VBR vs. iPod

I completely forgot to write about one of the biggest problems I was having with the iPod. It seems that the iPod has a problem with certain variable bitrate (VBR) MP3s. If you find that either iTunes or the iPod mis-reports the total track length for a VBR MP3, or that it cuts off a VBR MP3 in the middle of playback, you'll either need to repair its VBR headers with a Windows-only program called VBRFIX or you'll have to re-encode your MP3s. Rather than trying to get a Windows box to do a bunch of crunching on shoddy MP3s, I just decided to re-encode a good portion of my MP3s. I noticed that the MP3s that iPod choked on were ones encoded by N2MP3. So, I went through my entire collection and re-encoded those files. I don't know how many I re-encoded, but it took me the better part of three days. I'm glad I'm done. Eeesh. I'll be glad not to have to do that again.

Hi-Fi

Some time ago, I was lent an old Dual 1229 turntable by Nicole's parents. It served its purpose pretty well for the time it was in service. When I got it, it had no cartridge and was a mess. I took it into Hawthorne Stereo and had them take a look at it. The guy there said that this particular turntable was his first when he was a teenager, 30 some-odd years ago. I asked him if we could get a cartridge for it, and he pulled out a Grado Black cartridge and proceeded to mount it on the Dual's tonearm.

I took it home and played with it a bit and it sounded pretty damn good. I bought a few records here and there and recorded them into the computer. It did well, until a few days ago. Nicole had bought two new records and the old Dual just couldn't play them very well. The left channel was barely working. When it did, it'd be fine for about a minute, and then cut out, leaving only the right channel to do its thing. Finally, we gave in and bought a Numark TT-1600 DJ turntable at Guitar Center up in Lynnwood.

What an improvement. I don't consider myself too knowledgeable about turntables, but putting this one together was a good learning experience. Today, I managed to get the Grado cartridge mounted successfully, replacing the stock Numark cartridge. I don't really hear much difference between the two, but I figured if I paid $40 for the Grado cartridge, I might as well use it.

Thanksgiving was good. We went up to Nicole's grandmother's house on Camano Island. I'm still waiting to hear from my mom or my sister about my sister's forthcoming first child. Any day now....

Merry Christmas to me!

The iPod came today. It's supposedly a refurbished unit, but it's in perfect condition. It's a 5GB iPod, and I'm very happy. I managed to get 786 songs onto it, with 64MB of free space. Not too bad. Now I wait for the PodPac to get here, so I don't have to worry about it getting badly scratched. It looks buff as hell, but I know how badly they scratch (especially the very shiny stainless steel back) and I want to keep mine beautiful.

So far so good with it. Thank you, Nicole :-)

iPod-errific

Just a quick note to say that, hopefully, I'll be getting an iPod. Assuming FedEx doesn't find some way to fuck it up during shipment, it should be here by the time I get home from work tomorrow. Apple was running a special on 5GB refurbished iPods, so I figured I'd snatch one up, on my girlfriend's dime of course. It's her X-mas gift for me...

Sidekickin' it, boyeee!

It's a little too early for a X-Mas presents, but I couldn't wait to get my girlfriend a T-Mobile Sidekick (a.k.a. Danger Hiptop). She's been pining after one since I first showed her the product page and flash demo on Danger's site. I've been pining for it too. It looked pretty damn nice.

So, I let slip with the hints that I was going to get her one, and went into the T-Mobile kiosk at Northgate Mall to pick one up. I'm already a T-Mobile customer, and she has no credit to speak of, so I added it to my account. T-Mobile's running a special where you buy the phone for $250 plus activation plan, and you get a $50 rebate. Get this, the activation plan is super sweet - $40/month gets you all-you-can-eat data and AIM messaging, 200 weekday/1000 weekend minutes, and 1000 outgoing SMS messages. Not bad at all. I pay $30/month and don't have a phone that can do all that her Sidekick can. It's a sweet little device.

There are always going to be some problems, and purchase and use of the Sidekick was no exception. I went to the T-Mobile store right after work, and proceeded to wait for about a half-hour in line as other customers were helped. Once I finally got to talk to someone to tell him I wanted a Sidekick, I explained that I had actually already been in the night before, but the salesperson told me that there weren't any available units. That salesperson told me that all of the units there were returns and hadn't been properly reset for resale. So, the guy that I was telling all of this to looked to see if there were any reset units. There weren't. He asked if I'd wait while he reset the unit, and I said I would. I waited patiently for the next 25 minutes, and then got the Sidekick. Wooo!

But all was not well. I got it home, plugged it in to give it a little charge and then fired it up. What's this? No SIM card? Where is it? Oh yeah, I have it put it in. Doh. Okay, fire it up again, watch the T-Mobile animation as it boots and then wait. A message comes up telling me that I need to register. I choose a new user, and go through with registering this unit with Nicole's standard username. Going good so far....

At the end of the registration, it contacts T-Mobile's servers and then returns an error telling me that the device is already registered! Wha?! There's another option in the registration screen to login using an existing account, so I try that. It's already got a username in there AND it won't let me change it (the box was grayed out). Ugh! I called T-Mobile's support department after looking at their website and they told me I'd have to wait for 24 hours for the unit to be "activated."

The dufus I spoke to also told me that I'd have to first register on T-Mobile's site. Not quite. I tried to register, but whenever I entered in the phone number, it'd tell me that the phone # wasn't recognized. Rather than hassle with their wonderful "Wireless Data Group," I took the phone back to the T-Mobile Kiosk. While there, I saw the salesperson I had talked to the prior night.

After another long wait in line, he helped me out. He got on the phone with the Wireless Data Group people and quickly realized that they weren't going to be of much help for me. He started to reset the phone himself (even though he had never done it before), but stopped when he realized that it'd just be easier to grab a brand new phone (a couple came in a half-hour after I left the store earlier) and try it out with the SIM card I had.

Success. The SIM card from the already registered Sidekick was put into a brand-new factory fresh one and we got it all registered. Hallelujah. Now Nicole would finally have her new toy. When she started playing with it, she was extremely impressed. It allowed her to check e-mail, make phone calls, chat with friends on AIM, surf /., and keep herself occupied during her commutes.

Tragedy, however, struck on the 3rd day of possession. Nicole went to reply to post on /., and the Web browser locked up. She was still able to use all of the other tools on it, but not the Web browser, and after restarting her Sidekick, the browser wouldn't even load.

After looking at a User Guide on T-Mobile's site, we found a very interesting passage about a Recovery Tool that would re-flash the Sidekick. The PDF had links that went nowhere, but luckily, Google found this page with all the info and links to the working recovery tool, and it supports OS X!!!!!!

We ran the recovery tool on the Sidekick, and it gave us an error that said it couldn't flash the device, with a ROM1 code. Shit. Well, we reset the Sidekick, using the instructions the ROM1 code gave, and the damn Sidekick came back up, albeit without any data whatsoever. Here's the brilliant part - all of your data on the Sidekick is automagically backed up to T-Mobile's servers (yes, it could be a privacy risk, but it's a brilliant backup strategy). Once the Sidekick got re-connected to the network, it automatically downloaded all of the backed up data on the T-Mobile servers. Fucking awesome. And the browser started working again!!

Perhaps this weekend we'll re-run the recovery utility, because it might have a newer version of the OS and firmware, but for now the Sidekick is working and Nicole's a happy bunny. I am too.

The Monorail is comin' to Seattle

By an extremely narrow margin, the monorail initiative has passed in Seattle. My hard work the day of the election was worth it:

Seattle Citizen Petiton No. 1, Proposed Monorail Authority

YES? 94787 50.23%

NO? 93919 49.77%

I can now breathe a sigh of relief. Assuming, that is, that the monorail opponents don't go crazy and try to get the results thrown out in court.

Slowly falling down...

Eeeeeek! The monorail's slowly but surely losing its lead. If we keep up this pace, it'll lose, and by a razor-thin margin:

Seattle Citizen Petiton No. 1, Proposed Monorail Authority
YES? 82256 50.18%
NO? 81674 49.82%

This does not bode well for our fair city. We won't get more results until Thursday, and the official results will be certified on the 20th. I can only hope beyond all hope that the precincts left to be counted are pro-monorail rather than anti. 6089 ballots left to be counted. I guess I should start praying.

Seattle really needs to shit or get off the pot. R-51 failed, I-776 passed, and there's no doubt in my mind that this area is in for another 20 years of transportation stagnation. I'm sure that King, Pierce and Snohomish counties are going to attempt to come up with a regional plan for the voters in March, but will it pass? Doubtful, unless it offers more money for public transportation improvements as well as road improvements. And by road improvements, I don't mean new roads. The last thing this area needs is more roads. We need better planning and use of the roads we already have. How about finding a way to increase the I-5 general purpose lanes through downtown Seattle from 4 to 6? How about fixing the Mercer street mess? How about smoothing out some of the older sections of I-5? How about finishing the HOV lanes between Everett and Tacoma!!!

I'm somewhat insulated from the traffic mess around here, as I commute during low-traffic times (4:30am and 2pm). But, occasionally I have to run an errand at 5pm, and no matter where you go in Seattle, it's a madhouse. More people on the road than there should be, and they're either driving big gas-guzzling SUVs, or they're driving alone to work every freaking day. Hey, here's a thought - volunteer to carpool. There are probably other people in your neighborhood who work near you that could also participate.

People love their cars, I get it. I love my car just as much, but you have to make sacrifices for the good of the city, and giving up your car for your daily commute is one of those sacrifices. Enjoy it on your off-hours time. I would do the same, but there's no bus service at 4:30am to downtown, sadly.

Anyway, this rant needs to end somewhere, so I'll end it here.

You may now whine now...

If you didn't vote, shaddup. You aren't allowed to bitch about any of the issues on the ballot this year if you didn't. You know the rules.

Yesterday I volunteered with Rise Above it All's final campaign drive. Since I had a car, I was especially valuable. I spent most of the day poll watching. For those who don't know what that is - basically you have a list of voters that have said they'll vote yes for the monorail, and you compare your list to the rolls at the polling place. Then, you call the people on your list that haven't voted. The idea is to turn them out so that you'll get more of the vote for your cause.

I don't have a problem with checking the polls, but I do have a problem with calling people. I think if I ever volunteer for another campaign that I won't do any phone banking, at all. I can't stand calling people. I felt like a telemarketer the whole time I did it, and I don't like pissing people off, especially the ones who support our campaign.

Probably the one thing I should have done was build signs. Now that's easy. Or, data entry. That's easy (yet tedious), too. But, no more phone banking.

So far, monorail's doing well, but we'll see how it holds up as more absentees come in. I'm bummed that low black voter turnout in the south probably was the reason why the GOP did so well. I can only hope that after the counting's done, a few things are no longer issues:

• I-776 fails
  
• R-51 fails
  
• I-790 fails
  
• R-53 passes
  

Well, I'll just have to keep watching the polls. But, I won't be making any phone calls.

Woo. Money.

It's nice to get paid. After going 20 days between paydays, I finally got paid on Thursday. Things were starting to get a little hairy there, but I'm slowly but surely building up a savings account, like I should be. If I can just keep socking away $100 every paycheck, I'll be better off. And, I'll be better prepared just in case I ever get laid off and I get no severance. Ugh, that'd suck.

Big things happening here in Seattle. The anti-monorailers are still at it, spreading FUD about a system that will only increase mobility for the residents of this city. They should shut the hell up. A lot of the anti-monorail people don't live in Seattle. "Your opinion doesn't count! You can't vote for, or against, it, and you won't pay taxes. Shaddup!" That's what I say. Their cause will fail. Monorail will pass on Tuesday, and finally Seattle will be on its way to a system that will get people above the traffic. I can't wait.

More volunteering at the monorail campaign tomorrow night. I think I'm going to get Tuesday off so I can volunteer even more, watching the polls. We'll see what I can manage. At least I'm not sick like the rest of my co-workers, and I hope I don't get sick. Ugh, that's the last thing I want.