I totally forgot that my camera's batteries were near dead, so when i whipped it out (excuse me) in front of the Apple Store, and tried to turn it on, it went from near-dead to just-dead. So, no pics from me, but you can check out Jared Smith's BLOG covering it: http://www.jaredwsmith.com/2008/07/26/the-apple-store-opens/.
I forgot about the Farmers' Market on Saturdays and traffic and parking were a bit worse than I planned for, so I didn't get to the store until right at 10 AM. The line stretched almost to the St. Philip's side of Liberty St., but it actually wasn't too bad of a wait.
I actually decided against buying Logic Express, since now I'm contemplating the full-fledged mamma-jamma Logic Studio, which isn't that much more ($500 as opposed to $200), but includes about 10 times as much functionality and whiz-bang. I did pick up iLife '08, mainly for Garageband, and also the keyboard, which I am now using at work. I really like the design of it - quiet, good action, and hair/lint/booger-resistant due to the gap-less keys. Also got a free t-shirt (for the first 1000 customers)!
(rant) Facebook applications: Yeah, it can be okay to keep up with friends, but what's up with all the pointless applications? Maybe I'm just too old-school and crotchety, but I really don't see the value in most of these things. The UI seems much too complicated now - gives me a headache looking at it. The whole "send/receive" function feels like a ping-pong match, except using a [insert virtual object here] instead of a ball. I kinda wish it would go back to the old Facebook (basically a better-designed MySpace).
(rave) Apple Store King Street (!!!): Finally, the day is here - the Mothership has landed. The Apple Store has graced our towne with its holy presence </sarcasm> in the old Cumberland's/Granny's Goodies location (bye-bye hippies/hipsters, hello iYuppies!). It's a bit depressing to witness the final scene in the complete and utter mall-ification of King St., but I think it may get more people down there (see, I'm going).
I'll be there tomorrow morning before it opens (probably around 9:30) - it will probably be a grande nerd scene, so I'm gonna take some pics. I don't know if I'm even gonna buy anything, but I may pick up Logic Express, which I had no idea had so much functionality for pretty cheap ($200). Or maybe I'll just hog a MacBook Pro and check my email like all the other people I've seen do in other Apple Stores.
(++rave) New Tim & Eric on [adultswim]!! Gonna watch it now. Then play some guitar or something.
Since it looks like my MOTU 828 is turning into a MOFO - it's locked up Ableton Live many times lately - I am looking at the bus-powered MOTU Ultralite: http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ultralite/. The 828 lasted a good 8 years or so, so it was bound to happen I suppose.
Of course, my thinkpad (work) doesn't have firewire, but I'll probably still just have it hooked up to my G4 mini at home, until I can afford a real computer (ya know - one that's less than 5 years old). Buying that electric (w/tube amp) and the xbox and TV earlier this year (along with trying to save for a house) has delayed this upgrade. I really would like a macbook pro, but that's a good chunk of a down payment, so no go until after I find one.
Apparently, the software used is OSCulator , which when used with Kyma X, allows a Wiimote to control pretty much any type of MIDI or sound manipulation available on Kyma X.
The bill to make beer that has more than 5% alcohol legal in SC is on the governor's desk and will become law Wednesday at midnight, if he doesn't veto it (all indications point to Sanford supporting this bill).
Everyone ready to start drinking some REALStouts? I think this one (Terrapin Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal stout) is going to be the first one I drink (had it in Atlanta - tasty!).
It just keeps getting better and better!! You do have to love, though, the way every time something like this comes up, nobody ever takes responsibility - the true sign of truly awesome leadership.
"Al Parish, a prominent economics professor at Charleston Southern University (South Carolina) and a flamboyant fixture in the local business community, was accused Thursday of securities fraud by the federal government, which said perhaps tens of millions of dollars are missing."
My grandfather gave all of his grandchildren accounts with this guy for Christmas one year. He and other members of my family had a lot invested with him - at least one of them had their life savings in his "pools". I only hope now that the liquidation of his assets once he's convicted will at least get them most of their principal back. I had a suspicious feeling about him when the annual statements came back as gaining 20% on average, even during the downturn in the last few years.
I never thought though that someone in his position would have done this - he was definitely the most prominent economist in the area, if not the state, he taught at CSU for years, was a regular contributor to finance articles, and in general, a trusted figure. I guess I had this naive idea that college professors are smart. If he were smart, he'd have claimed to have gained 15% a year in his "pools", instead of the (truly) unbelievable 32-40% he was throwing around (my account was not one of these lucky pools). He could have continued his little Ponzi scheme for much longer, as long he got enough new investors coming in. Who knows, if he had used his Doctorate skillz, he might have actually been able to extend it indefinitely. Perhaps he got greedy and spent so much that he couldn't come up with a simple million dollars requested by CSU (one of his big investors, and the one who brought the original complaint to the SEC). If he had only kept a few mil in cash, he could've escaped this round. Smart swindlers don't dig themselves into holes like that, but of course, most criminals are too stupid to succeed in the long run, regardless of their apparent smartitude.
The new My Maps feature enabled this famous diagram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map) to be recreated, which illustrates the right-leaning ("Jesus") states and the rest ("United States of Canada"). Apologies to those who believe that Jesus was actually left-leaning in his teachings (myself included).
Here it is 2 AM - I downloaded the source to Mozilla, and started compiling it about 2 hours ago on my lil' G4 mini. However, at the time I started, the bad-ass line of T-storms was so far off, it didn't even cross my mind that building Firefox would take so long as to compete against Nature's Fury. But it looks like we have a match - the lines of text that keep scrolling don't look like they're letting up anytime soon, and those red-orange lines are getting closer, faster. I could abort, but I kinda feel like cheating death tonight - I have faith in my lil' G4.
I wasn't going to let the people get me down - mainly the millions of people who have stopped watching Lost this season. I was going to ignore the critics saying that Lost's mojo has gone the way of all of the characters besides Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and the others (i.e., where the fuck are they?). I told myself to not be influenced by the opinions - that the show may still be good, but that maybe it's just moving in a slightly different direction and would find its way quickly this season. And of course, I was severely disappointed.
This week's episode was the last straw, even though it is only the 3rd in the 2nd half of the 3rd season. I don't even know why I'm wasting time writing this. But maybe I'm just venting and want to express my medium-anger at the writing and production of what used to be one of the most well-written, creative, and well-produced TV shows ever. It's become a caricature of itself, where the characters seem like cardboard cutouts of their former selves. No drama, no emotion, no interesting dialog, symbolism, or elements of science fiction, and a complete lack of flow and storytelling that defined the first season, and parts of the second. It's like there's an entirely different writing staff than the first season - oh yeah, I forgot - chaodai left in the second season.
I kinda hope it gets canceled, because at least then some of the 3-year old questions that have been nagging (and which have been almost if not totally forgotten) will finally be answered.
For some reason, I've been buying a lot of music lately. I think my brain is tired of being in an acoustic drought for the last few years. So, a list of music I've purchased the last couple of weeks (warning:iTunes Music Store links- figured I'd be consistent, plus the store has good quality samples):
I really hope Europe (and people in the US) read this and become more adamant of the record labels to stop the insanity and let the music be free (as in speech). His points are very hard to dismiss, especially the one about these DRM-loving labels currently selling 90% of their music DRM-free (in the form of CDs). CDs will never go away as long as the only other kind of music available to download legally is DRMed, yet the labels seem to think they will. I hope this statement by Jobs puts more pressure on them. I'm sick of their stupidity.
"Considering the statements by Steve Jobs, the iPhone will be a closed platform, allowing only applications developed by Apple (or their partners) to be installed. Let the Apple Developer Connection know your desire for an iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit), which would enable developers to create apps for this revolutionary platform."
I was deeply disappointed that Steve-o made no mention of the future ability for 3rd-party developers to create kick-ass apps for this thing. He is also stressing the point that this IS NOT a computer, but more like an iPod, where Apple will control what is installed. If this is the strategy that Apple's following, I think a lot of people will be quite angry, and sad. So, if you feel the same way, submit some feedback to the ADC to let them know. DO IT NOW!
Just updated my myspace page - http://myspace.com/dallasvaughanmusic - with some two-thirds-baked electronic stuff, as well as truly awesome Visio-designed cover art. Being an office drone has its benefits.
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mc_hambone's journal
hot.
tired.