting solicitations from hot ladies! They all want me to email them, which can only mean they are really interested. Not all of them live near me, but for these ladies, a long distance relationship would be just as rewarding. I submit, for you reading pleasure (and imminent jealousy!), a missive from a lovely young woman with the handle “irin”:

Hello!!!!
I want will get acquainted with male.
I saw your structure and you have very much interested me.
I very much would like to find out about you more.
It would be very pleasant for me if you will write on mine email: irin-73@mail.ru
I shall look forward to hearing from you.
Irina.

And there’s more where that came from!

Share/Bookmark
Music

Phofo

2 Comments

A while back I heard a cool song on AOL Radio called Le Monster vs. Phofo by My Favorite. I went on to check out other stuff by My Favorite, and found that while they were decent, they didn’t create the sound I liked so much: Phofo did. I’ve had similar discoveries in the past: Super Bon Bon by Soul Coughing was only a hit when it was it remixed by Propellerheads; Battleflag by Pigeonhed and Lo Fidelity Alltars, whose collaboration created a whole greater than the sum of their parts.
     In his remix of Le Monster, Phofo infuses a lounge/bossa nova sound and snappy drums. If you listen to his other stuff, you see it’s a common theme, along with prodigious sampling. Speaking of which, he is a practicing trial lawyer (and I thought I was a renaissance man) and has set up samplinglaw.com to help other artists with this issue.
     He has many of his tracks posted as MP3s in the audio section of his site, definitely worth a listen. Notable tracks include the aforementioned Le Monster, Roger 7, and I Love Happy Funball (which was also a fantastic SNL skit: “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.”)

Share/Bookmark
Film, Technology

HD DVD and Double Layer DVDs

2 Comments

First, I’m finally seeing double layer discs available to the public, without being bundled with other media you don’t need. Not terribly cheap, Amazon has Verbatim DVD+Rs (which seems to have the fewest defects) for around $10 per 3 pack. I wonder how this will affect piracy now that you can copy normal DVDs with little to no quality (or feature) loss.

The other item I caught is the imminent arrival of HD DVDs. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is going on in Las Vegas right now (and some day when I’m rich I’ll get tickets), so product announcements are abound. You might have heard that Sony came up with Blu-Ray as a high definition DVD format, but the DVD Consortium decided HD DVD was the better format. True to form, Sony couldn’t lose graciously and decided to go ahead with it anyway, attempting to fracture the market. And true to form, they are about to have their asses handed to them, as Toshiba is coming out with their HD DVD player several months ahead of Sony. And one other thing, heck, probably not even worth mentioning, shouldn’t have much impact at all. It’s half the friggin price! Booya! Of course, Sony will probably retaliate by not putting their movies in HD DVD format, so you’ll have to wait a long time, or by a Blu-Ray player, if you want to see a high def Kirstin Dunst all wet and cold and thinly-t-shirted in Spiderman. As much as I’d like to buy an HD DVD player as soon as they’re released, I can’t help but remember that the standard DVD players didn’t have all the kinks worked out until the 3rd generation. However, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself once Netflix comes on board.

Share/Bookmark
Film

Movie Car Collection: Better Off Dead: 1967 Camaro

5 Comments

Continuing the Movie Car Collection series with another great American muscle car:

Better Off Dead: 1967 Camaro
Price range: $20,000-45,000
1967 Camaro

Better Off Dead is my favorite 80’s teen comedy. Considering the number of 80’s teen comedies, that’s pretty high praise. This car brings Lane together with cute French chick Monique (I bet he put his testicles all over her). More importantly, it flattens a Ford Falcon driven by the Asian Cosell brothers. On second thought, that’s not more important. I’d much rather have a hot French foreign exchange student than beat a Ford in a street race – I can do that with my WRX already.

Turns out, I am not the only one in love with this car, not by a long shot. There is a terrific story at betteroffdeadcamaro.com about how the owner of that site tracked down the original car (wasn’t easy!) and fully restored it to it’s former glory. Just like the movie. Wow, man.

Since the original isn’t for sale, you can settle for a diecast 1/18th scale replica. Yes, of course, it’s black.

Share/Bookmark
Film

Movie Car Collection: Animal House: 1961 Corvette

I am finally getting a chance to expand upon my earlier post about movie cars. The first car in Archangel’s Movie Car Collection is the 1961 Corvette featured in the movie Animal House

Animal House: 1961 Corvette
Price range: $35,000-65,000
1961 Corvette

The car driven by pre-med student and all around ladies man Eric “Otter” Stratton. It’s red with white cowls. Any car with cowls automatically goes up a notch in my book. Batman has a cowl – I rest my case. This car has also been memorialized in a 1/18 scale die cast model. You can view other Animal House cars at http://www.acmewebpages.com/animal/cars.htm. Granted, it would be a little cooler if it was a convertible, but either way you’ll be turning heads and sleeping with Dean Wormer’s wife in no time.

Share/Bookmark
Technology

Cable Conspiracy

2 Comments

I understand the physics that explain why high-quality analog audio/video cables are a good thing. Ok, at least I understood it in college. Bottom line is that they lower distortion. But I also understand there is a law of diminishing returns, which is governed by the limitations of the human ear and eye and the quality of your A/V components. Long story short, you want decent speaker cables and component or S-Video cables.
     But digital cables don?t need to be super high quality. When you think about it, they?re just computer cables. I?ve been around computers my whole life, and have troubleshot a lot problems. I think the cable has been an issue twice, and it is always a source of amazement, and the last thing you?d check. (This doesn?t include the times when you attempt to pull out a FibreChannel cable by the wire instead of the tiny plug, and the wire comes out but the plug stays there, and you?ve broken it just like the 8 admins before you, because they are the worst designed cables ever.) The point is that all those cables carry the same type of digital signal that your digital audio, HDMI, or DVI cables carry. It?s bits of data, 1s and 0s, on or off. Nobody in the computer industry sweats over cable quality, because if the system can?t tell the difference between on and off, you probably don?t have a cable, but what we call a resistor. Don?t use those.
     Agent Assassin has some A/V components that the average Joe would describe as terribly expensive and high quality (and what his roommate ? your truly ? would call ?good enough for the time being?). He has researched the living daylights out of these things, and the consensus among the smart people is to get stuff from Blue Jeans Cable. They make really good stuff, but don?t rip you off. (Like Monster Cable allegedly does. Not that you heard that from me.) Their website is also educational. There is a catch, though: you have to attach the plugs/ends to the wire yourself. If they do it, it’s $27 per cable, including the connectors they sell for $3.50/pair. It’s like they really hate doing this, so they’ll charge you an exorbitant fee hoping you’ll say no. It does seem like a pain, but so does shelling out $100 for them to do it for you.

Share/Bookmark
Humor, Rants

A Girl In A Boy’s Shirt???

Not too long ago, I saw a girl on Santa Monica’s 3rd St. Promenade wearing the shirt from a Boy Scout uniform. It was at least a size too small, and appeared to be missing the first few buttons. Here’s the shocker: it was sexy! I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Take a cute girl and put her in an ill-fitting man’s shirt? Eww. Yuck. No thanks.” But as counterintuitive as it seems, it looked great. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
     Then it hit me. Did all us Boy Scouts look that irresistible in our tan shirts? As irresistible as that poor girl on the Promenade who couldn’t even afford a bra to go with her thrift-store shirt? I bet we did! And that’s why you’ve had all those problems with camp counselors wanting to play “pitch the tent”, “log roll”, and the ever-popular “Buggery: The Board Game”. It wasn’t their fault, it was those damn shirts. They should be putting Boy Scouts in those brown shirts the Girl Scouts wear; you never hear about problems in their camps. For some reason, though, brown shirts have gotten a bad rap. But I bet if you really looked into it, you’d find there’s no historical basis for it – just simple intolerance!

Share/Bookmark
Film

Archangel’s Movie Car Collection

2 Comments

When I have more money than I know what to do with, I’ve decided that instead of burning it for warmth, I’ll buy a stable of famous movie cars. I don’t need them to be the ones that were actually filmed (although that would rock), just be the same model. Therefore, every car in my list was once a production model. No Batmobiles or Death-mobiles, unless someone decides to mass produce them, and I doubt we’ll ever get a street legal Death-mobile. Besides the Pinto and Corvair.
     While I’m waiting to win the lottery or invent some perfect stock scam, I’ll be writing a series of articles to commemorate them and educate you on why I’m so damn cool. In researching these cars and movies, I found a few cool sites:

IMCDB
The Internet Movie Car Database. Thorough for some films, completely lacking for others.

Hemmings Motor News
These guys have an excellent classifieds section, both for cars and parts. The parts listing in particular is very extensive. They also sponsor(ed?) the TV show My Classic Car with Dennis Gage, which apparently is only on Speed now.

Motorbase
British database of cars. They also have auction listings and past results.

Collector Car Trader Online
Part of the “Trader Online” sites.

duPont Registry
You won’t find any candidates for restoration here, they deal exclusively with cars you can’t afford. All classics are restored, at least as far as I’ve seen. It’s also the standard for selling your used Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls, etc.

Upcoming cars:
Animal House: 1961 Corvette
Better Off Dead: 1967 Camaro
Cruel Intentions: 1956 Jaguar XK-140
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 1962 Ford Anglia
and more!

Share/Bookmark
About

Preventing Spam on MT 2.6

Getting a little fed up with cleaning up spam on the blog (although MT Blacklist helps a ton), I whipped up some SQL to turn off trackback pings and comments on older blog messages. I figure if nobody comments within 90 days of a post, it probably won’t happen by anyone I care to hear from. I’m using MySQL 4.1 and Movable Type 2.661, and this is what I did:

mysql> use your_mt_database_name;
mysql> update mt_entry
-> set entry_allow_pings=0 , entry_allow_comments=2
-> WHERE DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 90 DAY) >= entry_created_on;

Just change the 90 in the WHERE clause to shorten or lengthen the comment/trackback grace period.

Oh, and don’t forget (like I did) to do a Rebuild of all files. Sometimes I forget this is static content.

Share/Bookmark