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Josef Blind's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 7:54 am |
How to take "Reality" of Love shows to the level of Greek Myth
Hear me out on this... If you're a producer, here's how you make one of those "... of Love" shows mythic. A contestant X goes on something like Rock of Love, and nearly gets Bret Michaels heart, but he's not sure if he's truly there "for him," so she gets booted from the final two. After the season ends, Bret thinks it's all a mistake and that he should of maybe chosen X, that she was his true love or something. X gets her own spin off show. (This isn't "I love liquor... it's X of love). Bret appears on X of Love in a ridiculous costume with the audience knowing it's him, but X none the wiser. Bret makes it to the final two, reveals himself, and then fights a bear. | | Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | | 3:08 pm |
Home buying for dummies.
C and I have discussed buying a house for a very long time (in fact, we almost did two years ago), but now things are actually starting to come together. After looking at a series of houses, we toured one we really like last Thursday. It's on the edge of Bay View, just across the street from the Holt Avenue Pick N Save. It's a small three bedroom ranch house with a decent-sized basement and garage. The previous owners took exacting care of it, but were asking a very reasonable price for it. On Saturday, we went to look at it again, bringing our parents along to make sure there weren't some negatives that we just weren't noticing. On Monday, we made an offer on the house, and it was accepted later that day. If everything goes as planned we'll be closing on the house on May 28th. If it works out, I think the house and the neighborhood will be a great fit for us. Since we only own one car, it's very important that the neighborhood be walkable/bikeable. With a grocery store and hardware store across the street; and hardware store, pharmacy and library (and possibly Target) all with in walking distance, Philo and I should never end up trapped in the house like we sometimes get stuck here. The house is close enough to "city" to get the things I like about the city, while seemingly in a lower crime rate area. There are several parks nearby, including one with a pool, and the area seems like it should be pretty bike friendly. As for the house itself, it meets are needs up being prepared if we have a second child. It also gives me plenty of space to build things and make music (and in a perfect world, build things that make music). Now I'm just going to be perpetually crossing my fingers for the next month, hoping everything works out. | | Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | | 10:34 pm |
Free Tickets: The Border Battle
I have four or so extra tickets to the Border Battle baseball game between the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (Brewers Low A) and the Peoria Chiefs (Cubs Low A) on April 24th at Miller Park. The game starts at 7 pm and the tickets are free to whoever wants them. You'll probably have to pay for parking ($8-$10). First comment gets 'em. | | Sunday, April 5th, 2009 | | 10:25 pm |
A new version of basketball that would increase the awesome.
The "A" key on this computer sticks so bear with me... Since the odds of this happening as a real sport are low, it really needs to be made as an actual sport... Take a regular basketball court. Replace the sidelines with plexiglass and wood resembling the sidelines in hockey or indoor soccer. Extend the free throw line all the way to the boards. Now, there is no longer an out of bounds in the game and players are permitted to bounce the ball of the boards for passes. Causing the ball to go outside the boards would result in one or two free throws. Instead of traditional basketball substitutions, line changes are allowed in the same way they are done in hockey. Basically, a player can head for the bench without doing anything to the ball or play while another comes in for them. After a shot is made, the other team is given the ball behind the free throw line of the opponent's side of the court. Until the first pass is made, the other team isn't allowed to cross over the free throw line. Theoretical ideas: 1) If it was just a video game, or if players wore special padding, it might be OK to check a player who has the ball into the boards. Not sure if this would be a good idea or not. 2) A sixth player would be allowed on the court (a center) but would only be allowed to stay on the opponents half of the court. Or... The team could decide each period (quarter?) which side of the court the second Center would play on. This would ensure Shaq a job until he's 50. If I was more ambitious I'd try hacking a "Double Dribble" ROM to make this real (or maybe "Blades of Steel" would be easier). | | Saturday, January 31st, 2009 | | 8:15 am |
Sieve!
 Went to the Admirals game with my dad... If you look in the last row of the picture you can see my arms (I'm to the right of the guy wearing the old Admirals jersey), and the top of my dad's head. | | Friday, December 26th, 2008 | | 8:15 am |
Christmas Highlight.
Little P got a caterpillar that sounds out words phonetically. Little P's Uncle, and C proceeded to see if they could get it to say "naughty" words. Most swears just caused the caterpillar to giggle, but it was possible to slip a few past. We'll have to make sure to stop doing this as soon as P starts repeating stuff. | | Saturday, December 13th, 2008 | | 11:33 pm |
| | Friday, November 14th, 2008 | | 6:41 am |
Adventures in Babysitting
 Taking care of Philo everyday has definitely been an interesting experience. For the most part, he's a happy kid, who can spend long periods of time entertaining himself by waggling a pair of toy keys while he lays on his back. He's developed an attraction to one of our cats, smiling whenever he sees her. Unfortunately, he shows this interest by rapidly scooting towards her and then trying to grab her fur or tail or trying to stick something in his mouth. She seems to deal with it by laying down as close as possible to him, and then acting offended when he makes a move. It's neat how quickly he's went from a scrawny little dude who couldn't move and was unable to interact with anything, to a little ball of potential trouble-making. In his heart, I think he's a drummer, as musically he ignores most melody or harmony, but seems to really pay attention to beats. For me, the experience has been amazing, but there are some irritations. The biggest has been that while everyone of C's friends has had/is having a baby, almost no one I know has went through it (especially guys), so it's hard to find a sympathetic ear or share advice. There's few outlets for frustrations or joys. It's hard to know whether or not I'm doing a good job raising Philo. He seems happy with the world. He loves meeting people and rarely gets upset without reason. I worry though that I'm not interacting with him enough/or that I'm doing it too much. That I haven't taught him no early enough. That I jump him to help him to quickly when he's frustrated or not quickly enough. Part of it might be that, as a youngest child, with an extended family that's mostly older than me, I just don't have much baby experience, so it's all learning on the job. Luckily for Philo, he's got a terrific mom. | | Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | | 9:58 am |
F---- Fedex
I'll post a longer update when I can be sure Philo won't wake up at a moments notice, until then though, I want to warn people off shipping Fedex. Somewhere, in their documentation, Fedex has something that allows them to leave packages without signatures at no risk to them. Now, whenever the USPS left packages at any place I've ever lived it's been fine, but it seems like mail carriers use seem degree of good judgment when deciding whether it's safe. Plus they have the added advantage of mail theft being a federal crime. Meanwhile, two times now I've lost something worth $100 or more because Fed Ex left it on my porch, when doing so wasn't a good idea. The first was a Tascam digital audio workstation that I had managed to get at a huge discount a few years ago. The box had to have been huge, but Fedex thought it would be fine to leave it sitting on my porch, inches from a high traffic sidewalk. Since the sender had signed the paperwork with Fedex, there was nothing to hold them responsible. After doing a special survey for ebay, they sent me a check via Fedex. Unfortunately, they sent it to my old address where Fedex decided to leave it on the porch. The check then promptly disappeared. At least this time, the good people of ebay made it up to me with some gift certificates. Sure, I'm biased against FedEx (UPS kept me in good teeth for 23 years) but I'm never shipping anything via them ever and would urge you to do the same. | | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | | 11:32 pm |
My Obama Story
In 2006, the company I worked for had a book signing for Obama's Audacity of Hope. He shook hands with more than a thousand people and signed more than two thousand books. Then he had to go to a rally for Democratic Congresscritters, but he couldn't stay there too long. The reason? He had to get back to Chicago to take his kids trick or treating.* Now, you may not have voted Obama, but from what I've seen of him, you can be assured that his decisions will be carefully considered and rational. His campaign took on two tough challengers with an (initially) longshot campaign and beat them both. If he runs the country half as well as he ran his campaign, things should be pretty decent.
*I really regret not having taken the offer to get a copy of the book or shake his hand. | | 11:23 am |
| | Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | | 12:29 am |
| | Friday, October 24th, 2008 | | 10:42 pm |
| | Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | | 5:07 pm |
| | 12:56 am |
| | Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | | 11:18 pm |
Stupid Computer
My computer has started to have trouble loading certain webpages in Chrome and firefox. If I leave it on for more than a few hours, everything slows to a crawl. It has a floppy drive. There was a time when this baby was top of the line. Probably lasting a week or two in early Nov. 2001. Since getting it, I've been through 3 mice, 2 Wacom tablets, 2 monitors, and three keyboards. I've been hired for 3 jobs and left four. I got married and had a kid. When I got my computer, friendster was the hot social networking app, and gmail didn't exist yet. I was living in a tiny dirty studio apartment above a shoe store. I still lived in Milwaukee. I had been in the New Blind Nationals two months and the U.S. had only just attacked Afghanistan. I had only been working in my first bookstore for a few months. Emo was the fresh hot sound out of Danville, IL. MP3 players were the size of breadboxes and were powered by steam. The polar ice caps still existed. Kids respected their elders. Fish didn't talk back. I need a new computer. Or at least a less old one. Damn you HP, why did you build this to last?* *Granted, the CD burner stopped working pretty early on, and the internet connection has a weird quirk, but mostly it still works. | | Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 | | 11:13 pm |
Explaining/Understanding Credit Default Swaps...
There's this one blog I've been reading for a while now that's been usually ahead of the curve on what's going on in the financial sector (they predicted what would happen to Lehman Bros./WAMU back when Bear Stearns collapsed, or at least their commentators did)... The one issue that they've pointed to (and others have as well) with the current financial crisis that I've had trouble understanding has been Credit Default Swaps, referred to by Warren Buffet as "Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction" I think I finally get them, and am going to try to explain them with a metaphor. I a car called the Titanic for $1000. No titanic has ever been damaged in a car accident, but to protect myself in case it was in an accident, I pay $50 a month to insure it to Acmeco. If the titanic gets in an accident, I'm covered for my loss. That's how the Credit Default Swap was originally supposed to work. ( Read More ) | | Saturday, October 11th, 2008 | | 12:04 am |
The Nintendo DS as "musical" instrument part II
With the addition of a super cheap memory card, I finally got my R4 revolution with my wife's DS (mine has been missing since a week after we moved). The R4 lets you run homebrew applications on the Nintendo DS. Mostly it's used by people interested in writing programs or "borrowing" video games (say old nintendo games), but there's actually several cool music programs available for it. The first one I've managed to play with is GlitchDS, which is a strange sequencer programmer that uses Cellular Automatons to "control" the music. I've played around with it for a little bit and managed to create some cool beats and a way to use it almost like an instrument. Tomorrow I'm going to try out the programmer's other two pieces of music software, repeater and cells. Confidential to Jpfed: Cells is programmed in Lua! | | Friday, October 3rd, 2008 | | 12:52 pm |
Kind of neat
One of the coolest things about the Nintendo DS is exactly how versatile it can be. There are legitimate ways to use it as an MP3 player, it's possible to play it like a guitar (not Guitar Hero, but that other game whose name escapes me) and if I ever get my R4 to work, PDA-style software. Now, Korg has made it possible to use it as a synth/sequencer with the Korg DS-10. The features: Professional-grade music tool software for the Nintendo DS
Two patchable dual-oscillator analog synth simulator, -part drum machine that uses sounds created with the analog synth simulator
Six-track (analog synth x 2, drum machine x 4) /16-step sequencer, Delay, chorus, and flanger sound effects available from the mixing board
Three different note-entry modes: Touch Screen control, keyboard screen, and matrix screen
Real-time sound control mode via Touch Screen control,Exchange sounds and songs and play with up to eight units simultaneously through a wireless communications link Probably the coolest feature is that it can link with other units, allowing you to create a virtual techno symphony if you get enough of them together. I wonder if we'll be seeing Nintendos on stage as much as laptops show up now (completely ignoring the 8 bit scene)? | | Monday, September 29th, 2008 | | 12:40 am |
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