Windbags, Mario Golfin', and Retro GBA'ing

First off, for full disclosure's sake, yes - I am a registered Republican. No, I did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000, and no, I don't know who I'm going to vote for in November yet. But I do know one thing: extremist media sucks shit. On the right are party schills Fox News and on the left, the worst of the worst, that hulking fatass Michael Moore. The way he destorts and selectively edits his documentaries and passes them off as the "whole truth" is appalling. The worst part is the number of uneducated people who see his movies and don't bother to research the things Moore shows them for accuracy. Everybody should read the artile Bowling For Truth, which exposes some of the bullshit espoused in Moore's film Bowling For Columbine. If that article interests you at all, there's more likeminded things at Moore Exposed. Now he does say some good things, and point out some things that need to be reformed, but every now and then he does and say something utterly ignorant and stupid:



Now, I'll see Farenheit 9/11 before I judge it, but from what I've seen so far, it looks like Moore has just taken what he did with Columbine and gotten even nastier. In all due fairness, I doubt I'll pay to see it. Figure that one out.

In less serious news, I went out and got a copy of Mario Golf: Advance Tour for GameBoy Advance yesterday, and I have to say that it's freaking great. Like the extremely fun Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour for the Gamecube, Nintendo and Camelot have managed to pack the little GBA cart full of fun. Camelot, developers of GBA RPGs Golden Sun and Golden Sun II, created a great single player mode that can only be described as "role-playing golf". As you complete side games, match play, and win tournaments, you get experience points which you can use to level up your statistics [driving distance, shot height, control, etc] and you can collect various club sets [super power, control, etc]. It supports the yet-to-be-released in the US version of the GBA Wireless Adapter, which finally shows Nintendo's stepping in the right direction and hopefully abolishing the wired-mess that linking 4 GBAs used to be. With the promise of 802.11 wireless in the new Nintendo DS systems, will wireless, internet gameplay finally be available? I can't tell you how much it would kick ass to be able to sit on my couch, fire up my portable system, and play games against one of my friends three states away. I'd be like a free Xbox Live, but with the extremely kickass Gameboy and GBA library. Tetris Attack, anyone?

Staying on the GameBoy, I'll give Nintendo some credit for their latest ad campaign for the GBA. With the new SP that looks like an old NES controller, they're getting a lot of early-twentiesomethings to buy GBAs. There was a good article in Denver's Rocky Mountain News about how retro gaming is big business, something Nintendo obviously grasps. I love that they're putting out older games, but $19.99 for ONE old game? I loved Zelda and SMB1, but $19.99 each? I would've gladly paid $30 or so for 5 or 6 old NES games on one cart [which is more than technically possible], but $20 for one freaking game is highway robbery, no matter how cool they would look on the new NES styled GBA SP:



Of the games released so far in the "Classic NES" series, only Super Mario Brothers and Zelda are remotely close to being worth $19.99. Hopefully, more older NES games will get ported, but at that price point, I doubt I'd really buy any of them.

The Aquabats, Stupidity Tries, Tennis, and Work

Nathan and I went to a show in Jacksonville on Wednesday night, and I have to say, the lineup was pretty solid from top to bottom. First off was That One Guy from San Francisco. He played a large metal pipe thingy with a lot of crazy synths and pickups. It's impossible to describe, so if you've got a few free minutes, some bandwith, and quicktime, go watch a video. Next up was Ontario resident Lederhosen Lucil, who was another extremely arty performer. Picture a girl wearing fake blonde braids, lederhose, and playing up a fake German accent in her electro-synthpop music. She was a great act - besides being suprisingly hot, her facial expressions, stage prescence, and funny lyrics made her a very, very good opening act. Next up was another Canadian act [or rather Canadien, as they're Frogs of Montreal], the ska band The Planet Smashers. I'd never heard of these guys [or any of the other opening acts] but holy shit, these guys rocked the house. They tried their hardest to steal the show from the 'Bats, but not quite. It was ska music at its finest, like Less Than Jake in their "Losing Streak" or "Hello Rockview" years. I look forward to catching them at the Warped Tour this year. Last up was the headlining act, The Aquabats. There's not much more that I can say other than these guys are fucking incredible. Fun music, but the real gem is their live show. The incredible audience participation, the silly outfits...they just have to be seen to be believed. If they come to your town, see them.

Stupidity Tries is a drinking game I'm working on. Eventually it will be a card game, where as you get a card, you have to do the crazy drinking-related thing on the card. For now, I haven't made my own cards. The first play test of it was last night at TND, and I have to say, for the most part it was a success. People got utterly sloshed, and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it. It was good hearing other peoples' opinions of the game, and important for me to see how it played out. Glenn described it best: "That game just seems like brutal shit happening over and over again. Mean, man." Excellent. When the rules are good and finalized, I'll post them here.

I used to play a lot of tennis, but I rarely ever enjoy watching it. Today I had Wimbledon on and I watched the replay of Andy Roddick's match against some Polish scrub. I have to say, I was fucking impressed to no end with Roddick's serves and mobility on the court. It was actually fun to watch, which was quite a pleasant suprise.

Work? Yeah, work. I'll be starting back up, full time, at a local hospital starting July 12. 11p-7a - night shift, baby. Being a child of the night [please don't confuse that with "Emo Goth Fucktard"] I prefer working at night. I did it in '99, so it should be fun do get at it again.

My Cell phone is turned off for good [tired of the 407 number and shitty Verizon], so if you need to get ahold of me, use the home phone, IM, or email me. I'll let you folks know when I get a new phone [Alltel].

Best Albums of 2004 [So Far]

Since I don't believe that it's fair to put final rankings on these discs till the end of the year [as I'll listen to some more, the ratings would change] I will simply list the top ten discs that I've heard to date, and I'll babble a little about each one. I will however put a preliminary rating for those discs I feel confident in judging. All scores are via my iTunes rankings for each song [album score is (sum of track scores)/(# of tracks)*20 for a 0-100 scale, with 100 being musical perfection]. The small images to save bandwith on your end. [Edit: I forgot two albums. So I tacked them on.]


Kanye West - The College Dropout [Hip-Hop/Rap]
This album is simply one of the best rap albums I've ever heard. Phenomenal hooks, good lyrics, the album artwork is top-notch - overall, it's just an excellent production. The only knock keeping this album from greatness is the number of skits on the disc. I hate rap skits if they serve no purpose, and Kanye breaks a cardinal rule by putting two skits back to back, leaving the listener with the following sequence: skit-worst song on the album-skit-skit. That's awful. Fortunately, the rest of the album is killer, so this one's looking like the best of the year so far. Rating: 88.6


Bad Religion - The Empire Strikes First [Punk]
Bad Religion had faded in quality before putting out 2002's The Process of Belief, which signalled a return to their punk roots. Following in the footsteps of Belief, BR has another great punk rock record in Empire. Solid tracks with few exceptions. Rating: 84.3


Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News [Indie]
I admittedly haven't listen to this album a whole lot, but I have really liked what I've heard. It might be harsh for some, but once you get past the harsh vocals and see the way the music plays out on many sonic levels, you get an appreciation for it. Rating: pending


Air - Talkie Walkie [Ambient]
This album really is a sonic masterpiece. The only thing keeping it from the top of my lists is that you really have to be in a certain mood to want to hear this music. But when you do, and you slip on a pair of headphones, the music that Talkie Walkie puts in your brain is irresistable. Download "Cherry Blossom Girl" if you need proof. Rating: 82.0


Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me [Indie/Vocal]
This album is very, very hard to categorize. Nellie, a 19-year-old New Yorker, tears through styles, ranging from rap to jazz to crooning. While it certainly is a sonic rollercoaster, there are a few absolute gems in her double-cd debut - "Waiter" and "The Dog Song" both come to mind. Not your typical album, but that's a good thing. Rating: 77.8


Ash - Meltdown [Rock]
I'm not as big a fan of Ash as some of my friends, but I have to say that I enjoyed this album for the most part. There are some real diamonds on this disc, "Evil Eye", "Vampire Love", and "Renegade Cavalcade" are all brilliant. But it seems like a lot of the rest of the album is filler-pop. A good album, but too many lowlights. Rating: 76.4


The Icarus Line - Penance Soiree [Indie/Hard Rock]
Another album I need to listen to more, Penance Soiree is a dark, heavy rock performance. I wish I could say more here, but I really haven't listened to it enough. But the couple times that I have, I was thoroughly rocked. Rating: pending


Cee-Lo - Cee-Lo Green Is The Soul Machine [Hip-Hop/Rap]
Better than his first album, Soul Machine is a lot kinder to the ears. Great hooks and Cee-Lo's signature harmonies really bring this album to life. Tracks vary from soulful, to club-pounding tracks that make you want to move your ass. But I refrain. After all, fat white kids shaking their asses usually result in someone getting hurt. Rating: 74.4


The Living End - Modern Artillery [Punk]
When I started listening to this disc, I was admittedly floored through the first five tracks. All were punk rock bliss - energetic, harmonic, great lyrics. But sadly, the album took a nose-dive after that, barely surfacing later on in the album to retain the CD's decency. If it were a 5-track EP, it'd be near the top of my all-time lists. But it's not, and I've got to stick it to the album for all the rest of the crap tracks. Rating: 72.9


DJ DangerMouse - The Grey Album [Hip-Hop/Rap]
DJ DM got the really clever idea of taking the a capella version of Jay-Z's The Black Album and laying the tracks down over samples from The Beatles' The White Album. White+Black=Grey. Get it? Okay. This album, as well crafted as it is, falls short in only one way: the source material. I wasn't a big fan of The Black Album with the exception of a few tracks. DownhillBattle.org organized a large protest of EMI's cease-and-decist letters to DJDM about using copyrighted works [EMI manages the catalog of the Beatles], so you can find lots of places to download it online. I'd suggest starting over at Illegal Art, which also is a good place to kill time. Rating: 68.3


Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand [Indie/Rock]
No rating on this one yet, as I haven't listened to it enough. But I have to admit it, "Take Me Out" is one hell of a song. It's a little hard to get into, like most indie rock, but it's good. I look forward to hearing more of this one. Rating: pending


Dios - Dios [Indie/Rock]
I'd never heard of these SoCal rockers until I saw them open for Beulah. They put on one hell of a show, and the music was great. This album's been growing on me. It's a good listen, very melodic. This one could surge up my rankings. Rating: pending

And just for comparison's sake, the best album I have rated right now is a 98.3 [Cursive's The Ugly Organ] and the lowest is a 36.7 [Bad Religion's 80-85]. Though I've really only gone through and ranked 2002-2004, with a few exceptions. I'm sure I can do much, much worse than 36.7 in the ratings. I do own a Deep Blue Something CD...

RealSuck and Recent Games

RealPlayer is the worst piece of software ever created. Even in its newest, 'sleekest' version, RealPlayer or RealOnePlayer or whatever the fuck it's called is absolute shit. RealVideo and RealAudio, or .rm and .ra files, are totally worthless. Closed source, extremely lo-fidelity, and not worth your time. I remember back in 1998-1999 downloading South Park and anime episodes in .rm format, and even then, the quality was unbearable. Size was small, which was important in the early days of broadband, but jesus christ, with such horrible quality, why bother? The free version of the software is "hidden" on the damned Real.com website, and then after you do install the goddamned thing, it runs wonderful background processes [check for RealSched.exe] and tries to hijack every single media file's association and force you to use RealPlayer to play all your files. Fuck that. The other horrible thing about RealPlayer is the fucking buffering. Even files locally stored on your computer still feel a need to fucking buffer. Maybe that's why this image makes me so damned happy:



The only thing I like about RealPlayer is uninstalling it. What a piece of shit. It's a sad, sad day when I'd much rather get a .wmv file and deal with shitty Windows Media Player. Thank goodness for the phenomenal [and open-source] Media Player Classic, which will play everything without all the damned bloat of players like WMP9 and RealPlayer. It mimics the old WMP 6.4, except streamlined. Free, quick, and lightweight. Gotta love it.

I haven't really talked about video games yet, which is suprising, considering I have a rediculous amount of them. But here are some quick run-downs on what I've been playing.

1. Grand Theft Auto 3 [Xbox]: the freedom and scale of the city are great, but admittedly, the gameplay just feels boring. Sure, I can run around and obliterate everything in sight, but it got old quick.

2. The Simpsons: Hit and Run [Xbox]: this game has the same scale and freedom of GTA3, but it's fun. The excellently crafted world of Springfield totally immerses you into the world of The Simpsons. This one's a lot of fun, and even the 'collecting' aspects of the game are fun to do.

3. Strike Force Bowling [Xbox]: an awful game, but yet, Zack and I played this one into the ground. Computerized bowling...does it get any sadder? Once I figured out how to get a strike every time, I put up a 299 and have never played the game since.

4. UEFA Euro 2004 [Xbox]: a sweet-ass soccer game, based on the namesake tournament going on in Portugal as I write this. All the national squads that make up UEFA are there, and it's fun and worth playing. Better than FIFA 2004, this is the best soccer game I've played to date.

5. ESPN Major League Baseball 2004 [Xbox]: a really fun baseball game, with great ESPN presentation elements, and lots of unlockables. Good game mechanics, and it's truly fun to play.

I'm working on my "Best Albums of the 1st Half of 2004" list, so that should be ready fairly soon. I just need to listen to Modest Mouse and a couple others a little more.

Being Blogless, Some Shame, and Boredom Killers

First off, the Mozilla team has just released version 0.9 of Mozilla Firefox. Go get it [and go get the old 'Qute' theme from here if you like it better than the new theme, 'Pinstripe' - I think the new theme is hideous.]

After reading a story on Slashdot about 3000 Bloggers getting their blogs closed it seemed pretty obvious what I should do next:


WGET springs into action!  

Yes, this was just another ploy to have a reason to display another screenshot. And yes, I know one of the cardinal rules of storing your data on someone else's network is to always have backups under your control, and I failed this time. Thank god for those fine people who ported WGET to Windows for those of us not in the *nix world to use. For those of you not familiar with WGET, it's basically an advanced file-retriever. You can quickly and thoroughly download files from HTTP and FTP protocols, and it's very useful for "ripping" a site, or simply mirroring it on your hard drive. But regarding the closing of 3000 blogs, the best quote was from an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot:

At least LiveJournal didn't shut down without notice. Otherwise we'd all be up tonight digging mass graves for disfranchised teenagers all over the world.

The sad part about that statement is how true it is. Speaking of sad things, here are some things I am not proud, or am sad about:

1. I somehow got myself put up in the pictures section of my sister's sorority's website. I don't know the link, because I don't want to know the link.
2. My sister has a livejournal. Once again, I don't know the link, because I don't want to know the link.
3. I still can't find Euro 2004 coverage, but as Drew Magee pointed out, I can watch shit-tons of MLS and WNBA. Whoopity shit.

But who the fuck likes being downhearted? So instead of go on about that, I will instead list things online that make me laugh on a consistent basis:

1. SomethingAwful's The Weekend Web feature.

"The Weekend Web" is the project of Zachary "Spokker Jones" Gutierrez and the SA Forum Goons. What it is, simply put, is the worst-of-the-worst of internet message boards. The SA folks dive into these message boards, which are often absofuckinglutely rediculous [and hilarious] and they do what assholes do best - they make fun of people. Always worth a read, just like other SA features: the Comedy Goldmine [where the truly hilarious things are], the ROM Pit [where the worst of old video games are reviewed], the Horrors of Porn [where comically awful smut is criticized], and Your Band Sucks [an asshole's view on shitty music].

2. Fark's Photoshop Contests, and the much-better Photoshop Fridays at SomethingAwful

Photoshop contests, simply put, are contests where users are given a stock photo, and are challenged to create funny or technically gifted image modifications using an image editor. Since the most common editor is Adobe Photoshop, these contests are called "Photoshop Contests". Simple enough, eh? Well the folks at SomethingAwful have gotten particularly good at this, and every week you can see just how talented at their craft they've gotten. For example, last Friday's contest was to take the one of the old posters of Smokey the Bear and create your own new sign. What does this mean? It means something as innocent as this:


can be morphed into something as wonderful as this:


Another example. Here's the original:


and after the SA goon is done with it, it's much funnier:


3. Webcomics

The ones I frequent are as follows: Penny Arcade [video game humor], Diesel Sweeties [relationship and robot humor], Real Life [more game humor], PVP Online [even more game humor], StrongBad's Emails on Homestarrunner [general humor], 8-Bit Theater [yes, more game humor], and Sexy Losers [relationship/sex humor]. All are updated fairly regularly, and are good ways to pass the time.

4. The Onion

The greatest satirical publication of our day [even more so than the recently-faded McSweeney's - though in truth whenever I get money I'll subscribe to both] is online and free to read. Turned on to it by a coworker in my days at Tallahassee Memorial [circa early 1999], I've been reading The Onion for years. The compilation books are something that everybody should own, as they are quite possibly the most perfect bathroom reading material ever. You can read it in short bouts, or you can trudge through and read the whole thing - The Onion's perfect for all that.

5. X-Entertainment

X-E is a blast from the past. As a child of the 80s, like the webmaster, I enjoy looking back at the toys, commercials, and other things of my childhood years. X-E is essentially one living shrine of the 1980s, and the features are brilliant. While not everything is 80s-based, it's generally funny and worth the time you'll waste on it.


So there you go, ways to waste time. My primary time waster, nerd news blog Slashdot, is always a good place to waste the hours. Cheers for unproductivity. And a big thanks to the aforementioned sites for wasting my time, countless hours of my life I'll never get back. Whoo!

Oh, and here's a quick run-down of countries that have at least one visit to my blog to date:
          

Grad School, Pistons, Reversible Clothes, Euro 2004

The job hunt has been horrendously slow for me, with a whopping 3 interviews since I left school [yes, I took the first one and worked for 7 months, but that still doesn't excuse my current state]. After hearing that I'm not moving to Vegas, as the company opted for a Doctoral student of Electrical Engineering, things are looking admittedly shitty once again. So the thoughts of going back to school to pick up my masters in either Bioengineering or Mechanical Engineering have recently popped up in my head. While I'm not uber-keen on the idea of more school, since it'll definitely be a state school [probably FSU over UF or UCF], at least it won't break the bank. Only problem is, if I choose to take this route [and in all honesty, I'd rather just have a good job] then I have to move quick - deadlines for admission are July 1st for Fall 2004, but I guess I could always take a menial job and hold out for Spring 2005 admission. My undergrad GPA held me back in a lot of ways, but not as much as it did when coupled with my lack of experience getting out of college. At least a Master's degree would give me another chance to wipe that GPA clean, and to make myself more marketable than I am in my current state. Now all this might dissipate if I get the job in Albany, but who knows?

Congrats to the Detroit Pistons for obliterating the L.A. Lakers. While I'm a big Shaq fan, and admittedly pulled for the Lakers going into the series, I have nothing but respect for the way that Detroit dominated the series. They're a hard working team, and the value they put on solid, defensive play is amazing. After hearing the whining of the Lakers from after game 1 through their crushing defeat in game 5, I've got to say, I'm glad Detroit won. L.A.'s primadonnas, especially Kobe and Gary Payton, deserved to get a boot shoved up their asses. Instead of ever giving the Pistons credit, they just pointed out that their team just "needed to make some adjustments" to win the next game. As Tony Reali said on Around The Horn today, this was the first 5 game sweep in NBA Finals history. Wow, a paragraph about pro basketball, a sport I hate with an intense passion. What the hell is wrong with me?

And what the hell is the point of reversible clothing? My sister and mom, when shopping recently, found some cheap shorts at Aeropostale (a store I don't think I've ever been in, honestly) and decided to pick them up for me for frisbee. They're decent athletic shorts, but they're reversible. Now honestly, what in the hell is the point of reversible clothes? Sure, there's two different styles, but these are athletic shorts - manufactured for purpose, not style. If you get the out-side dirty, it's not like you can flip them over and wear them the other way - the nasty, dirty-ass side would be rubbing on you. I guess you're not supposed to care, but they still just seem stupid to me.

I'm pissed that I can't find anywhere in Tallahassee to watch the UEFA Euro 2004 tournament. In Atlanta or Detroit, I'm sure I'd be able to find somewhere to catch a game, like at a sports bar or something - but no such luck in tiny Tallahassee. At GT, I remember the student government ponying up the funds to broadcast the entire last Cricket World Cup, at the request of the Indian and Pakistani student societies [which are a very large group at Tech]. That was in interesting experience, but I can honestly say that cricket is boring as hell, and at least an international soccer tournament like this would be entertaining to watch. Guess I'll just have to deal with the online post-game highlights [shitty RealPlayer format] and read the write-ups. Here's to hoping the Frogs don't win it.

Friday Night, Saturday Afternoon

First off, Friday night was one of the best nights I'd had in a really, really long time. The "roving party" made its way to quite a few places, and covered about half of Tallahassee.

Staney's Birthday DrinkFest was great, but admittedly, using that green "menthol" Kool-Aid for the hunch punch was an awful idea - stick to Tropical Punch [or any other "red"] next time. At Staney's party, Fiske got the idea for kickball, so after acquiring a neon-green kickball, it was on. Playing in the dark at Winthrop was fun, even if you couldn't see where the damned ball was half the time. A good time was had by all, until one of Tallahassee's Finest decided to crash the party - being the good Samaritan that I am, I shuttled our minors, Amanda and Charlotte, off to a safe place. [Yes, of course we were drinking our beers in the park playing kickball - booze and kickball go together like boxed wine and oreos.]

Then a decision was made for some swimming action - neither I nor Charlotte had anything to wear for such an activity, so I swang her by her house and dragged her out to mine before we met up with the rest of the crew over at The Exchange where they went swimming - the only problem was, they'd just been busted by the exact same cop as at the park, and asked to leave the place. So we headed over to another apartment complex, Frog Pond, where we played in-pool dodgeball and volleyball for a couple hours before tiring out. Zoe, apparently on her way to Pensacola, stopped in for the night and it was great to see her. After enough swimming to make us hungry, me, Drew, Zoe, and Charlotte left the pool to head to Steak and Shake [about 5am at this point].

After a really good dinner/breakfast/meal at S&S, complete with a drunken Drew who yelled at people unintelligbly, passed out on the table, and oh yeah, was wearing only an undershirt and boxer shorts into the place - I dropped Charlotte off at her car and got home just a shade shy of 7am. So that's a party my friends, from 830pm-7am. Floridians get down, don't we? It was very cool to have Zoe make a cameo on the night, as she's awesome, but it was also extremely cool to meet Charlotte, an amazing girl. She likes AFI's new album too...she even knew all the words! Hah!

So after sleeping a long-ass time, I wake up to find that my Yellow Jackets were eliminated from NCAA Baseball play by the goddamned Georgia Bulldogs. Here's a quick rundown of teams I hate more the the University of Georgia:

1. The New York Yankees [except for football season]

So losing to those sons-of-bitches [pun intended] really burns. U[sic]GA beat GT in all three major sports this year, winning the football game, the basketball game, and winning the series 3-2 over us in baseball this year. In times like these, I remember that timeless chant of GT fans:

What's the good word?
TO HELL WITH GEORGIA
How bout them Dawgs?
PISS ON 'EM

After GT's falling-apart, I watched my Red Sox get dismantled by the LA Dodgers. Complete and utter horseshit that game was - not only did my team get pounded, but my Fantasy Baseball team took a nice hit with Wakefield's 10+ ERA. Thanks, guy.

But it's been a great weekend, even if frisbee got cut short on Sunday due to only 6 people showing up. At least I got to show off my Power Forward skills in some hoops.

Half-Album Annoyance and Getting Retarded?

Recently, I've noticed something that's a problem with a good deal of the albums I buy - artists aren't making good albums. Instead, I seem to get a lot of half-albums. They'll start off strong, but by track 6 or 7, the album's usually taken a huge turn, and just gets boring. Rap albums in particular have been notorious with this. I love rap and hip-hop, but by god, is it that hard to put together 14 or 15 solid tracks? Example: today on my way to Albany I listened to one of the better hip-hop albums of the last year - Elephunk by the Black Eyed Peas - the first 7 tracks are great, but after that...it gets boring.

And speaking of the Black Eyed Peas, their record company's gotten odd. I'm sure by now, you've probably seen those "24 Seconds To Live" promos that they did for the NBA Playoffs - they were by far and away the best part of the playoffs early on. The song in those promos, "Let's Get It Started", is just a radio friendly edit of an album song "Let's Get Retarded". Way before those promos, that was probably one of the best songs on the album - great beat, great hook, just a really fun song. Turns out now though, with all the exposure the "Get it Started" version has gotten, the people at their label have now decided to make that version, the radio-friendly version, the version on the album. So all future copies of Elephunk will have the edited version, and not the original, much better version. A damned shame, if you ask me. "Let's Get Retarded" is a great song - go download it.

Oh, and The Empire Strikes First is out today. New, good Bad Religion - you should get it.

For Posterity: Old NCAA Basketball Brackets

For posterity's sake, and for your amusement, I'm gonna post my old NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Brackets for all the world to see. Don't care? See you next post.


My 2000 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2001 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2002 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2003 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2004 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2005 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2005 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2005 Postseason NIT Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]



My 2006 Postseason NIT Bracket [click to enlarge]


My 2007 ACC Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]


My 2007 Postseason NIT Bracket [click to enlarge]


My 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]


My 2008 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket [click to enlarge]

[Edit: Added 2000-2002 brackets]
[Edit 3/05: Added 2005 bracket]
[Edit 4/05: Added completed 2005 NCAA and NIT brackets]
[Edit 3/06: Added 2006 NIT and NCAA brackets]
[Edit 4/07: Added 2005 and 2007 ACC brackets, 2007 NIT & NCAA brackets]

My MP3s: A Life Story

This serves no purpose other than me wanting to write something about music and technology. Who knows, maybe one of you will like what you see and you'll adopt it - but probably not. If it's long winded, forgive me. Feel free to go browse Fark or Slashdot or something if it gets too boring. [And by the way, those of you who have done the right thing by downloading Firefox and reclaiming your fast and pop-up and ad-free internet, congrats. I can see browser stats via the counter at the bottom. For those of you who haven't, why? Do you love pop-ups? Support open-source software. Support GOOD software.]

So how does an mp3 come to be in my digital domain? Well, it's obviously one of two ways, from either a direct rip of one of my CDs or from somewhere on the internet. Let's discuss the former first.

The ripper of choice, for the last couple years, has been Exact Audio Copy [or EAC]. EAC is a ripper designed by and designed for hardcore music enthusiasts. The bit-whores, if you will - they want the absolute best quality rips done as quickly as possible. It's open source, COMPLETELY FREE, and simple to use. My dad freaking uses it. As it's only a ripper, you need an encoder to go with it. Since we're talking mp3 here [as opposed to OGG, APE, WMA, or something else], the encoder you want is LAME [Lame Aint a MP3 Encoder - stupid recursive name, I know]. So I load EAC, pop in the CD of choice, and EAC connects to FreeDB, an online [open source, free] database of CD information: Artists, Song Titles, Album Titles, etc. EAC will then automatically name the tracks, supply the year, genre, track number, and artist for each track for the MP3's ID3 tag. What's an ID3 tag? More on that later. So I click 'Rip to MP3' and a few minutes later, steaming hot mp3 goodness is at my fingertips. They then get tagged, renamed, and sorted.

I've been asked where I get my mp3s from, now that services like KaZaA and [in the old days] Napster have gone to shit. The first place I turn to is IRC [Internet Relay Chat], which over the years, has developed into the place to get shady stuff. So what does IRC'ing entail? First, you go and download mIRC, which is the best IRC client out there. Now that you've got the software, how do you find the files? One of the easiest ways is to use an IRC indexing site like IRC Spy. Just type in what you're looking for, like say, "Bad Religion" and IRCSpy will tell you where you need to go to get it. Then you click on the pack numbers, join the servers, and grab your loot.

Another hot place to get files is Usenet, or "the newsgroups". Get a newsreader like NewsLeecher and hit a binary newsgroup search engine, like the one at alt.binaries.nl and search for what you want there. When you find what you want, click on "download NZB" and once you run that NZB file, the object of your downloading desire will get thrown in your download queue. Downside to Usenet? You usually gotta pay for server access. And software too, if you're one of those "honest" people. I don't claim to be one.

Then there's an old standard, P2P [peer-to-peer] filesharing. Since KaZaA has become [and in my opinion, always was] a total piece of spyware-ridden crap and the RIAA is hunting file-sharers on basically it exclusively, you might as well look at alternatives. I don't really use P2Ps all that much, but if you want to use them, I suggest first SoulSeek. Cost-free, ad-free, and spy-ware free. You will experience some nasty waiting times, but if you've got the patience, you can get just about anything. Other worthy things to use are LimeWire which runs on the Gnutella network, and eMule, which runs on the eDonkey network [ed2k links].

And the only other option I'll discuss is BitTorrent [BT]. To use BT, you download a .torrent file, which serves as a "guide" for your downloading. You connect to a tracker, which directs BT as to who has the file shared for download, and what parts of the file everybody has. Then you and the others, as a collective "swarm", connect amongst yourselves [all this is automatic, people] and you download and upload pieces of the file concurrently until you've gotten it all. Where do you find torrents? Well, torrent sites are all over the net now, but I recommend SuprNova as a starting point.

Okay, now we've got the mp3, what happens to it next?

I'm a messy person. My room is always in a state of disarray and chaos, my car is messy - I'm messy with just about everything with one exception...my computer files. I keep my mp3s neat and tidy with a set naming scheme:
\multimedia\mp3\[genre]\[artist]\[album (year)]\##-artist_name-track_title.mp3
Since renaming a lot of files can be a tedious task, I enlist the help of this free Batch Renamer to help me rename files all at once. Lots of good features, and it's a tiny download.

Now that we've got the files, got them properly named, it's time to make sure the ID3 tags have good information. ID3 tags are little text files appended to the ends [or beginnings] of your mp3s that contain information about the track - technical things like bitrate, size of file, name of encoder - but they also have 'metadata', things like the Artist's name, track number, album, genre, year, and any additional comments. Why is it important to keep tidy ID3 tags? Well, it's not important per se, but if you want to use your mp3s in some of the more exciting ways mentioned later, it's nice to have them nice and organized. Besides, you only have to set the ID3 info once, and if used EAC from earlier, it did it for you already. But if everybody had their ID3s right, you wouldn't download a song called "Outkast - Hey Ya!" off KaZaA only to open it up and see that it's a copy of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica, and yes, that has happened to me.

Okay MJ, you anal bastard - you've got them sorted, named, and tagged. Are we ever going to play the goddamned mp3s?

When mp3s were in their infancy, the only player you bothered with was Winamp. I won't lie, Winamp is still the king - those people at Nullsoft take their product seriously, and by god, it's a solid mp3 player. Everybody who listens to mp3s should have Winamp installed on their computer. End of arguement. And if you use any of the following to play your music, please, please stop and find a better player [Winamp or iTunes]:
1. Windows Media Player
2. MusicMatch JukeBox
3. RealOne Jukebox
Those three programs are total, useless shit. If you want a jukebox application, and trust me after trying it you'll love it, you want to mosey over to Apple and pick up their wonderful iTunes program. I'm a PC user [WinXP] and their Windows version works flawlessly. So go get it, it really makes listening to your mp3s a lot of fun. A great interface, no more fumbling through Windows Explorer windows, and it's integrated into the iTunes Music Store, the world's largest online music download store. The smart playlists are incredible. And if you've got an iPod, it's a no-brainer. How pretty can it be?:


My iTunes in action [whoo Elephant 6] 

Okay MJ, so you can play mp3s on your computer, BFD. The real fun is when you put them to use in other places.

For Christmas in 2001, I got an AIWA CDC-MP3 in-dash mp3-cd player. I can put a CD full of .mp3 files, and my car will play 'em, and show me stuff like Artist Name, Track Name, album, and song length on the player's face. It was super-hot technology at the time, but since has been eclipsed by much better players. It's still reliable, and I still use it on the go. Though admittedly, I mainly use the 'Auxilliary Input' jack on the front nowadays.

In late 2003, I realized it was time to get off my ass and purchase a portable mp3 player. As I had about 90gb of music at the time, I figured nothing less than one of those huge jukebox players would cut it. So I ended up with a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 40gb music player. The choice was simple economics: 40gb Nomad for $200 [after rebates] or a 40gb iPod for $550 [after buying a firewire card]. The iPod is sexy and great, but not 2x the price great. 40gb is nice, but 120gb would be nicer [though I'd settle for 80gb].

So now we've got the car and on-the-go covered, that leaves only one major area left: the rooms of the house away from the computer. Solution? Xbox Media Center, an application for modded Microsoft Xboxes that allows you to play video, audio, and picture files. And just about every damned format that you can imagine. So I share my mp3s and movies over the network, and then I can pump the sounds through my Xbox into my good speakers near the TV. Home entertainment bliss.

So as a whole, I'm a big, big fan of the digital music revolution. I still buy CDs, but what's the first thing I do with it? Fire up EAC, rip and encode it, then put the disc in its case and back on the shelf. I buy CDs to support good artists, but also as higher-fidelity sources for my mp3s. That, and most CD players don't have mp3 capability [yet], so taking a CD to a friend's place is just easier.

MP3 might not be the best format out there [Apple AAC, Ogg Vorbis, and a few others are noteably better] but its widespread acceptance and integration makes it the clear winner. So keep the technology alive, use it, fight DRM [Digital Rights Management - which dictates to you, the user, how you're allowed to use YOUR OWN FILES], and don't buy copy-protected CDs. Go read Downhill Battle for some more great digital music advocacy info.

Holy shit that was long-winded. If you made it to the end, congrats, and I apologize. Make me buy you a beer sometime or something.

Movie Reviews, vol. 2

Okay, here's what I think of the latest crop of movies I've seen recently:

You Got Served: Okay, this movie was rediculous. Rediculously goddamned good. It's a dance-off movie, and by god, it's fun as hell to watch. If you can catch it in second-run theaters, do it. By all means do it. Remember watching the dancing in the old video for Thriller and saying "that is hot shit!" - well this movie is just that feeling, stretched out for an hour and a half. So go see it already. A solid 9/10, for pure enjoyment. [Yes, I know it's #3 on the IMDB bottom 100, but those people must've been expecting something different. IT'S A DANCE-OFF MOVIE. IT'S AN HOUR AND A HALF LONG DANCE-OFF, WITH MINOR PLOT TO MOVE THE STORY. Not a fucking drama people, you should know better. And I stand by my rating.]

Waiting for Guffman: I'd seen Best In Show a couple years ago, and really liked it, so I borrowed the DVD for this and A Mighty Wind from Will V. to catch Guest's other movies. WFG was a funny movie, but at times it really showed some pure comedic genius. Eugene Levy was great, and the culmination of the movie, the play, was fantastic. A good view, 8/10.

A Mighty Wind: Along the lines of the aforementioned Guest films, this is another mockumentary, documenting the lives of three folk music groups leading up to one large tribute concert. What really makes this a great film to me, besides from all the brilliant performances (including Harry Shearer) was the incredible music in the movie. The only time I'd felt as much about the soundtrack was in the phenomenal O Brother, Where Art Thou? [which now that I think of it, should watch again. Clooney's great in it]. But this movie is funny, has drama, and great music - yet it still holds that documentary feel. Guest is a master at this artform, and I hope he keeps it up, because he's doing a great job. See it, 9/10.

Van Helsing: The summer's first true action flick, this movie was entertaining throughout. A decent enough story, lots of action, and great special effects made it a good time-waster. I can't say I'm in a rush to see this one again, but it was worth watching. If it ever pops up and you've got the time to watch it, you might as well. An above average action flick, 6/10.

Most Wanted: Every once in a while, you do the unthinkable - you watch the late night TNT or TBS movie. After a Lakers game, I kept the TV on and watched this Keenan Ivory Wayans "masterpiece" of a movie. An action flick, a conspiracy flick, and a political thriller - this movie tried it all, and for the most part, failed. I shouldn't have expected much out of a Wayans movie, especially a Wayans movie that was not a comedy. Stupid me [for watching it all], 3/10.

Mean Girls: Okay, this one took me by suprise. I looked over at the tomatometer for this flick at Rotten Tomatoes and the ratings were suprisingly good. Didn't critics hate stupid little teen girly movies? Yes they do, but this one was different. Written by the brilliant SNL writer Tina Fey, this movie did what all other teen-girl movies don't ever bother to do - be witty, tell a good story, and have some decent freaking comedy. Lindsey Lohan is brilliant, and this honestly is the best movie I've seen in a long time in the genre. You should see it, 8.5/10.

Shaolin Soccer: Comical, but nothing phenomenal. It was worth watching, but not worth watching repeatedly. So a 6/10.

The Triplets of Belleville: This movie left me sad, because I honestly was expecting a lot more. I do like, however, that I watched an entire movie in French but managed to understand everything that was going on [the flick is real, real short on dialogue]. There were some amusing moments, but I just wasn't that impressed. A just-above-middle-of-the-road 6/10 for this one.

Now this is the part where you IM and comment that I suck. Coming in the near future: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Day After Tomorrow, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Spartan, Club Dread, and whatever else my bandwith and TiVo scrape up.