All types of stuff really. What’s been going on you ask? Stuff… and plenty of it!
Still unemployed. I’m appreciating the time off, but I know me: I’ll be bored sooner than later… I can’t stay idle for too long! I’ve survived so far by writing Rants, working on SharpMT (which keeps my C# skills sharp – no pun) and other type tasks. I’ve been playing bass a bit more too, which is a good way to pass time… Projects around my house are almost caught up on. GTA’s Vice City has sat idle for a couple of weeks but as I last went eight months between playing it, this isn’t surprising.
I’m still burning DVD’s – nothing illegal actually! I’m transferring VHS based home movies to DVD. The quality of the final product isn’t worse than playing the tapes on the VCR, which is no surprise, but the whole thing is in the hopes that a) the DVD discs will last longer than VHS tapes and b) if DVD disc do break down as has been recently advertised, I can at least duplicate them easier given the format!
Of course, the whole DVD burning process was not without it’s painful issues too: Pinnacle’s Expression told me that it could delete some “auxiliary files” when it was done capturing some video. I said, “Sure,” and it whacked my entire “My Documents” directory. Everything: gone! Lost a number of emails, a few files that I had updated since my last backup – which thankfully is a religious Sunday night ritual! – and it just pissed me off that people can write such shitty software.
Speaking of the DVD burner, I put the I/O Magic drive into one of those FireWire/USB 2.0 external enclosures and it’s been working flawlessly. I don’t know if the enclosure company, the FireWire standards company, or Microsoft should get the praise (Microsoft for making XP so flexible) but thanks all around! Nice to see stuff work without a problem.
And speaking of Windows XP, I’ve been toying with putting Windows Server 2003 (which I got via the Visual Studio upgrade) on either my notebook, my desktop, or both, but I can’t seem to get motivated to bother. Of coruse, I’m also cranky that NeoWin reports Longhorn will be delayed until 2006, but what can ya do? Themes are fun but I’m jones’n for something new.
Segueing to NeoWin, actually. They report that MSN will discontinue public chatting (most of the rooms anyway) due to pedophile and porn problems. I find it amusing that they will pull a service because of “possible predators” rather than trying to fix it. I mean, I think it’s OK that they want to make it a Paid-For part of MSN, but to blame it on something like this seems sorta silly. PR-wise this is huge, as MS looks warm and fuzzy, so whatever… I just know that the predators will simply go to Yahoo! Chat or AOL Chat or IRC. The only way to prevent pedophile from abusing chat rooms is to beat them like a hunter would a baby seal when they get caught the first time. To kill off a viable service for a possible problem – one that can be controlled with technology – is sorta scary.
And with the mention of scary things, I need to share a link. I found The Lord of the Rhymes on Milk and Cookies – seems they are a rap group that is rapping “Tolkien-style”. Poor J.R.R. must be break-dancing in his grave…
Lastly, the Yankees’ Magic Number is currently at Two. Well, sorta Two. Technically speaking it’s One. I had to look up what the Magic number actually is but if the season ended in a tie, the Yankees take the penant, because they won the season long series against the Red Sox, who are in second place. So it’s One. The Sox are currently losing; the Yankees are currently winning. – if either game ends that way, the Yankees clinch again this year.
Looks like more fall baseball for NYC and I’m pretty freakin’ glad about that!