September 2006 Archives

[Moozik: Japan - Life In Tokyo]

So this weekend marks the start of the next chapter in my life. I haven't quite decided how much more I'll write here in the upcoming weeks.

Could I be anymore cryptic? I doubt it :-)

Anyway, I will be back. Soon.

[Moozik: Erasure - Don't Dance]

I'll have a further play later but for right now I have my brief "well I've played with it for about 4 minutes" first impressions.

After installation, iTunes proceeded to wander over my entire music collection "Determining Gapless Playback Information" and I had no say in the matter. It would appear that iTunes 7 now supports gapless playback. Which is nice. Now if only my iPod supported gapless playback. Oh well, can't have everything :-)

While iTunes was keeping itself amused determining gapless playback info I took a few seconds to see what have visually changed. iTunes itself has received a slight makeover. I think it looks more elegant with its use of new clean icons and clean space. You can also now view your music collection in one of three ways. The first way is the standard list view, the second is the new grouped with artwork view, and the third is the rather interesting cover browser[0] which reminds me of thumbing through CD collections looking for that song you know is on the album with the red tree on the cover. Or something.

And speaking of covers brings us to cover art. iTunes 7 handily includes a feature in which it will go and automatically fetch missing album artwork for you. A feature I took full advantage of current temporary dialup situation not withstanding :-)

So yes, more playing required but I like what I've seen so far.

[0] coverflow.

[Moozik: The Cure - Lullaby]

For the past oh-goodness-knows-how-long, I've enjoyed some *cough* free wireless broadband. That all ended last week when my neighbors moved :-) I won't have cable access at the house until the 19th of September. So, in the meantime I'm enjoying dial-up. Ah yes good times.

Brian - this will explain my lack of activity on a certain site you invited me to recently :-)

[Moozik: Simple Minds - Big Sleep]

This weekend was awfully entertaining. Well, entertaining might not be the exact word I'm looking for but for now, it will do.

Flood #1, the kitchen. I got home after Calculus class on Saturday afternoon to a nice little mini-flood in the kitchen. Turns out there was a teeny tiny pin prick of a hole in the water line running into my fridge. Pulled the fridge out, replaced the water line, easy, no problem there. The bigger problem is that we have some wooden flooring in the kitchen and yes, the water got underneath that and now the wood paneling around the fridge is somewhat buckled. Suck.

Flood #2, the garage. Saturday afternoon a rather large storm hit Phoenix. The largest amount of rain I've seen here for quite some time in fact. It would appear the weatherstrip underneath my side garage door has seen better days. Queue the mini stream I found in the corner of my garage. Suck.

Flood #3, the gym room. During the same storm of the century on Saturday evening, I found water dripping from the piece of sheetrock just above the window. Dripping fast I might add. Cups and towels to the rescue. Going outside revealed no obvious entry for said rainwater. The sheetrock in the room is now dry but will need to be replaced before the mold of doom sets in. But more importantly, how the fu** did the water get in to begin with? Suck.

Tree #1, front garden. The storm of the century had its way with my tree. 3 major branches came crashing down. The tree looks rather silly now. I've been debating on whether to remove the tree for some time. Well, now seems as good a time as any. The tree removal guy is coming out to give me an estimate next week. Sure I could borrow my neighbors chainsaw but I don't have any way to get rid of the tree myself.

Tree #2, back garden. Two branches completely broken. Not a disaster though, just took my trusty saw and trimmed things up nicely.

Tires. On Sunday night, we had another rain storm. So I thought that would be a fine opportunity to go to the shops :-) On my way back home, I got a puncture in the front tire. Bollocks. Changing tires in the rain == no fun whatsoever. Suck. Took the tire to Sears yesterday afternoon on the offchance that the flat could be patched. No such luck because of where the hole was in the tire. So, new tire then? Actually new tires because it also turns out my wheels were not exactly aligned correctly and all tires had some considerable wear. $400 and 4 1/4 hours later (I shit you not, yes 4 1/4 hours) I had nice new tires on my car.

[Moozik: Tears For Fears - Change]

I must admit I did have tears well up when watching Andre Agassi's last ever Tennis match today. The standing ovation he received after losing to Benjamin Becker lasted forever and I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. He was clearly emotional and just about managed to keep it together to say a few parting words to the crowd.

I've been a Tennis fan for as long as I can remember. I was always glued to the TV as a wee nipper watching Wimbledon and have watched many of Andre's matches spanning his 21-year career. I can't immediately think of anyone who was more entertaining to watch play and in this, his last ever tournament, he certainly managed to entertain us with his matches against Pavel and Baghdatis.

I think I'm going to miss watching him play. Indeed, an end of an era.

[Moozik: Acid Horse - No Name No Slogan]

Keith layeth the smack down against Rummie. Really, you go watch now.