Nutritious Blue Spray

Colin & Mingo have a new podcast. It's our second ever video podcast.

It includes the live performance of "Wearing Plaid (It's a Fad)", a short Thurm clip and Magakrampi & Blanda's new video, "Festival of Light".

You can download the podcast: Maxwell Montes Video Download or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes (etc.): Audio output from Magakrampi & Blanda (this is an RSS feed).

We have also uploaded the Thurm Glupston show from 1988 (in 7 parts) to YouTube. Watch it from the convenience of your own home in glorious Tube-o-vision:

( Watch Thurm... )

Way back in 1988 we did our second live "Thurm Glupston Show"--a show with a fake host, fake guests, and fake commercials. To add to the excitement we had real audience members (i.e., not "plants") call in as though it were all real. They played along quite well.

In this show Thurm (the host) interviews "We'll Save You Man" (in a surprise appearance), Woody B. Green (a man/plant who can change into a plant/man), Kitty Cologne (a astrologist/cosmetologist), and Russ Fink (an "impostor").

( Watch Thurm... )

If this is popular I'll go back and do the first Thurm show as well.

Magakrampi and Blanda have a new video for a track they recorded about a year ago. It's called Festival of Light.

( Watch video... )

Heather recently celebrated her first birthday. We're sharing some videos showing the fun she had at the party.

( Watch videos... )

I keep active archives of video files--both raw footage and also the completed clips.  Well, I should have written that sentence in past tense, because the Western Digital MyBook (500-Gbyte drive in an external USB enclosure) I kept the archive on has failed and will not spin up.  The tell-tale sign of its absolute failure is the Click of Death.

I don't recall exactly how long I've had it but it seems like only a year or so.  I'm not very happy right now because I hadn't made long-term archives of the material on the drives, so at the very least it would be a huge pain to recreate by grabbing the original video again.  Sigh.

I removed the cover and found nothing interesting (obviously) inside.  I put the drive in the freezer (in a plastic bag) for several days (!)--I'm not sure what I was hoping for, but when it came back to room temperature the click was still there.  Banging on the drive also didn't help.  (Of course it should only have hurt!)  I was just trying to get it to spin up once more but it seems that will not occur.

I guess it's finally time to use RAID at home.

Today I cleaned up and photographed my Webster-Chicago Model 80-1 Wire Recorder.  My
what? :)

My daughter is getting to be more fun as she gets older.  She's nearly 8 months old now.  Let's see... she's doing pretty much everything at this point: sitting up, wanting to stand, cruising, eating "solid" food, babbling, and waving "hi" :)  She still loves our long walks/hikes.  Oh, and swimming.  We're going to try to continue doing that over the fall, winter, & spring until outdoor pools are open again.

The fall has brought us some new television shows.  "Doctor Who" series 3 and "Torchwood" are stand-outs.  The subject I used for this post as well as the music I'm listening to are from Doctor Who.  In the episode "The Sound of Drums", the Master gleefully unleashes the Troclafane on Earth with "Voodoo Child" by the Rough Traders playing.  Very nicely done.  Too bad we can't get either of these shows in high-def yet; both the Sci Fi Channel and BBC America are only in standard definition.

The series premier of the "Bionic Woman" remake was marred by some kind of glitch in the way our cable system was retransmitting local HD channels.  They were all experiencing enough drop-outs to make viewing difficult.

Somehow I ended up with two Google accounts and I have some of their services using one and others using the other. I think this happened when I signed up for Gmail. They don't allow account recombination according to what I've read. Sigh.

Last week Heather got more pool time in--both at her paternal grandparents' place (twice!) and once more at the Highland Park pool. She really wants to be a little fish.

My 20th high school reunion was over the weekend--and it was better than I expected. We did not go to the informal Friday event, but there were some people who attended that whom I would have liked to see. We went a little late to the formal event on Sunday because we needed that pool time with Heather :) It was nice seeing folks I had kept in touch with but who live far away. And there were some folks I hadn't seen since high school that it was nice to see as well.

( See videos from 20 years ago... )
Anyway, Heather & I have been on our own for a couple of days again this week and things have gone well. She's had her first taste of (cow's milk) formula and we went through the drive-through car wash. Both fairly uneventful :)

This week more than any other I'm getting a lot of time in with Heather while mommy's not around.  Mommy had to travel for work and will be at work tomorrow & Friday while Heather and I are playing hookey.

Sunday we all three went to the pool where Heather had an awesome time!  She was pretty much doing the back stroke on her own.  Pretty good for a 6.5-month-old!  :)  I'd love to go to the pool with her on one of our upcoming days off but arranging that trip without mommy is a bit daunting.  We'll see.  Other possibilities include the Zoo which might end up being hot and tiring, but somewhat more logistically possible than a trip to the pool

This post is going to just be a list of things we've done recently.  I should be fixing the toilets but...


OK, now I have to fix those toilets :)

Oh yeah..  The userpic for this post is what I look like according to simpsonizeme.com.  :)  (Hmm... I think perhaps my theme doesn't show individual userpics for each post.  I hadn't noticed that before...)

I wrote recently that I upgraded some of my iTunes library to "Plus" format.  Well, here's some follow-up...

First I thought I would be able to use the DRM-free AAC files on my Razr V3xx.  Nope.  It claims they are corrupt.  It probably can only handle files with a lower (than 256 Kbps) bit rate.  Oh well.

More interestingly I found that some tracks that should have been eligible for the upgrade were not upgraded.  These were individual Pink Floyd tracks from "The Wall" and "Wish You Were Here".  After a few go-arounds with Apple support about why the upgrade didn't work for these files, they basically shrugged and offered to buy me the entire Plus-format albums.  I'm not complaining :)

Rudy

So today I took the plunge and updated some of my iTunes library to their new higher-quality (256 Kbps) DRM-free "Plus" versions.  I spent $30 to upgrade 104 songs.  (Whoops, my credit card spending has been outed to my wife when she reads this :)

Sounds pretty good so far.  Now maybe I'll get my own micro-SD card for my Razr V3xx (giving Amy back hers) and keep some music on my phone.  Would I ever listen to it though?  Maybe.  It claims to support AAC format so we'll see...

And I like the fact that iTunes left the metadata alone.  I spent a lot of time making sure the "Year" attributes were set correctly :)

I know I neglect Heather's many admirers here so we'll try to be better about posting.  I've re-connected my mobile phone with Live Journal mobile posting so maybe that will help increase the flow of new material here :)

( Read more... )

Today I stayed home from work to be with Heather. We went for several walks and spent some time in the back yard.

( View a pic of Heather... )

(Posted from camera phone.)

For the first time ever, I cleaned my fountain pen collection today.

Yesterday after work I took Heather out for her inaugural hike in the woods (well, the park).  Yes, it involved the BABYBJÖRN® Baby Carrier.  No, my masculinity is not in question for using this device :)

I originally tried to post this last night but my post was eaten somehow.  It was then that I was listening to Björk's new song "Earth Intruders" (now I'm on the porch listening to someone trying to jumpstart a car... with the sound of chirping birds in the background).  It's kinda odd that my post was (and is) full of umlauts.  :)

Hmm... LJ is being flaky again.  I won't let me post--seems to only preview???  Let me see whether I can fight my way through this...


( Here are some pictures from our hike... )

I know I hardly post.

Sorry about that. Anyway, Amy, Heather & I are having a lot of fun getting to know one another and we have been taking a lot of photos. We're really trying to get photos of Heather when she smiles, but she seems to want to change her smile to a pout when the camera is around :(

( Anyway here are some photos to whet your appetite for more of the same... )

I'm pretty sure I've seen Verizon ads attempting to prevent customers from fleeing to VOIP by reminding them that land-line service is more reliable.

Well...  Sometime during the day on Friday our land line stopped working.  No dial tone.  No battery even.  Checked at the NID.  Verizon's automated repair system told me they couldn't send anyone out until Tuesday--and was quick to remind me that if the problem was on my end there would be a hefty charge.  I talked with a human afterward who confirmed this timeline.  Oh well.  We have ultra call forwarding and two mobile phones so no worries.  Oh, and DSL is on its own line and still works :)

We're past the latest time they were supposed to have looked at the problem so I called them.  The automated system smartly sent my call directly to a human upon noticing that the repair order was overdue.  The apologetic human could only tell me that they have busy technicians out for another hour yet--maybe they would get to us tonight still.  If not--defintely tomorrow at the latest!

Sigh.

Heather is one month (4 weeks) old today.  Her cuteness more than makes up for the lack of sleep she is causing us :)

On Tuesday afternoon I worked from home and took care of Heather while Amy went to an appointment.  It worked out pretty well, but at first she was not willing to play second fiddle to a notebook computer, so my attention was more on her at first than on work tasks :)

I ended up getting to be involved with one of several "firsts" for Heather: this was her first time being fed with a bottle.  She didn't like it much at first, but I think once she got a taste of the milk it wasn't too bad and she was happy after that.  However she continued to have an incredulous look about having her nourishment delivered in that manner :)

The other firsts were: first non-hospital person to hold her, and first non-hospital staff to change her diaper. :)

So one other interesting thing from Tuesday: I had found previously that listening to "classic rock" seemed to help when trying to get her to sleep.  So I had the classic rock music channel (cable) on and when AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" came on, she went to sleep.  It's not the customary lullaby, but it seemed to workin this case!