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Month: February 2006
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Read the Freakin’ Manual
I stumbled upon a great feature on the iPod. Hold down on the MENU button and it will toggle the backlight.
Fascinating. I’ve needed this many times in the darkness of the car at night.
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Thank God for Spidey Sense
This morning I went to plug in the iron and knocked the ironing boardwhile bending over.
My spidey sense alerted me to danger and I swung my head out of the way as the hot iron which my roomate just used grazed my ear! I could feel the intense heat as it whizzed by!
Whew, that was close. If I didn’t move out of the way, the thing would have rolled down my back for sure!
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Review: Collective Soul – Home
Ever since C. Soul have created their own label, they are pumping out some great stuff other than their great albums.
Here we have their new live concert DVD – Home. Home has C.Soul playing along with the Atlanta Youth Orchestra for a bunch of tunes.
Mike and I popped this in last night and it started off…weak. We don’t know what to think of the new guitarist. AND, it turns out that they have a new drummer also who really got on my nerves because of the way he held his drumsticks. Then Ed Roland seemed full of himself while prancing around. It didn’t seem natural…it was like an act.
So…all whining aside, after awhile the show grew on the both of us. We realized like any rock show, sometimes it needs some time to gel. We became amazed at some of the songs with the orchestra attached as the fifth instrument of the band…very slick stuff. I was getting chills!
By the end of it, I gave the DVD two thumbs up. Very good show and I’m glad that C.Soul actually has some form of live album out now that I can listen to on the iPod.
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To Mod or not to Mod
As you all I know, I recently purchased a mod chip for my XBox.
After a slew of tests and other things taking me away from my priorities, I sat down yesterday to start the process of tearing apart my XBox and modifying it.
I’m thinking this w0uld take 2-3 hours of my time. I take the motherboard out and follow the instructions very carefully as I am soldering components onto the board and don’t want to screw up.
After a few hours, Mike and I ready to test the guy out. The verdict?
Failure!
Don’t know what’s wrong?! Dang. Could it be a solder point?
After numerous troubleshooting sessions (read: I felt like I was back in school when I fried 7 Altera programmable logic chips) I resorted to the Internet to find the problem. Turns out that the instructions that some gracious gent wrote up forgot a key point to solder onto the motherboard. I apply the solder, plug her in and voila! IT’S ALIVE!
This was around 6:30. Essentially, my entire day was spent troubleshooting this thing. Sigh.
Anyhow, I’ve hit another minor snag where it won’t allow me update the bios with Evolution-X but at that point, I tried a few things, didn’t work and gave up for the night. I figure a fresh start (and perhaps some comments in the comments section from others who know what to do) may help me out.
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Just Give’r
And gave ‘er we did.
Friday night brought Danny and Carol into town for Winterlude. A few pints were drank and the night became a random shaker with a SLEW of people showing up for some impromptu jam session/karaoke, as well as some fun impromptu games (listen people, I don’t own any board games, get over it). We may have recorded such sessions where the highlight was definitely Danny’s harmonica solo!
On Saturday, we ventured out to tour the town…visited one of the Losier’s relatives, then parked downtown and walked around to see the ice sculptures and the canal. Lo and behold, at the ice sculpture park I found Uncle Greg and Aunt Mariette from Peterborough! Very cool to see them as I have not seen them in quite some time. It never fails that I shall see someone I know down at Winterlude.
The night came and we prepped ourselves (aka dragged our asses) around the house until we left for the ever-faithful Heart & Crown. Quite a few people came out for this event and they were not disappointed! Highlights of the H&C night are:
- Some random fight breaking out next to Danny and Carol. Turns out that Mike was in the washroom while this happened and was disappointed that he missed it.
- Finding my cousin Rick in a sea of people. When I arrived I toured around but could not find him. I assumed he went home but I stumbled upon him later in the night. A few beer were had, some scotch also and things were good. He had randomly met up with some classmates from Toronto. Small world.
- Holly thinking that someone looked very rotust. Not robust, but rotust. Hollyisms abound! I actually heard rotusq.
- Living on a Prayer!
- The sweet, sweet Sweet Child o’ Mine guitar solo.
And the award for drunkest person alive goes to: Holly.
The next morning Danny and Carol were off but hit a snag when they realized a can of pop exploded in the van the night before. Bummer.
As for me…what did I do on Sunday? Onto the next blog entry…
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Who’s Da Man?
I’m allowed to gloat on this blog, so I will at this point forward.
I took my French language test (both reading and writing) and scored big time on it. Bonjour, je parle french.
I am stoked. I did better than expected. The results are good for 5 years.
Granted, I made the BARE minimum to get into the levels I did, but at least I know where I stand and I can prepare accordingly in 5 years time when I have to renew them (aka, not a week before the test. It wasn’t my fault! They booked it and gave me a week to study!)
I’m having a good feeling about this upcoming weekend. I’m on a total high right now and all I can think about is Danny and Carol coming over and a few beer being drank. Insert those angels singing, insert good times to be had…heck, the Heart and Crown may have to be in order this weekend.
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Trivia: The Archies
Some random trivia I stumbled upon last night while updating my MP3s.
I came across the song ‘Sugar Sugar’ a hit from 1969 – Billboard Chart #1 with a bullet.
So…the song is by The Archies. No problem, I just need the album artwork for my list and I’m on my way.
What’s this? I find out that The Archies are in fact a fictional band made up of the Archie characters we all love – Betty, Veronica, Archie, Jughead and Reggie! What the heck?! I never knew this! I mean, they appear in the comics all the time, but I thought it was just part of the story!
Turns out that the fictional band made some musical numbers for their animated series (which is stellar by the way. Go watch it!) and Sugar Sugar made it to the top of the Billboard – a first for a fictional band!
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I am a knob.
Mike’s MP3 player is on the fritz. The headphones don’t really work on it. So he’s been looking at getting an iPod.
So, me in my wisdom say “Pass that thing to me, I’ll fix it!” and apply some pressure to the headphone jack. After some wiggling the thing works! Yay!
Then after trying to reposition it, I hear a snap, and the thing goes into the player. Surprisingly, the thing is still working, but my genius self decides to pull out the headphones to see if I can fix it and the piece falls into the void which is the MP3 player.
I feel stupid. I feel bad. I know that he was going to get rid of it anyway in a few weeks, but now he’s out of music for a weeks until he gets an iPod.
Lesson Learned: Don’t let me mess with your stuff.
update: I am loaning him the money to buy an iPod. It’s the least I can do.
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Congrats to Vero…once again!
Congrats go out to Vero who got a role in the play she auditioned for! In other words, she came in FIRST. Yeah! She’s like Rocky!
I have no real idea what this play is about but I have found out that she plays an imaginary friend of someone. Ha! I sometimes wonder if I’m imagining her myself!
I will let you all know when she is performing, although the play is most likely in French. As she reads this I am sure that she will be calling me saying “Whoa, whoa whoa…no one should be invited to this thing!”
My only response is this…public play baby.