May 31
My MP3 player is dumb. It’s a Creative Nomad IIc, and I’ve had it for a while now. It has pretty decent sound quality, and I really haven’t had any problems with it (though I think it did freeze up once and I had to “reboot” (pull battery)) except that it is slightly annoying that [...] [...more]
Posted: under Music, Technology.
My MP3 player is dumb. It’s a Creative Nomad IIc, and I’ve had it for a while now. It has pretty decent sound quality, and I really haven’t had any problems with it (though I think it did freeze up once and I had to “reboot” (pull battery)) except that it is slightly annoying that when it lists songs it doesn’t show enough characters.
The thing supports variable bit rate MP3’s. It even recognizes them and labels the file as VBR when you play it. The funny thing is that when you do play it, it has no idea how long the song is. Obviously it is programmed to estimate the time remaining based on filesize and the current bitrate, because as it plays, the time remaining changes every second or two, moving up or down as much as a minute. It’s completely clueless. The worst part is that it is incapable of fast forwarding or rewinding. If you try, it completely looses it’s place and restarts the song. This isn’t something I do very often, so I just noticed yesterday, even though I’ve been playing VBR MP3’s on it for quite some time. The problem is minor, but it’s still dumb.
May 30
I’ve had this CD for a few weeks now. I started off with mixed feelings for it. That is to say, I wasn’t really sure if I should call it OK or good. I definitely like it, I’m just not sure how much. I’ve had most of the songs stuck in my head at one [...] [...more]
Posted: under Music.
I’ve had this CD for a few weeks now. I started off with mixed feelings for it. That is to say, I wasn’t really sure if I should call it OK or good. I definitely like it, I’m just not sure how much. I’ve had most of the songs stuck in my head at one point or another. It’s good stuff. I think that Step Up probably has the most energy of any song on the disc, but there’s plenty of other hard hitting stuff on there. For some reason, I just didn’t really feel like I was properly getting into it. I can’t really explain it. For that reason, I was going to say that it was somewhere between OK and good. Maybe a 7 on a 10 point scale. I’ve rethought that position to an extent and now I would say it is good. So maybe now I’d give it an 8. That could come out to a 7.5 overall but….
Who gives a shit? 
Bottom line, I like the CD. I think the new singer works out good with the band. There’s a lot of energy. Overall it’s a bit less than what you may have heard with Step Up, but it’s not far off. It’s a bit repetitive in that two songs include a thought to the tune of “this life is killing me” in the chorus, but oh well. It’s definitely worthwhile to pickup. Also, it includes feel good lyrics like “The emptiness is building from, The nothingness that we’ve all become”….if that doesn’t lift your spirits, what will? Gotta love metal.
May 29
I just put two bookcases together. They are small and cheap (price and quality) and came from target. I would normally say that a bookcase isn’t a big event, but these left an impression on me, and it wasn’t really a good one.
The bookcase is made by KD basics and it has a model number [...] [...more]
Posted: under Rants.
I just put two bookcases together. They are small and cheap (price and quality) and came from target. I would normally say that a bookcase isn’t a big event, but these left an impression on me, and it wasn’t really a good one.
The bookcase is made by KD basics and it has a model number 074-07-0394, or perhaps 52321. I can at least say that it has a sku of 02998652311. I think they cost all of $20 a piece, but I would still expect a descent level of quality. Not so, per se.
My first impression when I pulled them out of the box has how the finish was all chipped around the places where they had drilled holes in the boards (there were also small chips in other areas). Both units were like this. It isn’t really a huge deal, and once put together the screw heads obscure most of it, but it still doesn’t seem like the type of thing I’d feel comfortable shipping. I also noticed that it was rather strange that the units completely screwed together. Many furniture items like this use cams to lock a lot of the stuff into place. I can only assume this is cheaper.
When I went to put on the kickboard (their words, I think I would call it a footboard) I ran into some trouble. I should mention that there are large holes drilled into the kickboard, and smaller ones drilled in the bottom of the bottom shelf. The screws then go through the kickboard without screwing into it, and actually screw into the bottom shelf. The first thing I noticed was that the holes in the kickboard didn’t line up with the holes in the bottom shelf that the screws go into. They were only off by a little, so it was workable, but I don’t think it helped with the next problem I ran into. I should mention as well that both units were like this. The screws provided (only one type, one size fits all I guess) were too short for that area. I tried to screw them in, and as I tried to tighten them, they merely stripped out the holes in the board they were supposed to screw into. I looked after the fact, and only 3 threads came through the end of the board (nearly four though), and it is good to keep in mind that it is a wood screw, so the first thread or two are narrower than the rest. To say the least, this didn’t hold. I was able to fix it by boring out the holes in the kickboard to a larger diameter so that the screw head would recess into it a little (I didn’t want to go too far and have the screw come out the other side of the board). This provided a little bit of room to grab slightly (though not fully, since I had already stripped out the opening of the hole), and I glued the whole thing to take care of any other instabilities. I didn’t even give the second unit a chance to disappoint, and did the same thing. The screws actually tightened on this one (with the kickboard holes bored out slightly), but I had already glued it anyways.
The rest of the unit went together without any trouble.
It’s a $20 bookcase, so I can’t help but expect it to be low quality, but still, I just can’t take it. I work in manufacturing and we have fairly high standards of quality. It always amazes me and I can just shake my head in disbelief when I see otherwise. If I was going to get another, I would definitely look at comparable units and compare prices, but if anything else was more than a few dollars more expensive, I’d still buy these.
May 29
I was looking at the mail yesterday, and I couldn’t help but notice an ogre and donkey stamped over the stamp on a postcard. I remember first seeing this when the Grinch was out a couple of years ago. I know I’ve seen it at least once since then, but I can’t remember what it [...] [...more]
Posted: under General.
I was looking at the mail yesterday, and I couldn’t help but notice an ogre and donkey stamped over the stamp on a postcard. I remember first seeing this when the Grinch was out a couple of years ago. I know I’ve seen it at least once since then, but I can’t remember what it was. I’m sure it’s actually been done numerous other times, but I usually don’t look at the mail that closely (and most of our mail doesn’t come with a stamp in the first place). The whole thing seems rather shameless, but on the other hand, if they can make some money off of it, it saves everyone money in the long run. It’s unobtrusive enough.
May 28
I don’t know what to think about gas prices as of late. They’ve actually been going down. They dropped from $2.18 to $2.11 in the middle of the week. Now we’re looking like we may be going to $2.05. I have a couple of theories. My first is that prices are actually going down for [...] [...more]
Posted: under General.
I don’t know what to think about gas prices as of late. They’ve actually been going down. They dropped from $2.18 to $2.11 in the middle of the week. Now we’re looking like we may be going to $2.05. I have a couple of theories. My first is that prices are actually going down for the holiday weekend and they were only higher last week in order to make us think that they would go even higher this week. This would cause all of us gullible fools to fill up early in the week before prices went up again. Reverse psychology. My other theory is that gas will actually go up later today. This lowering is just the calm before the storm. My last theory is that prices will actually go up on Sunday. This way, everyone gets nailed on their way back home. I guess we’ll see.
