Category: Uncategorized

I Walk Among You…

This weekend Turtle Radio was down. Turtle Radio is the service that lets me configure which streaming radio stations my Audiotron can use. A few months ago this would not have been a problem, but not long ago Adam turned me on to Groove Salad and I am completely addicted.

So anyway, I was working on ATTray this weekend which often requires me to reboot my Audiotron. Unfortunatly, when I rebooted it I got no radio stations! The horror! I checked the URL that the Audiotron asks for it’s radio stations from and it looked like they were getting some kind of database error.

Not one to shy from challenge, I looked up a handy text file I had saved months ago. In this text file I had a copy of the document that Turtle Radio sends back to the Audiotron. I had grabbed this because I am paranoid and I thought that maybe some day if Turtle Beach went out of business I might need to make my own Turtle Radio. With XML document in hand I quickly wrote a proxy server in Java that let me feed stations to my Audiotron. I was saved!

Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything I can’t do, and then I remember that I am sitting at work typing into a little text box on my web site instead of sipping margaritas on the beach. It’s good to have something to look forward to.

mOBSCENE

I saw a cop kicking a man as he ran away screaming “Yes sir!” tonight at the Marilyn Manson concert.

The concert was cancelled because of security reasons after three songs.

So basically, after driving around for a while and then sitting in traffic for 2 hours we finally made it to Freaker’s Ball just in time for Manson to go on stage.

Manson played one song and then the band walked off stage. A few minutes later a security guy tells the crowd that they have to take a few steps back because a barricade has broken and needs to be repaired before the show can go on.

This takes about 45 minutes and requires several different people, including Manson (“Just move back and I’ll come back and fuck you reallll good”) coming out and begging people to move back.

Finally the band starts playing again and manages to make it through 2 more songs before walking off. From what we hear there is a brawl in the front and mace or tear gas has been sprayed and the barricade is broken again. Nothing happens for at least 20 minutes and then it looks like the backdrops and stage gear is being removed. Finally someone announces that Manson just wants us all to be safe, and is cancelling the show to protect us. Thanks Manson!

Here is a news story about the event.

Space Fails Me Again

Yesterday there was a massive CME (coronal mass ejection) from the Sun that was supposed to produce some excellent aurora. I wanted to see em, since I never have, so around midnight I took my leave of Scott and Adam and started driving north. I finally gave up around 2:30am somewhere in Nebraska. I made it back home around 6:00am. Today I am very tired, and very bitter.

Now before you start telling me how stupid I am for looking for aurora when they don’t come this far south, check out this page for pictures taken in places like southeast Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, Wichita and so on. I just got unlucky, I guess.

15 Minutes and Counting

I can feel my 15 minutes rushing by at an incredible rate!

I had a short interview with Jenee’ Osterheldt (name spelling stolen from this article) from the Kansas City Star this afternoon about my love for the iPod. She’s going to be doing a story about how the iPod is this massive pop culture phenomenon and she was given my name as a local iPod fan.

This is going to be a different story than the one I mentioned a few months back. In that one a reporter from the Kansas City Star wanted to interview me about vPod. We played a little phone tag but he never got back to me. Aparently he moved back to Hawaii. I can’t imagine why he didn’t want to stay here in the midwest and interview some geek about his software. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, she said the story will be out in a few weeks and I’ll be sure to post a URL here when it appears.

I Am Not A Crook!

I opened my first ever savings account today. Responsibility! Thinking of the future! No, just a spot to hold money for more toys, and possibly one very large toy in 5-10 years.

I was required to answer all kinds of questions so they could determine if I was a terrorist or not. They even said, “In cooperation with the Patriot act we’re gonna ask you questions to determine if you are a terrorist or not.”
They asked me if I was going to use this account for a business, if I would be transferring over $3000 into or out of it, if I would be using wire transfers and so on. I personally would have asked me “Do you hate Americans and want them all to die a boiling bath of their own blood?” but I am a little more upfront than most people are I guess.

One of the main reasons I opened a savings account is that I have been giving some thought to starting a small business in several years. To do this, I will need a lot of money so I figured I should probably start creating some. I have always treated my money kind of like a beer glass. If there is some beer in there, I’ll drink it. If not, I will wait till someone puts more in and THEN drink it. I’ve never really put saran wrap over the top and put it in the fridge for later, or given half my beer to the church or anything like that. This is of course why every other entry on this site is me oogling over some new and useless toy.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about opening a microbrewery. With my tour of Boulevard Brewery and my increasing obsession with brewing I am getting to where I think it might be a fun, enjoyable and profitable way to spend some of my life. I’m very happily employed now in I.T., I love computing and unlike many of my friends I am not really thinking about a way to “get out” of I.T. I am just thinking it might be a good way to work for myself. I don’t really want to start a software company. It’s all been done.

Well, it’s all been done except The One True Thing. If you are a fan of my friend Adam’s Blog you have already heard of The One True Thing but for those of you that havn’t, let me tell you something. It’s cool. That’s about ALL I can tell you because it’s also secret. We’re in the “we need a good, catchy name” phase right now but we’re itching to get coding. Yes, coding. As you may have guessed this is going to be a web site. Wow man. Seriously. It’s gonna be cool.

Oh yea, beer. The cider I made a few weeks back is in the keg and being drunked. It’s not very good. When I made it I added 2 lbs of brown and 2 lbs of white sugar to try to bring the alcohol level up. It did that, but it also added a terrible taste to the finished product. This is why people ferment things like malted barley and apples instead of white sugar I suppose. I can drink it, but I don’t think anyone else would want to. Tonight or tomorrow I am going to make a new batch with just apple juice and see if that turns out better. I’m also going to try my first home made receipe batch of beer. Nothing special, but it’s going to be the first time I make a beer that doesn’t come in a kit so it’s kinda exciting. I kinda think I should probably advance my craft if I want to open a brewery and sell this stuff to the world.

That’s all for today, faithless reader. I’ve got some learning to do.