Category: Uncategorized

I’d really like to hear Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker” in a club on a system that could properly hit the bass notes. I bet it would be freaking awesome.

Well, if PC World is going to mention it I suppose I can too!

From the article:

That’s not the only bit of levity to be found on the phone. The G1 comes with a text-only scrolling video listing contributors and offering special thanks. After a pause, at the very end, Google assures us that “no robots were harmed in the making of this product.”

While the contributors video refers to the Open Handset Alliance — the group of companies backing Android — without naming all the members, it thanks contributors that many industry observers may not have known were involved in the creation of Android.

Andy Missan and Jason von Nieda are the only people called out by name under the special thanks section. According to Missan’s Web site, he has worked as legal counsel for MobiTV, ReplayTV and WebTV. He also worked for Danger, the company recently acquired by Microsoft and founded by Andy Rubin, who later started a mobile software company called Android that Google acquired.

On his Web site, von Nieda describes himself as a Seattle-based “computer programmer, systems administrator, network engineer and all around good guy.”

Seriously, does anyone ever want to hear Sarah Palin speak again? Haven’t the last 8 years of idiocy been enough?

Vote Obama.

I just finished Braid on XBox 360. Very cool game. It must have taken some kind of insane genius to design the levels. Highly recommended.

In other news, I am buying a house! Courtney and I found the perfect house in Newcastle and we’re well into the buying process. We have inspection on Wednesday and we close on Oct. 28th. Woot!

I can’t wait to be in my own place where I have room to build and experiment. I will have more than enough room to finally build a semi-permanent brewery, which is awesome. I haven’t brewed in several years and it sucks.

I’ll post some pictures of the house after the inspection. I haven’t taken any yet.

Last weekend it was Labor Day and I really wanted to get out of town. I had to spend Friday night fixing up an awful bug in The Project (coming soon to a something somewhere!) but in an awesome bout of planning ahead (which I do all the time) I had Courtney come out to… where I work on the project (oh, you thought you had me there didn’t you?) and we bought Sonja a Dogloo.

Right.

Starting over.

Last weekend it was Labor Day and I really wanted to get out of town. We bought Sonja a Dogloo, set her up with a pile of food and several gallons of water and hit the damn road. Destination… somewhere over west. We had general plans to see the ocean and I sort of wanted to go to Hurricane Ridge because that sounded cool.

We headed up to Edmonds to catch the Edmonds – Kingston ferry to get over towards the peninsula and then started along the path that would lead us to Port Angeles. That’s the entry point to Hurricane Ridge. Once we arrived a few hours later we stopped in at the visitors center and decided it sounded like a good trip to the ridge and hit the road!

Hurricane Ridge isn’t much more than a gift shop at the top of a mountain, but it’s worth every mile. You get stunning, unobstructed views of Mt. Olympus and all it’s brothers to the south and the Straight of San Juan to the north and every kind of beautiful landscape inbetween. Throw in deer and elk and marmots and the occasional weird plant and it’s a really great quick trip. The drive up to, and down from the ridge is really fun too.

We took a short little hike through the woods at Hurricane Ridge. There were longer, more interesting hikes to be had but I was kind of in a hurry. I had an itch to get to the west coast before sunset so before long we hit the road again and I made Courtney carsick the whole way to the Makah Indian Reservation.

I didn’t specificially pick the Makah Indian Reservation as my destination. I just kind of wanted to go to the tip of Washington and watch the waves and the sunset. I like to look at a map, pick a spot and go there. This usually leads me on an adventure and it’s almost always worth it. Courtney may not agree, but in this case I think it was definitely worth it.

We drove about 70 miles of seriously twisty roads before we saw the first sign telling us the rules and regulations that would cover our visit to the reservation. Specifically, if we wanted to visit at all we’d need an annual recreation pass. When I think annual anything that requires money I start thinking of things I probably can’t afford. The Makah tribe thinks of $10. I can afford $10.

To say a bit more; I didn’t really even intend to visit the reservation. I only wanted to drive through it. I figured we’d cruise along the edge there, pass back in to public roads and find a place to pull over and check out the sunset. After inspecting the maps a bit more it became pretty clear that there were no roads out of the reservation and if we wanted to go further we’d miss the sunset.

So, with my year of recreation secured and a map of the reservation in hand we raced the sun to Hobuck beach. We parked in a little campground, donned our flip flops (quickly abandoned for bare feet) and strolled along the beach while the sun closed the day.

It was awesome.

We had hundreds of yards of beach nearly to ourselves. A few people were having a fire up near the dunes and a few guys were surfing in the waves but mostly it was quiet and beautiful. I’d love to go back.

With darkness closing in we realized we had probably better find a place to sleep. I had a general plan to head for Forks, WA since it looked like the largest town nearby and was in the direction I wanted to go the next morning so we headed that way.

Forks was about an hour drive from Hobuck Beach on dark, twisty roads but we arrived without incident. We hadn’t really eaten since breakfast way back in Edmonds so first on the agenda was to find something to eat before everything closed. It was about 10pm at this point. The best we could come up with was a Subway inside a gas station. They were in the process of closing but were kind enough to make us a few sandwiches. We also stocked up on snacks and such for our hunt for a hotel.

The GPS (Garmin Nuvi 350, represent!) told us there were 5 or 6 hotels in Forks and we quickly found out they were all full. Courtney took immense joy in pointing out my poor planning so it was with immense joy of my own that I found us our very own beer soaked, stinking, rotting, falling down, ugly as original sin cabin in a construction site of our very own before too long.

A quick side note, before I tell you about that. In the gas station they had t-shirts that said “I got bitten in Forks!” and “My last twilight”. Vampires, right? Weird.

We found a place called “Bagby’s Town Motel” on the edge of town with it’s vacancy sign a’glowin’. As we pulled in another truck pulled in in front of us and a guy got out and headed for the door. I gave him a “Last place in town, huh?” kind of grin and we both went in. Except instead of standing there waiting for service he threw a key down on the counter and walked out.

This probably should have been my first sign.

Well, actually, the first sign probaby should have been all the creepy dolls all over the lobby.

Actually, the first sign probably should have been that this place had vacancy when no one else in the state did.

In any case, a very nice lady came out and greeted me. She said they only had two rooms left, both smoking rooms, and that they were “crew rooms”. I wasn’t familiar with the term so she explained that when all the lumberjacks went up in the forest for days at a time these were the rooms they came back to. She also described the room as “Old and ugly, but clean.”

Obviously sensing my skepticism she said “You can take a look at the room first if you’d like” and I said that would be great. She handed me a key (which looked very familiar) and began to give me directions.

Normally, when I get directions from the lobby of a hotel to my room it’s something like “Take the elevator up to the 110th floor and then follow the line of diamonds past the champagne and caviar buffet.”

I live pretty large.

This time it was “Head back towards town and take the first right. After that take the next right and look for the cabin marked 4.”

We went and checked out the “room” and it was as awful as you can imagine. The room turned out to be half of a duplex and it was a total dump. The place was basically falling down. Inside the entire place stunk like old cigarettes, older beer and even older desperation. Unfortunately, it was the only game in town so we drove back to the office and paid our $58 just so we had somewhere to sleep.

Which, I might add, is fucking stupid. If I had had the forsight to take a few sleeping bags and pillows we probably would have been just as comfortable pulling off and sleeping in the Explorer. That thing has plenty of room to stretch out.

Anyway, the room sucked. We didn’t even shower in the morning cause the bathroom was so gross. We packed back up, hightailed it out and headed for day two in the Hoh Rainforest and Kalalach beaches.

I’ll have to write about those later though. I’m sleepy.

I also need to write about: Mount St. Helens, Built to Spill and Learning Adulthood.

So, as of around midnight last night I am finally “done” The Project. I still can’t say what it is but I imagine it will become clear sometime later this year.

So in the meantime I’d like to talk about my Kindle.

I’ve read about 4.5 books on my Kindle so far and I absolutely love it. But I hate the buttons. I thought I would when I first saw it and when I got it I thought “Maybe I’ll get used to it” but the buttons just suck. The giant button on the right is always in the way. I accidentally turn pages constantly. Where the fuck am I supposed to hold the thing?

There was no reason to put giant buttons on the side of the thing. I use it for reading (and not browsing, buying, whatever) 99.9999999999999999999999% of the time so all I need is a next and previous page button. Put “Back” in the keyboard, put “Previous” where it is (small, on the left), get rid of the left side “Previous” and make the “Next” button as small as the “Previous” button.

Aside from that though, I love it. It’s just like reading a normal book. I notice no difference really between the screen and paper and I enjoy reading my Kindle every bit as much as I enjoy reading books. I don’t know that I’ll ever buy another paper book again unless I can’t find it electronically.

So hooray Kindle!

That’s all for now. I’m so tired.

I really like this new song “A Battle Hymn for Children” by The Faint and I couldn’t find any lyrics for it so I transcribed what I could hear.

Teacher, bring me to heaven or leave me alone
Why make me work so hard when you know I’ll work slow?
Don’t make us watch you scrape more powder on the walls
Show us a laser, take us to space or let us go
We’ve got violent games on pause at home

You’ve seen this angst take shape
Don’t hide those guilty eyes
You gave us guns for toys
We trained with crosshair scopes
Then in the name of peace we make war

Sergeant I don’t remember how you said to deal with guilt
I’m haunted by families grieving, even soldier’s kids
Is it God against God and the pawns are people?
If they’re both the same God then the battle’s over
Details…

Preacher am I gonna make it?
Am I going up?
Am I forgiven for the humans that dropped
It’s not like a game once the guilt piles up
If I knew what I know now it’s easy to say I wouldn’t go
?I had violent games on pause at home?

We know how hate takes shape
Don’t hide those guilty eyes
You gave us guns for toys
Imposed beliefs then lied

We were taught that God prefers the USA
Just like the billboard sign that says “God’s Country”
If it’s true that God roots for the USA
Is every bomb we drop in God’s name?

In other news; I am nearly done with the project that’s been taking every waking minute of my time. Someday soon I might start doing things and writing about them again. I know we’re all looking forward to that.

Till then… I’m having a really good time.

Dear Apple,

Please put a MagSafe style connector on the back of the MacBook Pro that breaks out to power, video, usb, firewire and audio. You don’t have to call it a docking port. You can call it, like, iExtend or something. Just do it. I have to plug in 6 wires when I get home (or to work) each day and it makes my desk a huge mess.

Love,
Jason

During this interview with Stephen Hawking he said “I’m not religious in the normal sense. I believe the Universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God but God does not intervene to break the laws.”

That’s a much better way of saying what I’ve been trying to say all along.

Wow, this old site is still up? Sha… guess I’ll post.

Last night was totally brutal. And metal! Courtney and I showed up at the Showbox SoDo around 6:30pm to wait and wait and wait for… DETHKLOK!

Man, Dethklok completely rocked! Dethklok, for the few who don’t know, are the fictional metal band from the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse. At least, fictional until they released the biggest selling metal record in forever. The creator of the show is a really killer metal guitarist and does all the music for the show and just for fun decided to release an album of all the silly songs from the show. As it turns out, the album was totally brutal and everyone bought the hell out of it. So now they are touring.

Anyway, Dethklok completely rocked. I even got in the pit for a little while. If they are coming to your area and you want some really excellent metal you should go see em.

It’s been a busy few months, aside from the metal. Courtney and I recently saw Minus the Bear and Coheed and Cambria and both of those shows were great. We also did some traveling over Memorial Day. She went to Tulsa for Emily’s wedding and I went to Arizona for my brother’s wedding reception / family gathering.

That was a pretty wild deal. My brother lives in the middle of nowhere. It’s just desert out there. We visited some abandoned mines and saw cactus and everything.

In work news… I’m still working. I work a lot. All worth it though. I am working on a side project that is really fun and exciting and totally secret. Some day I might be able to say what it was.

There’s been a ton of other stuff going on too but I’ve been working so much that every time I decide to come over to my site to write about it I think “Well, I should probably be working” and it gets lost in the ether.

Seattle’s weather is still awful. We had about a week of nice temperatures and now it’s been raining and gross for a week. Everyone is claiming that this never happens but I think that’s just a collective psychosis people believe and tell each other to make it seem better.