Tag Archives: ramblings

Getting off

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One more year and I’ll have my diploma. I’ll be free to do whatever I want with it, even burn it if I feel like it. Not that I plan to do that. Although, I have considered the option.
Unfortunately, that would just piss some people off — my parents, for example. But the thing is – I don’t really need a diploma. I have knowledge. And I got that knowledge by reading, working, messing around with computers, with software, by learning from other people on and off the net — by doing stuff in real-world situations. And it seems like I need a diploma from some third-grade "school" to prove it. I don’t. I don’t plan to work for anyone but myself. But… You never know what kind of shitty old chocolate you may find in that box, so you better be carrying guns. Or a diploma. Get it if you can. Knowledge is power, especially if it’s certified. Nerd power.

A comforting thought: life sucks even if you’re a billionaire.

Mr. Nenad "16×16" Jalsovec ".org" of Counterclockwise fame is one of the few sad, little people who have applied for some public ass-kicking in the beginning of 2008. And paid a small entrance fee for it. I’m, of course, talking about the IGF – Independent Gaming Festival, and this very paragraph’s first sentence is what people refer to as sarcasm. It’s that kind of a day today, so please bear with me.
While Nenad is crunching the numbers code, I’m learning how to fart working on the sound effects and music, but it’s all still very messy at the moment. The game is addictively playable and very kick-assy old-school in a way and it’s gonna be universally awesome. This is, of course, a hyperbolic statement – but truthful, nevertheless. You’ll get a chance to play it yourself in a couple weeks, anyway.

No new music from me. I’ve had no inspiration lately. I hope this year will go by and be forgotten as fast as the new "Bionic woman" will should be.

Love, peace, beer, no kids.

This is Dexter I’ve got a 2 month old kitten with me. I named him Dexter. Quite appropriately, I must say, as it’s a flesh-eating killer cat. I’ve got worse scars on me than Amy Winehouse had after she got in a fight with her own husband last month (or maybe it was back in September?). But I like him. I freaking love this allovermycables-peeing little piece of fur. But I’m sadly aware of the fact that I’ll have to find him a new home soon. I’m one of those ever-worrying freak-people. Unfortunately. Fingers crossed for a great new home for little Dexter? Yes, please :)

Also: I’ve played Half-life 2 Episode 2 and I liked it a lot. I’m going to play Portal over the weekend, it looks promising. I still have Minerva to finish (very cool).

Have a great weekend, y’all.

No, I never thought I’d write these words…

Posted on in News

Ahem. Dear diary or something. Yesterday was a very special day. I’ve created a myspace page.

And if that’s not bad enough, I even uploaded a work-in-progress track to that same…page. An exclusive.

Anyway, enough with the whining and guilt-tripping — it’s there, go take a look, listen to the new unfinished track titled "A thousand sunsets across the universe", write a comment. I thought it’s better if I do it myself than to wait for some impostor to steal my identity, lol :-D

I’m freaking out because of the inevitable exams, my mother is planning her retirement next year, gotta sort out my life and stuff. Earn a living. Yes, my parents still support me financially and I’m eternally thankful, but it’s not exactly the greatest feeling in the world. I’ll be 28 in April, God…

I’ve got exam in telecommunications in 7 hours and 45 minutes. Wish me luck.

To Aesqe’s myspace page!

The “What I want” moment in my own little history

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So, without further ado, here’s a list of stuff I’d (really) like to own (not necessarily sorted by their level of hotness):

  1. Nintendo Wii and a bunch of games for it
  2. 4GB Pro Duo Memory stick
  3. Rode NT4 stereo microphone
  4. Zoom H4 portable stereo recorder
  5. Canon XL-H1 HD digital camcorder
  6. Sony PCM-D1 portable stereo recorder
  7. a stable but lightweight microphone stand
  8. new hard disk (preferably SATA, 160GB or more)
  9. new scanner
  10. new printer (preferably Canon Pixma iP4300 or better, one that can print on CDs)
  11. new pair of jeans (ahem, I’ve got ONE good pair and… well, after wearing it for over 2 years, do I even have to explain?)
  12. fat and warm sneakers for the winter (I know, I know :) )
  13. Wacom Cintiq or a tablet PC (ahh, the freedom…)
  14. a real concert piano (and a big room)
  15. 23″ Apple Cinema Display (or a Samsung in that size and quality range)
  16. HD LCD TV with HDMI (preferably 32″ or more)
  17. a top of the line DSLR camera with wide lenses
  18. a mobile phone that can handle 500 or more SMS’s (without slowing its operation when opening Inbox)
  19. a DVD/DivX player that has no problem reading files encoded by any possible DivX/XviD version and utilizing “that and that” feature (qpel, gmc, VBR audio, etc.)
  20. my own apartment with a sound-isolated room
  21. mad pd (pure data) skillz and a bunch of MIDI hardware gadgets to play around with
  22. all the other stuff on my Amazon wishlist and plenty of other stuff I can’t think of right now :)

What do you think: how would a world in which everyone has everything they want function? Would it function? Would there still be people who’d be willing to do their jobs so the world doesn’t come to a stop? And how do you even define that kind of world? Is it possible for it to exist?

And I’m still waiting for the snow >:(

ps.: this is something I really don’t need, but it looks waaay too sexy and I had to post at least a link to it: Cantar-X by Aaton. Why don’t all products look this good? I’d be definitely willing to pay more for a better designed product.

22 days later

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A lot has happened in the past three weeks.

  • In Real Life ™ : I bought an Tascam HD-P2 portable audio recorder (more accurately, it is my parents’ final investment in me). It’s a great piece of hardware, believe me. You can visit Tascam’s website for more info, but here are some of the key features: records up to 192KHz/24bit stereo on Compact Flash cards, 2 XLR mic inputs, 1x stereo line input/1xoutput (cinch), built-in limiter, timecode and video clock input, digital (coax) in/out, firewire, PS/2 keyboard input, can be DC/Firewire/battery (8xAA) powered. I’ve had it for two weeks now, but I’ve done only a couple of tests since I didn’t have a proper microphone to test with. Now I’ve borrowed two Shure’s: SM57 and Prologue 14L and we’ll see how it goes in the next couple of days.
    I’m currently playing keyboards (Korg Polysix, woot!) in a band with a couple of friends and we’ve recorded two of our practicing sessions with those mics linked — it sounds excellent. I’ll try to remember to do a mini-review of HD-P2 soon, since I haven’t found any (reviews) on the net and people seem to be looking for it.
  • Internet-wise, the biggest surprise for me was Blue Security’s announcement that they’re backing out and giving up the battle against spammers. Couple of days ago, they even advised their users to uninstall the Blue Frog software because spammers might try to use it against them. In the end, it all introduces us to a new kid on the block — it seems that P2P networks can be used to fight spam, with Blue Security’s project SourceForged. It’s called Black Frog (aka Okopipi).
  • In the gaming world, there was Nintendo Wii, effortlessly destroying all competition. After the announced name change, all seemed to go uphill for Nintendo — the name got accepted pretty quick, the controller kicks ass in every possible way, there will be plenty of games available for the console at its launch, and it’s going to cost a mere ~$200. People waited for hours at E3 just so they could play with it.
    And what about PS3? The announced $600 (for the premium version) price tag doesn’t look that attractive at first, but if you consider the hardware you’re getting for that money — it’s too cheap, really. A couple of game screenshots that I’ve seen look very promising, the pre-installed Linux is definitely a plus, there’s the Blu-ray drive (who needs HD-DVD anyway?), a 60GB hard disk, Wi-Fi, MS/SD/MMC/CF cards reader, USB, wireless controller (with, err…some motion and tilt sensitivity), nice and easy to use interface (similar to the one on PSP), HDMI, 1080p — it’s a perfect home multimedia system. And also a gaming console. Not such a bad deal after all, huh? That is, unless you live in the U.K. where the price won’t be $600, but £425 (~$800) . And probably €600 anywhere else in Europe. I never understood the laws and taxes in these cases, but, for example, to me it seems awfully wrong that I could buy a PSP for $195 in Japan almost a year ago, and here in Croatia the price is still over $300.
  • Joan of Arcadia
    That’s just another great show that got canned last year because… I think the reason was that the average age of viewers was — 54? How is that possible? It’s practically a teen show, and one of best educational series I’ve ever seen. So how come the percentage of young people who watched it was so low? I really don’t know, but I think it’s sad.
    Wanna know what else is sad? : “Charmed” is still on air. “OC” too. And many more crappy TV shows. Yes, we all have different tastes so I won’t go on, but JoA was just one of those shows that I thought would last for a while, because it talked about God in a non-religious way, it wasn’t a catholic/jewish/muslim/buddhist/whatever propaganda, it didn’t force anything — it was simply about choices and faith. And it was good.
  • I’ve watched the pilot episode (“War zone”) of “Crusade” (Babylon 5 sequel from 1999) last night. The series got cancelled even before the whole first season aired in full. And for a good reason: this pilot was probably one of the most embarrassing moments in TV history. I’m a really tolerant person, but I couldn’t force myself to watch another episode.So, that blurb above, I wrote it before reading the following text on series’ IMDB page:
    The show was canceled before it even aired. It was not canceled because it was bad, but because TNT made it bad. They did eventually air it, but totally out of order. If you ignore “War Zone” and watch the other 12, it’s a great show. The show clearly has an arc, and it was about to begin when the show was canceled. Hopefully the SCI-FI channel will pick it up in the future and continue this great series.
    I might give it a chance yet, 6.9 score on IMDB equals to that of Joan of Arcadia. It better be worth it.
  • Deftones are coming to play in Zagreb on June 27th. Oh, it’s going to be a beautiful day and I can hardly wait for it :D Reminder to self: go buy the ticket already.
    I’ve been listening to Chino’s “Team Sleep” for the past 2-3 days. It seemed a bit “shallow” at first glance, but there’s a couple of tracks that I really began to love. It’s a good one, in the end..
  • Four Eyed Monsters intrigue me. Go pay a visit to their website and watch the video podcasts.
  • I’ve finished reading Bukowski‘s “Notes of a dirty old man“. I loved it.