I MUST own one! Period. Seeing as how I listen to music pretty constantly at home on my home theater system, it only makes sense for me to have one. Normally I just plug my laptop in and stream music from my desktop to my laptop and then connect my laptop into the back of my home theater system. While it works quite well it requires my laptop to be within 5 or so feet of my receiver. The squeezebox duet solves that problem rather nicely. It connects to my wifi network and connects to a server running on my desktop PC with all my music on it and plays it through my receiver. Even better, it connects via optical-digital so the sound quality is better. It comes with an ipod-like remote to control the music, setup playlists and the like. Not only does it play nearly every format known to mankind as long as it doesn’t have DRM (none of my music does) it also supports Rhapsody & Pandora along with shoutcast radio stations. Sounds pretty fucking sweet if you ask me! $400? Absolutely worth it! Check the picture:
I must admit I had a pretty damn good last night. I just got paid so I was like “I’m gonna go barhopping”. Normally I stay home on Friday nights and if I do go out it’s to Sapphire. I decided to change it up a little bit for some reason last night. I started out at Downtown Grille & Brewery for some food. I watched the Red Wings beat the Predators in overtime and then took off down to the Old City to start the fun. I walked around a little bit and went to Crown & Goose first. I get there and immediately run into someone I work with and her husband. Weird… so I hung out with her for awhile, had two shots of tequila and a jagerbomb. While there, I ran into someone I went to HS with. I haven’t seen the girl in literally 15 years and didn’t recognize her. The girl I worked with was the one that actually told me who she was and I was rather shocked to randomly run into someone from THAT long ago.
After Crown & Goose, I went to Urban Bar. It was my first time there as well and I was actually pleasantly surprised. First, the bartenders were seriously hot as fuck. BIG plus in my book. I had 6 jagerbombs and a surfer on acid there. I ran into an old friend named Eddie I used to work with at Cendant 8 years ago. What the fuck? Running into weird random people from my past! What gives? Anyway, so I’m hanging out there and my friend Jessica texts me and tells me she’s going to come hang out with me there. Well, by this point I was considering leaving and going to Sapphire. So I decide to stay there for awhile and she comes by to hang out for a bit. We do a jagerbomb and then I do another and she has a shot of tequila. After that point, I was going to just have her drop me off at Sapphire, but she wanted me to go with her to the barcade. I’m like “alright, whatever” and went with her.
We get to the “barcade” and I actually drank a fucking BEER! I don’t drink beer but dude talked me into drinking some “Dead Guy Ale”. Mind you it wasn’t awful but it was still beer. $4 a bottle is a bit much but at least it didn’t taste like horse piss. Played a few old school video games, finished up my beer and Jessica drove me home. Overall, nothing earth-shattering but still a great night. Ran into a few interesting people, got to hang out with a friend I don’t see too often and got really drunk. No hangover, to boot! Nothing to complain about. 
Seriously… Holy shit. Compared to every other manufacturer on earth, they hideously overpriced. Not to mention they charge an exorbitant amount for upgrades. $400 for 4GB RAM? Are you shitting me? I can get two 2GB SODIMM’s for under $100 easily. But the thing that kills me is that even compared to a Lenovo T61p, it’s ridiculously overpriced! I understand that part of the allure is the OS and the overall “look and feel” of the machine. But is it worth $500? I seriously doubt that. Just look at the comparison I did rather quickly.
We’ll start with a nicely configured 15.4″ Macbook Pro.
2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (6MB L2 cache)
2GB RAM (2×1GB)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256MB
200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive
15.4″ 1440×900 LCD
8x DVD+/-R/DL
Integrated Bluetooth & A/B/G/N wifi
60W/hr Lithium Ion Battery (no word on how many cells)
Admittedly, it’s a beautiful piece of machinery and does have both the LED-backlit display and the muti-touch interface. However, it’s insanely expensive. Now let’s compare to a Lenovo T61p:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5Ghz (6MB L2 cache)
2GB (2×1GB) RAM
Nvidia QuadroFX 570M 256MB
200GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive
15.4″ WUXGA+ (1920×1280) LCD
8x DVD+/-R/DL
Integrated Bluetooth & 802.11a/b/g/n wifi
7.8A/hr 9-cell Lithium Ion Battery
Windows Vista Business x64.
All this for a grand total of $2143.20… In order to match the Macbook Pro’s price, I would have to reconfigure the Lenovo with 4GB RAM, a Lenovo USB webcam and a 2yr Onsite/9×5 next business day warranty. Adding the webcam brings it back in-line with the feature set of the Macbook Pro except for the multi-touch interface. But still. Why is Apple so insanely expensive? Adding 4GB RAM and AppleCare to the Macbook Pro and changing the Lenovo to 3yrs to match the AppleCare makes the tally $3298 for the Macbook (!!!!) and $2596.16 for the Lenovo. I love the Macbook Pro, don’t get me wrong… but holy SHIT that’s a lot of money. I realize that if you configured them both with 2GB it’s a little closer in price ($2443 for the Lenovo and $2898 for the Apple). I guess you’re paying for the look of it.. along with the OS.. and the cache of owning an Apple product. Whatever. Way too much money if you ask me.
Well, from the looks of it, I’m getting my “economic stimulus payment” on May 16 based on the last two digits of my social security #. Here’s the breakdown for those that are curious:
- 00-20 May 2
- 21-75 May 9
- 76-99 May 16
That’s just for those that had their returns directly deposited. For those that get paper checks, you stand to wait considerably longer than that. Here’s the breakdown for those:
- 00-09 May 16
- 10-18 May 23
- 19-25 May 30
- 26-38 June 6
- 39-51 June 13
- 52-63 June 20
- 64-75 June 27
- 76-87 July 4
- 88-99 July 11
In any case, I already know where my $600 is going. A brand new TV! As I’ve said before I’m eyeballing the Toshiba Regza series. I’m pretty sure I’m going LCD since I can’t afford a Panasonic or Pioneer plasma. I also get an extra payday in May, which will further help out the finances for my new TV. Problem is, I still want a squeezebox so I might have to skimp a tad bit on the TV to fit that into my budget. In any case, I’ll be getting some nice stuff in a month or two and I’m a little more than mildly excited. I’m pretty sure that’s what the government had intended when they decided to send these checks out.
Yeah, for sure. Myspace deleted my account today. Most likely because of some of the pics I uploaded. I knew they’d do it eventually since pretty much every pic I uploaded into my “Hilarious Shit” album violated their terms of service. They’re not supposed to be nude, violent or offensive. I didn’t upload anything with nudity but they were most certainly offensive and some would be considered violent as well. I honestly don’t care at all. It’s just myspace. I could create another one but that’s just too much damn work. Re-uploading all my pics, re-adding all my friends. Definitely not worth the effort. I still have a facebook so I’m good with that. The pics in question, for anyone who might be curious are here. Warning, they are incredibly offensive in some cases. No I don’t necessarily agree with the statements in all of them, I just find them to be quite funny. Enjoy!
I know this sounds just completely asinine, but I think it’s time for a new TV. Maybe not right this minute but it’s definitely in the not-too-distant future. My only problem is choosing which TV I want. I know what I want in a TV, just finding the best TV for the money with the features I need seems to be the problem. There are just TOO goddamn many! Anyway, here’s what I’m looking for in a TV
- 42″ or larger
- LCD or Plasma (sorry, no projection)
- 1080p
- reasonably low refresh rate
- 120hz would be amazing, but not mandatory
- number of inputs, type of speakers, presence of a tuner aren’t important
I have a decent home theater receiver with 4 HDMI in and 1 out, so I don’t care how many are on the TV. I use Comcast HD so I don’t have to worry about an off-air tuner. In a perfect world, I’d love to just snatch up a fucking Pioneer Kuro or an Elite, but I’m not spending that kind of coin. I’d really like to keep it around $1500 but I’d go up to $2k if the TV was a good enough deal. I’ll probably buy online because it’s just plain cheaper. In any case, maybe there’ll be another post in a couple of months saying I got a new TV. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get some suggestions in the comments though that’s doubtful.
No, but seriously… crazy fucking weekend for sure! Friday night, our friend Garrick was in town from Murfreesboro so he came over and we ended up going to Sapphire. We had a pretty good time, I got fairly drunk and spent $50 or so.. Something like that. Nothing really eventful happened that I remember, but it was cool nonetheless.
Saturday was the day we went to Atlanta… THAT is when the crazy fun shit happened. First off, one of my friends was going to go with us, but that fucking cunt decided to bail. Not only did she decide to bail, she didn’t even have the common fucking decency to say “hey, something came up so I can’t make it.” Wouldn’t have been a big deal but nope. Her phone was turned off so I couldn’t even get ahold of her. Needless to say, I won’t be talking to her anymore. Ever. Anyway, so off to Atlanta we go. I bring my laptop and Verizon data card with me so I can use my laptop in the car and not be so fucking bored. Well, as it turns out the stupid thing won’t work. I can’t connect under Winblows or Linux on two different laptops. What the fuck? So i call Verizon and after re-running the activation wizard and unplugging and plugging the card back in and whatever they were doing on their side it finally decided to work after 40 minutes on the phone with them. They even had to get tier 2 involved! Strangely, the thing worked a few months ago but just decided to crap out for no reason. Weird. It works now, though so it’s all good. So, we had figured that we would eat at the Vortex (as we always do) and Gein, one of the DJ’s that played the previous weekend’s show was going to eat with us and hang out. Well, by the time got into town and checked into the hotel (6pm or so) he was too hungry to wait and decided to go ahead and eat. So we arranged to just hang out with him at his apartment after the Vortex. The Vortex was pretty much awesome as always but for some reason we ended up with the only fat disgusting waitress in the entire place. WTF?!? She wasn’t a bad waitress, per se… just ugly as fuck. Lame! So we go to Gein’s after the Vortex and hang out there with him and his gf for an hour or so. He played a few new crazy sick tracks I haven’t heard before.. pretty sweet shit. We left to go to the show at about 10:20 or so and got there around 10:35 or so. The show was at The Loft which is apparently part of the CW Downtown music complex or something like that. Pretty nice place with a kickass sound system. LOTS of bass that you could literally feel in your chest no matter where you were in the place. Awesome for sure. The DJ’s playing were Simon Bassline Smith, DJ SS and Ed Rush & Optical, who I’d been wanting to see for years now. Too bad I don’t really remember their set in the least. By the time DJ SS was halfway through his set I was pretty much done for. WAY too much to drink. I had a really big vodka + red bull (which cost me 9 fucking dollars!) and then 8 shots of jager so I was pretty well off for sure. In the course of the night I managed to lose the memory card for my camera and the battery cover for my phone. I’m not sure how the fuck I managed to do EITHER of those things but I apparently managed it somehow. I was rather annoyed about losing the card for my camera because I had taken some really awesome fucking pics. I don’t know how it got taken out or anything. Seriously, I have NO clue! And the battery cover for my phone? What? Fucking weird for sure. I also apparently spent an hour or two talking to this random cute part-Korean chick whose name I don’t remember. Amusingly, the only picture on the camera from the entire night is one of myself and her… Me being so obviously drunk it’s rather hilarious. No, I don’t plan on posting said pic. I look absolutely awful to say the least. In any case, we eventually made it back to the hotel, slept in til noon, went downtown to hang out with the 404audio guys for a bit then came home. Pretty much uneventful on Sunday but that’s not such a bad thing all things considered. So now I have to order a new memory card… and I’ve lost the awesome pics I took 
I’m currently in the car on my way to Atlanta… using my data card with my laptop browsing the web and such. That’s just how much of a geek I am. So I’m blogging from a moving vehicle. How geek is that? Pretty fucking geek, eh? We’re going down for the World of Drum n Bass show with Ed Rush & Optical, DJ SS and some other random dudes. This should rock my face off. Last week’s show sure did. I’m not gonna have any face left after this shit… Two weekends in a row, legendary DnB DJ’s! How does that happen? I don’t care, it rules!
One more day and I’m going back to Atlanta. World of DNB, baby. Ed Rush & Optical. I can’t wait. They were one of the first artists I got into when I got into DnB. I’m not so much into them anymore, but it’ll still be nice to see them. In the past 8 or so months I’ve actually gotten to see Teebee, Calyx, Ewun, Goldie and now Ed Rush & Optical. Pretty damned awesome if you ask me. In doing so, I’ve discovered another awesome DJ by the name of Gein. Technically his name is Adam, but he goes by Gein. Seriously badass motherfucker for sure. His set last weekend sounded like the soundtrack for WWIII. Nasty, dirty, sick, raw, pick your fucking adjective but it was amazing. He won’t be playing this weekend, though. Too bad. In any case, Atlanta has a hell of a DnB scene going on and I love going down there for shows. Hopefully more awesomeness to come. There will be a ton of pics yet again, I know that much.
My friend online and I were having a discussion about the candidates left in the presidential race and we got on the subject of drug laws. I myself don’t smoke pot or use any illegal substances. Not to say that I haven’t, but I don’t at this point in my life. Anyway, we agreed on the fact that it makes no sense that the following drugs are illegal:Marijuana (you knew I was going to say this), AMT, 5-MeO DiPT, MDMA, LSD and Mescaline. There are others, but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I hate to say it but none of those drugs are going to cause any horrible effects to the person doing them. People don’t kill, maim or harm others in order to obtain those drugs in most cases (maybe pot, but that’s really a stretch) and the worst damage they’re going to do when they’re ON them is to themselves. So where’s the problem? Why does the government feel the need to protect us from ourselves? If I get fucked up on Mescaline (peyote buttons), I’m pretty much gonna sit in the middle of my living room and talk to God (or some other higher power, whatever). Same goes for most of those other drugs I listed above. To be honest, they’re mostly passive & introspective drugs. They’re not like meth that you get crazy addicted to, lose a shitload of weight and start stealing and pawning shit to get more. Women aren’t gonna whore themselves out to get more LSD. So what’s the issue?? Oh, that’s right… People aren’t allowed to expand their minds on those wonderful mind-altering drugs. Nevermind that none of them have been proven to be addictive and with the exception of weed none have been proven to have any lasting physiological effects (smoking any substance isn’t good for the lungs, that’s a given). One might argue that research has hypothesized continuous high dosage MDMA usage has caused damage to certain areas of the brain but it hasn’t been conclusively proven to happen nor to even be permanent in those that did exhibit such damage. In any case, it blows my mind that those drugs are even remotely illegal. I DO see a point in regulating most other drugs. Cocaine? Crack? Meth? Heroin? Those have no real medical usage and are far more addictive and destructive drugs. Other drugs that DO have some medical merit but a very high possibility of abuse (Oxycodone, morphine, codeine, various other opiates, benzodiazepines, sedatives, etc.) should be regulated as well. But recreational drugs that don’t have any documented harmful effects? It’s not like they lead to doing “harder” drugs. What kind of dipshit is going to enjoy a few LSD trips and say “man, I need to try crack!” As if I’m going to eat some peyote buttons a few times, get really fucked up and decide that wasn’t good enough and shoot up some heroin. How about not? Most people who do those sorts of drugs do them for the pure enjoyment of the mind-expanding/altering experience, not for the feeling of being “fucked up”. Bah, anyway… it’s not like these laws are going to change anytime soon; not even with our current crop of candidates for president. Either way, I felt it was worthy of a rant. And if you have any constructive disagreements, feel free to express them in comments.
As an aside, I did leave something else out. Presume I’m carrying 20 pills of ecstacy on me. I get stopped and searched and the pills are found. I’m going to be punished the same as if I’d raped a woman at knifepoint. Care to justify that? Good luck!
