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February 28, 2002
Currently playing: U2 - With
Currently playing: U2 - With or Without You (Love Will Tear Us Apart)
From NewOrder Online... around the 4:50 mark in the song... ahhhhhh quite lovely...
This essay isn't looking too good though. Back to work, after I reboot my system...
Posted by brian at 01:11 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2002
Currently playing: Chemical Brothers -
Currently playing: Chemical Brothers - Hey Boy, Hey Girl
Wow. Lots of Gallery updates tonight.
First is Theresa's Graduation Party.
Second is Theresa's visit.
Third is President's Day Weekend.
Fourth and final is Anil and Mike's Birthday.
Some really cool pictures of the moon from tonight! picture 1 | picture 2 | picture 3
(thanks Barry for the pics) Moon is near zenith, which according to Alicia is why... clouds cause the refraction which is the ring. Picture 3 dilated for greater visibility and is larger than the other two pictures.
Coupled with the All-Nissan Meet pictures this past weekend as well... and wow, that should keep you busy for a while. =)
Posted by brian at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Counting Crows -
Currently playing: Counting Crows - A Long December
ACA Culture Night was tonight. It was pretty good but had lots of random elements in it. Barry's part of ACA Hip-Hop so I shot that entire section on video. 10 minutes worth = 10 clips on my Fuji Finepix 2800. OUCH! Batteries got pretty hot. =P I'll post them later... back to homework!
Posted by brian at 01:28 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2002
Currently playing: Color Theory -
Currently playing: Color Theory - April's Bonfire
Natural Frequency 2.0 is up. Nice work, Carol! (all I can say for the design is WOW!)
The song above is listed as by "Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Depeche Mode - Exciter" in the filename. Weird. Freakin' Morpheus users...
Posted by brian at 02:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2002
Currently playing: Depeche Mode -
Currently playing: Depeche Mode - Policy of Truth
Studying... so much studying... brain hurts...
Have lots of pics to post, too. No time- spent enough time playing this weekend already. *sigh* Time for some Tylenol, then dinner, then a little more studying. Some classes I enjoy the reading. Not this class. 60 pages takes two hours or more, sometimes more. Catching up on last week's reading and this week's reading, something like 120 pages in three days. Plus another 330 pages by the end of this week. =( No wonder I have a headache, I'm surprised my eyes can focus more than 24" in front of my face!!!!!!!!
Posted by brian at 06:02 PM
Currently playing: Bare Naked Ladies
Currently playing: Bare Naked Ladies - Bare Naked Rap
All Nissan Meet pictures from yesterday, held at Veterans Park in Cypress, CA. Held by SoCal-SERCA, it was apparently very successful... just that by the time I had arrived at 2pm the main festivities were over and the food was gone. Oops! =( Basically there were a whole ton of Sentra SE-R and their SR20DE powered brethen there... a lesser amount of 300ZX's and their brethen, and then a scattering of Maximas, 510s, and other cars for flavor. I showed up, socialized for a bit, took some pics, and left. Good meet, but kinda boring... I gotta go track racing or autocrossing, I'm bored of meets where you sit around and talk. =)
Supposedly over a dozen Maximas and a R33 Skyline GT-R V Spec were there earlier, but they weren't when I got there. A few Spec SE-R race cars were there, too. Very impressive! Several very clean 300ZX's were there too... Unfortunately for the Maximas, nothing impressive. Sorry guys. =þ
BTW, this is the first time I've seen 300ZX's wearing adequate rubber. Mike Kojima had 265/35/18 front, 295/35/18 BF Goodrich T/A KD's on BEAUTIFUL Work wheels... this is vs. Supra owners who run up to 275 and 315's on stock body... but the wheels... DROOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely beautiful.
Oh, comparison of JPEG compression levels, while I'm at it (and because Mike Kojima's 300ZX Twin Turbo is such a beautiful car). Native resolution is 1600x1200, normal quality from a Fuji Finepix 2800, resulting in a 370KB file. 15:1 obviously looks best, but even 25:1 isn't too bad. 30:1 is acceptable, 35:1 and up starts to bug me... but heck even 40:1 is still tolerable!
Resized to 1024x768: 15:1 JPEG 177KB file | 20:1 JPEG 151KB file | 25:1 JPEG 119KB file | 30:1 JPEG 108KB file | 35:1 JPEG 99KB file | 40:1 JPEG 92KB file
Finally, Miyagi's really needs an elevator. More comments on Mike and Anil's birthday later, but Alicia sprained her ankle yesterday and the lack of an elevator had to suck for her!
Posted by brian at 02:53 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2002
Currently playing: The Smiths -
Currently playing: The Smiths - Ask
Before studying, Barry and I had fun with the digital cameras tonight.
That's what a 6x optical zoom on a 1600x1200 shot gets you; a 338x228 image. Yikes! Clearly, I need a telescope. =)
Oh, some older images from my Olympus D-450Zoom. apple blossoms 1 | apple blossoms 2 | apple blossoms 3
As it is I've been studying since midnight... I think my brain is full and needs some sleep to digest all of that information about African exploration from 1500s to 1900. Good think I covered it all before, but my brain is still full...
Posted by brian at 03:32 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2002
Currently playing: One Voice -
Currently playing: One Voice - All Day, All Night
Should I even be admitting to listening to this song? It's terrible but fun, bouncy, and catchy. =) Now... back to laundry and studying...
Posted by brian at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Gloria Gaynor -
Currently playing: Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
IT LIVES!
Only this time it's Barry's PC. His overclocked Celeron (366@550) from summer `99 was dying by summer `01, so we replaced it this last fall with a Celeron 1.1ghz FC-PGA on a slocket. Unfortunately, his old Abit BH6 couldn't handle the power requirements of the new Coppermine core Celeron... so he underclocked it to 733mhz and limped along with periodic system crashes. Windows 2000 installation kept locking up at 4%, but we somehow limped through.
So, when I swapped out this past weekend to an Athlon XP, I sold him my Asus CUSL2-C motherboard... and well, we just spent the last 3 days working on it. After replacing almost every part, we finally traced the problem to a bad stick of ram. (I've been getting a lot of that from my purchases this summer. Grrrr...) He's now running with his Celeron 1.1ghz @ 1.1ghz instead of 733mhz like before. =) We really should have caught the bad ram a lot sooner, since it always failed at or around the 4% mark... but the MB swap, the CPU swap, Erik's system build and my own system build and its problems filled my mind with other problems... doh. 
But it works now, so we're good. 
Busy copying files right now. 10GB over 10mbit ethernet @ 94% network utilization... umm that could take a while. I think I'll go to bed...
Oh. Details of my box will be up later, but it's an MSI K7T-Turbo2, AMD Athlon XP1700+, Adaptec 39160, and some other goodies... =)
Posted by brian at 03:23 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2002
Currently playing: Nelly Furtado -
Currently playing: Nelly Furtado - Turn Off the Light
Debating what to do. Work on my PC some more (knowing I have to work on Barry's more tonight)... study (yes, that's a given unfortunately)... update my website... go buy groceries... or what... it's only 8:30pm too, it's so early, some of my friends aren't even out of class yet!
Tomorrow is a symmetrical Wednesday. As in... at 8:02pm... 20:02, 02/20, 2002. Good excuse to party? =)
Posted by brian at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: DMX - How's
Currently playing: DMX - How's It Goin' Down
Not only was I up way too late last night rebuilding my PC and trying to rebuild Barry's... I think I slept in a funny position, too. I've been dealing with a crick in my neck all day. Ow... I did get out of class early, though; my Geog5 discussion ended early due to combined TA and collective class apathy.
Eeek!! I wonder how many lives my friends and some of my fellow car enthusiasts have... by all rights I've got three or four friends who shouldn't be alive right now, and I know at least that many car enthusiasts who shouldn't be alive right now either... but they are. Be thankful, and be careful on the road!
Posted by brian at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Anything Box -
Currently playing: Anything Box - When We Lie
IT LIVES!!!
Posted by brian at 01:49 AM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2002
Currently playing: Groove Armada -
Currently playing: Groove Armada - My Friend
Ok. New MSI K7T-Turbo2... let's try this again...
Posted by brian at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Erasure - Stay
Currently playing: Erasure - Stay With Me
Freakin' MSI K7T-Turbo Rev3 I had bought from a fellow Ars'er is defective. 
All four diagnostic LEDs are red (vs. 4 green which is healthy), which is possible CPU error. The system powers up fine, my video card diagnostic LEDs are all good... but there's no video output.
As the CPU is brand-new and the motherboard is actually a RMA I purchased, I'm suspecting a dead motherboard. I've tried my components, Barry's components... only variables remaining are MB and CPU. I'm going to see if I can try Erik's t-bird 1.2ghz (vs. my Palamino 1.466ghz) tomorrow to rule out a faulty CPU/unsupported CPU (aka I need a BIOS flash for my Palamino), but I suspect I will be at Fry's bright and early in the morning to buy a new motherboard... spend the afternoon rebuilding my box and rebuilding Barry's box in parallel... then the evening installing software and doing homework. ***sigh*** I had hoped to finish my rebuild tonight, then do Barry's rebuild (with my old MB) nice and quick.
At home, this would be a minor annoyance at best. Multiple PCs, lots of workspace, important spare parts, easy access to all of my parts suppliers (even Fry's, bleh!)... if I have to take one box apart, I've got space to do so and leave it apart until I can get the parts needed to put it back together. Here at school with only one PC and my primary suppliers 300+ miles away, a critical defective part like a motherboard is a pain in the butt.
Just when I thought I had an extra day this weekend to relax... relax?
As wishes and dreams turn to mist... 
Posted by brian at 01:46 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2002
Currently playing: Groove Rider -
Currently playing: Groove Rider - Essential Rewindz CD2- Solid State - 74th Avenue (Total Science Remix)
Blah. Time to study today... then computer rebuilds, I think...
BTW last night's post was from Netscape 6.2. It does some funky stuff to Blogger pages...
Posted by brian at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
Currently watching: Taxicab Confessions Interesting
Currently watching: Taxicab Confessions
Interesting stuff... well in the apartment. Show is pretty retarded this episode. Nick, Nick C, Holly, Pete, and I are here... Erik's being a hermit! =(
Posted by brian at 03:54 AM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2002
Currently playing: U2 - Where
Currently playing: U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
Decisions, decisions... tear apart my PC tonight and perform my upgrade... or go out with my friends (two of whom are currently gaming-distracted) 'cause they have friends visiting from San Diego... Unfortunately, I don't feel like studying like I should be- I need to depressurize from the last week.
Posted by brian at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2002
Currently playing: Utada Hikaru -
Currently playing: Utada Hikaru - First Love
Ugh... roomies are keeping me awake. Why are we spraying for ants at 2am, guys?
This weekend should be a busy one, if I can survive classes tomorrow. As it is 5.5 hours of sleep will be tough enough... 5 hours of sleep could make it a real challenge. =þ Reading, essays, projects, and three computer rebuilds. Erik's almost done with his (t-bird 1.2ghz, Epox 8K7A+ motherboard), while I get to do mine (XP1700, MSI K7T-Turbo-LE, and try my Adaptec 39160 again) and transition some old parts over to Barry (Celeron 1.1ghz, Asus CUSL2-C). If that isn't enough, there's two birthdays (Mike and Anil), 200 pages of reading I should do in advance, and the ongoing apartment hunt. I don't see sleep listed anywhere in there...
Posted by brian at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Smashing Pumpkins -
Currently playing: Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Happy Valentine's Day.
It's a holiday that has had absolutely no significance for me my entire life, yet I feel compelled to mention it. 
Probably because it's everywhere? Oh well, I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that I'm usually not bitter about it-- I just don't care most of the time. =þ
Posted by brian at 02:14 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2002
Currently playing: M:G - Sweet
Currently playing: M:G - Sweet Honesty (Planet Hype Edit)
All nighter + giving blood + no sleep != smart. The sad part, no Chinese New Year dinner, no family. =(
Gotta make do though, despite the fact I haven't slept for more than 20 minutes at a time since, oh, yesterday afternoon... by going to bed as soon as possible, obviously. =) Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!!!
Posted by brian at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2002
Currently playing: Aurora - Ordinary
Currently playing: Aurora - Ordinary World (Acoustic version)
Blah... almost done... brain just doesn't want to work, and my feet are getting cold! Also, someone else woke up before 6am... he's more crazy than I thought! I am left to wonder exactly how crazy my roomies' sleeping schedules are!!!
Posted by brian at 06:40 AM | Comments (1)
Currently playing: U2 - Beautiful
Currently playing: U2 - Beautiful Day
Happy Chinese New Year!
Back to homework. And stalling. =P
Posted by brian at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2002
Currently playing: Erasure - Catch
Currently playing: Erasure - Catch 22
Chinese New Year is tomorrow!
Responsibility needs to be taken more seriously by a lot of people. Time to go work on that midterm. (tonight will be a long night of typing, reading, and caffeine...)
Site is back up. Apologies for the downtime-- approximately 20 hours of downtime due to a disk failure at thewebhost.net where I'm hosted. I'm reuploading any sections that were lost right now; it's only a couple galleries IIRC.
Posted by brian at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2002
Currently playing: Pet Shop Boys
Currently playing: Pet Shop Boys - Where the Streets Have No Name
A fun cover/modification of the U2 original.
Happy Birthday Theresa! She's an old 23 now... =þ Theresa and Jason left today after having lunch with May and I at Cheesecake Factory. Played more Smash Bros. before lunch, and they left after that... they're starting Lion King in about 15 minutes. =) Back to studying and laundry here, which is good since studying has been almost totally neglected since Friday.
Random note: I'm doing too much reading this quarter. This is the 2nd dead highlighter this quarter... *sigh* I didn't think I was doing that much reading this quarter and last quarter...
Posted by brian at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: (the sound of
Currently playing: (the sound of a friend snoring on the floor)
Theresa and Jason drove down this weekend to go see the play Lion King and to go hang around with all of Theresa's old friends from high school, like Thomas, May, Barry, and I.
It's been a fun weekend so far, even if we haven't been able to find everyone from our old "Fyzx Crew" from high school; did a lot of reminiscing and catching up, finding out that a lot of the most recent news we have on a few people is 2 or 3 years old, although the majority we're still in touch with. Being scattered across the country after high school hasn't helped, although Huong, Thomas, May, Theresa, and I are still in at least semi-regular contact (Barry wasn't part of the original crew!), and we hear intermittently from Cuong and Spencer, at least once every year or two, plus I know Andrew is still alive from his mailings to the SoCal-SERCA group. Nguyen, Ha, Vi, Phuong, and Diana are all still alive too... and, well the balance of our 17 or so is pretty much unknown to the five of us who met up this weekend. What was infrequent contact after high school is now often totally random contact for many of us. It's good to see May, Huong, Thomas, Theresa, and Barry though, and to know that Andrew's still alive, if lost in his world of automotive racing to the rest of us.
Dim sum for lunch today, pool at Ackerman, Gamecube and Playstation, inviting even more people over for dinner for Chinese New Year's- no long life noodles, but we're new at this!, playing a card game called "stupid"... =) Forgot Theresa's birthday is today, too... oops! I guess we're going to take her and Jason out to lunch tomorrow, before they see Lion King and head back home to San Jose!
Posted by brian at 03:06 AM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2002
Currently playing: Lit - Zip-lock
Currently playing: Lit - Zip-lock
Site updates in the gallery: Pre-Finals party pics, New Year's pics, and winter break pics. Some computer updates may go up as well, as I've finally finished the necessary photo editing.
Crap. Forgot some computer stuff at home... and I'm not going home this weekend (or moving into a new apartment) as planned. Grrrr. I hate to spend $6 on something I have at home, bought explicitly to use for this process, and never used... oh well.
Two new CDs... Erasure - Two Ring Circus, and New Order - 60 Miles An Hour. I thought I already had Two Ring Circus, but I couldn't find it the last time I was home. Both are pretty good, although I prefer Crystal's remixes to 60 Miles An Hour's remixes. (both are ripped to MP3 already, too. EAC + LAME 192kbps. Much more convenient than CD...)
Found a toy I want... Toshiba Satellite Satellite 5005-S507... Note I said I want it, not that I'm actually going to get it. P3-1.1ghz mobile, Geforce4 440 Go graphics, 15" UXGA, CD-RW/DVD... drool!!!!!
Posted by brian at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Erasure - Man
Currently playing: Erasure - Man in the Moon
Ok, so I sent my playlist to all Erasure last night to help me write my paper and I haven't changed it back yet. =þ Survived today though. I hope the paper turns out well... the next class was supposed to have a discussion on some reading I hadn't done, but thankfully the prof ran over time on lecture and the discussion was very, very short. Finally, the midterm in Geog5 wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I knew it'd be easy, but I was expecting at least one or two questions which I'd be totally clueless on. Nothing of the sort. PHEW!
Finished Raymond Feist's The Riftwar Legacy: Krondor: The Betrayal today after class. Good book, but not as good as the original Riftwar series. Final note... swapped the front brake pads on my Maxima from Stillen/Axxis Metalmatrix pads to Porterfield R4S pads yesterday. The Metalmatrix pads were down to the wear indicators after 32k miles. Installation was relatively painless, especially thanks to the wonderful Stanley 1/2" 18" breakerbar I purchased. =)
Posted by brian at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Erasure - Moon
Currently playing: Erasure - Moon & the Sky (The Millionaries Radio Edit)
Blah. I hate papers. Even easy ones. When you still don't have a desk because you still don't have an apartment, writing a paper is an exercise in contortion. Even a little bit of dancing around to Erasure remixes isn't helping my cramped muscles (from sitting on the floor 'cause that's where my computer is... I NEED AN APARTMENT! Mowry Reality, you can kiss my *ss. Thankyou very much for screwing me over on two apartments. GRRR!)
Posted by brian at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2002
Currently playing: Notorious BIG -
Currently playing: Notorious BIG - F*cking You Tonight
(yeah, I know, I don't normally worry much about profanity, but hey my relatives may be reading this. Hi Aunties, Uncles, and Cousins!)
Case modding Erik's new Chenbro Junior tonight. Pics in a couple days when we're all done. I ran out of fiberglass reinforced cutting wheels so we had to use the diamond-coated (which don't cut steel well) and the regular ones, so we were slowed a little bit. Just removed the stock fan grilles tonight, that's all.
Cool stuff:
Imaging-resource.com: AA NiMH battery test. As a digital camera user who regularly abuses NiMH and Alkaline batteries, I think I may be picking up a new set soon to replace my Olympus 1450mAH AA's. =)
Time Magazine: Pssst. Wanna See My Blog?
(no, I didn't make up those descriptions...)
Posted by brian at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2002
Currently playing: Pet Shop Boys
Currently playing: Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You)
Super Bowl was fun. Smaller group than expected, though-- seems that Dave and a couple others had other plans, and both Pete and Sarah arrived late! What was a reasonably decent game became pretty boring, then it really picked up in the 4th quarter. The half-time show including U2 was among the best I've seen, and after U2 ended we clicked over to Fear Factory w/Playboy Playmates. =þ 4th quarter was very exciting!
After that, kind of boring... got to hang around for a bit and play with Pete's Playstation 2, then headed home to go do laundry, eat dinner, and study. Finishing up that studying thing after this blog.
Posted by brian at 01:09 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2002
Currently playing: Nas - Nas
Currently playing: Nas - Nas Is Like
Yeah, crazy playlist. WinAmp's shuffle feature finally got a little crazy. Looks like I get to squeeze in the Super Bowl tomorrow after all. Not that I follow football, but everyone will be at Erik's place and I really should be there too. =P It starts late enough that I think I can get in enough studying tonight and tomorrow morning to make it worthwhile...
Posted by brian at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Tchaikovsky - 1812
Currently playing: Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture
Nothing much today. Explored Arcadia and a bit of Monterey Park, plus explored a bit of Brentwood to find an open post office. (the bastards haven't scanned my USPS Express Mail package yet... or it isn't in their computer! I'm getting nervous, because it needs to be there on Monday!) Westfield Shopping Town Santa Anita (aka Arcadia Mall) is a lot like Eastridge Mall back in San Jose, only a little nicer.
Just TV and homework the rest of today. Still 100 pages of Geography 130 reading to go, plus my other classes. Ick. I don't know if I'll be watching the Super Bowl tomorrow, because I have so much stuff to do. I'll probably squeeze it in somehow and worry about Geography 130 first and my other classes later. It could mean a serious of late nights the rest of the week, but as long as they're productive... I'm not too worried about anything individually (except getting enough sleep!); it's the combination of the usual weekly reading, the paper, and the two midterms-- with the apartment search on top-- which will make this a tricky balancing act.
Posted by brian at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)
Currently playing: Anything Box -
Currently playing: Anything Box - Just One Day
Busy day today. SoCal Ars User's meet in Santa Barbara, then relaxing at Erik's place. Never did make it to the bank, so I have to get up early in the morning to do that tomorrow. Then study, study, study... two midterms and a paper due next week, and I forgot about the paper even though it was just assigned on Thursday. Oops! I can handle two midterms, but adding the paper in means that I'm going to be one busy, scatterbrained, crazy person next week if things get out of control... let's hope they don't!
WAAAAH! I can't go. Too much schoolwork to do. =(
Date: 1 Feb 2002 15:02:07 -0000
From: trackracers
Subject: Reminder - SoCal-SERCA at Streets of Willow #2
We would like to remind you of this upcoming event.
SoCal-SERCA at Streets of Willow #2
Date: Friday, February 8, 2002
Time: 7:00AM - 5:00PM PST (GMT-08:00)
For all info:
Posted by brian at 01:29 AM | Comments (0)