Plaidophile

Yeah, the new iTunes features are pretty neat. But what's neater is this. (Link requires iTunes to work.)

God damnit, doesn't ANYONE have ANY useful documentation for res_mkupdrec?!

And no, neither the manpage nor the source to nsupdate counts as "useful."

I just noticed that Renku Corporation has made another (free) release, Condenser. Go forth and leech abstract electronica goodness!

Oh, and the iPod is great, though it's kind of forced me to go through and finally put proper genre tags on my stuff since that's the only way to actually tunnel through my massive collection on it! Thankfully, iTunes smart playlists make this very easy.

'coz it looks like I'm gonna be at it a while longer.

Back when inTune was still around, I posted a review of the Panasonic CQ-DP171u. In the review I made a mention of how the CD changer input was in two parts, the actual audio input and the controller port.

Tonight I decided to finally see if I could trick the player into giving me a bare aux input, for the iPod.

(Short answer: No I couldn't.)

Someone just showed up at work saying he had a 10:00 appointment with John for a job interview — for some short-term Dreamweaver work.

I mean, hello?! Experienced web developer sitting here being paid $25/hour already?

I know this is total geek sacrilege, but I'm converting (yes, transcoding!) my oggs to mp3. But so far it's okay.

Is it just me, or are the various "you need to change foo to bar" stuff on the C++ section of the gcc 3.4 changelist things which a sane programmer would never, ever do to begin with?

When I was in Portland, terpia took me out to lunch at Benihana. For those who don't know, it's a "theme" restaurant chain which is an attempt at simulating a Japanese hibachi restaurant (where the chef prepares your food right on the table, with a little culinary acrobatics). The thing about Beni Hana is that most of the chefs aren't actually Japanese (ours was named Felipe), but they squint their eyes and speak in an extremely-forced accent right out of a 1950s sitcom; I'd imagine that any actual Japanese patrons would end up leaving totally offended.

That said, the food is pretty good.

But it gave me an idea for a theme restaurant chain to start in Japan, called "Guy Gene's."

Everyone's just so laid-back there. And everything's so close together without being confusing or sprawly. I really hope I get an offer with Intel.

Free Internet access from the 'business center.' Woo!

Anyway. Intel has put me in an exceedingly swanky hotel downtown, which is so swanky that the only parking is valet service. They sure better be paying for that.

My interviews at Sandia today went well. Of the 6 groups I interviewed at, I liked 4 of them, and of my top 3, I'm positive that one is hiring and pretty sure about another one. (Sandia makes you guess which one(s) actually have the jobs. It's dumb.)

Tomorrow I head to Portland for interviews at Intel. Yay me. Be good while I'm gone. (Remember, I know SQL, and I'm not afraid to use it.)

dibs on your stuff

<John> Well, you know, that's why I never register to vote. When I lived out in California, I got jury duty all the freaking time.

The workplace has gone back to being neutral, at least. And it looks like I'm almost finished with the project I was hired to do anyway, so maybe the 40% of next week that I'm working will be the end of it.

Or, if it goes really well, I'll be able to give John my two weeks' notice sometime during the week of the 19th. (Considering how much I got done during the two and a half weeks I've worked for him, I think two weeks of notice is beyond plenty considering I was originally just hired on spec anyway.)

Over the weekend, this job went from being the most fun I've had to being yet another Dr. Cecil situation. So, I am desparately looking forward to my interviews next week.

This morning I got an email, scheduling an all-day interview at Sandia Labs next Wednesday.

This afternoon I got an email, scheduling me being flown out next Thursday to Portland, Oregon for an interview with Intel.

Whoa.

I got the following:

• Lots of work done
• More job prospects for permanent work
• A huge raise on my contract
• Warm fuzzies
• A gig bag and tuner for my guitar

I hacked up some of my old computer speakers to turn them into a cheezy preamp, so I could boost the output level of my electric guitar to something which the filters in the SIDstation could deal with.

But, damn is it noisy. And it turns out that the SIDstation's filters aren't really good for anything guitar-processing-wise anyway. Bleh.

I just realized that the theme to "Inspector Gadget" is extremely similar to "In the Hall of the Mountain King."