Recently in Music Category

Yes, it's that time again: time for two and a half months of collected ranting, musing, and raving to be collected in a single, mammoth post (well, mammoth for me, anyway). There's lots to cover, so here goes...

First, the world of technology. The gap since the last post has seen the release (and in some cases, the prompt acquisition) of a myriad of gadgets of every shape and size. Recently added to my personal collection: a BlackBerry Pearl, a replacement 1GB iPod shuffle (hey, it was only $50!), and one shiny new 20" iMac with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo. Which, coincidentally, I'm using to type up this post. I wasn't quite expecting it to be much faster than my MacBook Pro, but I've been impressed so far; a faster hard drive, full-fledged (i.e. non-Mobility) Radeon X1600, and (obviously) the newer generation CPU are to thank for that. The display on this thing is a thing of beauty, too; compared to the old 17" US Logic sitting right next to it...well, really there is no comparison, it's that much better. The new iMac is easily the best computer of any kind I have ever owned, hands-down.

I've also finally gotten around to resurrecting the old tower (with a new 300GB SATA drive that'll be going in as soon as I get around to it), bringing the tally up to a whopping five operational machines, not counting PDAs. I've practically got a full-fledged command center-type setup going on here - two notebooks on my left, the tower's LCD on the left-side rotating shelf, the iMac in front, an HP Photosmart on the right-side shelf, and finally, the MBP on my right. So, the question now becomes, what am I to do with this somewhat ridiculous collection of underutilized hardware?

The answer: Folding, of course! A better description can be found at the linked page, but essentially, folding uses idle CPU time (much like SETI@Home, or any other distributed-computing project) to 'fold' simulated proteins in a massive effort to conduct research on the causes of certain genetic disorders. As with other distributed computing projects, contributors are able to form teams as part of a friendly competition; there is no prize, other than the knowledge that one is contributing to a greater understanding of the underlying causes of disorders such as Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, and others. I'm an active member of Team AppleNova, which is comprised of AppleNova Forum members. We're #125 out of more than 2,000 teams, which is pretty impressive considering that we 'only' have 92 team members (the #1 team has over 10,000, and a fairly significant portion of the top hundred teams have over 1,000 members each).

Moving along...ah, yes, the sadly underutilized anime/manga category. I've finally gotten back into following a few series regularly again. Currently on the list: Ah! My Goddess (both the manga and anime), Aoi House, Chibi Vampire (augh, just give it back the original title, already!), Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Negima!, and the novel series .hack//Another Birth. I'm thinking there are one or two more that should be on there, but I can't remember them right now. Meh.

And now, entertainment! I've really been digging through the iTunes Store recently, and I'm pretty impressed with the sheer amount of content now available. There's more music than you can shake an iPod at, TV shows for every taste, and now full-length movies. I was browsing the iTS recently when I finally broke down and purchased a season pass for Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (the clips on YouTube from the third episode were the straw that finally broke this camel's back), and I haven't been disappointed. Yeah, the video quality isn't the best when scaled to anything more than original size (full-screen is particularly ugly), but it's convenient, and being able to watch it on my iPod is just icing on the cake. I've also been perusing the Japanese version of the store, and while I think that there could be a better variety of anime music on there, I'm still pretty impressed with their current offerings (and the recent addition of BMG Japan's library should help out a bit).

Ummm...I keep thinking that there were a few more things that I was going to post today, but I've once again completely forgotten what they were. If I remember later, I'll append them to the end of this post. In the meantime, have a great rest of the weekend, all you happy people!

My import copy of Kingdom Hearts II arrived whilst I was out to sea, and is now in my hands. The problem is simple: I lack a system capable of playing the game, as my non-imported PS2 (for the moment) lacks this important capability. My choices are simple:

1. Purchase a brand new import PS2 (with shiny satin-silver finish!) for the sole purpose of playing import games; or,
2. Purchase a modchip (or software-based alternative) to enable my current older-generation PS2 to do the same.

The problem with the former is that the import console will only be able to play imported games; the problem with the latter is that there's a chance that I will find a way to render the PS2 inoperable in the process of modding it (not an insignificant chance, either). I never thought that I would ever have to perform a risk assessment just to play a freaking videogame.

In other news...the iTunes Billionth Song Countdown. As of tonight (Wednesday the 22nd), the iTunes Music Store is selling at a rate of about 60 songs per second. That equates to over 200,000 songs per hour; as of this writing (20:15 PST) the counter is at approximately 999,727,000 songs, and if the trend continues (or accelerates, as it inevitably will) the 1 billionth song will be sold in about one and a half hours. I'm lining up an album or two I've been holding off on for a while to try to snag it; a 20" iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10K iTMS card are definitely nothing to sneeze at!

More to come later.

So, I got my copy of the Kingdom Hearts II soundtrack today.  I like.  While a lot of the tracks are remixes from the first game, most of them sound much better -- though there are exceptions.  Now, all I need is the game...which I finally broke down and ordered from YesAsia today.  I'd better start brushing up on my Japanese...

In other news, I finally picked up and installed a copy of World of Warcraft.  Daaaaaang...I knew I should have resisted the urge.  So much for my free time for the next few months.  (But hey...at least I remembered to post something here, for once!)  So, if any of you playing on Agamaggan spot a hapless, bumbling undead mage wandering around aimlessly...hook a brother up!  :D

On yet another subject (I will find a way to put something from every category in this one post, just you wait!), I've rediscovered the usefulness of my second-generation iPAQ hx4700, after dabbling with another pair of Windows Mobile devices -- the i-mate PDA2K (HTC Blue Angel) and Qtek 9100 (HTC Wizard).  Of those two, the Wizard is my favorite:  a tiny, full-featured Pocket PC Phone Edition running Windows Mobile 5, with built-in Bluetooth, 801.11g, GSM/GPRS/EDGE capability, and a 1.3MP camera to boot.  On the flipside, I just upgraded the PDA2K to WM5 (using an unofficial ROM, since I'm not using the device for anything particularly important), and it seems to be behaving just fine for now, where it had serious stability issues under its native WM2003SE.  I'll see how it performs over the next few weeks or so, and post a follow-up then with my verdict.

Meantime, I'm debating what to do with this year's tax refund...  A large part of me is wanting to splurge on a new 17" iMac Core Duo, whilst the remaining part (commonly known to most as "common sense") strongly advises saving instead of spending, seeing as I've got (yet another) move followed immediately by a cross-country drive to Florida coming in a couple months.  Decisions, decisions...

And...well, that's about it.  I guess I had to run out of stuff to babble about eventually.

Just one more quick reminder for anyone who ended up here (instead of at the article you expected) from an outdated search engine link:  the old Spectator Mode archives can still be found at http://www.specmode.net/blogger.