The sometimes updated blog of Brendon.
There’s buzz these days on sleep cycles and waking techniques that are increasingly useful to the growing number of sleep deprived/zombified Americans. Let me throw my experience on the subject of sleep into the ring. I’ve become very, very good at falling asleep in the past six months. What is my secret, you ask?
Danny is pondering what path to take on buying a new computer.
I’m not sure how an older dual G4 will compare to a single G4 1.42, but a Mac Mini might be a better investment for a Mac switcher. The higher end Mini is $599 new, plus you’d need to add 1GB of memory. Sometimes stores that have a demos will have them loaded with extra memory, so check the “About this computer” option out under the Apple menu at the top left of the screen. Take the opportunity to mess with the iLife applications in a store and see if the system is fast enough to your liking. If the memory is the ridiculous default 256, make sure you don’t open tons of applications for the test. This is the biggest problem with the stock configuration, 256MB is simply not enough. Other downsides include the fairly weak video performance, and a slower bus. However, the box is possibly the most silent desktop you will ever own. Unless you are really pushing the processor with audio or video editing applications, you barely know it’s on.
Den ganzen Beitrag lesen…
I just wanted to take a minute to brag about the fantastic dinner that was prepared for me last night. Crista had me over to hang out at her apartment, and she even provided dinner. All I had to do was bring the wine. As I’m no sort of connoisseur, I resorted to a bottle of two buck chuck chardonnay. It proved more suitable to our unexperienced tastes than the merlot that we had last time. We also ate some fabulous soy ginger marinated salmon, rice, salad, and asparagus. For those of you that don’t like asparagus, well, I think you’re missing out.
Then, we capped off with dessert. I think if all we’d eaten was dessert, I would have still been a happy man. We started with some semisweet chocolate dipped bananas. Those were pretty good. But then, oh man, it was on to dipped strawberries. I don’t know if there is a more simple pleasure than this. It was the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all week. No hyperbole at all.
So, should you ever be bored and have a hard time eating enough fruit, just keep this in mind. It balances out, right?
After enjoying OSX on a Mac Mini, but realizing it was too slow to work as my main workstation, I upgraded to a 20″ iMac. I looked at dual processor towers, but felt I couldn’t justify the processing power for the price right now. I’m not going to be doing anything rigorous on it right now. I’m just planning to use it for run of the mill internet and photo work. It’s remarkably faster than the Mini, which is not surprising. It’s a G5 vs. G4 processor, plus the bus is at 600mhz rather than 147 or so. I also bumped the memory up an additional 1GB, so it’s not starving at 256MB.
The short of it is, I love it. It’s like having the media functionality I had with windows (actually, it’s better) plus the command line an unix goodness I’m used to on my linux boxes.
OK, so now that I’ve grumbled about turning 30, let me share about some of the great stuff.
First, Crista helped throw together a surprise party for dinner. She picked me up around 9:30 and drove me out to the TGIF by her house. I had no idea until we were practically at the table loaded up with my friends. It was amazing, I almost cried. This is no exaggeration. OK I think I did let a tear escape, so perhaps I should rethink the “almost”. Even my old friend Shane was there. Crista had never even met him previously, so I was especially surprised.
I also am the new owner of an iTrip for my iPod. Now what could I possibly want with one since I already have an inline fm modulator in my car, you ask? OK, you didn’t really ask that, but humor me. Well, I’ve had this itch for a long time that I want a shower radio. But I don’t really want to listen to the radio. I can’t exactly bring my iPod in the shower either. So, now I can get a shower radio, and leave the iPod nearby transmitting on FM. I’m so excited, now I just need to find a radio. I think just about any Target/Circuit City/whatever store has them for about $10, so no sweat. I just wish I had one for tomorrow morning!
So the short of it: 30 wasn’t all bad.
Last night I had a bit of a new, good experience. My girlfriend is performing in a 3 month run of Brigadoon at the local dinner theater, and I went to see opening night. It was funny that in preparing to go, I felt extrememly nervous. It was like I was giving a speech in front of a class, and had all the associated butterflies. But as soon as she came out on stage the first time, those all went away. It’s a pretty interesting experience to see your girlfriend in about 3 layers of skirts and wearing hair extensions (I think it’s actually called a fall).
A surprising element to me is that I even enjoyed the show more than I anticipated. We’d watched the movie together, and both agreed it was pretty weak. But I must admit, I remember smiling and laughing through the evening moreso than any night in recent memory. I’m also glad I finally got to visit the place, it’s something I’ve driven past for as long as I can remember (maybe 20 years?) but never been into.
And best of all, I got to see my girlfriend sing in front of a few hundred people. Unbelievably cool.
