Rough Draft

2 years old

So, I missed it by a couple weeks, but Feb 13th marked the second full year I've been writing in this blog. As it turns out the first post (a review of a Something Corporate show) is very telling of the content of a large number of posts here.

I definitely plan to continue posting here, however sporadically that may end up being. But especially now that I've graduated from college and don't talk to people as often as I should, this is a good way for me to share what I'm up to with anyone that's interested. It's also a good way for me to introduce people to the music I listen to, and now more recently my NetFlix viewing habits.

iPod in my Civic

Last week I ordered the PIE HON98-AUX and I installed it in my 2004 Honda Civic Saturday afternoon. I originally learned about this accessory from this blog that details installing it in a 2001 Civic. I later found this page with photos of a 2004 Civic install. I ended up using those pictures as guidance, and didn't need to take the head unit out as the instructions for the 2001 Civic described. The entire installation took about an hour and a half. Getting the center console apart was pretty easy. The hard part was finding the right angle to fit my hand up behind the head unit, finding the port I needed to plug the cable into, and then finally getting my hand and the cable up there such that I could actually plug it in. I really thought I was going to end up taking the head unit out, but finally I able to get the cable plugged in.

After the install, I went for a quick drive to give it a listen and everything sounded good. I got clear sound both having the iPod plugged into my firewire cigarette adapter and just running off the iPod battery. I had read quite a few comments on various message boards about people getting static in various situations, but my setup seems pretty static free and sounds great. Now I just need to order the combined USB/Firewire cigarette adapter so I can have either my 3rd Generation iPod or iPod shuffle plugged in.

I took a few pictures of the installation process, and used this as an excuse to finally set up a flickr account. Perhaps this will inspire me to use my camera a bit more. Also, I used Flickr Export to upload directly from iPhoto to Flickr, pretty spiffy.

Songs of the Moment

Haven't really had any music posts for while, so here's a few "singles" I'm currently listening to:

Waiting by Over It
This song is off their soon to be released (March 8) album Silverstrand. Over It and this album in particular highly hyped by AP.net. The album as a whole is quite good, but not "OMG this is amazing". The song Waiting has been stuck in my head for a few days now. It's straight up pop-punk: upbeat and catchy. And what can I say, I'm a sucker for the lyrics. You can download the original version of the song from their PureVolume page.

Save Me by Unwritten Law
This is the first single off their new album, Here's to the Mourning. It's another song with a catchy chorus. The video is pretty cool too (it's animated) and has been getting some play on Fuse lately.

All That I've Got by The Used
First heard this song on the mix CD Mike included with the anime music video DVD he sent me over Christmas. I immediately liked the song then, and now it's become the second single off their album In Love and Death. They've been playing the video on Fuse quite a bit, as they should because it's an awesome video. It's partially animated, and partially the band performing. It follows this kid who is reading a book and he gets sucked into the story and he encounters animated versions of the band members as he tries to find "the end". It's very Alice in Wonderland-esque and one of the cooler videos I've seen in a while.

So Contagiously by Acceptance
Just heard this song today off their upcoming album, Phantoms, and it's my current favorite on the album. It's a bit more mellow than the other songs I've listed.

Ohio is for Lovers by Hawthorne Heights
This is my "screamo" song of the moment. First heard this song on Fuse, and the band is actually from Ohio...Dayton specifically. If I were still at Case, I'd probably go check out their live show.

Congratulations Zach

Congratulations to Zach Braff on winning the 2005 Best First Feature IFP Independent Spirit Award for Garden State! Zach's Garden State Soundtrack also won a Grammy for "Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television, Or Other Visual Media." I highly recommend the movie if you haven't seen it, and you should give the soundtrack a listen too; it's filled with really good songs by really talented bands. Zach has impeccable taste in music, which you can often hear on the song choices for Scrubs, such as last week's episode which ended with Windmills by Glen Phillips.

ReplayTV Upgrade

I bought a 200 GB hard drive from CompUSA today for $70 and installed it in my ReplayTV 5040. The Replay was easy to take apart and the instructions here for using RTVPatch helped a lot. I had an empty Firewire drive enclosure so I just used that rather than bothering with putting the drives in my computer to do the patching. I also didn't bother attempting to back up my mpeg partition with RTVPatch. I just copied a few shows (can you say grocery shopping penguin!) I wanted to keep with DVArchive. I now have 66 hours and 56 minutes of space available at high quality. W00t! Perhaps I'll need to find some new shows to start recording. Any suggestions?

My Legacy Lives On

Hey, I'm pseudo-famous! Thanks to Phil for pointing out my picture on the Case Engineering Home Page. Or if the image happens to change, it's here and a picture of Phil which shows up in the top right is here. I may not be a current student, but as Phil said: "at least it shows actual Case students, rather than stock photos". And it's good to see the day they spent taking pictures in Lego Lab last spring was not a complete waste.