I got my copy of the Salival box set from the band Tool. I bought it for the included DVD with all of their videos on it, but it also came with a CD with some rarities on it (but with the advent of MP3s, it is damn hard for a band to truly have rarities any longer; most of these songs have been available for awhile on bootlegs and online).
music
Turn and face the strange
Will I still be listening to David Bowie after my second 25 years?
Unlike water, bits don’t weigh anything….
Today I met with my advisor for my CS Department “Exit Interview”. It was kinda bizarre; he mostly asked me questions about what I thought was good in the program, what I thought wasn’t. I got a neat little pocket knife on the way out that says “RIT Department of Computer Science” printed on it. Afterwards, I got my calc exam back today… I didn’t do wonderfully, but I didn’t completely tank it either. I still need to work really hard in order to pass the course, however.
I was feeling kinda burned out today, so I sat down to watch The Filth and the Fury after dinner. It is a documentary on the Sex Pistols, and I was fairly certain that My Roommate, Jon Parise wouldn’t want to watch it (mostly because he said so). So while he was teaching his lab, I popped it in. I am a sucker for documentaries, and ones on music, it was pretty good. It gave a good idea of the genesis of the band, and the punk movement in general. There was a second documentary on the disc about the Punk scene in general, which was interesting as well.
Wow….
I had a great time today doin’ the family thing…. We got up at 6am, before my mother had to go to work, so we could have “Christmas Morning”… The family was really split as to whether or not to wake up early; I was teetering (I think our family tradition was neat, but no-one other than my father seemed to want to wake up at 6 to do it).
I am very thankful, I can’t think of another thing I could have received, and everyone I gave gifts to seemed to be very pleased. While some people criticze the gift-exchange part of this holiday, I think it gets too much flack…. Yes, we shouldn’t be so product-oriented, but it is a great feeling to give and to receive.
As far as the receiving end goes, I received many DVDs, a bunch of CDs I wanted (Including 3 Talking Heads discs), and a TINI Board, which has little practical justification for me, but it totally for fun. Regular readers know that the TINI is the basis for the new drink hardware, so it gives me a non-production platform to play on, and I also have a few other ideas for fun things to do with it… The only way to install software on it (other than the shell) is via FTP, so I need to go out tomorrow and score a hub or a crossover cable so I can start playing around with it in earnest.
I truly hope everyone had a wonderful day today, and if you didn’t… Drop me a line, maybe we can make up for it… I have a good deal of happiness to go around… :)
Bizarroworld
Ok, so I am in my room, listening to random MP3’s, when all of the sudden I hear the immense sound of a travelling group of carolers, some of which were playing brass, playing Christmas music in the CSH elevator lounge. Now, this definately helped with elevate my Christmas spirit.
Bizarroworld comes in the details. What I left out is that it just so happens that the Random MP3 playing at the time was the themesong to the movie “The Omen“, which is entitled “Ave Satani“. :P
Hey Ladies….
Ok, I had lots of cash leftover from my trip to CA (well, not LOTS, but lots), so I went to the bank to ditch as much of it as possible into the bank before I pissed it away… I managed to piss away a bit of it though…. I bought the Beastie Boys Video Anthology done up all sweet-like by those crazy folks over at the Criterion Collection. The videos look rad, and all the sound mixes are available in Dolby 5.1 as well as the original 2.0 mixes… :)
I have heard that this disc is chock-full o’ features, like multi-angles and such, so it should keep me busy during my downtimes..
Don’t get the creole mustard….
Chuck and I went to T.G.I. Friday’s for lunch earlier, and afterwards we stopped by CD Express, a used CD shop I used to frequent when I spent more time in NJ. Man, I haven’t been there in a long time, and they definately began to suck at some point during that time…. They only had a single CD I would even think about buying, and I just said forget it… :)
Might be hanging out with James later tonight, possibly heading down to Cafe Soundz in Montclair… The new Download album was released today, and some of the previews I have heard reminded me of their album Furnace, which has been their best (and their first :P)… Hopefully I won’t be let down… :)
It’s that time again….
…. Time to watch “Stop Making Sense”
Hmmm
“Burning Down the House” is on the radio, and like, it sounds strange. My Roommate, Jon Parise and I were trying to figure out what was wrong with it. At first, it sounded like it was running about 10% faster than it should be, but then Jon pointed out that while the vocals were weird, the song was musically right. So we agreed that it is probably a different vocal effect on the radio edit.
The planetarium was fun last night, and afterwards we got to climb the 60 stairs to the observatory atop the Science Center. Unfortunately, the center is VERY close to the (spoiled) heart of Rochester, so there was alot of light pollution, which sucked.
After the planetarium, we came back to the dorms and watched my new Pulp Fiction DVD. It is the canadian version of the DVD, which has a deleted scenes reel that the US version lacks. Via mail-order, they were the same price, so it was a no-brainer.
Recently CSH voted to ask 3 professors to become advisors, and they all accepted. 2 of them, along with one of our existing advisors, are coming up on floor for dinner and a house meeting…. Should be groovy.
Brain Function Resumed
Wow, what a difference a weekend makes!
James was up this weekend for the Moby concert. The concert was one of the best I have been to. James and I showed up a good hour early on Friday, and we got right up front. The opening band came out right on time, and they were OK. They suffered from the “Standing Around In Front of Synths” disease that makes most electronic bands boring live. But musically they were cool, even if alot of it was canned.
Conversely, Moby was all over the place. He came out on stage, ran around, sang, played guitar, keyboards, and bongos. Let me tell you something: Moby is a bad mother on the bongos… :) He played what seemed a 2 hour set, and it was entertaining the whole time. That is what live music is all about… :)
Back to work now, studying for exams this week, and meeting with my Operating Systems 2 group to plan our strategy for doing Virtual Memory. On top of that, patpat has issued another one of his programming contests. This one is totally interesting, and has definately piqued my interest. Fortunately, the deadline is in December, so I have some time to play with it after classes cool down a bit…