Published on Friday, February 25th, 2005 .
Yes, I’m really still alive… it’s just that I don’t have anything interesting to post lately. I got a Rio Nitrus 1.5GB mp3 player so I can listen to music on my way to and from work. As of right now, I really like it. I just wish it had more space! I have about 32-35GB of mp3’s and of course can’t fit them all in such a small space. Debating what to actually put ON the fucker is tough. I got it for $93 off ebay so I think I got a pretty good deal. The only thing that kills me is that now the new ipod minis are down to $199 for the 4GB and $249 for the 6GB. Both have improved battery life over the previous generation. Had I waited a little bit, I might have gotten one of them.
For my next toy I’m actually eyeballing a Dell Axim X50V handheld. It’s a Windows Mobile 2003-based handheld with a 624Mhz CPU and 64MB RAM (128MB ROM). It has a 640×480 screen and also has bluetooth and wifi. Talk about nice! HP makes an even nicer one but it costs a ton more and it’s not worth it to me. Anyway, I think it’d be nice to have since my best friend’s house has Wifi and so does my work. My house doesn’t have wifi but I might consider an access point if I get one. It’d be nice to get a Bluetooth GPS along with it… Hell, I’d never get lost then. Install some form of pocket mapping software and have maps and directions at my fingertips everywhere I go. Fun shit! God I’m such a geek. The only shitty thing is that I want to build a new road bike as well. If I get the Axim, the bike gets put on hold. If I build the bike, the Axim has to wait. Decisions, decisions. 
Thing is, I have one bike… I have zero handhelds. The bike will cost me $1500 to build at least. The Axim is under $500. We’ll see how things go.
Published on Sunday, February 20th, 2005 .
So I got a new BT headset, the Logitech Mobile Freedom. I can’t say enough about how amazing this headset is. Its only flaw is the same one that every single other one seems to have. It’s tight on those of us with big ears. It’s nowhere near as bad as my Bluetake was, but it still starts to hurt after about 2 hrs or so. At any rate, it gets great battery life and the range is phenominal. I can actually go about 25 ft away with a wall or two in between and carry on a conversation. I’m impressed. I like being able to have my headset on, leave my phone laying around and walk around and talk. It’s especially nice if I need to charge my phone and talk on it at the same time. I’m not tied to the phone at all now. I got it for a great deal (37.99) at ecost.com. At any rate, I’m more than happy with this headset and sound quality is above average. Volume is plenty loud for most (if not all) environments. One thing I did notice is that if I crank the volume all the way up, it will tend to loop back through the mic and the person on the other end will hear themselves. Part of that is because the earpiece doesn’t sit perfectly on my ear (I have weird ears). Other than that, I can’t find anything wrong with it to speak of.
Published on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 .
Jesus H Christ I would fuck Lindsay Lohan into next week. First, I love redheads.. second, she has perfect tits… Observe:
one word… TITTIES! By the way, these are capped from her video “over”. If only that tank top was wet.. Mother of jesus.. *sigh* Yeah, I’m a sucker for a hot redhead, what else is new. I don’t know if her tits or fake, nor do I care. Why would I? They’re fucking NICE! I think she just turned 18, too. She’s legal.. Yummy!
Published on Sunday, February 13th, 2005 .
Ok, so everyone knows I cycle by now… Well, I have to be amused by these douchebag idiots that drive by me hanging out their window yelling “get off the road” or something of that nature when they pass me while I’m cycling. Fact is, I am where I’m SUPPOSED to be… ON THE ROAD! Being a cyclist, I’m not supposed to be on the sidewalks; that’s reserved for pedestrians. Granted, no cop is going to write me a ticket for being on the sidewalk, but being there puts me at a distinct disadvantage when trying to get around town. It’s easier for me to turn right from the right hand lane of the road than it is from the sidewalk. If I do it from the road, I do it just as a car would. If I do it from the sidewalk, I have to actually stop and make sure no car is turning as well otherwise I run the risk of getting “right hooked”. I guess people do it because it gives them a feeling of power or something. They’re in this two-ton hunk of metal belching pollution into the atmosphere and wasting precious resources and I guess somehow they feel as though only cars should be on the roads. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but cyclists have as much right to the roads as everyone else does. What kills me is how car-centered our culture has become. People will drive their car a block away to visit their neighbor! What the fuck? People will drive their cars 2 miles to the video store to pick up some movies… a mile to Burger King to eat… and then spend $30 a month to go the health club and run on a treadmill or cycle on a stationary bike for a couple hours a week. Why not just buy a bicycle and use it for those 1-2 mile short trips? Then you kill two birds with one stone. You’re getting legitimate exercise and getting whatever errand done at the same time. Not to mention you’re saving wear & tear on your car and saving in gas money since that’s the point in time when a car is least efficient. I could sit here for an hour extolling the virtues of the bicycle over the car, but I won’t waste the space. Just suffice it to say that with the reduced stress (no waiting in traffic, people cutting me off, road rage) and extra cash (no gas, insurance, maintenance, car payments, etc), I’m a much happier person and that’s what matters most. Honestly, if driving around a 3000lb hunk of metal that sucks gas and money makes you happy, more power to you. To me, the supposed benefits of having a car don’t outweigh all the negatives. Hence, I do not own one and don’t plan on owning one anytime soon… and sorry to burst your bubble but I’m not gonna “get off the road” just so you can get to your destination 2.03 seconds earlier.
Published on Friday, February 11th, 2005 .
Yeah, it was cold tonight on the way home… 26 degrees, wind chill of like 20. Oddly, I had to switch from my thick gloves to my windshredder gloves (thinner, but block the wind well) because I was generating so much heat from riding. I actually was somewhat sweating most of the way home, too. I had a balaclava covering my head keeping most of my face and ears warm, so really the only thing that actually got cold was my feet. I forgot my shoe covers to keep the wind off them and keep my feet somewhat warm. I think part of the problem is that I’m riding clipless pedals which have a metal cleat on the bottom that contacts with the metal pedal. Therefore, all my foot heat is going right out the bottom of my shoes through all that metal. My feet didn’t actually go numb, they were just colder than shit. Thankfully it’s supposed to be decent the rest of the week.
As of tonight, my odometer is at 880.8. I think I’ll be able to reach my goal of 1000 miles by the end of this month. There’s no special reason why I want to do it.. I just think it’s nice to set goals on occasion. Seems like the more I ride, the more I enjoy it… Not to mention riding @ 4am is great because I basically get the road to myself and don’t have to worry about traffic or anything. People look at me like I’m fucking nuts but I don’t mind. I just wish the weather would hurry up and warm up. I’ll enjoy riding even more once it’s like 70 at 3am. Then again, when that time comes around I’ll REALLY be churning out the miles because I’ll have a full blown road bike and I’ll be in better shape. I’ll end up taking the long way home just to put in extra miles and stuff. Ahh, damn I can’t wait!
Published on Thursday, February 10th, 2005 .
Jesus CHRIST what the fuck is up with our weather… 60 degrees yesterday, 35 and snow flurries when I left for work today. You’ve gotta be kidding me, right? Tennessee’s weather is the worst. As I write this, the weather.com website says 31 degrees, feels like 22. 10mph winds, gusting @ 22mph. It was SIXTY FUCKING DEGREES yesterday! How in the hell does this happen? So yeah, it’s no wonder everyone has fucked up sinuses here. Alas, I get to cycle home in 25 degree weather tonight. Amusingly I’ll probably end up soaked in sweat by the time I get home because I tend to overdress for the temperature. I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow because it’s payday… It’s supposed to be 46 for a high, so that’s tolerable to ride in. I’m just ready for the 65-75 degree weather. That’s the kind of weather I like, especially when it’s 70 at night. That’s fun to ride in. Anyway, I’m at work and don’t have much else interesting to contribute.
Published on Tuesday, February 8th, 2005 .
So yeah, I bought myself a Bluetake BT400 G3 and it finally arrived today. I have to say I like the idea of it, but it doesn’t fit my ear worth a shit. I have enormous ears and the ear loop on this thing is really shallow. I can still hear fine out of it but unfortunately the mic is so close to the earpiece and there’s such a huge gap that everyone that talks to me gets a wicked echo. I think it’s because the mic is picking up what’s coming out of the earpiece and feeding it back through in a loop. I don’t hear an echo on my end but they most definitely do on theirs. The shitty thing is that if I decide to return it, I’ll end up having to pay a 15% restocking fee just to get a different model. I guess I’ll just end up finding someone to buy this thing and ordering another one or something. 15% of $60 is like $9 plus I’ll have to pay to have it shipped back. Figure $15 all told. I’ll have to contact the company I ordered from and see if they can work something out. I’ve heard their customer service is really good and from what I’ve seen so far, I believe it. They had a special for free shipping and I put in the comments section that I’d prefer fedex. They actually emailed me back within 30 minutes saying they couldn’t do fedex and that they only had daily UPS pickups. Anyway, so it took a week to get here and I’m far from happy with it. Sound quality is about average, nothing special but not horrible at all. Needless to say, it’s pointless to have a headset that makes people not want to talk to me because they can hear themselves talking in their own phone. For the record I ordered from BT Boutique and can’t fault them one bit. They’ve been quite helpful as it is. We’ll see how they respond to my complaint.
Published on Saturday, February 5th, 2005 .
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but Wizzy Noise is fucking amazing. They’re a goa/psy trance band from Greece and they just plain kick ass. First off, I love electronica of all kinds but I really love the dark and spacy sounding stuff. Wizzy Noise has that down to a T. Generally speaking, their stuff is very well-produced and multi-layered just like I like it. I have most of the stuff they’ve put out so far and I have yet to hear anything I haven’t liked. The song that actually got me hooked on them was “Acid Level 33″, which I heard on Philosomatika. Philosomatika is basically the only goa/psy streaming station I’ve found so far and it’s played a large part in me finding all kinds of new music to download. Nothing like some hard driving goa to go to sleep to. Wizzy Noise’s new CD is called “Stereo Electric” and it’s probably their best one to date. Not to take anything away from their other releases, which are all quite amazing in their own right, but the new one just blew me away. I’ve listened to it a few times here and there but I listened to it while riding home tonight and needless to say, I was amazed. Every single track on the CD is phenomenal and the flow from track to track is excellent. I have to say it’d make great exercise/workout music since it’s so upbeat and hard-driving. It’s kind of a shame that they’re one of the few really good goa acts left that are still putting out grade-A music these days. Infected Mushroom was one of my favorites but their last couple of releases have been quite lackluster to say the least. I’m not saying that every goa/psy artist should sound like them by any stretch of the imagination; that would make the genre incredibly boring. However, I would like to see more releases of the same quality that Wizzy Noise has been putting out the past few years. So much for the best psytrance coming out of Israel! Israel has nothing on Greece in this case, that’s for sure. Now… if only these guys would come to the US within a reasonable distance of me. I’d absolutely jump at the chance to see them live. Oh, well… such is life.
On a side note, I’m loving my 6mbit cable upgrade. I’m downloading Sun Solaris 10 ISO’s @ 750KB/sec. That makes really short work of 500MB downloads to say the least. The 768kbit upstream isn’t too shabby either! Sending files to friends takes half the time and people who download off my on soulseek get stuff a lot more quickly too. Gotta love Comcast and their constant speed upgrades. In just about a year and a half I’ve gone from 256/1500 to 256/3000 to 384/4000 ($10 extra) and now to 768/6000 for that same $10 extra. The base package is now 384/4000 by default which utterly smokes anything else available in my area. Knology is still stuck at 256/3000 and Bellsouth is stuck at their three-tiered system of 128/256 (lite), 256/1500 (Ultra), and 384/3000 (Xtreme)… The only thing BS DSL offers over Comcast is a static IP. No big deal, I just use DynDNS to solve that problem. 
Comcast owns when it comes to speed… ’nuff said!
