adrian is rad

Watching the Penguins the other night, Mike pointed out that Ryan Malone (USC HS, class of ’98) plays for them now.

It got me thinking. Ryan was on my school bus for many years. Coming back from elementary school, we (the boys, at least) would sing on the bus every afternoon. We only sang two songs: “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” (Righteous Brothers) and “Barbara Ann” (Beach Boys).

I made a static version of my page to see what’s making things so slow.

Tell me which is faster to load:

• static
• dynamic

Or if neither load faster.

Thanks.

I know it’s inevitable that a lot of the members of the 2004 Miracle Red Sox will sign to other teams, even the yankees, but this just sent chills down my spine.

I’ve been thinking that reviews of products that people have used for a while are better than ones where people just got the product and aren’t that familiar with it. This may be the first in a series of “products I use” reviews.

Some of you have probably seen me wearing my shoulder bag around. It’s a Street Scene “Small” bag by Pac Designs.

Background and overview: They’re a Canadian company started by a former Toronto bike messenger. I got the Street Scene Small last August (August 2004) and have been using it extensively since. The most use comes biking 2 miles each way too and from work. Other common uses are as a carry-on bag while traveling and walking to work. My usually load is a Powerbook 12″ laptop (with an InCase Sleeve, though now, I see, they have laptop inserts), a camera, a paperback book or two, two to five CDs in jewel cases, my lunch for the day and various miscellaneous items. I have the left swing blue bag with grey inset diamond and the radio holder option.

I heard about Pac bags from Indy, who has (and can maybe comment on) the Deluxe with a Custom Xiohazard flap.

Pros:

• Rock solid. I’ve had mine for over a year and I don’t see a single thread out of place. It looks basically brand new. I’ve taken this things all around the world (Mexico, London, South Africa, Tanzania, Boston, Pittsburgh) and it really seems like it has just been shipped to me. I have had two clips come off and got a prompt replacement on one; the other one I didn’t use much so I didn’t try to get a replacement.
• Waterproof. A wave hit my bag on a beach while I had two cameras in there. No sign of moisture inside the bag. I’ve walked home in the rain. Similarly, no problems. I haven’t put my bag in the bathtub or anything, but it’s pretty good in my experience.
• Good weight distrubution while cycling. Even with a fairly full load, I hardly feel it while I’m biking to work. This is what these bags were made for (these are messenger bags first and foremost), so it’s good they do this well. It sits nicely on the small of the back/ pelvis.
• Anti-sway strap. I think a lot of shoulder bags have this now, but anti-sway straps are absolutely key if you want to bike with a bag.
• Good for third world traveling. Backpacks are very easily to get pick-pocketed. This bag has two clips and some heavy velcro to open the flap, so it’s too noisy/ difficult to open for pick pockets. I felt a hand on my bag in Tanzania but they didn’t get past the clips even.
• IPod fits in radio holder. I don’t use this as much as I thought I would, but my iPod fits nicely in the radio holder when the holder is fully tightened down. I can even get to the buttons to change volume or skip a track when I’m on the move.

Cons:

• Less than ideal weight distribution while walking. If I have a heavy bag and I’m walking around for hours (like sometimes is the case if I’m sight-seeing), it hurts. One thing I would like to note is that I find I walk with better posture than my normal slouch when I’m walking around wearing the bag.
• X strap and suspension strapping not options for Street Scene. Pac has some neat features for better weight distribution but they are not options for their lower-cost street scene bags.

Overall, I’ve very happy with it. It was about $150 with all the options and whatnot. It’s well worth the price; it’ll last me a lifetime. The price/ use ratio is something to consider if you’re not going to use it for a while or if you aren’t going to use it very often.

Perhaps someday you will be flying a crap airline and they will strand you in Las Vegas when you’re trying to get home for Christmas. Perhaps they will put you up in a hotel (or perhaps they won’t). Perhaps it will already be one in the morning and you don’t want to wait an hour to get your checked luggage. Perhaps that will leave you with only the clothes you have on. Perhaps you will wish to wash your socks and underwear so you don’t have to wear them for many hours on end.

If so, you are in luck. I will tell you what to do.

1. Take off your socks and underwear.
2. Wash them in the sink. I use fairly warm water and shampoo (from the hotel bathroom). You can also use dish detergent, liquid soap or bar soap. If you’re washing many things, I’d recommend filling the sink with warm soapy water, washing all of the items, draining the sink and then rinsing all of them. On the other hand, if you’re just washing socks and underwear, you can just rub the shampoo into the articles directly. Either way, when you’re washing, rub material against itself. This acts much like a washing machine when it aggitates.
3. Rinse the articles.
4. Ring the articles out over the sink.
5. Use a towel to aid in drying. Take out a (preferably extra) towel and put it on a flat surface. Put your articles on one half. Fold the other half of the towel over it. Roll up the towel with your articles inside. Twist the two ends so your ring the water out of your articles and into the towel.
6. Hang your socks and underwear to dry overnight. Door knobs and towel racks work well.
7. In the morning, they should be dry. When clothing, especially cotton clothing, hangs out to dry, it becomes stiff and “crunchy.” Shaking the article vigorously usually makes it feel soft again.
8. If your clothing is not dry in the morning or if you need it to be dry sooner, just use a hair dryer or hand dryer, if one is available. If there’s radiator or heating vent, those also help dry things out faster.

I did my Christmas radio show today. It had all tracks that were Christmas songs, mentioned Christmas, had a titled including the word “Christmas”, by a band called The Christmas, or had a musical quote of a Christmas carol.

Here’s the playlist.

I started with Johnny Cash, the best way to start, then went into a nice wind band Christmas song, then the indie Christmas music, to the Motown/ early R&B Christmas music, and back to the indie before I did a couple “by request” and novelty songs to finish up.

I also managed to put some 30 seconds or so of dead air before the first Sufjan track. You’d think I’d be pretty good at this stuff after being on the radio over three years. Not so!

I also have a special treat for you: the show in mp3 form! Thanks once again to Jesse for hosting it.

Merry Christmas all.

On August 25th, John Vanderslice played on my show on KZSU, I Once was Canadian, and I interviewed him between songs. He’s the nicest guy in indie rock and he’s really interesting to talk to as well. Oh and his acoustic set was fantastic.

Here’s an mp3 from the show:
John Vanderslice Dear Sarah Shu [Live at KZSU]

I really like the version he did acoustic, moreso than the album version by a lot. I apologize for the sound going to only the right channel for about 2 seconds in there. It only happened on this one song but the song happens to be one of my favorite cuts from the show. Smurph was the engineer for the session.

The set and interview were from about 8:05am to 9:05am, so we were both a little bit loopy. What follows is the full text of the interview:

canuck: John, you are among other things, singer, songwriter, musician,
producer, studio owner, I guess…

John Vanderslice: Yeah, I think. [laughing] It sounds like I’m really like on the ball
when you put it like that. Also, I own a Pentax K1000 camera, which I think
that you just had in there.

canuck: Yeah, I do. I have it right here.

JV: I’m a huge fan.

canuck: Yeah, they’re great things. Actually one of my plans is—I don’t
know if I should reveal this to everybody over the air—I’m going to take
a K1000 and a digital camera and make my own digital SLR.

JV: That’s great. Perfect. I think for the money the K1000 is an absolute
steal. Total bargain. Beautiful camera.

(more…)

I’ve upgraded the RAM on my virtual server. Let me know if you notice it being faster. Otherwise, I’ll probably downgrade.

This is probably only a somewhat temporary solution. I’m thinking about changing my server host entirely.

This post could also be titled “a study in lameness.”

The cover song for this week was Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead (Original). The entry in the covers contest is:

• Dave

I tried a few things but nothing worked out when I was recording.

The results for the covers contest #11 voting (the song was Continuous Hit Music by American Analog Set) were:

Best:
Adrian 3
Dave 0
Andy 2

Most Original:
Adrian 3
Dave 0
Andy 1

I’m a big winner! Because only have has an entry for this week, I’m not going to reset the polls.

I’ll announce the song for contest #13 either sometime next week or early 2006.

I scanned a bunch of pictures over the last couple days and put them online.

[Anchovies swimming around quickly in the Monterey Bay Aquarium]

I’ve added a bunch of new albums, including fall colors, Death Valley, DC for my birthday, Monterey, boston. I also added photos to around Menlo Park and Cabo.

A lot of the black and white photos look really grainy, moreso than other photos with the same film. I’m not exactly sure why.

Equipment. Color: Velvia 50, Nikon N70 w/ 28-70mm Sigma f/2.8-4. Black and white: Tri-x 400, Nikon N8008s w/ 28-70mm Sigma f/2.8-4 and 20mm Nikor f/2.8 and Pentax K1000 with 50mm f/2.0.

I was trying to find examples of South Africans talking to play for a coworker and I discovered the International Dialects of English Archive, which has an Accents of South Africa page.

This “heavy accent” sounds like a lot of Afrikaaner women I’ve met or talked to, including the proprieter of The African Hut.

This one is probably my favorite. It’s by an older man who pops his r’s, which I like a lot. I think my granny did that. (The woman in this one practically rolls her r’s. That’s so fun!)

My parents have a fairly weak accent, closest to this one probably, among all of the ones listed.

There are, of course, many recordings from other parts of the world, including many in America. Disappointingly, there aren’t any good recordings of a solid Pittsburgh accent!

You can hear Germans and Irish and English and many other accents (in English) if you click around. It’s pretty interesting stuff.

Pat’s post about the Canon 20D and the following discussion got me thinking about shooting digital photographs as both RAW+JPEG at the same time, which is something I’d read about professional photographers doing.

For a day I couldn’t figure out where it was, then I remembered it was in an article about the Sports Illustrated Super Bowl photography and the tremendous amount of resources they pour into it.

It was tricky searching for it, but I eventually found it. I find this article amazing because no only does it have a human story to it, but it takes you through absolutely every step of getting a photograph from the field to the printing press and exactly what equipment was used at each step. You could recreate a Sports Illustrated Super Bowl photoshoot with the information given; it’s very scientific in that way.