The sunshine vitamin

I started taking vitamin D yesterday, for the chance that seasonal affective disorder has been messing with my feelings or whatever. I thought it was funny that one bottle of it said it was the sunshine vitamin. It's really not too funny, but I laughed, cause it's the vitamin that you get from the sun, yeah, nevermind.

I kinda stopped posting didn't I? Hmm, well, it happens? Here's what I've been up to:
I was avoiding things I didn't want to think about. I was playing world of warcraft. I was playing guitar, learning beirut songs. I started making up old homework. I went to the jazz concert last night and it was quite amazing. I'm going to a POS concert tonight. I'm sick with something, last night it was a fever, today it's my throat. I've been thinking of a music tracking system. I've been writing on napkins.

I just never do too much that in it's own right is worth too much of a blog post I guess. I need to start thinking about things again, like ideas and stuff.

Here is a picture of Vinny with a chain on him, I think he looks rather proud:

sMIXy dixie

I created something last saturday, a mix. People were coming over to hang out and so I made a background mix of songs we all (we'll most of us) like. It was a good mix, with all the good stuff you want to hear. It was pretty generic for a mix, but whatever, it worked. Two weekends ago, Meghan and I went to the cities for the weekend and we wanted good music so we each made a hour and a half mix for the drive. It worked out pretty great, granted that we had like a half hour to mix it, and and hour and a half is a lot for a mix.
I think I'm going to start posting (occasionally, no set deadline for me to break) some mixes for what I've been into and getting into lately. I like mixes that hit all the right spots and test some more to see what other people like that they haven't heard yet. So, despite copyright nonsense, I'll probably host the mix somewhere on the internet tubes. (If anyone has a good file host for decent sized zip files, please let me know.)
But yeah, I'll make one soonish.

Winter blunder land

Why winter, why?

I am...blindsided.

I like being social. I think. Well, being social makes me think. So I feel like it's kind of a conundrum. I want to be social, so I am, but being social reminds me of why I like seclusion. Sitting with people is nice. It really is. But it can remind me of things that I'm trying to ignore or get away from. And so it backfires. I know that's just me seeing the worst in things, but really, if it didn't happen every time, I'd be happier. If every time I see people, I don't think of the things I want or the people I want to see but feel like I can't, I'd love it. I wouldn't actually love it, because that doesn't solve anything, it just distracts. But I like distractions.
I like music. I just do. I like indie nodding my head to things no one else cares about. I like shitty techno, I like a CD that is only beats, I like that guy's messed up voice, and I love that guy's beautiful voice. I wish I could do that. I wish I felt that anything I created now didn't revolve around the subject of love. I wish I could tell a story in a song. Or just make a point that isn't something overused, overdone, and probably overdubbed. I wish I could create and not imitate.
I know that things are changing, I feel it everyday. But where am I/We going? What's the plan? If i knew what I should do, it'd be so much easier. It be so easy, but no fun. I love fun, and I get fun out of everything. Joking around about nonsense, making jokes, laughing for no reason, listening to stories, watching movies, listening to music, thinking about things that other people think about that I don't care about and think are ridiculous.
There is a certain volume for every song. But I find that it is above acceptable. I went into common cup listening to animal collective and Colin said it was like suddenly there was just noise. but in my head it was just wonderful. I wish I could play music with no one caring. I wish I could sing with no one judging. I wish everyone understood music like I do. Not understood, but loved it, appreciated it, and needed it as I do.
That's all for now I guess, just a lot of random thoughts.

With eyes of lazer and growl of fury

So, just wanted to share this picture of Vinny (the cat):

It's an unedited image. He is scary.

Now here's a little story I gotsta tell

[Awhile ago I had an idea for a photo series, titled "Living with Ryan". It would feature the greatest of Ryan's inventions and try and capture what living with him is like. I felt bad for wanting to show the strange side of him, so I didn't. But there have been great moments. Like when I came home and there was a five pound cylinder of metal sitting on the kitchen table. I really wasn't surprised, but it's that fact that I wanted to capture. I'm used to ryan and his ways. Tasha has a picture of him shoveling with a road sign, and it just makes me smile. It is kinda awesome living with someone so unique. but anyways, here is a story about Ryan and his cat. Hope you enjoy.]

You all know Vinny the cat right? Well I came home today and saw vinny chillin in the living room, looking strangely down. Here he is a bit later in the kitchen:


If you haven't seen his harness, well there it is. With the bell that helps us keep tabs on him when he gets into mischief.
Last week vinny not only got into mischief, he got into my bread. Now, for a cat that is not fed as vast meals as some, I can understand his motive. But my bread was on top of the refrigerator. So he had to really been motivated to get that far up for it.
After hearing this, ryan devised some way to keep him out of our storage shelves with the use of large magnets. Yeah, magnets.
But that didn't stop Vinny. He kept getting at the sponge on the sink and other things. Ryan needed a way to stop him from jumping onto counters. Or, as ryan did it, a way to not jump at all.
Here is vinny today, with Ryan's harness attachment:

A master lock. That's right, my cat is attached to a heavy duty lock, that is locked to his harness.
Genius?
Cruel?
Bizarre?
I say all of the above.

Connected Music

So, jake and I have this ongoing idea of having a way to share what music you listen to. It started as an idea I had for a twitter that is automatically updated by your music player. Jake argued that this would be a complete crapton of data that would be hard to filter through to put it to use. But the fact that the data can be there kept us going with new ideas.
The latest find was by jake who showed me http://twisten.fm/. Which is a site that catches public tweets with music in them and can generate a playlist by what others are listening to. This is a great idea, but just lets me listen to other people's music randomly. Also, it tweets what your listening to, so I see a problem of constantly recommending a small set of music because of a feedback loop type of thing. But whatever.
What I really want to talk about is how music players are connected. I listen to music on my iPod, which has no live connections to anything else. The otherway I listen to music is on my computer and that is almost always connected to the internet, so no problem there. And because more and more music players are getting connected through wifi to things, it shouldn't be a big issue in a few years to have your player send data to the internet. But maybe not. As much as I would love to have an iPod touch, it only has 16Gb max storage. Which isn't great considering how much music I have. I like having a dedicated music player that I don't have to worry about having issues other than its one funciton. In the next couple years, I think there will still be the demand for players that aren't connected to the internet, because it makes them simpler and the consumer mass likes simple.
So what are some options for these uncennected devices? Well, that depends on the platform they run. If they are like my iPod and have virtually no customizable options and no addons, then not much hope. but if they can have applications installed, hope rises. What I see is the addition of a history function that keeps track of what you've listened to. When you sync your device, it updates your computer's list of played music and can then be uploaded to some service.
There isn't a huge demand for knowing what someone listened to a week ago, but it does allow some content use to open up. If you know what last.fm is, you'll know that telling a service what you like to listen to can get you some great recommendations as to some other bands you might like. At KUMM, I write down RIYLs (recommended if you like) for each CD I add to the station. This helps give people a guide to find music that they might like or to stay in the same genre. Band names alone are not the best guide and sometimes it can be hard to find recommendations to your very personal likes and dislikes. But using this mass ammount of data, what people have played, we could generate a fairly accurate recommendation system. iTunes I think has what they call the genius or whatever that recommends music, what they don't say is that it basically does the same thing as last.fm, but using things like playcount and rating in addition to other variables. So the fact that if I only listen to music on my iPod (which I'm pretty sure doesn't affect the overall playcount in iTunes) and will be missing out on a lot of juicy free data, is kinda lame.
Another point is a more advanced system that pandora radio uses, which is where songs or bands are given adjectives that describe them. Instead of just "metal", black sabbath is described using phrases like "extensive vamping", which I have no idea what it means. So, with that, other bands or other specific songs are recommended. It is like saying, "You'll like jeff, he has a very dark sense of humor and he uses a lot of historic context to make a point" rahter than "jeff is funny."
After a bit of browsing after writing that last paragraph, here is the system behind pandora. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project
It's the music genome project and it basically uses over 400 attributes, or genes to describe songs and bands. It is run by a company and so it has some limitations and probably no free implementation for new systems that aren't pandora. But something like this that is open source or uses a wiki like page for each band that has users or fans assign sttributes, would be a great thing to see.
Hell, I like that idea a lot. I wonder if there are copyright issues with it.

Napkins

So here they are, because why not? (sorry for the many typos, it's pen)

Napkin Poem

I had this idea the other day when I was sitting in the TMC with nothing to do because I got to the Star Wars concert too late. And without a computer or any sort of distraction, I grabbed a few napkins and my pen and started drawing. I drew a river and a bunch of sweet evergreens. Then I figured I'd change it from being just a scene to have some meaning and added a canoe floating down the river with no one in it.
So I had a drawing that took up about 1/3 of the napkin, now what? Write a poem about the drawing of course. So I did, and it wasn't the greatest thing in the world, but I liked it. It wasn't just a poem, it was a poem and a picture. It somehow, through visuals, had more meaning now.
So I drew another scene, this time a lone bike leaning on a tree on a hill. Vary basic stuff because I still don't believe in my drawing talent to attempt people just yet. But then I wrote a long paragraph about what I love about spring.
So I have two creative works on napkins and I didn't want to just throw them away, so I thought I'd just leave them in the TMC. Well, in the end I didn't because they were about to clean up and they would've been thrown away, sadly. But I came up with the idea to leave unnamed drawing/poems around the TMC or other cafes. I got some inspiration from Tahsa and Julie's trip to target where they left random poems. Gertrude Stein was the poet. (thanks tasha) And with some more inspiration from post secret, I thought of an idea.
A website that hosts images of napkin poems. You write a poem or a story or draw something on an napkin and you leave it in a cafe. You write down the website address and when/if someone finds it, they go and upload what they found. I think that would be really interesting. It would work on a viral level that it is spread by someone and they would get it and tell some people.
I also see it not working as a very obvious possibility. But that isn't the real point. I don't need a website or a central figure, I just want to draw and write on napkins and spread some sort of something to a random person.

Built to spill is great

So, Senior year in Canelake's photography class Dylan gave me a cd with a bunch of bands on it. One of those bands was built to spill. I never truly listened to them until I think at earliest this summer. But when I did, I was amazed. It was basically my perfect college rock band. Think of hockey night, but not only one guitar being amazing. Built to spill had three guitarists. And they have had some of my most underrated lyrics in new music. I set my status on facebook to "Martin is random at best" Which is a quote from the song strange that I love ("This strange plan is random at best.") And then I listened to the third song of the same album and heard another of my favorite quotes: "observing the process will change it, and afterwards even if you, subconsciously rearrange it, it doesn't seem any less true." Which I think is amazing.
Another of the great songs is actually the song that shares the band's name. You really have to hear the song, but here is a couple lines:
"you feel like you are on the verge of something real
on a role and built to spill
this is how you'll always feel it's no big deal"
Seriously though, listen to the song, hell, listen to the whole album, it is one of my perfect albums.

Then I jumped to the album keep it like a secret and was yet again pleasently surprised by the first verse off the whole album. The way he sings it makes it somewhat harder to understand but today I use songbird which fetches lyrics and puts them up next to the song, it awesome. Here's the lyrics:
"The plan keeps coming up again
And the plan means nothing stays the same
But the plan won't accomplish anything
If it's not implemented."

This basically describes how I make goals, plans and live day to day. I make changes a lot, and I do mean a lot. But I never go through with them, I make goals and never fufill them. So again, thanks built to spill, you're amazing.

About as useful as a batter(y)ing ram

So, my computer's battery is broken. Like, messed up broken. I used to get at least two hours out of it and now it died during a one hour class. What the hell happened? I blame Ubuntu. The battery monitor said once that my battery might be broken, but I probably ignored it at the time. So I wanted to test the battery. After Ubuntu shut itself down at the 5% battery level. I booted into windows and was surprised it lasted even ten minutes. Then I looked at the battery level and it was higher than it was in ubuntu. "Hmmm," I said to myself, "what the hell?" So I just ran windows for a bit. After another ten minutes, I wanted to kill the battery, so I opened up itunes, windows media player, and as many programs as I have installed and ready to go. This took it down to 15 pretty fast. But then something strange, it didn't die. It stayed at 1% for 5 minutes, then 0% for 3, then back to 1% for a while. Basically, it got another half an hour of more battery life on what Ubuntu said was 5%. Crazy right? Well yeah, I was crazy mad at this thing.
So I did a full recharge with the computer off and booted ubuntu. Bam! Battery shows at 53%. Wait, what? It's not seeing that it is fully charged. Ubuntu must be reading the battery wrong or the battery's level monitor is wrong. So I drain it again, this time in ubuntu. I turn off the automatic shutdown and was again amazed at how much longer it lasted than before. At 7:35, it showed the battery at 1.5%. At 7:44 it was the same 1.5%. I opened up three videos and ran WoW and a bunch of things. At 7:55 it died. Freaking A man, it's like I have the battery with a bunch of ectra lives hidden or it's a zombie battery.
So I decide to charge it in ubuntu. Start it up and charge it up to 100%. At 10:14 it was at 100% and I unpluged it, with it telling me I'd get a full 2 hours 5 minutes off the charge. It is now 10:30 and it says I have 1 hour 50 minutes left. So basically it is accurate at the moment. I'll post more updates as it gets closer to actually dying.

Back on my game

Okay, so after a week of being strange, sad, and just plain lazy, I am done with that. I can't say I'll be normal in the sense of the word that anything about me is normal, but I will be better. And I know better can describe a million things and that it is very vauge and nondescriptive, but isn't that the point?
Anyways, I will be taking more responsibility from now on and enjoying things. I take a lot for granted and I want to stop that part of me.
So watch out world, but you probably won't even notice anyways.

Housing, a monster

So it's been a fun past few days, and by fun I mean kinda painfully awkward. The housing deadline for renewing and starting leases is coming up soon. I think I've mentioned how I have wanted to move to a different house and don't want to live with Ryan anymore, while I wish it was that easy. Over break I was talking to my two friends Colin and Meghan and we decided we'd all like to live together. Colin knew someone who wasn't living in their house next year and it's a three bedroom and so it worked out that we have a place to live. So, we're all set basically.
But the awkward part comes from other people, Ryan, Meghan's current housemate Nicole, and Colin's girlfriend Remy. I hadn't told Ryan for sure I wasn't living with him next year, but had been slowly hinting at it more and more, like saying that we were going to look at a house. I thought that was pretty obvious as a hint. After the three of us looked at the house we wanted to talk about it and so we went to my house. Ryan pops into the kitchen and has this look in his eye. He points to the manila envelope that has the leases in it and goes "What's this?" Well, he then went into a short outburst of he doesn't know what's going on and he doesn't know why I'm leaving, what he did and what's up. He asks us to all four live in my current house and says he won't mess with the water or the heat. But it can't work like that. And so it gets really freaking awkward in my kitchen.
The same (not exact) situation has happened for Meghan and Colin too. So it's like us three are fine and everyone else is going completely crazy around us. I understand why they are, but I really just wish they weren't. So housing is basically done, but I think it will be a bit different between Ryan and I until at least he finds someone to live with next year.

Pwn'd

Soooo, actually I'm awesome and just finished the sudoku.
Here is the start of it:

+ 6 + 7 + + + + +
+ + 4 2 8 + + + +
+ + + + 3 6 + 4 7
+ 1 3 + + 9 5 + 8
+ + 6 + + + 3 + +
5 + 9 8 + + 1 6 +
6 5 + 3 2 + + + +
+ + + + 9 8 4 + +
+ + + + + 7 + 3 +

And go!

The sudoku made me do it...

The University Register is our school's weekly newspaper. I has a comic and puzzle page and on it is a weekly sudoku. This week's sudoku has a difficulty level of masochistic. I don't know where that falls in the easy/medium/hard rating system. But I can atest to it's difficulty. I have spent waaay too long on it. Like, at least two hours on it tonight. Had to start over twice and each time worked myself into a impossible solution. It's horrible. I've been relearning all my old techniques in how to solve this blasted puzzle. But yeah, it's hard.
I was going to post it, so you all could give it a shot, but I've had too many things ruined by people using online solvers. Sooo, maybe after I finish it.