well it's been almost 2 weeks since a fresh post, so i guess i'll go maaaad stream-of-consciousness style and blab about some sheeit.

i guess trivial stuff first? survivor's been at least decent lately. not really spectacular but i guess worth watching at least. a new episode of friends finally came on, we had almost completely forgotten what had been happening. nobody cares anymore, just end the damn show already and let the syndication rake in profits, like seinfeld. ER's been a little humdrum lately, still overall entertaining but it almost seems like it's ready to end within a season or so too. a few of my other season pass shows have ended, the john henson project's season is over, who knows if that'll come back or not. home movies is done [as of right now] forever, completely cancelled, which sucks. only good thing is there's about 50 total episodes of that show (over 4 seasons) to enjoy, so i can't complain too much. scrubs has been alright lately, i'm kinda glad it's only got 1 episode left for the season, marginally funny but season 3 wasn't nearly as good as season 2. MST3K got yanked from sci-fi a while back, but you can find episodes somewhat easily online so it's not that big of a deal anyway. i'm looking forward to another season of reno 911!, i'll most likely get the first season on dvd when it comes out, even though i've got all the eps. airline wrapped up season 1 a few weeks ago, not really sure when the 2nd season starts, although i wouldn't be heartbroken if i missed it. big brother 5 will start up in july as usual, that'll be something to look forward to. i'm kinda right in the middle of watching tivo'd band of brothers. i've got 4 episodes left, kinda savoring 'em i guess.

i've been pretty slow to watch shit off my computers, but lately i've watched eps of the office season 1 and enjoyed the few episodes of significant others that i have. i've been bad about not really watching anime as much as i should've, i prolly should have finished off a few series by now but i haven't. oh well, it'll save something for later i suppose. big fish and ER season 2 dvd's hit the shelves today, i'll prolly lumber out and pick those up within the next couple days. only things holding me back are my complete lack of rackspace and glaring fact that i've only watched a few ER season 1 episodes in the last 6 months. kill bill vol 1 has been an excellent dvd, but i'll be damned if i know what to do with my matrix revolutions dvd. at some point i plan to sit down and watch all 3 movies back-to-back-to-back. i still say i got the 3rd flick just to say i had all of 'em, errrr.

i've still been a little lazy getting back to being gamecube-addicted too. i enjoyed some f-zero gx the other day for a little speechwriting break of loud fun, but not much more than that. i finished a little more of wind waker a couple weekends ago when i brought the cube back to dallas, but i think i'm tired of beating the game to death and need to just beat it without blowing hours and hours on semi-useless sidequests. i still plan on upping my GC playtime, but might not be until i'm in my new apartment.

i'm not too far from finishing my dnbMD project. i've just got 5 MD's left to master to have what i consider the best tracks of '98-03 off the hard drive and onto the more-likely-to-get-airplay MD's. thus far i'm still planning on sticking with my plan to get MD happy and almost completely blow of portable mp3's at least for now. the top-of-the-line sony Hi-MD unit (which sony kinda has a monopoly on right now so that's all that will be available) was posted on minidisco for $380 available in mid-may, although i've seen it listed for $325 elsewhere. i prolly won't get it in may, but i'm still planning on getting that for my portable music, which in the last 5 years has been a big deal to me, but i'm not sure yet how big of a deal portable music will be for me in the next couple years post-school. my POV is that i won't really need portable beats for transportation anymore (bus/bike) but i'll be sitting in a cube for prolly 7 of 8 hours in my workday so most likely i'll continue to think it's pretty important. oddly enough those new Hi-MDs will hold about 8 hours (at best quality even) of music so bringing the player with just 1 Hi-MD inside should get you through the day. that's kinda what sold it for me really, the fact that you could have just 1 disc with you and get through many hours of the day without ever hearing the same track. for the last few years i've had a creative labs nomad 20gb that's been cool for some purposes but overall hasn't really been a godsend of a device, so i'm a little leery of HD-based mp3 players.

i'm in no way anti-iPod like some other MD purists, i really like the iPod but i don't think it's what i want. it's got a way better interface than HD mp3 players of a few years ago but carries what i call "the indecision principle." i never realized it'd be a problem having too much music at my fingertips until i had my 20gb player for a while. even with creating playlists and such i just think it's having too much music to decide upon to really enjoy thoroughly. you need a way of breaking down music selection somehow, and i think 8 hour selections of music on each Hi-MD is about perfect for that. so the plan is still to collect full mp3 albums at home, but only put the highlights onto MD's and enjoy those in the car (haven't seen much news yet on car Hi-MD decks, i'm expected expensivo) and portable at work.

i don't really support those that try to find an all-in-one portable music player for transportation, cube-sitting and working out. i just don't think the concept exists, at least not right now. i'm not sure yet, but prolly before 2004's over i'll go buy a flash-based mp3 player just for working out. what i keep hoping for (and is prolly within 1-2 years of reality) is some goddamn bluetooth based headphones already. my biggest beef with any portable players lately is the damn wire. i listen to headphones going to classes fairly often, and now and then i get pretty tangled up in the stupid cord. with all the wi-fi insanity and rapid tech cycling lately, you'd think wireless portable music would catch the fuck on here soon. technically i could do it already, i could run my iPaq as my music player with bluetooth on and some expensive bluetooth headphones, but the price and battery drain aren't worth it quite yet. i think that'd be perfect for working out though -- a flash-based mp3 player with integrated bluetooth and tiny bluetooth earbuds or something, you could wrap the player around your arm and never have to worry about dangling wires.

lately, whether i'm sitting in class or not, my day seems to revolve around planning out my apartment move-in the middle of next month. my parents mentioned over the weekend that i could get a DLP HDTV for my graduation present, so that's pretty goddamn cool. i'm leaning towards a 50" samsung DLP monitor, or if not than prolly it's 46" or 43" counterpart. it's got everything i "need," 3 component inputs, DVI input, VGA input, 720p handling, etc. so selection of the tv isn't really that tough of a choice thus far.

the satellite vs cable thing is the toughest to decide so far. obviously with a shiny new HDTV, i've gotta find some way of getting HD signals, which in 2004 is getting easier and easier but is still certainly in its infancy. digital cable is a bit more expensive, but the advantage there is that you can pretty easily get the broadcast HD channels delivered to your home thru cable, including ESPN-HD and HBO-HD/Sho-HD/Max-HD if you want 'em. the only problem there is that comcast offers a shitty PVR for recording them. still, it's nice that you can record HD at all, no matter what the interface looks like. from what i've heard it's really nothing like tivo, it's more like a digital tapeless vcr, with no season passes or suggestions or anything. but i figure i can still use my standalone tivo (which are most likely going the way of the dodo within a year or so) to record non-HD stuff, which is mostly what i'll record anyway. i really like what satellite has to offer, and it is cheaper, but the problem lies in their inability (due to bandwidth) to carry local HD signals, or (due to legal issues) national HD broadcast feeds. there's a small chance you could get CBS, fox, NBC and ABC HD national feeds here soon, but a lot of that is still being battled in courts. so with DirecTV i could get digital quality feeds on all channels, plus ESPN-HD, DiscoveryHD, HDnet and HDnet movies for an extra $11 a month. the thing is you can get over-the-air HD signals with the proper antenna and such, BUT being in an apartment i'm a lot more limited as far as just throwing a big antenna up on the roof, which is what most homeowners do. i'd need a medium-sized directional antenna to reach the towers downtown, but it'd have to face about 200 degrees southwest to get the signals and with my apartment alignment i'm really not sure if i can do that. unless the front office can hook me up to a good feed or something i think i might be shit outta luck on OTA HD. so at least right now (and my opinion changes upon the hour) i'm leaning towards comcast digital cable since i can prolly still use my own tivo and get all the major networks in HD. it'd just be a shame to spend so much on an HDTV and not receive HD feeds.

i'm gonna build a home theater PC for the living room to play dvd's, mp3's on the main speakers and games on the big tv. my main computer (with its trusty linux box brother next to it) will be in the study for proper computer use, like spreadsheets, websurfing and email, but the HTPC will be responsible for playing all my music and videos out on the big speakers and tv in the main area. i had thought about running a dedicated media server to just stream mp3's out to the speakers over wi-fi, but i don't think that'll be very practical. instead i'm just gonna build a PC for pure entertainment purposes in the living room and let it talk to the other machines over wi-fi. the way i see it i was gonna hafta buy a new dvd player anyway (present sony's a few years old, lacks progressive scanning or a DVI output) and a media server to play mp3's properly (i.e. loud), so an HTPC for under $1k is the best solution.

i've put ridiculous amounts of time into planning and researching for my new apartment, but i'm not really burned out on it. everything from measurements to making sure i buy the right products, i'm trying to have it all planned out before i move in ~may 16th. i can't really afford (both monetarily and time-wise) to make a bunch of mistakes in putting this place together (locked into living there 14 months) so i'm trying to do it right. so far rick's given a lot of advise on his take on a lot of equipment and setups i've mentioned, plus he helps point out things i didn't think about before. i'm not quite sure yet but i will most likely order all the HTPC parts while i'm still here in CS and build the box here since i've only got 3 exams total. plus i don't wanna move in and have to build a computer while i'm just trying to find a fuckin couch or something.

i don't really know much about furniture, so i'll be using help from alayna and my mom to decide what the hell to buy for that part. i'm inheriting some furniture from my parents, so that'll help. i hope the stuff i gotta buy (couch, bed, etc) doesn't cost too damn much though, at 22 years old i really don't care about having like awesome furniture or anything. i'm about 90% sure i'll go with cable over DSL for internet, DSL would be cheaper but i think 784/256kbps down/up isn't really that spectacular. i had thought about going DSL to help motivate myself to stay off the net more but i think that'd be a mistake. i still want to keep shit downloading while i'm at work during the day. i had wanted to avoid getting landline phone service but for various reasons i'm almost positive i'm gonna hafta have one, at least for a while. i'm gonna toss a couple things on my cell service though, i'm not gonna pay like $40 a month for landline and $50/mo for cell coverage, i don't need all that.

moving on...

i hadn't really realized it but i really am almost done with every academic for my degree. i gave my last speech last thursday, so that's totally done. i have no more networking classes, all i take is the final. just 1 more homework due for automata and then the final, which i'll have to reschedule cuz i'm lined up for 3 tests on the same day. i gotta prolly make at least 1-2 more appearances in my 489 class that i only go to like once every couple weeks just to make sure i don't get fucked and get a B just for being a dick and not showing up. gotta write one last quick paper for ethics this friday and then all that's left will be the final in there too. i've done enough in every class to at least pass them all so it's a good feeling to know that nothing else really stands between me and graduation. i'd imagine the next couple weeks will be filled more with various tasks and shit around here (moving out, admin type shit, etc) than actual academic work, which is how it should be.

it's pretty obvious that i'm not gonna be able to properly wrap things up with a lot of people i've met here throughout the years, but i guess that's to be expected. i understand people are just as busy as i am, especially those that are graduating, so it's really just a shame i guess that we'll all part our separate ways. i have a lot of graduating seniors in several of my classes and we all sorta have the same look. most of us seem ready to leave, i guess i'm really talking about comp sci majors here. it's mostly a good vibe in classes i suppose, kinda like the last week of school in the elementary days or something. nobody wants to say it but everybody knows as long as we remain y'know, like enrolled in the university we're gonna get our degrees. we only kinda care about really acing classes, and everybody, including my parents, really understand that. and who can blame us?

luckily, alayna got a job interview for a school in richardson so we're hoping that comes through, so she can move to dallas this summer like we want. more and more it looks like everything's falling together.

there's prolly other shit i could get into, but i've already blabbed plenty i know.

--the damaja