circle of trust

OMG JIMMY EAT WORLD! last night ROCKED da socks off me....seriously i had to wear sandals.

the pabst theater -> milwaukee. now my favorite venue. the acoustics were amazing. i'm not used to being able to go to a show and hearing the actual lyrics from the songs. totally worth the trip and my lazy eye this morning. it's like it was a dream, the best dream EVER!

someone mentioned to them to play 'a praise chorus' and jim went on a little about how they couldn't play it cause dave wasn't there and how he can't hit the vocals on it. so zach (their drummer) started playing a little and got the crowd riled up and they eventually played it. so fucking cool, like what does that show for the character of the band to do something like that?! it totally rocked and almost made up for them not playing sweetness.

the new jew album comes out oct. 16th and is called "Chase This Light". probably going to be the 7th cd ever that i'll buy. i hate buying cds but i don't think i have much of a choice on this one. oh and if you like indie/folk rock and haven't heard of maria taylor, you should check out her music. she opened for them and added vocals to a couple songs, and has an amazing voice.

update

so things have been going. i got my zen vision: m and the only negative thing about it is the name. it's not very catchy. other than that i couldn't be happier. for a pirater, like myself, it is AMAZING! i use gnomad2 on ubuntu to send files back and forth from it. all of the videos i've put on it work fine. it also has a couple video functions i find so key.

the video has a zoom to fit and squeeze to fit functions. so if it's not very widescreen it can squeeze the video to fit the screen, or if it's very widescreen and you want to see better, it has a zoom to see it better(though you miss a bunch of the screen). i haven't yet gotten annoyed by the small 2.5 inch screen. it fits perfect in my little pouch on my backpack. i just can't say enough about this thing. it's just perfect for me, i love it so much. and for $140 i can't ask for a better price. it has one little scratch. the battery lasted me almost two days, which i watched about 6 hours of video and listened to the radio about 20 hours. so cool.

for $80 less i'll take the little scratch that was on it.

so my picture manager is almost going. here are the steps i needed to get done when i started:
1.) upload multiple files
2.) convert each picture to 2 different sizes + high res
3.) create folders/filenames based on a standard
4.) create ajax display functions for:
a.) folders/dates
b.) thumbnails
c.) medium display(main display)
d.) lightbox for highres display

i've almost got 1-3 done which is definitely the hard part. hopefully by the weekend i'll have the display up and working. after i have the first version working and licensed i'll put it up on the project page to for other people to take and test. it's beauty i think is in it's simplicity, but other developers will figure that out on their own. i did have to use 3 languages though(php, js & java) to do all the code, but everything seems to be working pretty well together and you really only should need to know a little php and js to implement it on your site.

still coming

i'm slowly working on getting this thing finished. i think i've decided to go with 'gallery' for my pictures page. of course i'm going to have to integrate ajax and scriptaculous into it, which will be fun. i'm not sure how i'm going to put items into my projects and play pages yet, but that should take me a good 15 minutes to figure out. i'm also thinking about doing another style for the page. this one seems a bit too dark, but i'll figure that out later. next priority is pictures.

another travel weekend coming up. this time andrea and i are going up to brimley michigan to her cousin's wedding at the lighthouse there. i'm pumped because i only have to drive to lansing friday and she's doing the rest! :) i'll be there for support of course. hopefully i'll have my picture site operational by the time we get back next week so i can upload my photos from the trip. the UP is amazing in the summer time and i'm kinda pissed i haven't been able to spend any time up there yet. i might be able to convince the girl to go up there for the 4th next year.

i told myself that when i get money i will buy myself an lcd monitor. it's something that will help me finally start doing decent work at home, because i just don't like staring at a round monitor. i've got the huge ass 26" crt there right now, and i don't think i'll ever be able to do decent work on it just because i can't stand staring at it for more time than it takes to check my email. maybe i can sell it on craigs list or something.

so yeah today i bought a 22" acer from staples for $229 w/ free shipping. Taxes though were about $15! wtf illinois! i hate the fucking taxes here. like 9-10%. well if i can stay on the public transportation for a while it might be worth it to be paying for the super taxes. $93/month for travel to and from work is a bargin. love the trains. and yeah, finally a decent monitor(i hope)!

robots in disguise...killer robots

yes transformers the movie was one of the bestest films for me this year. it made me feel like i was 8 years old again. the graphics were amazing, cut scenes a little long, voices near perfect, great story line. wajiw liked this film very much.

on another note, i bought an mp3 player to replace my lost/stolen one. as i do with anything electronic i buy, i researched the hell outa players. what i came up with that would work best for me is something that can play videos, where i don't have much hassle in converting, decent hard drive(+10 gigs), small enough to potentially run with, and low cost. what i came up with is the creative zen vision:m 30gb. i found it refurbished on creatives website for, including taxes/shipping, $139.41. i couldn't believe it. i was going to buy it off newegg for $230+shipping/tax. i recently bought a set of 7.1 speakers refurbished from creative for ~$60 and they've been more than i could want.

so i want to compare my new zen with the ipod video(black 30gb) i almost got.

ipod zen
price: $245 $230
screen: 2.5" 2.5"
colors: 65,000 262,144
weight: 136g 163g
resolution: 320x240 320x240
video playback: 3.5 hours 6 hours
radio: no yes

for file formats it's a no brainer. the zen has all these video formats: DivX™ 4 & 5, XviD², MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG4-SP, WMV9, Motion-JPEG. And the ipod supports these: H.264, .mov, .mp4

also there's a program for me to access it through my linux computers, where all my media is stored.

but why would ipod be selling so much more than creative? marketing and user interface. those are the two most important things when it comes to selling electronics, and this is a prime example. the zen gives you so much more, but most people don't take the time like i just did to compare their options. i guess i can only say that it's better after owning both, so i soon shall see.

p.s. sites i used for my research:
zen site
ipod site

i need another break

this past weekend was kinda nice. saturday i went with trev, keith and debbie to the taste fest down town. talk about too many people. walking through there was like sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. i hated it. the food was ok, nothing too special. the music was like any other festival. i'm glad we only spent a few hours there. hopefully john mayer on wednesday won't be as bad, if we decide to go.

sunday it was nice to just be able to sit on my ass and not do anything. andrea came in and we actually ended up falling asleep at like 8:30. very nice. but since then i've just felt totally drained. i don't know if it's work or working out or what, but i've just been totally tired this week so far. i think it's my body telling me i should be on summer vacation instead of working, but who knows. i just need my energy back, and now.