2004 October

So This Is What Getting Old Is Like?

I’m definitely getting old, and it is scary. After glancing at my iPod and checking the Most Played songs, I’ve realized I’ve come a long way from the days when I’d listen to White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, and so on. No longer am I heavily into metal and alternative rock, but now into chillout, jazz, rockabilly, and 80’s pop punk. You’ll find in my Most Played playlist The Go Go’s, Zero 7, Blondie, and Brian Setzer Orchestra. Fortunately there is some hope for me, as I also have A Perfect Circle and Sum 41 in there, industrial metal and punk respectively. At least you won’t find any emo … yet.

One way, or another, I’m gonna get younger, younger, younger …

Catchup And Must Arduous

Not much going on with me, I seem to be at a lull in my life or something. I did vote, so there’s that, at least. I was able to get my computer to where I wanted. Although I did lose hours of work when important Windows files got corrupted, and I had to reinstall XP and figure out that I pushed the memory too hard. The problem with being a hardcore PC gamer, is that it’s never enough.

I’ve been listening and enjoying my iPod a lot. I take it everywhere with me, and I especially enjoy it when I’m cutting up vegetables and cooking meals. Don’t worry, I’ve never cut myself, don’t suspect I ever will. I’m a gamer, remember? Hand-eye coordination up the wazoo over here. If the iPod was water-proof, I’d take it in the shower with me. That way I’d have an excuse to sing the Kung Fu Fighting song, complete with authentic ninja jump kick (thank goodness for rubber mats.)

Speaking of the iPod, the roommate got her’s the other day and so far she’s loving it. It ain’t her grandma’s transistor radio, that’s for sure. That freeipods.com deal really worked out nice.

Firefox Browser On Fire

CNet News reports that Firefox aims for 10 percent of Web surfers, as the momentum of the browser’s popularity picks up phenomenally.

He said he is confident of hitting this goal because interest in the browser has been accelerating over the last few months. He said this momentum can be seen in the increasing number of downloads for each version of Firefox: Version 0.8 was downloaded 3.3 million times in four months; 0.9 was downloaded 6.5 million times in three months; and the pre-release version was downloaded 5 million times in just one month.

Of course you probably already know I’m really big on the browser, and think it’s the best thing we have available today for browsing. Check it out at getfirefox.com if you haven’t yet.

New System Set Up And Running

The parts I ordered from NewEgg.com, which is the best online store to shop at for computer and electronics, had arrived Thursday. Since then, I’ve been benchmarking and overclocking my system over the weekends. I have been able to overclock my processor substantially. A $200 deal gave me $600 speed without having to pay the $400 difference.

The beauty of this, not only am I going to be able to play the upcoming Half-Life 2 spectacularly, but all my current games run so much better. For example, a favorite game of mine, Rome: Total War, was a total stutterfest at high details, on the old system. Now on the new, faster system, I can play everything with the highest details and with no stutter at all, whatsoever. It brought a tear to my eye.

More details in this forum thread at 3DGPU.

Pop Goes The World

Remember that song Men Without Hats did, called The Safety Dance? Goofy little new wave tune that was popular in the 80’s? Well one time my roommate comes home and she was excited. She said she heard a really cool rap song that she actually liked on the radio. Now here’s a person who doesn’t know squat about rap, except that it’s a lot of rhyming and drums. She didn’t know the name of it, so she sang a few lines from the song.

To my horror, this “rap” song turned out to be The Safety Dance. You can imagine I nearly died of laughter that day. iTunes, playing on random, played the song from my collection, and I about died from laughter again. Two close calls.

Stop Wasting My Time

Have you ever talked to someone, and they have that canned interest voice?

“So they donated thousands of dollars to the …”
“Uh huh … wow, that’s great! Yea … uh huh … really? That is really cool …”

Why don’t you just tell me you’re not interested, or you’re too busy instead of feigning interest and wasting my time?

My dad does this all the time, and I do mean all the time. He’s always busy, and when he’s not, he’ll try to be busy. He called and as I was explaining something to him, he did that to me. 5 minutes later after I finished talking to him, I tried to share some good news to my roommate, and she did the exact same thing. What am I, a robot? I wish people would stop wasting my time.

Vegetarian French Bread Pizza

For more recipes, visit my site, Wikipes

I have to cook for two people that won’t eat pork, any cow product (dairy, beef, etc.), or shellfish. So I have to come up with ways to make everyone happy when putting together a meal. Today I decided to do something new, and make a homemade French bread pizza. Here’s the ingredients required:

• Large French bread
• Goat Cheese (crumbled)
• 1 large vine ripe tomato
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic (minced)
• Ground basil and thyme
• Extra virgin olive oil

Cut off the top of the French bread, making sure you’re an inch from the top all across the bread. Save the top and cut in quarters and make garlic bread with them, if you want. Take a brush (any soft bristle paint brush will work) and spread olive oil across the sides and outer edge of the bread. Spread tomato sauce on the top, making sure to keep the edges clear, about 1cm. Sprinkle the thyme and basil lightly on top of the tomato sauce.

Slice the vine ripe tomato into thin slices and spread on top of the sauce, making sure it overlaps with each other a little bit. Take half (1 clove) of the garlic and sprinkle over the sliced tomatoes. Arrange the green and red bell peppers however you want on top. Then sprinkle the crumbled goat cheese across the whole thing, once again making sure the edge is clear. Now add the other clove of minced garlic on top. Lightly sprinkle some olive oil over everything.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit. Put the pizza on a cookie sheet with foil, and lift the foil so that it forms a wall on both side of the pizza. Put in the oven and let it cook for approximately 10-12 minutes, or until you see the goat cheese start to lightly brown around the edges. Slice with a pizza roller into quarters and serve immediately. Goes well with ice cold Pepsi in frosted glasses.

You can see the final result here, and below:

Click to enlarge