Decided to slip out for the weekend. Went to visit some friends in New York. The drive out was amazing. I went all the way to the end of the Mass Pike for the very first time. It was a beautiful time to drive. I got a few pictures, and wished there were more places to stop and get pictures of the leaves. They’ve just started turning and I bet they’ll be amazing in another week.

Next time I go down I think I’ll try and leave on Friday, things felt rushed this time around. Got to hang out with Lyn and Chris and her hubby. Got to watch Lyn play lots of Kingdom Hearts. I was afraid she wasn’t going to let me take it home. I also got to inflict FLCL on Chris, I think between that and me bringing the PS2 down I was risking my life.

It feels good to be home though. I miss my bed when I’m away from it for too long.

I started ripping my CDs from the end of my collection going backwards. First batch:

• Vapourspace – Vista Humana
• Music from the soundtrack Valley Girl
• Utah Saints – Two
• Utah Saints
• Underworld – Beaucoup Fish
• Underworld – second toughest of the infants
• Ultra Vivid Scene – Rev
• U2 – War
• Edit Carey – Call Me Home

I hope to get in another batch after burning some Fruits Baskets episodes for Lyn.

Well. I just had my first hard disk failure in ages. I’m still not quite sure what happened. Fortunately, this wasn’t data that was that important, though it was a bit painful. It was all my mp3s and anime video files. Luckily most of the stuff that was important had been already copied, but there were a few things that I’ll have to hunt down again.

It also made me think about what the best way to do backups is. One of the annoying things about hard drives being so big and cheap these days is that backing them up is a pain in the ass. There’s no real good consumer tape backup that is affordable. It’s actually cheaper to just get a second rive to back up to. So, I think it’s going to boil down to me investing in another firewire drive, probably a 120GB one so that I can do all my backups to that. But that will wait till after I’m employed again.

I also decided that I’m going to start posting the CDs I’m re-ripping as I rip them. Just to share my music collection with everyone.

Blore’s Razor. “Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.” [Quotes of the Day]

Anime Daisuke is back! Or at least in some form. It lists the shows that are currently on and when they are airing. Though some of the info seemed a tiny bit off (Pasiphae, Didn’t you say Gluhen had started? It lists it as airing in November). The thing that would make that site perfect if it had more information about the shows it listed. Big thanks to my favorite anime and news website for covering this.

I always have odd dreams when I nap. Most of the time I don’t remember my dreams at all. Strangely, I remembered part of today’s. I got a job. It was right around the corner, which was pretty cool. I can’t remember exactly what the job was, but I was psyched about it. The weird thing was, everyone else who worked there was a demon. And for some reason this didn’t seem out of the ordinary to me. I’m still kind of amazed at how fresh the memory of this dream is in my head. Maybe it was prophetic (at least the job part. I could do without demons in my life).

Dan Gilmore has a nice article about how Apple stands firm against entertainment cartel:

What’s Apple not doing? It’s not — at least so far — moving toward an anti-customer embrace with Hollywood’s movie studios and the other members of the powerful entertainment cartel.

Yet another reason I like Apple.

Okay. I hate Gator. I think they are one of the most annoying software companies out there. But I’m not sure I agree with UPS here:

Gator ships ads to wrong Web site. Shipping company UPS has filed a lawsuit against Gator in the U.S. District Court of Atlanta, charging the online software provider with delivering unauthorized ads to visitors of its Web site. [CNET News.com]

When I was a PC user, Gator was always trying to install their software on my system. And at one time I even had their software installed without realizing just how slimy they are. But if I want to run a piece of software on my PC that shows me ads as I’m browsing the web then I should be able to. I haven’t seen how Gator’s software works, but my guess is they don’t indicate when the ads are being served by them. This is probably their biggest problem. I don’t think they make any effort to indicate that ads they are displaying aren’t from the site you are visiting.

Oh, and a note to software makers. Please don’t support Gator. Yeah, I know you like that you can give your software away for ‘free’ and still make money. I can think of at least a few programs that I haven’t bothered with due to the inclusion of Gator.

Bluetooth is certainly starting to show up in the news a lot more these days:

Are These Folks Crazy, or Cordless?. Two new Bluetooth headsets for cellphones are likely to make wireless communications seem even spookier. By Adam Baer. [New York Times: Technology]

I know that I sometimes get really strange looks when I’ve got my bluetooth headset on. Even when I’m not using it. It kinda looks like some kind of secret agent gadget.

I did run into one weakness, and I’m not sure if this is a bluetooth weakness or one with my phone. The headset works great, and the phone works great when linked to the computer. But I can’t have the phone talking with both at the same time. Which kind of sucks. Hopefully I can find some way around it.

Yesterday was a slow blogging day. I didn’t quite feel that creative, so you were spared my normal rambling. Right now I’m feeling like I need a cup of coffee. I’ve got a bunch of things to post about this morning when I get around to it.