Tweets for Today

• 13:53 Goals for the weekend: buy new tires; sell stuff on eBay; hang art/posters/pictures #

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Tweets for Today

• 01:44 Hit the Octopus Project show with C, Sarah & Brian. Got a parking ticket. FUCK YOU CITY OF HOUSTON, I WILL EXACT FINANCIAL RESTITUTION. #
• 01:44 OP were the best I've seen them. Lots of energy, lots of fun. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:11 I think Pitchfork nailed their review of the new Verve: twurl.nl/brfbem #
• 12:23 Hmm... Food Fighters' *Colour and the Shape* on Rock Band 2? I love that album, and it seems like perfect RB fodder: twurl.nl/xdm24o #
• 12:40 Hmm... Foo Fighters' *Colour and the Shape* on Rock Band 2? I love that album, and it seems like perfect RB fodder: twurl.nl/xdm24o #
• 12:51 Today is beer tasting day, the happiest day of the month. #
• 15:24 New Airport Express ordered to complete my super sexy ad hoc multi-room music system. #
• 19:58 Canned beer night. 1) Pearl beer with rice paper-wrapped spam and 96 tears habanero hot sauce. #
• 20:11 2) Lone star with in-bag bison chili frito pie. #
• 20:29 3) Shiner can with Ramen salad, Shiner-rubbed cheddar, and watermelon wedge. #
• 20:30 Nice thing about tonight, whole cans, not just samples. #
• 21:07 4) Southern Star Pine Belt Pale with chicken fried steak over pink potatoes, beats, turnips with green chile gravy. #
• 21:26 5) Steam Engine Lager with mexican car bomb, mexican brownie, pink whipped cream, and trix cereal. #
• 21:28 Self preservation instinct is low tonight. Bring it, bitch! #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:53 Finally, exciting shows scheduled for Houston. Lots of music the next three months. #
• 12:00 September: Silver Jews, Spiritualized (though that's ACL weekend), Okkervil River (ACL aftershow). #
• 12:02 October: Walkmen, Cat Power, Girl Talk, Ben Folds, Magnolia Electric Co. #
• 12:02 October will be awesome. #
• 12:03 November: Deerhoof, Of Montreal. #
• 12:03 So nice to have shows to look forward to again. Please don't ever neglect me like this again, music. #
• 15:38 Lunch at Methodist with C, Katie, & Allen, then meeting with collaborators, some phone calls, now trip to on-site bank. #
• 15:40 Compared to sitting at my computer all day, this qualifies as a busy day. #
• 19:36 Audio gear I lust after: 1) NHT Xd active digital speakers; 2) Benchmark DAC1 USB... #
• 19:40 ...3) headphone amp (not sure which: Ray Samuels or Headroom), 4) Ultimate Ears UE10 Pro; 5) electrostatic speakers (Magnepan?). #
• 02:05 Salad-ish concoctions I have made this week: tomatoes & peaches with cliantro, chile powder, lemon juice, olive oil. #
• 02:06 2) shredded carrots and dates with jalapeños, cumin, mint, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil. #
• 02:07 3) tomatoes, corn, avocado with jalapeño (fresh, smoked, and pickled), cilantro, oregano, garlic, lime juice, and olive oil. #
• 02:41 If this info on iPhone 3G problems and the 2.0.2 firmward is accurate, very interesting: twurl.nl/usj7pq #
• 02:43 Squeezebox boombox is kind of ugly. Would this happen if Logitech hadn't bought Slim? twurl.nl/71qkfg #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:59 World, do not fuck with me today. This is your only warning. #
• 12:00 2 hours of potential work or positive goofing off gone, thanks to a useless meeting. #
• 12:18 I miss the days when you could walk into an Apple store and talk to someone at the genius bar without an appointment. #
• 12:48 Pitchfork doesn't like new Bloc Party: twurl.nl/3h5wf0 Maybe I'm intrigued enough by the sound to overlook weaknesses in song wri ... #
• 16:01 Spent the day putting some totally unnecessary data together to prove my boss wrong. #
• 17:50 Like the new High Places album. Very similar to their EPs. Electronic, sort of glitchy, but soft and warm rather than pulsing and cold. #
• 17:55 Also, have decided that Tom Waits' "Raindogs" is superior to "Swordfish Trombone". #
• 18:17 "But in any situation with long love, I don't think it ever really goes away fully. You just sort of learn where to keep it." -Bon Iver #
• 23:28 So, got a new iPhone. We'll see if the battery is better. On the downside, found stuck pixels :-( #

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Practical application of the aforementioned Apple Multi-room Audio System

At this point, I rarely listen to music from traditional physical media (e.g. CDs). In the living room, I have the optical output of my Mac mini hooked up to my hi-fi, and an old Airport Express also hooked up via optical to the system. I used to use my laptop to play either my lossy or lossless iTunes library, streamed to the AX; or, alternatively use the remote controlled Front Row interface of the mini, displayed on my TV, to play music directly on that machine (as well as video...).

However, with the new iTunes remote, I just pick my a library, dial up my music on the iPhone, and have it stream to the AX. Easy and efficient.

By contrast, in the bedroom I have a Logitech SlimDevices Squeezebox 3. As I mentioned, it's a nice little unit. I bought it, for more money than I really wanted to pay, because it would pull music from my other computers, and give me an interface (via the built-in display and traditional remote control) to choose the music and control playback over my bedroom stereo, without having to walk to the living room or have a computer around. As a bonus it makes a nice clock and also displays the weather.

With the new Remote app, though, all of the music functionality could be had through my iPhone and an AX. As mentioned, I could obtain a late model AX for $60, and it looks like the Squeezebox 3 would pull $200 or so on eBay, leaving me with a net profit. As an added bonus I can have the same music playing over both the living room and bedroom hi-fis, see album art on the iPhone, etc. Plus, when I eventually end up somewhere else, more AX units make it cheap and easy to wire up more rooms for sound.

Besides losing a clock and weather display, the potential downside is audio quality. As I mentioned, the Squeezebox likely has a better DAC than the AX. I'd consider accepting that because my bedroom stereo is already a compromise from an audio perspective (assembled, as it was, for $400), and because an inexpensive, stand-alone DAC would probably make up the difference at some unspecified point in the future.

But, ostensibly being a man of science, this question of quality demands further investigation. Was there a measurable difference between the two units? An audible one?

Conveniently, the answer to the first question is readily available. Stereophile has reviewed both the Airport Express and the Squeezebox, and, even better, their reviews frequently include a thorough set of measurements.

Out of Stereophile's measurements of the Squeezebox, the first relevant measurement is in Figure 1, the frequency response. There's a pretty striking rolloff of extreme high and low frequencies, particularly the low ones. The high ones are less important since I'll just become progressively more deaf to them as I age anyway.

Figure 2 is interesting too, showing the difference in volume of a low-level (-90 dB) signal and the noise level of the device (relatively steady at -110, but rising at the higher frequencies.

Perhaps most important is the decoding of a -90 dB 1 kHz sine wave (Figure 5). It's not quite as clean as a state of the art component (cf. Figure 4), but it's got three relatively well defined voltage levels, which, as I understand it, is the truly important thing to look for.

Compare to the Airport Express measurements. Frequency response (Figure 1) is quite flat, definitely better than the Squeezebox. Signal to noise (Figure 2) is better at low frequencies, but slightly worse at high frequencies.

Most interestingly, though, look at Figure 5, the sine wave. Visually, it's downright ugly. and not particularly consistent between cycles, either. So based on the graphs, you'd expect, maybe, that the AX would have more energy in the bass and high treble, but that the Squeezebox would be clearer, overall.

I'm not sure I noticed the former, although that could be a function of a 30-year-old receiver and a (relatively) small 8" subwoofer. The latter, though, I think was apparent.

I hooked both devices up in the bedroom, and it was easy to flip between them with a switch on the receiver, if not particularly convenient, requiring me to move from my listening position. I listened to some National, some Joanna Newsom, and some Ben Folds, and didn't really notice much difference. Both seemed reasonably clear.

But turning to Modest Mouse's "Float On" and Okkervil River's "Black", two favorite test tracks of mine... well, first of all, it seemed that the rendering of the Squeezebox somehow "sucked me in" more. I felt a stronger desire to continue listening, and I enjoyed it more. And, focusing in on a cymbal hit at around 20 seconds in "Black", I think I could hear a definite difference between the devices.

But this was largely an academic excercise. I love the Squeezebox and think it's a wonderful gadget, but the interface lacks a bit compared to the elegance of the iPhone's touch screen, it's pricey for a future multi-room expansion, it requires separate software, and it always is pretty much a hack to get it to integrate properly with iTunes. The Airport Express sounds good enough, in the final analysis, that I think I'll buy one and sell the Squeezebox. And maybe there will be an upgrade down the line, a $200 or so external DAC (which still keeps the total price below the retail of the Squeezebox). That's the nice thing about components with digital outputs—the important thing is that they're convenient and flexible. You can always make them sound better with a better DAC.

Anyway, that got pretty technical, but I think it's fascinating comparing measurements to listening. Hell, I find the measurements in general fascinating. Plus, I still think it's amazing how Apple, with a couple of seemingly unrelated hardware releases, and one seemingly tossed-off software release representing the final peace of the puzzle, makes itself a viable competitor in the multi-room digital audio market at a fraction of the price of other solutions. Apple's not even trying to compete in this segment, and yet they have a very competitive product just by virtue of building a few cool pieces of gear.

Tweets for Today

• 10:00 Monday. Should be a low-key week. Need to do debugging/testing on web server project and write it up for publication. #
• 10:13 Maybe if I star longingly at this list of Hold Steady tour dates, a Houston show will magically appear. #
• 10:43 Sweet. New Apple Aluminum keyboard just showed up. In a box large enough to contain 50 of them. #
• 10:44 Glad I got this thing. Having to press the keys a few extra millimeters was killing me. #
• 14:42 Darren's new version of "Amelia Bright" sounds very "Pet Sounds" to me. #
• 15:26 Listening to the new Verve. It sounds like the Verve, but seems nowhere near the quality of "Urban Hymns". #
• 16:40 Food critic reviews astronaut food: twurl.nl/menl0e #
• 01:33 Went to the Apple Store this evening to see about fixing my iPhone battery issues; couldn't get an appointment. Damn their success... #
• 01:33 Went to Kroger for express purpose of getting cilantro. They were out. Bought other groceries, then went to Randall's for cilantro. Success! #
• 01:33 Cindy came over, we made a peach/tomato salad. Yum. #
• 01:34 iPhone issue is that I'm currently getting about 6 hours of iPod play time per charge, not the promised 24. #
• 01:35 Used to be able to make it to the end of the work day with 60% or 70% charge; now it's 20%. Pretty sure this is not right. #
• 03:04 Listened to the two Ben Folds songs that have leaked so far ("Hiroshima" and "You Don't Know Me"). Cautiously optimistic about the album. #

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Putting the pieces together

I had grand plans for this evening; few of them got accomplished. In particular I had planned to finish up my writeup on last year's trip to New York so that I could get back to catching up on the more "normal" blog entries, which don't take as much time, and tear through those.

Instead, I conducted a bit of an audio experiment, and thought I'd write it up while it's still fresh on my mind. I'll get to that in a minute.

First, a little background on Sonos. Sonos makes several components which comprise a system for wireless playback of music from a computer, distributed to multiple "ZonePlayers", which can act as either a source for an amplifier or powered speakers (ZP 90, $349 each), or a source with a built-in amplifier to drive traditional passive speakers (ZP 120), depending on the model. These units are tied together nicely by a remote control with a color LCD screen and an iPod-ish scroll wheel ($399). I've not used one myself, but apparently they've done a nice job with the interface.

So you take one of the ZP units and wire it up to your home network, and then add additional ZPs to various rooms in your house, and you can have the same thing play in each room, or different music in each room, whatever you like. There's some other cool tricks it can do, like using a subscription to a streaming music service like Rhapsody to play music that's not on your computer. There's some things I consider technical downsides, like the fact that instead of riding your existing wireless network, the units set up their own, but that's just nitpicking.

They seem to be doing a pretty good business, because Logitech's SlimDevices has a new product named SqueezeBox Duet, which comprises a Squeezebox Receiver ($199) analogous to the ZP 90, and a remote control similar to the Sonos unit ($299). If you'll recall, I have one of their $299 Squeezebox 3 units for my bedroom stereo, which similarly plays back music over the network, but includes a rather less advanced (monochrome, relatively low resolution) display on the unit itself, and a regular, screen-less remote. It's a nice little piece of gear, I must admit.

So let's say you wanted to wire up your a existing home theater setup and bedroom stereo for wireless playback from your computer. Going the Sonos route, you'd buy two of their ZP 90s and one remote, for $1100. You could probably bring that down a bit by buying one of their handy bundles.

Alternatively, you could go the SlimDevices route, getting two receivers and one remote for $700, a potentially substantial savings. .

At this point, I'll mention that Apple has a little device called the Airport Express (AX). It's a rather anonymous looking device, not much bigger than most of Apple's laptop power adapters. Its chief function is to act as a wireless router, but it's got two bonus features: it can act as a print server, and, of more interest to me, it can act as a wireless receiver of digital audio transmitted from a copy of iTunes. It retails at $99, or $59 if you grab a clearance last-generation model which lacks 802.11n wireless networking.

So for half the price of the Logitech unit, or just under a third the price of the Sonos, you get fairly similar functionality. You can even have different computers playing over different AX units, or have one computer play over multiple AXes simultaneously. Apple's close to giving you the pieces to make your own Sonos system at a fraction of the price. What you miss out on is the cool remote controls that have nice interfaces and pretty album art. You could use a laptop for this purpose, but it'd be both bulky and expensive.

But with a completely tossed off bit of software for the iPhone/iPod touch, suddenly, Apple has a wireless remote that looks to be the equivalent of the Logitech and Sonos units. It's called, simply, "Remote", and is a free download. The app can browse any iTunes libraries on your network, and play them over the computers themselves or any AXes on the network. So if you already own an iPhone, you get the functionality of the $299 Logitech or $399 Sonos units. If you don't, buy an 8 GB iPod touch for $299 (or $199 refurb if you want to be cheap).

So all of a sudden, Apple offers a system for $500 ($320 if you bargain hunt) that competes with a $700 Logitech setup and a $1100 Sonos setup. Pretty cool for a company that's not really in the hi-fi business.

Speaking of which, there are bound to be some downsides to getting audio out of a device as multipurpose as the AX, and that comes from the fact that it uses a relatively low performance digital-analog converter. But... the AX's analog output doubles as a digital output, letting you take advantage of a better DAC if you have one (and if you have a home theater receiver, you already do).

At this point, you're probably asking, how does this affect you, Ward? Well, I'll get to that in part 2.

Tweets for Today

• 14:04 That should have been "for Anup's 'bachelor' party." iPhone keyboard and tequila don't mix well. #
• 00:41 Went out this afternoon to run errands: get comics, sign up for beer tasting at Rudz. #
• 00:43 Dan &c. were up there, ended up staying for free buffet (30th anniversary), lured Cindy out, &c. #
• 00:44 Came home, read comics. Took nap to shake neck pain. That brings us to the present. #
• 01:11 Calling bullshit on the iPod touch with GPS rumors: assisted GPS needs a constant data connection, as does Google maps. #
• 01:12 Having regular GPS in touch would only be useful with preloaded maps and "regular" GPS, not assisted. #
• 01:12 Otherwise, wifi-based location sensing is probably sufficient... #

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Tweets for Today

• 21:51 Party boat near Kemah got Anup's "bachelor" party. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:39 Xiu Xiu was ok last night. Great drummer. I was a little tired which may have affected my enjoyment. Plus not getting to go to Orange Show. #
• 15:55 Hit the grad school art show. Considering going back for the reception. Working out plans for this evening... #
• 02:53 Hit corkscrew tonight with Char & Alison for wine & cigars, then House of Pies for some late night eats. Now chillin' back at home. #
• 04:41 I like semicolons, but then, I'm a programmer and depend on them for my livelihood: twurl.nl/ewq1t4 #
• 04:44 I think in the last month there has been an exponential increase in the number of people asking me when I will be getting married. #
• 04:44 Can it be just a coincidence? #

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Tweets for Today

• 10:22 Public service announcement: Please refrain using your cell phone in speakerphone mode in public. You look like an ignorant douche bag. #
• 10:22 It's bad enough to have to hear one side of your conversation, let alone hear the other side as some bizarre disembodied voice. #

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Tweets for Today

• 10:24 Nothing of interest to report in my life. #
• 10:25 Dream I had last night: backing out of parents' driveway, hit a pole, pissed off, gunned it, hopped curb into neighbor's yard... #
• 10:25 (dream, cont.): ...and couldn't stop because the grass was wet, so slammed into a bunch of trees. #
• 10:26 I think my subconscious is encouraging me to replace my break pads and tires. #
• 14:07 New Hotel Lights album has "Amelia Bright" on it, which is a song BFF played some right before they broke up. Nice to hear it again. #
• 14:07 Album itself is pleasant if maybe a little...drab? #
• 02:02 Phelps' 12000 calorie diet: twurl.nl/hofakg #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:35 Never do I hate science/my work/my boss more than after these fucking interminable meetings. #
• 12:01 Very disappointed to see the Xiu Xiu show has been moved away from the Orange Show. #

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Tweets for Today

• 10:03 Listened to Travis Morrison Hellfighters and was struck by how much more like Dismemberment Plan it is than his solo Travistan. #
• 10:09 Not that it's brilliant as the last 2 D-plan albums, but there are glimmers. Overall sound is similar. Just falls a bit short. There's hope! #

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Tweets for Today

• 16:06 Missed Lazy Horse at Walter's last night but had beers with Neil & Katie without paying to get in. #
• 16:06 Stopped by Disco Kroger on the way home to buy ice cream ingredients. #
• 16:07 Made avocado ice cream starting about midnight last night. Alton's recipe. Yum. #
• 16:07 Six Feet Under marathon this afternoon. Series finale is on separate disc that we don't have. Dramatic cock tease. #
• 16:07 Now time to get some things done... #
• 16:10 Goals: comics, call parents, garden, read, clean. Not going to all get done. Hmm. Rain. Maybe no gardening today... #

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Tweets for Today

• 17:11 Hit St. Arnold's brewery tour this afternoon for the first time. Nice shindig. #
• 17:13 Currently a quick visit with my Aubt while we're on the NW side, before we head to a nearby pool party @ Tisen's cousin's place. #
• 22:26 Backyard in Austin? #
• 22:30 Back from pool party. Headed up to Walter's for lazy horse. #

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Tweets for Today

• 15:58 Great birthday dinner last night at Ruth's Chris, then beer at Little Woodrow's. #
• 16:04 It's Friday. Decided to break out the AKGs and listen to Ben Folds Five's classic *Whatever & Ever Amen*. #
• 22:34 Hit Washington Star Pizza with C, Tisen, & Scott. #
• 22:35 Now at free warehouse party, BYOB, 2220 Commerce. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:48 Mystery of the fake Ben Folds leak is solved: twurl.nl/nbpghu #
• 12:55 Birthday favors I've done myself so far: slept in, parked in the garage. Next up: lunch? #
• 13:04 Oh, should add that C got me an awesome ice cream maker for my birthday, and that we decided to do Houston Restaurant Week for dinner. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:08 Made a pizza last night; sliced up some leftover meatballs and put them on top. Yum. #
• 12:08 Now, more grant writing... #
• 12:08 And trying to decide what to do tomorrow night for actual birthday. #
• 12:09 Houston Restaurant Week vs. normal restaurant vs. grilling at home? #
• 13:32 Nice writeup on using iPhone/iPod touch + Airport Express + a Mac for a multi-room wireless music system: twurl.nl/pqzi02 #
• 14:30 Tempted to swap my bedroom Squeezebox out for an Airport Express now. And wanting outdoor speakers. #
• 14:30 Realizing I may not be able to make it through the day just doing grant stuff. Might have to context switch to another project. #
• 16:23 Just noticed... "Sadie" sounds like "Cosmia". #
• 17:53 This week's Zero Punctuation has a great retrospective on the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy: twurl.nl/swmskq #
• 17:54 In '06 I was obsessed with PoP, playing through a bargain bin copy of 2, going back and finishing 1, and then picking up 3 for good measure. #
• 17:55 ...before giving up on the last boss. Still I agree with Yahtzee, between the 3 there's a near-perfect game. #
• 17:55 And I'll take the uber-controversial stance that 2, despite nü-metal trappings, was the most fun of the series. #
• 18:44 Going back and checking out TV on the Radio's first LP. Didn't listen much back when it came out. Has potential. #
• 18:46 Also Travis Morrison's debut. Not great but not the 0.0 Pitchfork gave. It has it's own charm but I'd probably skip if not for D Plan cnxn. #
• 18:48 Compared to Dismemberment Plan's brilliance, though, I can certainly empathize with the decision to give it a 0.0. #
• 19:28 Still debating plans for tomorrow night: Houston Restaurant Week vs. cheaper restaurant with friends vs. grilling at home with friends. #
• 01:34 Makes me very thankful C & I have similar tastes: twurl.nl/on1ema #
• 01:35 BTW, happy birthday to me, bitches! #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:32 Figures weren't good enough: all excel objects (legends, labels, titles) had to be recreated in PP for easy manipulation by boss. #
• 11:58 Then he couldn't figure out what figures went with what text; had to label explicitly. #
• 11:58 Then couldn't figure out what text went with what papers, though that should have been blindingly obvious. #
• 11:58 Then had to re-explain the central concepts of my last 3 papers. #
• 13:39 The Holds Steady and Counting Crows, together at last: twurl.nl/ocvvzt #
• 16:18 Haven't acquired much new music lately. Currently working my way through the Tom Waits discs from Win and some backlog. #
• 16:19 Specifically, some Joanna Newsom, Yo La Tengo, Calvin Johnson, Saul Williams, Big Dipper, and M83... #
• 16:22 Listening to Joanna Newsom's Milk Eyed Mender, I remember why I hated her the firs time I gave this a listen. #
• 16:23 Not that it's bad, but it's not easy. Some annoying quirks. Took Van Dyke Parks orchestration to turn me around. #
• 16:37 How did I not know about Gmail's "+" alias feature? That would have been super helpful if I had used it from the start. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:43 Nothing like having text you slaved over for hours completely butchered by somebody who couldn't be bothered to read it. #
• 12:44 The real mystery here is, how does somebody manage to edit my text without actually reading it? Bizarre. #
• 15:17 OK, got that grant text un-butchered. #
• 17:56 I should note that Venture Bros. has been phenomenal this season. #
• 01:13 Lazy evening, early on. Neglected laundry duties. Took a nap. Had some dinner. Etc. #
• 01:15 Went to Boondocks with Cindy to see Neil & Katie's band, Lazy Horse. They're better every time we see them. #
• 01:17 Lenny Briscoe, who I also very much enjoyed. #
• 01:17 Back home. Enjoying a nice selection of cheeses Becca left me for my birthday. Have to got learn how to pick out good cheese. #
• 01:24 Awesome birthday gifts so far: beer and cheese from sister Becca. #
• 01:25 Awesome chef's knife, honing steel, and (eventually), magnetic blade guard from Bryan. #
• 01:25 iTunes gift card from Graham & Angela. #
• 01:25 Tequila, cigars, & Whole Foods gift cards from Char & Alison. #
• 01:26 Probe thermometer & Tom Waits CDs from Win. #
• 01:26 Sharon Jones live show from Greg. #
• 01:26 Oddly morbid Japanese action figures from Jeff & Jim. #
• 01:27 Framed DC Comics stamps from Mom & Dad (and the patio furniture they bought me months ago). #
• 01:31 Nintendo: more endlessly frustrating than Apple. Apple May not enable all the cool things they could... #
• 01:31 ...but they don't actively prevent them to the extent Nintendo does. #

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Tweets for Today

• 02:22 Busy weekend; no time to tweet. Commencing catch up tweets: #
• 02:23 2) Hit Valhalla for the BCM welcome party. Drank free beer. #
• 02:24 3) Went home to await the arrivals of Cindy & Becca. Had leftover pasta and meatballs for dinner. #
• 02:24 4) Drove down to the wilds of Pearland, stopped at HEB for mixers. #
• 02:25 5) Becca got mineral water and lime for "ranch water"; I got grapefruit soda for pelomas; Cindy got Sweat Leaf Tea to go with whiskey... #
• 02:25 Bryan got tonic to go with vodka. #
• 02:26 6) Arrived at Sab's new place, took the tour, made drinks, swam, got kicked in balls by Becca over Clinton/Obama argument. #
• 02:26 7) Grabbed myself in pain. #
• 02:27 8) Started Saturday with Niko Niko's lunch, then shopping at Sam's for party, then preparations. #
• 02:27 9) Awesome birthday party at Hans' which I will have to write up in detail later. Thanks to all who attended. Dreading the bill. #
• 02:28 10) Sunday lunch with Mom, Susan & Jerry, Bryan. Then Berrypop with Bryan. Bryan left. Niko Niko's with Jeff. Six Feet Under with Cindy. #
• 02:28 In summary, great but very busy weekend. Need to recover from it. Apartment needs to recover from it. Wallet needs to recover. #
• 02:28 Need to figure out what to do with my actual birthday on Thursday. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:18 Haircut this afternoon. Working at home until then. No sense paying for parking twice. #
• 15:54 Back at school, working on text for a grant. #
• 15:54 Trying to verbally explain algorithms in a simplifed form is tough. "Dancing about architecture" tough. #
• 16:10 That said, I think I do a pretty good job. Pictures would make it easier. #
• 17:21 Good news about Rock Band 2 for Wii. Looks like I won't have to buy an Xbox 360 after all: twurl.nl/ekjpy4 #
• 19:44 Picked Bryan up from the airport. Horrible traffic. #
• 23:05 Yummy Himalaya for dinner tonight. Proprietor gave us a free dessert! #
• 02:12 I totally called it: twurl.nl/r2vhlt #
• 02:14 Tweeted over 24 hours before: twurl.nl/j2bvdi #

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Tweets for Today

• 18:08 Although I have no doubt that Apple could disable iPhone apps... I don't think this "unauthorizedApps" URL has anything to do with it. #
• 18:08 Considering it's in Core Location, probably has to do with the authorization prompt to allow apps to access your location data. #
• 21:58 Glad to be of assistance. #
• 22:26 Had dinner @ King Biscuit w/ Jim, Tisen, Valeria, C. Next: Pineapple Express. This may prove to be a mistake. #
• 01:27 Pineapple Express: enjoyable in parts, but needed less stoner comedy and more Guy Richie crime movie. #

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Tweets for Today

• 16:40 BCM closed up shop yesterday for the tropical storm. Grabbed my backup hard drive, just in case, and called it a day. #
• 16:40 Hit the grocery store last night. Crowded but not crazy. Strangely, they were out of Roma tomatoes. #
• 16:41 Then Little Woodrow's after Cindy's softball game. Had Lost Goal IPA, Real Ale Rye, and their Brown. Then tried Ruchi's. #
• 16:42 Slept in today. No flooding or damage. Nice relaxing day off :-) #
• 16:42 Just made meatballs with Cindy. Yum. #
• 21:34 Watched some TV, had some coffee, took a walk (!). This is what happens when I have time on my hands. #
• 01:12 Post-walk, watched some 30 Rock and Six Feet Under. Now catching up on the last day or two of reading. #
• 03:54 Birthday party follow-up invitation is sent. Hope I didn't forget anybody. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:45 Ben Folds coming to Houston in October. Also, Girl Talk and Cat Power. Finally, some relief from this musical drought. #
• 13:08 Ah, good. Bottom hasn't fallen out of the used iPhone market. Need to sell soon! #
• 14:14 Listening to Harry Nilsson/John Lennon's Pussy Cats, comparing to the practically not-for-note remake by the Walkmen. High verisimilitude. #

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Tweets for Today

• 13:55 Friday: Had Jimmy (that's a "y", not an "ie") John's for dinner; transcendent. #
• 13:55 Tried Berry Pop with Cindy for yogurt. It was cheaper than and, I think, superior to, Swirll in the village. #
• 13:56 Drinks at Davenport (perfect manhattan, Colorado bulldog, sidecar); harassed by local magician. #
• 13:57 Saturday: Post Office has misplaced a package containing Cindy's birthday present. SERIOUS FAIL. #
• 13:58 Then Mai's for dinner, then back to mi casa, where Win gave me a very nice birthday present of Tom Waits CDs and a probe thermometer. #
• 13:58 Which brings us to today. Win is sleeping; I am internetting. Lunch eventually. #
• 20:42 Win & I hit up Bubba's Texas Burger Shack, which, if I had any doubts before, is officially awesome. #

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Rental car; Harry Potter; Parent meeting; Trip preparations

So much for not hitting the "year behind" mark. Well, shit. Maybe I can knock out a couple posts tonight. I've done a good job of keeping staying on top of my daily reading, so that's one less thing vying for my time, so I'm going to shoot for picking up the pace.

7/23/07

Thanks to out fortune getting the California excursion paid for and getting airline vouchers to take care of our flights to New York, not only could I afford the new iPhone, but also to have some scratchy nastiness on my car fixed.

So, took the car to the good ol' body shop, where they now know and take care of me (this was round 3), and then got a ride to Enterprise to pick up my rental car as paid for by insurance. There was a brief time when I was worried I'd have to drive a PT Cruiser around, but thankfully got a pretty nice little red Nissan Sentra.

The Sentra was my first chance to drive a car with Continuously Variable Transmission. It's a pretty nice system, actually, probably great for most of the driving public. No jerky shifts, etc. It was creepy getting used to it, just because the car kept not shifting (or, rather, kept shipping imperceptibly) when you expected to. The "gearing", such as it was, was not as agressive as I might like, but hell, it's all software, it could easily be tweaked.

Now I just need to try out a dual-clutch system and my tour of new transmission technologies will be complete.

It was a decent little car, I suppose, probably a nice alternative to a Corolla. Didn't drive as well as the Mazda or, say, a Civic, but it was pleasant enough.

I'd passed up being home to receive my copy of the final Harry Potter book to attend the wedding the previous weekend, so Monday evening was my first chance to really dig into the book, so dig I did...

7/24/07

Band practice, then more Harry Potter reading.

7/25/07

During the days of this week, I snuck off several times for "lunch", found a quiet, comfortable spot, and got some Harry Potter reading done.

Picked up an iPhone case to protect my new baby during the new york trip. Dinner and Sopranos after that.

7/26/07

Got at haircut for the wedding. Paul, my stylist, referred to it as "tuxedo hair". It looked good, I have to say.

7/27/07

So, Cindy and I had been dating almost 2 years, and I still hadn't met her parents, who live in town. Of course, that's in keeping with the rest of our relationship. We weren't officially "together" until we'd been dating about 9 months; it was around the 1 year mark that my parents found out she existed, and around the 1.5 mark that they actually met her. We move at a leisurely pace, I suppose, so it wasn't too sad that I was just then meeting them.

We met them for dinner in honor of Cindy's birthday at a Chinese place out west on Bellaire. Food was good; must have been pretty authentic. Thankfully Linn, Cindy's brother who I'd spent some time with, was there. Cindy's parents were very nice to me, but I was surprised by now much of a language barrier there was. I definitely had trouble (and still do) understanding them (and more or less vice versa). But all in all, it was a pretty successful meeting.

7/28/07

Various errands, laundry, and so forth, preparing for our New York trip. I had planned to take Cindy out for a nice dinner for her birthday but she had work to finish up before the trip, so that didn't happen. We did make it to a party at the MFAH and then got some drinks at Rudz afterwards.

7/29/07

Somehow I'd gotten the crazy notion in my head that if I worked hard, my paper could be submitted while I was in New York. Idiocy, in retrospect. But anyway, did that, got packed.

Tweets for Today

• 11:40 That sounds dirty. #

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Tweets for Today

• 14:13 I will never understand why Word insists on turning everything into a hyperlink. #
• 14:31 Still trying to recover my backup drive. Carbon Copy Cloner working much better than SuperDuper was. #
• 16:52 I'll be interested to see how this whole iPhone/NetShare tethering thing shakes out with AT&T. #
• 17:46 Finished off the new Walkmen album today. Less boring than the last one, but not super exciting. #
• 19:35 Thinking Jimmie John's for dinner. #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:13 Was told to eliminate some data from a pie chart. Result will be one 100% slice. Why not just have the figure be a giant #1? #
• 11:14 Science: shamelessly putting personal gain ahead of the advancement of knowledge. #
• 11:16 I'm not actually doing anything unethical here, but this insistence on putting your best foot forward merely obfuscates what's really there. #
• 14:38 Excel's charting "functionality" is conspiring to drive me to violence. #
• 18:18 Like Jurassic Park, if Dinosaurs were used in the production of beer: twurl.nl/4z0xms #
• 18:23 My work backup drive's file system seems to be corrupted, so I had to hunt down a USB drive to back up the backup before reinitializing it. #
• 18:23 Beer tasting tonight! It's like Christmas! #
• 19:25 Livetweeting the beer tasting, if I can tear myself away long enough to follow through. #
• 19:28 St. Arnold's tonight. Lawnmower is first. Weird crowd tonight, not the regulars. Probably because of the brewery being local. #
• 19:40 Lawnmower pretzel with *fucking hot* homemade Lawnmower mustard. Almost knocked me on my ass. Literally. No kidding. #
• 19:44 Lawnmower is straight off the bottling line v #
• 19:47 Round 2 Texas wheat. #
• 19:51 I should specify that was a *soft* pretzel. #
• 20:02 Texas wheat with fried oyster mushroom and salad with pecorino Romano dressing. #
• 20:10 Round 3 is amber. #
• 20:22 Shell peas with smoked pork jowels and cornbread. Yum. #
• 20:42 4. Elissa. #
• 21:05 beer battered tilapia, curry, and homemade red olive chili and habanero hot sauce. #
• 21:08 5: special score: the long-gone limited edition St. Arnold's Divine #6. #
• 21:19 Final course... Are you ready? Sure? #
• 21:20 Sure? Ok. Pecan brittle plus a chocalate chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich, with... #
• 21:21 Bleu cheese ice cream. What kind of "life" was I living before this moment? Wow. Sweet jebus wow. #

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