BrainWyrms

Serenity in [crankle] [pop pop] [hiss]
10:03pm:
My Amazon order for the collector's edition of Serenity came in yesterday.  I thought that it would be nice to hear it in 5.1 surround.  So I turned on the computer and loaded the disc.  Ulead DVD Player pops up and away I go... into a beautifully st[...]ter[...] vo[...]-ov[...]

And if you can understand that you are certainly a better something than me.

I thought that maybe my system just couldn't keep up with decoding the video and the audio, so I used a DVD to VOD program.  Roughly 50 minutes to convert the movie.  Now, I don't really understand the VOD format, but the Windows Media Player didn't seem too interested in the files... so I ended up doing the playback in Ulead DVD player.

Well... I have NO idea how the audio files are ripped or stored or what... but it was really interesting playing through the files.  Some of the VOBs have no audio at all.  Some seem to have merged the commentary track and the regular audio track.  And a very few have a perfectly clear audio track that plays back with no stuttering.

[sigh]  So much for that, I guess I'll be watching Serenity in up-converted HD in straight ol' stereo audio... on my TV.  This is not the first time I've had the stuttering audio effect on the computer, so I guess eventually I'll figure out what the heck is going on.

OH and the box is the very best 'special' DVD set I've ever seen.  It is both pretty and effective!  The lid has a clear window with part of an image on it.  It lifts to the left revealing a shiny panel with the rest of the image on it.  That panel lifts to the right.  Inside is a DVD on one side and a DVD on the other.  The DVDs are held in a very clear plastic layer so that they float over a very nice cast image highlighting each of the characters.  Yeah for good design!

Wi-zombie-TV
6:53am:
I forget where I saw this first, maybe on Engadget?  I followed the trail of linkage about six sites before finding a terminator.  Anyhow, having a Wi-Fi Locat0r Shirt would be kinda nifty in a place with more than one signal every few miles.  Cuz out here, it's just gonna be a symbol on my chest most of the time.  Only rarely would it light up and be really cool.

elegiac has finally caved in and started a char with Urban Dead.  Of course, he couldn't just leave it at that.  I'm the ADD, he's the ObComp.  Heh.  So we are now looking into Hell Rising and Vampires! as well.  Hell Rising seems like it may be interesting, what with the three way power struggle and the highly advanced 8bit-styled graphics.  On the other hand, Vampires! is looking like it is destined for file 13.

In Urban Dead, between my slowly getting familiar with the setting and my character starting to level up, we (meaning Dhonafvain and I) are having a pretty fun time of it.  And I still really appreciate how the limited AC makes it so I can't get too drawn into the game.

I brought lots and lots of empty boxes home from work over the week.  On the two days that I -actually- remembered to grab the boxes.  So this weekend, Jade and I have been packing various things up and making piles of them.  Two of the bookcases are fairly stripped, the kitchen is a mound, and I'd say I've got a quarter of my mountain of bedroom crap packed up.  Yesterday I took a car load of boxes down to the storage room.  I started to count, but got distracted after 6.  I think the total was somewhere between 9 and 12 boxes that are now out of the house.

Ugh.

I got to watch the season premiere of ABC's Pushing Daisies this week.  I watched the end of it on the initial air date in SD, and was lucky enough to catch the whole thing in HD over the weekend.  HD is awesome  I really like the premise and promise of the show but... the pacing is just aggravating.  It's not slow enough to just sink into and not fast enough to ride along with.  It leaves me feeling the same way I do when I find myself walking behind Rom.  Move it or lose it.

I missed out on Bionic Woman, which I am mostly curious about because of the polar opinions I've been hearing about.  I wanted to see Journeyman, but I have to leave for work as it comes on, so that just isn't going to happen.  I think that I would like Life, but I'm never going to get a chance to see it.  I did get to see My Name is Earl and was pleased to see it stayed exactly the same despite Earl being in jail.  Not that I like My Name is Earl, but at least it hasn't gotten any worse.  On the other hand, I was really happy to see that rash of changes made last season to The Office have not only moved the character's stories forward, but left just as many opportunities for insanity to occur.

Oh, and regarding all the packing.  Today I get to see what the new apartment will look like... everything sounds quite nice, with the possible exception of being on the second floor.  I'll just be happy if everything goes smoothly.  And I don't hurt myself.  Dragging couches up stairs is hard, dragging metal filing cabinets is murder.

My Jade on the webs
2:56pm:
jaydeddesigns.deviantart.com/
photo.net/photos/Samantha Fray

MOND vs. Dark Matter
9:54pm:
Rival Theory Fights Back Against Dark Matter
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19526234.200-rival-theory-fights-back-against-dark-matter.html

Two things. 1> Despite not being a astrophysicist, this is the first I've
ever heard of MOND. 2> Having never heard of "New Scientist" before, I'm
wondering if it is worth a subscription. Or perhaps a trial subscription.

Wikipedia article on MOND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics

Well, this is currently over my head. I'm going to need a pad of paper and
a good calculator to follow the math on this one. From the little bit I can
get the gist for, it looks to make sense.

The Big E 2007
10:31am:
After work Tuesday, I came home and played some more Dungeons & Dragons : Tactics on my PSP.  Jayde had me pretty freaked out over the weather.  She said it was supposed to be over 90 degrees at 5pm, and around 78 at sunset.  It's hard to figure out how to layer my clothes when I start out too hot to wear any clothes at all.

It was really bright and quite hot when I got up around 3:30, but it was not 90 degrees.  I ended up wearing my most lightweight black dress cargo pants, a black sleeve-less T shirt, and my much beloved micro-fiber poly black dress shirt.  I started out with a black wife-beater, but two steps outside was too much for me. 

Jayde found parking for a buck that really wasn't any further from the gates than it seemed everyone else wanted to be.  So we ended up walking a whole extra three minutes outside the fairgrounds... before walking for several hours inside. 

We went over to the MA state building to collect some information pamphlets about using the MBTA to get around.  We are planning on going to the aquarium at some point and someone had suggested I... heh.  So Jayde could have good information on how to navigate our way to the aquarium using the public transportation.  Neither one of us wants to do any driving inside cities unless we have to.

After that we headed over to the silly rides area.  Rom really enjoys running through the mazes and tunnels.  This year we had the option to pay $25 to get an all-you-can-ride pass or purchase individual dollar amounts.  The average ride is $3.  Last year we capped Rom's fun at about $20.  This year, he would have hit $35-40.  He was so sweaty by the time we left that I was able to run my fingers through his hair and give him a nice mock-hawk.  Faux-hawk?  It worked out well for us, with only one bugger running around.  I highly doubt my folks could have done this when I was a kid... it would have been $125!

I had the night off, which is good because we got home around 10pm and since then I've basically been sleeping.  And sleeping.  The big crowds just drain the energy out of me.  In fact, I'm probably gonna head back to bed as soon as I'm done here.

I'm done.
Goodnight.

An unpleasant end
11:46am:
Tech Worker dies in vat of acid

On more pleasant news, on returning from getting liberally spattered with ink, Jade informed me that the latest in my parade of PMPs is defective.  She has loaded the Philips GoGear 1GB with a few hundred tracks and yet... it only displays and plays 16. 

Well, at least I have some honest work to do now.  Heh.  First things first, to check the Philips site.  On the random off chance that they might actually have useful information regarding the performance of their devices.

Uh-oh.  They say that the player may not be able play VBR (variable bit rate) encoded songs and that they will be silently skipped over.  Sounds like that might be the problem.  And of course, I've been ripping all of my CDs into WMA VBR for the last two or three years.  Ugh.

Back onto the player itself, I start poking about.  I'm examining the ID3 info on the files that actually show up.  Turns out about half of the 16 are VBRed.  Great.  Now I'm confused.

And the problem is not that the player is simply confused by multiple levels of folders.  In fact, according to Philips, each folder can only hold 50 tracks.  After that, stick another folder in.  On the player, the 16 tracks that show up are in a variety of folders at differing levels.  The only "clue" is that most of the tracks are from AFI, the first folder on the player.  A few are from Bad Religion, the second folder, but after that it jumps around quite a bit.

I suspect at this point that the problem is related to the folders, so to test it out, I start waving files around.  [cough]  To whit, I open Windows Explorer and drag'n'drop the tracks on the right into the main "Music" folder on the left.  Halfway through, I pop the player and check it.  Yup.  116 tracks now.

205 tracks in total, pulled 205 tracks into the main music folder and voila, the problem is solved.  Unless of course, you wanted to have your music organized by band and or album.  Oh well, can't fix everything in one day.

Avast ye scum ridden weevil shaggers.
12:24am:

TalkLikeAPirate.com

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Batman VS. Shaolin Monks
9:44am:
Researchers flash personal aircraft, future jetpack

PLT Mini

Bat Throwing Knife Set

Soon, Batman wannabes will be running the streets of Gotham, defeating minions of pathetic villains!

Dark Matter EXISTS! 
5:54am:
Dark matter clues in oldest stars

... Let me just point out, dark matter does not exist.  It does NOT exist.

There is NO evidence of dark matter.

The only reason for dark matter to exist... is to allow the universe to eventually fall into the "Big Collapse."  We had the "Big Bang" to start things off and if there is enough matter in the universer, it'll all eventually pull back together and collapse into something that will eventually result in... the "Big Bang."

Except that there simply isn't enough matter and energy out there, flying about in space, to allow that collapse to happen.  The universe -IS- expanding and it will continue to expand... FOREVER.

Theoretically speaking, if the universe was going to collapse into a singularity, then there would have to be some form of matter that does not emit or reflect detectable light.  That "dark matter" would have to account for 3/4 of our universe.

Three-fourths!  That's right, there is so little universe out there that there is NO way to allow for a theoretical "Big Collapse" without inventing 300% more matter than actually exists.

I don't understand enough to try to explain why everyone wants the universe to collapse, except that a repeating series of universes expanding and contracting makes for a very plausible explanation of how we came to be and why it seems that no one else is out there.

So in order to easily justify a neat theory, imaginary star dust had to be invented to justify another theory. 

What I really don't get though... is why does everyone buy into this?

Movies and Devices
12:21pm:
http://www.marvel.com/news/moviestories.1518.Iron_Man_Teaser_Trailer_Hits_the_Internet
I don't really care, but Lord Ward does... so here's the link to the Marvel
Iron Man movie trailer.

Oh, loooook, that excellent drug head has a stunning goatee!

As long as Iron Man doesn't turn into Dragon Wars/Van Helsing/League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen... I might be interested, though I am much more
interested in seeing

Craptastic memory issues. I forgot what it was that I wanted to see.

30 Day Night sounds stupid. Like a vague attempt by marketeers to make a
movie that appeals to my demographic. It's got the pedigrees to catch my
attention, but the concept is ... retarded.

I remember now, I want to see Resident Evil: Evolution. I want to see that
one, well, now. Besides having that Fifth Element chick, and the one from
Heroes, it looks like good bang-bang action. Yeah! (How does one write
YEAHHHH instead of YAY?)

My refurb three year old iPod came in yesterday. Looking forward to testing
it out. Hoping that it totally blows. Doubting that will be the case...
especially after the events of this past weekend.

Jade let me know that she had seen the Avery Label Peeler at Ocean State Job
Lot for $25.00 and I absolutely had to have one. I wanted that pile of crap
so badly, just wanted it to blow up and die. So Saturday when the fam went
out to do our shopping chores, we made a stop into Job Lot so I could buy
the box. I hate this device, hate it hate it hate it. I was so very much
looking forward to a righteous sense of vindication watching this POS choke
to death on sheets of labels that it can't peel right.

Of course... it works. It does in fact peel labels. Just that, it peels
labels. Which totally defeats me. I mean, it IS still a POS. It does NOT
peel labels faster than doing it by hand. It is, perhaps, more
ergonomically friendly on your hands and wrists than peeling labels
manually... but it isn't worth the $200 (guess-timate) that it came out
for. And it doesn't do an awesome job of it either. If you pull the labels
up instead of out... then the liner bulbs up just right to prevent the
peeler from realizing that the label is gone... so it does not advance the
next set of labels.

So I don't really expect the iPod to blow. I expect the software/hardware
integration to piss me off by working 500% better than the two other
solutions I have tested out.