the following was posted on slashdot in regards to rebuilding new orleans post-katrina:

A) Don't live by a freaking ocean. Oceans have hurricanes.

B) Don't live in a city that is 8 feet below sea level. Flooding WILL occur.

Problem solved.

as cold as it is, i kinda hafta agree.

--j

alayna and i both suffer from canker sores, so i was searching walgreens for some medication. knowing that one of the prime ingredients in topical pain relief is benzocaine, i searched for that to see what would turn up. along with the results i was expecting, i also got a link to Mandelay, which (fittingly enough) prolongs a man's ability to last. that would have been a great time for somebody to walk by my cube and get a good glimpse at what would appear to be my interest.

i'm on a kick lately of buying up some stuff that i've had burned for a while, but i feel i should probably own for real. it had occurred to me that some of my favorite albums i actually own only in the format of a circa 2000 memorex CD-R and often with 128kbps quality primitive rips. i'm much more of an audiophile than i was 5 years ago, and i can actually tell they're shittier quality, especially after i've abandoned playing CDs and rip everything to 192kbps mp3s. so rather than buying my favorite tracks on iTunes or napster (which highly unfortunately lock me into a proprietary format) i pick up the used CD for as low as i can find.

my favorite used CD store i've found so far is SecondSpin. this time around i've ordered the following --

Bush / Deconstructed – $3
Neve / Neve – $3
Caviar / Caviar – $3
Dave Navarro / Trust No One – $4
Silverchair / Frogstomp – $3
Fuel / Something Like Human – $4
2 Skinnee J’s / Volumizer – $3

each of those has at least 4 tracks that i like, which means they go into iTunes and my 20gb player. so for only $3 or $4, i average less than a $1 a track (so less than iTunes or napster) and i get it in uncompressed PCM format, so i can do what i want with it. plus an added bonus: the RIAA sees no profit from used CD sales. ;)

despite my giant lack of playing my PS2 lately, i've decided to go back and get legit copies of a few classics. i'm more likely to pick 'em up and play if i see the box over on the rack, heh. plus at this point a lot of 'em are pretty damn cheap.

as an example, i saw grand theft auto 3 on ebay with like 42 minutes left to go, highest bid at like $3.75. so i put one down with a max of $4.50 and had the winning bid at $4.25 till like the last second, when somebody won it for $6.50. i figured i had lost a good deal, but then i checked gamestop and saw they have it for $4.99 used anyway. vice city is only $8, beyond good & evil is $10. so i decided fuck ebay and half.com, i'll just buy 'em through good ol' gamestop. this seems to work for the older games, but newer stuff like god of war and gran turismo 4 is still like $40 used, so you're better off bidding on those probably.

a rare workday post, eh?

--j

been a lot of goofin around on the machines tonight. wanted to play paper mario for a while but i know i'll just end up getting sucked into a 2 hour gaming session. i messed around with google talk a bit, using iChat. it's a cool concept to unite all the major IM protocols, although you have to have a GMail account, which i had never even bothered with. so right now my jabber/gmail buddy list consists of... rick. heh, damn.

i was looking through some Growl applications and came across Last.fm, which looks pretty cool so far. it's basically a community for tracking people's music habits and meshing people with similar tastes. it tracks whatever i play through iTunes with a plug-in and uploads it to the site. you can even write small blog entries about certain artists or albums. it's cool to open up an album listing and see how popular each track is, too. check out my profile on the link to the left. (although i'm sure it'll be more interesting after a month.)

3am thunder is cool.

--j

here's what i'm looking forward to in the coming tv season, just for grins...

prison break (premiere) - aug. 29
looks kinda like 24, which is good.

the simpsons (season 17) - sept. 11
yeah, it's starting to get *really* played out, but can you blame them? still good for a late-night tivo.

family guy (season 4) - sept. 11
first half of the season was a bit hot and cold, but still some hilarious episodes.

survivor (location: guatemala) - sept. 15
couldn't be much more played out, but tough to avoid watching with alayna being a rampant follower.

arrested development (season 3) - sept. 19
season 1 was better, but season 2 was still some of the best shit on tv.

surface (premiere) - sept. 19
i dunno, could be cool. sorta sci-fi.

my name is earl (premiere) - sept. 20
yeah, it has jason lee in it. that's enough to at least try it out.

the office (season 2) - sept. 20
my personal second-most anticipated show. just got the season 1 dvd, absolutely terrific.

lost (season 2) - sept. 21
my most anticipated returning show. fantastic.

invasion (premiere) - sept. 21
could be cool, could suck. i'll know within 2 weeks.

ER (season 12) - sept. 22
last season was better than the previous, which is encouraging. i think us and 11 other people still follow it.

numb3rs (season 2) - sept. 23
still getting through season 1, but really enjoy it.

desperate housewives (season 2) - sept. 25
one of the biggest surprises of last year. only hope the pace picks up a bit.

grey's anatomy (season 2) - sept. 25
another great surprise of last year. it'll be nice to have more than like 9 episodes.

amazing race (season 8) - sept. 27
family edition instead of couples, but still my top reality series.

the night stalker (premiere) - sept. 29
sounds like a cool concept.

NCAA football and NFL seasons starting up soon as well. look forward to any games in HD. can't wait for the NHL season to start on october 5th. i'll focus on all that stuff in a future post...

--j