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Journal Aug 2006

31 Aug 2006

I finally posted my lists of CDs and DVDs we own, accessible from the main page. I'll try to update it continually, as I've been filling in some gaps and checking out some new artists recently.

My all-time favorite albums are listed in a journal entry from a year ago, and they're grouped in two categories: my optimal album track order sequence formula (wow, five nouns in a row) and non-formula albums that still work well as a whole.

I'll get some more catching-up albums next week, and hopefully that will be it for mass CD-buying for a while apart from the regular new releases. Those darn Barnes&Noble online sales and BMG specials!

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

30 Aug 2006

Maureen's addicted to the ABC show Grey's Anatomy. She's got me into it, but not to the same degree. Of course, like many recent fans, it was the "Code Black" episode that reeled her in because, well you just have to find out what "code black" means, right? The show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, has a funny and informative FAQ on the ABC website.

I noticed that the show seems to follow (however unintentionally) the Scrubs formula of mixing drama with humor (though Grey's Anatomy is much more of a drama show and more "grown up"), and the main protagonist sums up the day with insights into life learned by Meredith (or JD in Scrubs) and the fellow interns. Ah, I can't wait for Scrubs to start its new season.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

29 Aug 2006

Getting back to work is quite a feat, especially when you've got deadlines. At least I don't have very absolute deadlines. I tend to have ones that rely on things beyond my control. I'll get back into the swing of things sooner or later.

I used normalize on a mix album of mp3s, and this time I tested it once with the mp3s copied directly from the albums and once with the mp3s normalized using MP3Gain. There was much less normalization to be done on the album of mp3s processed by MP3Gain (i.e., there was a tighter volume variance with the processed ones). This proves three things: (1) normalize works; (2) MP3Gain works; and (3) waves files made from uncompressing mp3 files processed by MP3Gain keep their adjusted volume settings. Item 3 was the most interesting to me because it meant that the lossless modification of mp3s by MP3Gain (by changing a gain setting in a multiple of 1.5 dB) is preserved when making mix CDs out of them. Also, when I used normalize correctly, I can trust it to normalize volumes of WAV files so I can make high-quality mix CDs too. Now if I could just figure out how to convert a volume in dB SPL to dBFS....

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

28 Aug 2006

I just discovered a great utility for making mix albums from mp3s, MP3Gain. It analyzes each mp3 file to get its average volume in dB, instead of its peak volume, in order to get a sense of how the human ear perceives the volume of each song. Then the program can adjust the gain of each mp3 file by multiples of 1.5 dB, lossessly (i.e. without uncompressing and recompressing)! The average volume they suggest is 89 dB, which I'll probably use for future mixes. Unfortunately, the software is for Windows only.

For WAV files, the cross-platform tool normalize can do it. I haven't used it much, though, and it didn't work for me the first time, but I probably used the wrong settings. This is the best method if you make mix CDs from other CDs without mp3 compression.

With both of these methods, I of course recommend making copies of files and modifying the copies instead of your original files.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

25 Aug 2006

It's our last day in Lake Havasu, so we just walked around the London Bridge area and took some pictures. Nothing too exciting, just relaxing and driving back to Claremont (except I don't have to do the driving).

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Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

24 Aug 2006

Today we went to the historic Oatman, AZ on Route 66. It's an old town with shops and even a demonstration of an Old West gunfight in the main street, which I think was actually called Main Street.

This trip is probably the most we've been outside the condo in direct heat. Did I mention it's hot? It was hot when we went jetskiing, but at least we had a breeze from the movement. It's nice that at the end of the day we can cool off in the pool at the condo complex. And then maybe play some more Guitar Hero. By the way, did you know there's going to be a Guitar Hero II?

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

23 Aug 2006

Yesterday (for my mother-in-law's actual birthday) we went jetskiing, the first time for any of us. Maureen and I took one, Marc and Marsha another, and the kids and their grandparents took a speedboat up Lake Havasu. Just to be safe, we didn't bring our camera, but my in-laws brought theirs, so it may be a while before I post pictures of us being sporty. And I'm still working on posting the pictures from the last few years.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the day:

22 Aug 2006

On vacation, we're playing a lot of the PS2 game Guitar Hero, and I think I'm getting better, taking on more of the medium and hard levels of each song. Maureen and her sister fare pretty well, and their mom, believe it or not, is also addicted to the game.

There's a clone of the game for the PC (Windows and Linux), Frets On Fire, which I discovered while checking out the Wikipedia article on Guitar Hero. I tried it out a little in Windows, but I think I have to adjust the timing for my computer. Hopefully with the online community, the songs can get synchronized better and with fewer tweaks for individual systems, just as with Dance with Intensity.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

21 Aug 2006

Yay! I got digitally immortalized (however long that may last) in UrbanDictionary.com! I actually found my entry listed a few weeks ago, but I haven't told anyone. After Episode III, I came up with Sphere du Soleil to describe a show the Chancellor was watching; I'm not sure how original (or clever) it really is, but I wanted to make some mark on UrbanDictionary, so there it is. And so far it's got 2 thumbs up, 0 thumbs down. (Please don't vandalize this entry unless you think it's really that bad.)

In the site, there's a list of words added everyday, so I thought my entry got rejected, but it just took time for the main editors to get throught them all to get to mine. So the words must be "added today" when the editors post it, not me. I only noticed the entry made it recently, even though I posted it over a year ago.

Maybe I'll come up with something more clever later.

We're on vacation in Lake Havasu (City), AZ, just my family and my in-laws, partly to celebrate my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. This whole week of journal entries will probably find its way to the server in a week or two, especially since I'll be listening to AAR on a considerable delay.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the past:

17 Aug 2006

The hidden track is an interesting device to use on music albums, especially CDs. Usually it's simply an unlisted track, but sometimes it's a part of the last track, separated by the last song by some amount of silence. I wasn't aware of two other tricky methods: having to rewind a CD at the beginning of track 1 (making it nigh impossible to rip or even listen to in some CD players), and having a double groove on a vinyl record, with a literal hidden track on the alternate groove.

Wikipedia has a list of albums containing a hidden track, and I even edited it to include the two extra hidden tracks on US releases of The Man Who by the UK band Travis. This list helped me to identify the hidden tracks on CDs I own.

I had no idea that one of the CDs I own, Factory Showroom by They Might Be Giants, had a short hidden track (Token Back to Brooklyn) on it because it's in the pregap (negative track time) of track 1 and can only be heard by starting the CD and rewinding back almost a minute. I just checked it out today, and that's exactly where the song is. Wow. The problem is I can't rip it, but it appears on the TMBG rarities compilation, They Got Lost, available only online in 2002 but released in stores in 2005.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

16 Aug 2006

D'oh! I needed to fix Title Fix again, even though I released a new version yesterday! I said it was a learning experience! This time I did more test cases, added some functionality, and made it even more robust. So there.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

15 Aug 2006

I updated my title case program, Title Fix, to be more robust, with strict Perl coding, and with better help messages. I also took the time to create a manpage for it. All this stuff could have been in there before, but, hey, it's a learning experience. I've made other utility scripts in Perl, mostly for renaming files (especially mp3s), which I'm now formalizing by making them strict coding and tightening up the argument parsing. When I'm done polishing those, maybe I'll add them to the Title Fix package. Command-line computing rules! For efficiency, at least. And for those with time and patience to sort it out.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

14 Aug 2006

The role-playing game Mafia is a favorite of the Sunday Dinner Group. Or at least it was. Probably the big ramp-down of playing that game was due to the proliferation, of, well, life, in the form of children and marriages within the group. It's a game that, according to the Wikipedia article, is supposed to take between 15 and 60 minutes, but the way we've been playing it makes the game take a few hours.

The idea is simple, and it simply involves a majority of "citizens" and a powerful minority of "Mafia"; I'll use the terms and game play from our version of the game. Generally, we figure between 1/4 and 1/3 of the players are Mafia (picked by random card draw and of known number), while the rest are citizens, but all play as if they were citizens in the "daytime."

In our version, a random moderator (for now) directs everyone (including him- or herself) to close their eyes, only the Mafia to open their eyes to acknowledge each other and close them again, and everyone to open their eyes again for the first "daytime." Then the citizens (including the unidentified Mafia) talk and vote to sentence death to one citizen who a plurality believe is Mafia. Of course any number of non-binding votes can happen first. The sentenced reveals his or her card, in order to keep track of how many Mafia are left, and is considered "dead" for the game. This first victim becomes moderator for the rest of the game. The rest of the game involves having the moderator has everyone (except him- or herself) close their eyes for "nighttime," where the Mafia open their eyes, silently (visually) choose a victim in front of the moderator, and close their eyes again. Daytime comes, and the moderator has everyone open their eyes "except [victim's name here]," who shows his or her card and is considered "dead" for the rest of the game. With this moderator, the game alternates nighttime and daytime until either the Mafia are all eliminated or the number of Mafia left is equal to the number of non-Mafia citizens (in which case Mafia win).

Of course, the strategy comes in the dicussion during the daytime where the Mafia manipulate the citizens to "kill" non-Mafia, while the non-Mafia try to discern and eliminate Mafia. The Mafia, of course, have an advantage because they "kill" at night and know who are Mafia and who are not, so they are in smaller number, leading to the approximate "magic" number corresponding to 1/4 to 1/3 of the total citizenry. The way we've been playing it usually takes the entire rest of the after-dinner of our Sunday Dinner, so we pretty much haven't played since Timmy was about 4 months old.

I haven't played it, but I heard of a college favorite, Assassin, which a co-worker introduced to me as "Assassins." This game involves elimination by "killing" as in Mafia but takes place over weeks or months by being integrated into the player's life (read: interfering with the player's life). The players randomly pick a target out of a hat containing names of all the players and continue with the game, where they find creative ways to simulate "killing" their target, by established, agreed-upon methods or innovative ones such as using salt in their target's soup noticeably to pretend to poison them, using water, foam, or suction cup weapons for ballistic "killing," and so forth. Creativity is encouraged, as long as the assassin and victim agree that the action is legitimate. I think the assassin can also take over the victim's victim as another target, but that would obviously have to stop when that target is the assassin. The Wikipiedia article doesn't say. Maybe the survivors do a redraw from the hat. Last assassin surviving wins.

It all sounds so morbid, but since both games are elimination games, they can be adapted to milder language and some milder form of elimination, like "voting off" or "going to jail," to make them into games suitable for (older) children. Maybe not Assassins, though.

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Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the past:

11 Aug 2006

Some of you may know how much I rely on the keyboard to do things on the computer, more than I suspect most people do, since the using mouse is more intuitive. I'm sort of a keyboard traditionalist because it actually keeps me efficient; I can use Ctrl-P (or the more common Alt-F, P) to print from most programs instead of using the mouse to aim and click a Print button, or worse, find the Print menu option (File | Print, the equivalent of Alt-F, P in Windows) if there is no Print button. Other people I know have much better aim than I do, especially since I use a trackball, which tends to require more swoops than a mouse does, but I avoid the need for "mouse aim" altogether. (This would make it harder for me to switch to a Mac for those menu items without a shortcut key.)

Yeah, I'm a keyboard traditionalist. (It's one of the ways in which I'm conservative, but I like the term "traditionalist" better (note to conservatives!), because it has a more positive connotation these days with the bad attitudes and actions of some popular figures who call themselves conservative but actually aren't. Those same "conservatives" are the ones who made "liberal" a bad word even though it shouldn't be; some liberals prefer the term progressive, since it's harder to corrupt its connotation. Argh, back to topic....)

Earlier this week, I found an indispensible utility for extensive keyboard users like me: AutoHotkey, a free, open-source Windows program that lets a user define any keyboard shortcut or even remap the keyboard. I use it at work to control the Unix program MPlayer (which I compiled for Cygwin) in command-line mode, which I use to playback streaming Air America recordings. I make the shortcut find the window (by title) (from most other programs I use), activate and maximize it, send a key (such as Space for pause or some other keystroke command), then minimize it again, so I can get back to work. This is done using a global hotkey, a shortcut key that controls one program from any other program, like Win+something or Ctrl-Alt-something. In my case, I mapped Win+Spacebar to pause my Cygwin MPlayer from whatever program I'm using.

I use Winamp to listen to my music, and that already has global hotkeys, so I figured, why wouldn't I be able to make any program have them? I first looked for free software on SourceForge, but didn't find it, so I gave up until trying, at random, a Google search for "hotkey anything," since that sounds like a slogan for some product, and I found AutoHotKey. Good, I don't have to program it myself. Cheers to other geeks who think like I do!

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

10 Aug 2006

Well, it's been a while (read: 4 weeks) since I posted my journal entries, but they're there now. A couple of weddings, an employment change for Maureen, and a new home server.

I've been busy at work, but it's getting better, meaning I'm understanding it better. Also, I've been working on getting the galleries updated again, so they'll span all the way to this year. And once I get my new CDs (catching up, filling gaps with BMG) incorporated into my list, I can post it in the main section. I've already updated the bands page.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

Other news and opinion from the past:

09 Aug 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):