Stayin' Cool

It's real hot here lately. Today I'm staying inside. It feels kind of dumb because it's Saturday and I should be outside because it's summertime. It's just too darn hot and humid for anything outside. Instead I'm inside playing with my new DVD burner. I realized after I installed the thing that the box says I should have a minimum of a Pentium 4, 1.4 GHz processor. I have only half of that. So far it hasn't mattered any though. I burned a couple DVDs without issue. I've used rewritables mostly because I'm not totally confident yet I know what I'm doing and also because I'm not certain some of the material is worthy of a permanently burned DVD.

I found out my DVD player won't play any DVD's I burn....or I should say at least none so far. I'm assuming my player is too old. I probably should have figured on this but I didn't. I got a top of the line Sony DVD player in 1999. I paid like $800 for it. This was back when they had greater numbers of VHS tapes at Blockbuster than DVDs for rent. I remember they'd have 2 or 3 copies of a new release on DVD and you could walk in and get one of them even if it was on a Friday or Saturday. Anyway I figured I'd be OK compatability-wise with my DVD player but so far I haven't been.

Instead of using my Sony DVD player, I figured out I can play my burned DVDs using my Playstation 2. It took a little time figuring out how to connect it to my receiver and get the digital surround sound working but only because I don't normally hook it up that way.
I watched DVD number 1 of 3 of a Led Zeppelin show from Earl's Court in London 1975. I downloaded this set of DVDs from Boot City a while back and now I was finally able to watch some of it. As I watched it I thought about how amazing it was that I had this show to watch in my own living room and about how far technology has come that people can do this. It didn't take much effort on my part.

My New Toys

I got some new toys this week. It's like my birthday but it isn't. Since I've been filling up my hard drives downloading torrents on Boot City and Dime I've needed to buy more drives. This week I got another one plus a DVD burner. I'm up to 5 drives altogether with a combined 920GB of capacity. My 20GB drive that has been in my computer from the start I keep pretty much empty except for Windows. It's getting to be an older drive and I don't trust it much (and especially since I had these issues which thankfully haven't resurfaced). A long while back when I was working at home building a website I picked up a 120GB drive that I thought would last forever. I've since filled up that with digital photos, music, and dumb videos from the internet. More recently I picked up 2 more drives. One has 160GB capacity and the other has 300GB which I use for backups of all the others since CD-R's aren't a practical option anymore. The 300GB drive I use for a backup only and I store it at my work in case my house blows away in a tornado or burns to the ground or something. If I survive at least all the photo's I've taken and all the music I've downloaded won't be gone too.Since I've filled up the 160GB drive too now I got a new drive this week. This one is 320GB which once I formatted it, ends up with about 298GB of usable space. Now I'm shifting my previous backup drive to home which should ease the pressure for a while. Plus I have my other new toy, my DVD burner, so I can archive some things that way if I want to. I got the burner less for backups and more because I've got a few DVD's I've downloaded and I want to burn them.

Colorado

Not long ago I went on vacation to Colorado for about a week and half. I got back July 8. I've been going over about 250 photos I took and assembling some PowerPoint presentations. I make them so I can remember my trip and also because it's an easy way to show my photos and everything about my experiences to my family. I probably spend a great deal more time putting these elaborate presentations together than I need to, but I find the whole creative process making them enjoyable. While I'm making them I reflect on all the places I was and all the things I did. Having more than 200 photos doesn't hurt when it comes to remembering things, but years from now I think I'll be glad I put written text mixed in with my photos into a presentation form. I'll remember more of the details of my experiences that way I think.

Final post about birds......I think.

There are 6 slots total that birds can build nests in above my patio and on the underside of the deck above. Three of the six have had inhabitants who had children and have all since moved on to live somewhere else. If numbered sequentially from left to right the fourth slot now has finches in it and at the same time the fifth slot has robins in it. The robins have 4 babies in one nest. There are 3 for sure and I'm reasonably certain I saw a fourth baby stick his head up one time from the far side of the nest. They don't look much like robins yet. If they're not robins though I can't think of a reason an adult robin would be feeding them. Unless something real spectacular happens I'm going to stop posting about all the bird nest activities and focus on my recent vacation experiences for a while or whatever other random thing comes to mind for a post.

Unidentifiable

I thought perhaps I'd written my last post relating to birds but the other morning I came across a gruesome scene on my back porch/patio. If you've read my blog before you will not be surprised to see that I've taken photos of the scene as it was when I discovered it and I've posted one of them here.I can't tell what kind of bird it was but it appears that only the lower half of it is left. I can only guess what chain of events led to this birds demise. I intend to sweep this into the grass very soon.

My unfinished Rubik's Cube

I bought this Rubik's cube a few years ago while Christmas shopping at a Toys R Us. For a long time I left it on a shelf above my computer desk in its' completed form. Every now and then I'd take it down, mix it up and then finish it up again in a matter of a few minutes, putting all the like colors on each single side of it. More recently I've been leaving it on the shelf all mixed up in its' undone state. This unfinished state is a metaphor for my life. There seems to be a number of things in my life that I have plans for but have not yet started and also things I've begun, but for various reasons have not yet completed. And so for now I leave my cube undone even though I'm capable of completing it anytime I chose to. Every now and then I look at my cube in its' unfinished state and I am reminded and I ponder these other things in my life that are incomplete and unfinished. Things that I'm also perfectly capable of pursuing and seeing through to their end.

Hairballs

Socks coughed up some hairballs today while I was away at work. This time I remembered to take photographs!

After I find these a few times I might not find them so interesting but since I've only had Socks for less than 2 months this is still pretty interesting I think. Maybe I'll try that Petromalt Ms. b suggested.

Don't mess with this kitty

I found this as someone's avatar on the forums at Boot City.

Socks the Cat

Let me formally introduce Socks. He is my cat now. I adopted him from Becky. He just turned 8 years old this month. I'm not sure, but it looks like he's got Arby's on his mind. Either that or I had Arby's for dinner and I have too much time on my hands. It's one of those two things.

You can see where he got his name. He's mostly black but with white on his feet, his frontside and some on his face. He's been (mostly) well behaved since I've had him. I don't allow him go on the kitchen counters or on the dining room table. I've caught him these places once or twice now and he knows he is not supposed be in them. Also, nothing has happened so far, but he's been known to relieve himself in areas other than his litterbox when something is upsetting him. One time I thought I found a turd on the carpet but on closer inspection it turned out only to be a hairball. It was a dark wet and cold mass of hair with puke-ish looking stuff on the carpet around it. I'd never seen a hairball before that one but I'm positive that's what it was. I wish now I'd taken a photo of it but there's always next time I guess. Maybe next time I will take a photo and put it up here.

He likes to watch birds. He sits on the floor at my patio doors or sometimes up on topside of the back of the recliner near the patio doors. He also likes the window sill if I have the window open. I think he sleeps mostly at night or while I'm away, otherwise he mostly sits around or walks in and out of whatever room I might be in.

Since I've had him I don't use my alarm clock anymore. He gets right up in my face as soon as I begin to move around when I first start to wake...even if that's 4:30 in the morning. I don't mind it or I'd shut him out of my room at night. He leaves me alone to doze off again but sometimes he's more persistent. He licks my head which I think is rather weird behavior. Other times he'll paw at the bed right near my head like he's digging for something. One time when I had dozed off again he was bold enough to slap me in the face with his paw. It's a good thing he doesn't have any claws or that could've been bad. At least I know if my house was burning down he'd be able to wake me. Although in the morning I think it's all about the food. I think he just wants me to get up and feed him and that's really it. He eats his whole dish of food right away like a dog would. Any cat I've ever known eats throughout the day and you just fill the dish when it's empty. I think if I kept filling up his dish when it was empty he'd just keep eating it all up. Socks is 12.5 lbs.

Cat and bird

I'm not real sure what's happening with my house finches. The first pair I think is gone along with their 2 baby birds. I think that other pair in the corner nest took over the general area but it's harder to see and I haven't seen them flying in or out so much. Sunday I saw some kind of baby bird sitting near my patio. I think it was a baby robin but I'm not sure. It sat there for a long time chirping loudly every so often in sort of a helpless baby bird way.
I recently adopted Becky's cat Socks. I thought about changing his name to something else but he's already about 8 years old I guess. I have no real reason to do that. Tonight in fact I'm going to buy some cat litter for the first time. Socks likes to watch all the activity with the finches and other birds out in the yard. I think he'll enjoy it when the Sandhill Cranes come back this summer.

Finch Update

This morning I had some time to watch the activities at the nest. There's definitely a baby bird. I think just one. It rises to the edge of the nest and flaps its' wings but does not leave yet. While this young one is being attended to by its' parents there seems to be a new conflict going on between its' parents and a new pair of finches that want to move into a nest the next slot over. I've never seen this other pair until today. These 2 pairs of finches aren't getting along at all. They chase each other out and they flap around in the air like they're fighting. I watched this for about 20 minutes this morning. I'm rooting for the pair with the baby bird. They were there first and they have a young one to look after. Besides that I'm pretty sure they built most of any of the nests that are under any of the slots.

I took some photos but they're not great. You can't see the nest in the corner or the baby bird. The first shows the new pair in the slot on the left and the original female in the slot on the right (with a bit of motion blur). The corner nest is out of view to the left behind the edge of my patio doors.
This second photo has one of the males in mid-air. I'm pretty sure that's the other male on the rain gutter but I can't tell for sure, or which was which male. The original female is on the right in the same slot.

Tragedy

I came home after work today to find a dead house finch lying in the drive directly in front of my garage. I feared the worst, that for sure it was my finch from the nest over my patio. Then I decided to take some photos to document the tragedy. Was that crazy?

After I the photos I picked up the deceased and put her into a paper bag for the garbage. If it was my finch I didn't want it to turn out like this bird. I rushed into the house so I could look out my patio doors at the nest. There wasn't anyone home at first. I checked several times and after about 10 minutes I finally saw both the male and female just like I did this morning. Thankfully the dead one I found wasn't the female from my nest. Still tragic but not quite as much so.

Definitely House Finches

I took this just after I opened my vertical blinds this morning. It's the first I've seen the male in a while. He's the red one. I only managed to get one photo and then they flew away. I'm not sure yet if any baby birds hatched yet. I should open the patio door and take a listen.

Muppet Wiki

Occasionally I wonder whatever I did with all the free time in my life before the internet became what it is today. I had one of these moments of reflection recently after I spent an hour or so looking over details of Muppet characters at this site.

I haven't seen the Muppets in a while or any of the newer movies. I remember when I was younger always hating anything that had to do with Miss Piggy. These were some of my favorite muppet characters.

House Finches

I've concluded the birds building nest above my patio are house finches. I don't see the male as much as I did during the nest building phase but I'm positive that's what is living there.

These are house finches...

MJ and the Gay Dancing Spiderman

I found this on the web someplace recently. It looks like Michael Jackson to me.

I don't remember where I found this spiderman thing but his dancing is pretty fruity looking if you ask me. The background of the site where I found it was probably white. It looks pretty crappy against my dark background.

...just thought I'd share some dumb stuff I've found on the internet.

Edit: After I posted this I discovered that if you click on spiderman it goes to a screen with just that image in it and without my dark background. Gay dancing spiderman as he was always meant to be.

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

One of my favorite TV shows Dr. Katz has made it to DVD. So far only the first season is out. It's a mere 6 episodes but later seasons have more episodes to them and I presume their release on DVD is forthcoming. I used to watch this show all the time when I was in college. When I spotted the DVD on the rack at Best Buy I knew immediately I wasn't leaving the store without one in my bag. The animation style used in Dr. Katz is called squigglevision. Basically even thought the characters are stationary their outlines are constantly undulating and wiggling around. I think I'm going to go watch an episode right now. If I remember right I had a cartoon crush on Laura the receptionist.

Some Dr. Katz related places on the internet I found interesting:

Dr Katz Episode Guide

The Many Faces of Dr. Katz - fan site

A list of Dr. Katz's patients from Jonathan Katz's official site

Horror Movie #3 - Hostel

My third horror movie rental was Hostel (official site here). It was without any doubt the bloodiest of the my 3 rentals. It had more scenes that were disturbing and uncomfortable to watch than my previous 2 horror rentals combined. The plot wasn't great or even very unpredictable but I didn't care about that. The setup is that some traveling backpackers decide to visit a hostel in Slovakia with the intent of satisfying their hedonistic desires. The 3 friends find what they are looking for but also end up getting separated from each other one by one. Where they end up and what happens to them is essentially what makes this a "horror" movie. There are some tense moments but they are mostly brief. The filmmakers always delivered some sort of disturbing outcome.
The most disturbing moment for me was the scene where the girl had her eye hanging out. The main character manages to rescue her from her captor and her torturous death but decides it's best to snip off her eye which was dangling from its' socket by the nerves or something. This was pretty sick stuff. Overall I'd give this movie 3 stars on a five scale. It probably deserves more than that but I watched this a while ago now. It's not fresh in my mind anymore so I've already forgotten a lot about it.

Horror Movie #2 - Wolf Creek

The same night I rented Saw II, I also got Wolf Creek (official site here). Blockbuster had the unrated version which is what I got. I don't even know if they had any other version but it wouldn't have mattered as I would've gotten the unrated one either way. I liked this one much better than Saw II. It wasn't particularly gory I didn't think. More so than in most movies the first third of the movie stood in contrast to the horror that followed it. There was some character development and some events that allowed you to become familiar with the general surroundings. In this movie the location (the Australian outback) played as important a role in the movie as any character. The vast open spaces created an atmosphere of isolation. As I watched the movie develop I knew it was only the setup and that things would inevitably take a turn for the worse. It was a longer setup than probably most movies of this variety. You almost get into a comfortable spot before things turn bad, but when they do, they really do. It's a horror movie and it was pretty horrific. Again, as a whole it wasn't particularly gory I didn't think. The most intense part I thought was when this girl got her fingers cut off. Still I backed it up and watched it a few times. I thought it was a scene that needed some extra attention and a few extra viewings to fully appreciate the gravity of her situation. It wasn't especially graphic the way the showed it. They didn't show it at all really. She was knocked down on the ground and on her back when the guy pulls out a knife (like first photo below). She had her hand up to defend herself I guess and then the next thing you see is some fingers hitting the ground. Then of course there was the aftermath (second photo). She reacted like someone who just had some fingers violently cut off. If that's not horrific I don't know what is. I sat in the comfort of my living room imagining what that would be like to be in her situation. Her life was still very much at stake but yet losing fingers is pretty shocking. How does a person get past that moment where you see your fingers tumbling to the ground, then get up off the ground, get your legs moving and get away from whoever cut them off? Do you pick up your fingers or just run for your life without them?

The terrifying part of the movie wasn't so much blood/guts visuals as it was the surroundings and the events happening to the characters...discovering where they were, who they were with and what he was capable of. The sounds of screams and pleading from that girl being tortured in the shed was amazing. It sounded like such real, genuine and almost unimaginable terror. To watch such movies puts me in an uncomfortable space in my own mind. It's not for everyone I suppose but I like to have that type of experience once in a while...only while sitting "comfortably" in my living room of course. I give Wolf Creek 3-1/2 stars.

Horror Movie #1 - Saw II

I like a good horror movie on occasion. I don't know why but sometimes movies that are mentally or visually disturbing and uncomfortable to watch interest me. The last 3 movies I rented would fall in this category. Probably none of them will go down in history as horror greats but they were definitely disturbing and uncomfortable viewing to varying degrees. The first one and my least favorite of the 3 was Saw II (official site here). The tagline from the trailer was great. "Oh yes, there will be blood". I had higher hopes for it and I was somewhat disappointed overall. The opening scene was great. This guy was led to believe by his captor that he had a key implanted behind his eyeball which would free him from his trap. It's too bad nothing else that happened after that was on a level as disturbing to watch as that was. The guy had a scalpel, a mirror, and a limited amount of time to get the key out from behind his eyeball and unlock himself from his trap before the contraption would slam shut on his head and kill him.



The "surprise" ending was just OK. It set things up for Saw III which I doubt I'll bother with. One thing that didn't make sense to me in Saw II was the peephole/gun trap. This guy gets shot right square in the eye from a gun that was rigged up and pointed into the opposite side of a peephole he was looking into. If he was unknowingly looking down a gun barrel on the other side of the peephole wouldn't it just have been dark? The gun firing was activated by turning a key in a lock on the door. Once they had found a key to unlock the door why would that guy stand there with his eye in a dark peephole where he couldn't see anything?

Still the movie overall wasn't a complete waste. It was not as good as I'd hoped but not worth more than a rental fee and one viewing. I'll post about the other 2 horror flicks I rented as I get to them. I give Saw II, 2-1/2 stars.

Seeders and Leechers

I've been flexing my high speed internet muscles lately and using torrent files to download and share files. If you look you can find a lot of commercially available music and videos out there but there are also a few torrent tracker sites that I've been going to that disallow torrents that contain anything that is available commercially. One such site that I've been using is Bootcity. I've been downloading a bunch of old Led Zeppelin shows that I've wanted for years.

I also use bt.etree.org but not as much so far. If I do this much more I'm going to need another drive to fit all this stuff onto. My 20GB drive has 8 GB free left and my 120GB drive has about 31GB free space. My first computer I ever had, had a hard drive with a capacity of 1-1/2 Gigs. That was about as big as they came on home computers back in '96. It also had 32MB of RAM which was an upgrade I chose from the standard 16MB offering. That's weird to think about. Now I'm downloading torrents that are more than 4GB in size and I have 512MB of RAM. My drives now are mostly filled with tracks I rip from my CDs in order to burn them on mix CDs I make for myself. I've ripped some of the tracks to lossless formats (wav or flac files) and that takes up a lot of space. I think I'm going to start shopping around for a couple of external drives for expansion and for backups. I'm thinking probably 2 drives might be the way to go. I'd probably mirror them and then if one dies the other is a backup. I haven't had a drive crash and burn on me yet but if I can avoid it I'd rather not lose a bunch of files if it ever does happen to me.

Jim the Bird Watcher?

My barn swallows are back. I have a couple of new bird nests again this spring. Last fall I cleared out from above my patio on the underside of the second floor deck, all the nests from the last 2 years. Two summers ago I had barn swallows and if I remember correctly, last summer some sparrows used the same nest but added to it. They might've just finished another one that the barn swallows started but didn't finish...I'm not sure which it was. The spaces where birds always build these nests is over my patio on the underside of the deck above. There are several slots which offer a good place to build.
I think the birds get confused when they are building them because each slot has a little bit of nest in it. Eventually they manage to finish a complete nest and live in one of them. I'm not sure exactly who built what and when but out of 6 slots 5 have at least part of a nest built into them. Two of these nests look fairly complete. I haven't paid very close attention lately but I figured the new nests were built by sparrows again. Earlier today I think I saw the barn swallows again. I couldn't be sure because the glass on my patio doors was dirty. Whatever they were they were not sparrows. I cleaned the glass now and I plan to keep an eye on them to see what they are.

This is a barn swallow.