jonocorp

It's been a while, but now I'm finally rocking the 5-speed again. Oh, clutch, I missed your unyielding sensitivity. Extra thanks for Brian for helping me get the new work horse. It couldn't have happened without your help. Thanks Christine for the prime rib, it was really good. Thanks Michelle for the unexpected ride home. And thanks for all the others I forgot to mention.

I'm not feeling the chrome wheels, though. Not my style.

I loved, LOVED, ABC's short-lived 1998 show "Cupid" staring a little-known Jeremy Piven. Rob Thomas is bringing it back with new actors. The new promo is below. I hate that generic background music in the middle of the video. It looks kinda "eh," but we'll see.

Below is part of the original series.

Today is my first attempt to make some Chinese rubbing alcohol. A search on the internet for a formula, a quick walk down to see some old accupunture friends during lunch, a stop-off to get some rice wine after work, and I'm in business. Of all the ingredients I asked for, I would've thought that tortoise shell was going to be the hardest to find. Nope. It was there. It has turned a light amber color in only a few hours. I can't wait till it turns dark. It's supposed to sit in a cool dark place for at least a month. I can't wait to see it progress further. I can almost smell it now.

Jesus was right, the full moon brings the weird out of you and you end up doing stupid things.

What a crappy way to start my birthday. And I'm not talking about having to go to work.

I've been downloading some tv episodes that I've missed lately, but noticed that it takes way over an hour to download a half-hour episode of whatever. I look up and see the massive HAL-like box in front of me... my old hand-built DVR. Although my homemade DVR is staring right in front of me, I haven't turned it on in a while. It has the current Mythbuntu installed and configured to have multiple computers to connect to it. The reason, I suppose, I haven't turned it on is because I don't have a pair of speakers attached to it and the monitor is positioned funny in my room.

It finally dawned on me that I should install a frontend to my laptop. Since all of my computers are networked, it should work. And since my laptop has speakers built in, I don't have to get new ones just to watch recorded tv in an uncomfortable position.

Setup was fairly easy and detected. I watched the new episode of The Office and 30 Rock I missed while in class. Now if I can get all my attached tv tuners to work and record, I can record like nuts.

Hurrah, hurrah. Since upgrading the OS on my computer, everything went swimmingly. My wireless didn't work at first, but a restart and a reinstall of my wifi drivers and it works with very little effort. Previous upgrades left me wireless for a while until some divine Linux professional provided a tutorial on how to get my crappy Broadband chipped wireless modem to work.

Tabbed file manager is really handy.

I spent a good amount of time this weekend watching the entire series of BBC's "Spaced" staring Simon Peg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the upcoming Star Trek movie). It's like "Friends" for geeks. None of the characters are glamorous, successful, or entirely smart. Their devotion to each other is endearing. There are copious amounts of pop references that don't go over-the-top or deviate from the story (ahem, Family Guy) that range from sci-fi, comics, movies, tv, and music.

"Spaced" is only two British seasons long which totals 14 half-hour episodes. Incredibly too short.

That countdown clock I had stickied for Ubuntu's 8.10 release of Intrepid Ibex turned out to be super lame when it got down to zero. I checked it this morning expecting to see something fun, but instead found it to say "Coming Soon." Lame.

I'm upgrading as we speak. I always tell myself that I should wait a week or two to upgrade to have the bug fixes fixed and broken wireless cards tutorials typed up, but that is never the case. Not to mention that every release date hammers their servers, so what would be an hour upgrade usually takes 4-8 hours. I guess I get too excited to have my old laptop springing to life with new Linux goodies. The one feature I can't wait to use is tabbed window management. Ever use tabbed browsing for Firefox? Like it? Want to open multiple folders and have it all in one place? Ibex has it available.

Also this week I passed my motorcycle driving test. I just can't seem to justify getting a bike. I've always wanted to learn, but kept getting scared to try. I've talked to a few friends that have a bike, and they all said that it's mostly a toy, and no one really uses it for regular transportation anymore. House makes it look so cool, though.

In other news this week, I've been on this shoe binge. I'm not a shoe shopper, but I needed boots for the motorcycle, and I got shoes for class. I was near Chinatown today and I figured I should pick up a pair. Driving in boots suck, btw. My foot almost cramped up just by breaking.

Monday is the start of my "staycation." This vacation, I already know, will not be nearly as good as my last time off.

I wonder if the songs and the Ubuntu countdown clock I posted is distracting people and not scrolling down a bit and reading my stuff. I can see how it looks like I haven't posted anything because you see nothing has changed, that is until you look down a little.

I have the office to myself for the first time in a long time. The music is loud. Just like it used to be.

As long as I could remember, I stopped asking for birthday presents because it eventually turned out that I never really got anything. And if I got anything, most of the time it was never anything that I really wanted. So, naturally, I stopped asking for anything. With my birthday coming up, there is only one thing I asked for, and as usual, I probably won't get it. Seems like things never change.

That also goes for Christmas presents, too. When people ask what I want, I never know.

People tend to ask me who my favorite band is, and I can't pinpoint it to just one. It's kinda like if someone asked you your favorite meal. Your favorite meal is different on how you feel that day. When it comes to music I have so many, and different bands/musicians elicit different feelings, emotions, and moods for me.

If I wanted to sing songs, they would definitely be Wilco's. Not fulling embracing them the first time I heard them, but when I finally got into lyrics and not just noises and beats, they really hit me emotionally. Jeff Tweedy's emotions are on his sleeve every time he strums that guitar and sings. A little like myself when I get serious.

If I wanted to make music, then it'd be Bloc Party. It's almost the kind of music I dreamed about making when I was in high school and college. It's a strange dichotomy of raw primal bpm and flowy opera that makes for a great synergy (a corporate buzz-word, no less). I tend to believe in some kind of balance, and Bloc Party seems to get it right in my opinion. Silversun Pickups also do the same, but until I hear more new songs, then I reserve judgement.

I can't concentrate lately. Focus is getting hard, and sleep is on-and-off.

It must've been the chilly weather (or severe depression j/k, maybe, I dunno), but I did not want to leave the house on Saturday. I just curled up into my bed and didn't want to leave. Maybe it was my lack of sleep finally catching up on me, who knows. I finally decided to stop watching repeats of the Ultimate Fighter, which seems very lame this season, and make pasta for dinner. Being primarily an Asian-stocked cupboard, making a pasta dish is hard, but I did what I could and we all had to eat. Saturday was perfect whiskey weather.

The WCBBQ was held on Sunday, and the weather was perfect for drinking beer and wine outdoors in the sun. The food was really good. I haven't had beef that wasn't ground up in a while, so actually chewing on pieces of a kabob and flank steak was very welcome. There was even a food and wine pairing with a specific piece of meat that was pointed out to me. I even had a lot of dessert which is usually uncommon for me. Tiger shrimp, banana bread, cupboard salad, socializing and punching were the big highlights. I got home and napped (also unusual for me) and woke up in time to watch the Dodger game.

Congrats for taking 1st.