Well, it's been ages since I updated. But enough people have mentioned it to me that I'm finally gonna get off my proverbial ass and jot some things down. I'll never be able to remember all the things I wanted to mention, but I'll hit a few loose points and call it a success at that.
Firstly, we took a mini vacation to Chattanooga. I wasn't super enthusiastic initially, but I ended up having a really nice time. The city is really interesting to wander around in. Very unique and with sections that look very unique to the rest of the city. Kinda like driving around inside the game “City of Heroes.”
We stayed at a relatively decent Days Inn right on main street. Although next time, I think we're gonna spring for a hotel with net access. We've grown so dependent on the net for directions, and venue info that it's very frustrating without it. We stayed for 5 nights, and enjoyed a good bit of the attractiosn the place had to offer. First was the Zoo. While not a large as the Atlanta Zoo, they did have several interesting and rare creatures, and it had a very relaxed and uncluttered feel to it. There were very few visitors at the time, which also made it more enjoyable. It was also relatively inexpensive compared to other zoos.

Then we hit up the Tennesee Aquarium, which was REALLY cool. It's actually separated into 2 large buildings. One is dedicated to river-life, and the other to the oceans. Then there's an outer area with eateries and the like, and an IMAX theater a short sprint away to see their features films on sea-life. Both the sea and river attractions were lovely. We saw countless varieties of fish, sea-mammals, and reptiles. There was even a shark petting tank and a butterfly room. The scenes and large aquariums were breathtaking.


We also visited the Child's Discovery Museum. I really wish we had taken more pictures. The place is really awesome. It shames Atlanta's own Discovery Zone a great deal. There were countless interactive displays for the children to play with. Lots of unique art, and age-specific play areas for all. Emily had an absolute blast, particularly with the roof-top area that featured giant bubbles to blow, and the library-sponsored reading area. I enjoyed the special Charles Schultz exhibit.
We also spent a lot of time at the local park, which was quite beautiful. Well manicured fields, a fountain similar to the Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, and with large air-conditioned glass-walled buildings nearby for eating or riding a carousel. The park overlooks the water, and has a bridge running across one part of it. One time we visited, there was a birthday party going on, and a hippie jam band was playing bongos. They offered Emily Ice Cream and Cake, and she ate and danced about as they played. It's was very relaxing. Also, as opposed to Centennial Park, there was plenty of free parking nearby. And lots of interesting shops and eateries.



The rest of the time, we spent driving about, visiting other minor attractions, like Rock City, and generally relaxing at the hotel. The pool area was open until 10pm, so I would wait until it got nice and overcast, and enjoy a little soaking. There was a great restaurant that delivered steaks and really good seafoods, etc. That was a nice contract the pizzas and chinese I usually eat out at when staying out of town.
I must say that on the whole, the people in the area were exceptionally nice. It was almost startling. Even the pan-handlers were nice and helpful. Go figure. And the drivers seemed far less retarded than the average ATL commuter. They used turn signals and everything. Can you even imagine!?
I've also burned though a couple of MP3 players this month. I finally got sick and tired of burning countless CDs to listen to in the car, and decided it had been far too long since my trusy Diamond Rio player had parted company. I resigned myself to buy a new portable audio player. I took some proceeds from a recent Ebay auction and headed to Wal-Mart. I ended up buying an RCA Lyra RD1028. It is, and this is being nice, a total pile of shit. I initially bought it, because it was inexpensive, and although only sported 128MB of storage, had an SD expansion slot. Having a spare 64MB SD card laying around from Ashley's last camera, I figured it would serve my purposes. But it constantly screwed up during transfers, requiring a reformat. It was slow to respond to controls, and had limited format playback ability. In addition the controls were very stiff, and difficult to manage while driving. It did however have excellent battery life. Customer support was poor however.

It traveled along with me on the Tennesee trip, and put forth a valiant effort, but shortly after returning home, it simply stopped working, and would no longer be recognized by my PC.
So, I decided to upgrade. This time, I went with the slightly more expensive Rio ce2100. This is a hard-drive based model with 2.5GB of storage, and superior feature set. I was thrilled to have it. Considering that Rio crafted the very first consumer MP3 players, I figured I was in good hands. The player itself worked wonderfully, and after a quick firmware update, even worked with subscription services... .. but more about that later. Despite the fact that the player was the very epitome of style (no pics I've seen do it justice), I certainly had my issues with it. Specifically, during a bit of cooking while listening to it, some grease splattered onto me, and in my hurry to get Emily out of the kitchen while I dealt with it, she got tangled in the headphone cord and sent the unit skipping along the floor. And this was the end of the ce2100. While I do miss the enhanced bookmark functions, support for the audible format, and the sweet-ass fade-in/out effect of the screen and it's haunting red-glowing buttons, I think I've done even better.

Ironically, the day after I killed the Rio, a press-release was issued saying that the company was officially dropping out of the DAP market. So perhaps it was a stuck of good fortune the unit perished when it did.
The death of the Rio reminded me why I always preferred flash-based devices to hard drive ones. They are damn-near indestructible. The battery life also is greatly aided by this format. No moving parts means ultimate reliability and greater confidence for (as Eddie Izzard says) running, jumping, and climbing trees. And so began my search for a suitable replacement. I wanted a player that met the shortcomings of the previous devices and offered decent storage and a great feature set with a flash-based system.
After lots of research, I came across a small amount of info on the iRiver T-series of players. These units have enjoyed great success in Korea and the UK, and were soon to be released stateside. The units are very small and have a really impressive group of features for a flash-based player. They also claim (and rightly so it seams) to be the first flash-based players that are compatible with subscription services. So I decided which model I wanted and waited patiently for release. In yet another odd coincidence of timing, Best Buy stores began receiving them a mere 2 days after I first learned of them.

And so I slipped in and purchased a 512MB version of the T10 player. Mere words cannot describe how remarkable bad-assed this thing it. It's got an absurd list of features. Many of which I will never hope to make full use of. I could never list all the excellent features, but I'll hit a few high points. Firstly, the unit is very compact and equally stylish. It features a very beautiful color screen, which although small, easily displays all the pertinent info. It uses standard AA batteries, which is nice, as it avoids the pitfalls of having to ship off the unit for repairs when the battery fails. Ipod owners are very familiar with the non-removable battery flaw. It's also handy when there's no time to recharge, or when you must reset the player to to a lock-up or similar issue. So far I've never had to reset the player, but it's nice to have the option.
It sports a rated battery life of 45 hours, and based on my usage thus far, I think that's a reasonable estimate depending on usage. I've had it for a couple weeks, and have only changed the battery once. It supports WAVE, MP3, OGG, and WMA formats. It comes in both a 1GB and 512 version. I opted for the 512 to save cash. Considering the unit can handle WMA, I simply convert the files from their original format to 64 kbit WMA. Recent implementations of the format can achieve 64 kbit files that sound identical if not better than 128 kbit MP3s. Using 64 kbit WMA allows the player to store around 17 hours of music. It supports the ID3v2 and v1 tag formats. This allows you to not only store the usually artist/song info, but can also be used to store timed lyrics, that scroll along the screen in sync with the currently playing song.
The unit has a very nicely done FM tuner, with 32 presets. This is great on the rare occasions you run out of tunes. It can also record FM broadcast directly to MP3s. This is pretty cool when you hear the awesome enw song, and want to remember it the next time your shopping for music. You can also configure a timer, so that the unit will automatically record a certain station at a certain time for a particular duration. This is handy for grabbing a daily radio show or news program. There's also a good old-fashion alarm clock built into the unit, that will wake you with either stored music or FM radio.
In addition to recording FM broadcasts, it also sports a built-in microphone, allowing you take notes and voice dictation. An external mic or line-in feed can also be supplied to record from external sources. I could see this being a live-music fans best friend.
It has a file browser for navigating music and other files, and can even display pics on the screen. For giggles I keep a pic of Ron Jeremy dressed as Mario on ti to demonstrate this function. It has a number of file play modes, and supports a fully customizable EQ, as well as EQ presets and SRS WOW effects. It has standard features such as physical hold button, A-B repeat. Volume fades, all the usual playback controls, and a auto-bookmarking feature.
The bookmarking feature is well implemented, although not as robust as that on the ce2100. With it, you can have the player automatically remember what track was playing and at what point in the track you were when the device was last powered off or when you switch to record mode or radio. It's similar to when you turn off a car with an in-dash CD player, and it remembers where you were on the disc. This is very handy when you store 17 hours of music, or are listening to audio-books and podcasts. I'd be lsot without this option, although it can be disabled.
The colorful screen gives one all the usual info, and additionally has a screen saver mode that can display a tiny dancing guy, a spectrum analyzer, or an ocilliscope. The eye-candy is a nice touch when listening in bed. The unit uses a standard USB cable, so no proprietary cables will have to be ordered in the future. It's sport-minded design is fantastic and it features a built-in spring-loaded clip for attaching to bags, or belt loops, etc. The player comes with an adjustable arm-band carrier and an adjustable necklace for carrying it, but I generally just snap it onto a belt loop. It makes my recent trips to the exercise room, a lot more enjoyable. ^_^
There are many other options and features, but that's the best bits. Of particular interest to me, is that it support music subscription services. If your not familiar these are services like the new Napster-to-Go that you may have seen advertised recently. With them, instead of buying and downloading individual tracks and albums to keep forever, you pay a monthly fee. This fee gives you access to the ENTIRE library of music the service has. You can download, play, and put onto a portable player, as much or as many tracks as you like at any time. The are full CD-quality files and work just like any other MP3 you may have. But they have specially encoded DRM that makes them stop working if you ever cancel the subscription. It's an ingenious system, and if you like music as much as I do, it's a good idea provided the price is right.
Napster, Rhapsody, MusicMatch, and the like all have a similar pricing structure of about $15 a month. This is a bit much perhaps. However, Yahoo has just recently launched their own subscription service called Yahoo Unlimited. And it costs a mere $5 a month. Personally to me, it's worth what I pay for a single lunch to get limitless new music anytime I want. I've been using the service to the fullest. Yahoo handles their music liscencing differently than the others, and have different music. On the whole, they have mainly the same music, but Yahoo focuses on more obscure stuff in addition tot he mainstream music that Napster specializes in.
The Yahoo service works very well, and flawlessly with the T10. It also has other great features for managing your existing and ever-expanding music library. It can auto generate similar playlist to songs you like, make nice recommendations based on the ratings you've given to songs you like or dislike, and gives you access to over 100 streaming radio stations and custom stations based on your taste. It also has some socialization features that incorporate yahoo Messenger, but since I use Trillian, I can't comment on these features. I strongly recommend any avid music fan to take advantage of their free 7-day trial. For that matter, most the the services offer a similar trial, so if you don't care for Yahoo Unlimited and don't mind paying a little extra, give Napster a go. There's something very liberating about hearing nearly any song you can think of almost instantly, and not having to wade through P2P or run to the music store when you hear an awesome new track and want to add it to your collection.
That aside, I've also been getting into Podcasts. For the uninitiated, a Podcast is like a prerecorded radio show, that you can download and listen to anytime. The files are embedded into RSS feeds, so you subscribe to a show you like, and your application automatically updates it with the newest episodes. I personally listen to about 11 now, ranging form tech shows, to news, to comedy, and music. Of particular note is “Coverville” a bi-weekly radio show that features interesting covers of popular songs.
For getting and managing podcasts, I recommend the program iPodderX. It has the best feature set and is the easiest to use for the novice, I'd expect. And freeware alternative is “iPodder.” Although it is lacking some features. Of course, a podcast directory and aggregator is also now built into newer versions of iTunes.
I should also mention, that during my research, I became enthralled by the iPod Shuffle's function of automatically syncing a set of completely random tracks from your music library. I discovered you can easily do this with any MP3 player by using the Windows Media Player's Auto-Playlist function, or by using the standalone application “iShuffle.” I personally use a program called “Shuffler” to do the same, but it's not as user friendly as “iShuffle.”
On a completely unrelated note, Bob Denver has recently passed away. Most of you will remember him as the titular character from “Gilligan's Island.” I personally really enjoyed his work in everything I saw him in. His goofy Maynard from “Dobbie Gillis” still incites a laugh, and his hapless half-wit personas will warm the hearts of people for generations yet to come. It's a damn shame that Dick Clark is draining the life of everyone to keep himself eternally young, or are “lil' buddy” might not have had to go. Rest in Peace my friend.

I've been using Ebay with a great deal of frequency lately. Eliminating old items form my collection and aquiring new things. I'm really shocked at the variety of goods one can get compared to the last time I seriously checked it out. I've gotten some remarkable deals, and I suggest any Ebay nay-sayers have a browse though it when you have some free time. Having sold items to people around the world has also allowed me to aquire some new knowledge regarding shipping that I think is valuable to have. All in all, Ebay has been quite the learning expirience. Not to mention the profit. Lately I was trying to raise a little extra cash for my wife's birthday, and Ebay thankfully made it easier than I had initially expected. Although, as Tom Petty says, “The waiting is the hardest part.”
Again I'll make another huge topic jump. I want to thank Patrick profusely for not only spending the entire night helping me install an FM Modulator in the car to accomadate the MP3 players, but more importantly, for turning me on to “Uncrustables.” These things are fucking great. Basically it's a small, sealed, round peanut butter & jelly sandwich. They are individually wrapped and frozen. You simply grab a box and toss it int eh fridge and you now have PB&J on-tap. There's something terribly saticfiing about having a sandwich whenever you like without the tedium of actually making it. Ah, instant gratification.... tis the American way.

My gaming has been slow lately, and mostly I've just been tinkering around with Myst 4, and Painkiller, which are both terribly saticfying examples of their respective genres. And I'm eagerly anticipating “Indigo Prophecy” and “City of Villians.” The former is easily one of the more unique games I've seen lately. I doubt I could explain the story in a manner that makes sense, but if a supernatural thriller in which you play both a man losing his sanity and hunted as a killer and the cop hunting him sounds intruiging you'd do well to look into it.
Unfortunately, I think I'll be rather lonely playing “City of Villians.” Despite how bad-assed the game sounds, my friends with PCs and Net connections capable of using it showed little to no interest in it's predecessor. And unfortunately, Ashley is still too taken with “City of Heroes” to be swayed to the darkside at this point. My hope is that I can at least rise to power in the underworlds and make her my arch-nemesis. ^_^
For reasons completely unknown to me, Ashley recently decided we needed a Hamster. She claims it was “for Emily.” But she's full of shit. I can easily tell when she wants something, but is too proud to admit it. But I play along like the good lil husband. SO we started with 2 Hamster, which we were assured where both boys. As it turns out, one of them managed to have a sex-change en route from the pet shop to the house. A few days and a trip later, we have the solo Hamster. Although I don't honestly know how long life with my daughter and wife will permit the lil critter to live. They play.... .rough.
I guess I should also mention that the Magneto expiriment wasn't nearly as impressive as I had initially hoped. He didn't grow nearly enough to meet my expectations. Although during his re-shrinking process, his head and feet seemed to shrink at a rate completely different from the rest of him, giving a delightfully deformed appearance. It seems that Magneto was a Morlock all along. Go figure.


As I said earlier, there's about a million things I wanted ot mention, but this update is taking ages, and my memory blows ass, so I'll leave it at this, and update again soon with anything new, anything I forgot, as well as some new movie, music, and podcast recommendations.