I have recently been totally immersed in youtube. It has a wealth of live performances and such; but I don't know how i missed Eric Johnson? His melody on some of his songs is amazing. I am a big fan of Metal, the Ozzy, Metallica, Slayer, Fear Factory etc type of stuff but Eric just blows me away. Watching this great music being played on Youtube is a great reprieve while I wait for my callouses to build back. I hope some day I become half as good. One more link: Zakk Wylde doing a simple ballad lead I had never heard before.I hope my weird Journal Entries on music don't annoy people, let me know and I will stop.

One last thing, my Linux box (an AMD XP 1900+ I have had forever) is dying. It will be needing its 3rd power supply soon :-( I would decommission it, except with 1 gig ram and 2x40gig hard drives it still performs fine. Having an open source video driver (ATI Radeon 9200) makes running Linux a charm so all things considered I will probably fix it.

I finally got sick of Fedora Linux, not so much itself but it's horribly maintained Repositories. It is pretty bad when the repo state is so bad you can't upgrade to latest. (This was on an XML Commons package.) I have had this happen in the past, but this time i'm done and am not gonna try to put up with it. I installed Ubuntu which went ok. I had a LVM so the process was slightly not painless. X didn't figure out my 19" widescreen, and there was a few bumps down that road but it is working now. I still have several things left to do but it is late and I better try to get to sleep. The sad part is that I really like fedora linux. I like how it works, and I like the idea behind it ... but it's repo state was and almost always will be utter shite.

Life so far with the new vehicle is going great. Goddamn I love the sound of a V8. I read that the hypertech chip gives the Ford 5.4 (modular) V8 30 horsepower and 50 foot pounds of torque. I don't plan on doing this until the warranty runs out ... oh yea, and until I have the money to rebuild a tranny if (or more-so when) this would cause a big ouch. My little sister liked driving the pickup more than I do. She has one year of Uni left so she shouldn't have to wait long for a nicer ride. Hopefully this coming weekend I can head out and do some prairie dog hunting or something.

Oh yea, in case anyone missed it what is with HR 3155? WTF!!! From Section 5:

As a reply to Shadow Wrought and Captain Splendid I did get a truck. I found one I liked on Wednesday night, test drove it Thursday and signed my name. It's an '01 Ford F150 with the Offroad Package; Super Cab. It has all the little stuff done to it already: stainless steel running boards, hard tonneau cover, k&n intake, dual exhaust. I drove it from here to my moms place and got 18.4 mpg (on its factory sized 265/70R17.) But on the trip back it's looking closer to 16 which is partially attributable to how I drove it :-) It's a dark red color and looks pretty decent. Here's a pic I saved from the dealerships website since I don't have a digital camera.

Best part, the ride height; worst part, the ride height. It's about 1" to 3" from impossible to get cash from an ATM, and I am about 6'1" and have reasonably long arms - I wouldn't suggest this sized pickup for shorter people. oh yea: the 5.4 w/ dual exhaust sounds awesome, and I don't find myself too pissed off at the automatic transmission in it. In the end, I am glad I waited a year before I bought a truck.

Not to mention, on a poll discussion! The locker room of /. ... are you serious!?!? Check out the thread (preferrably using the new discussion viewing system.) Basically an AC makes a great comment, and this guy has the nerve to say that his comment was going good until he ended a sentence with a preposition, typical grammar natzee move except he(quadra23) thinks it was a funny comment. I reply with a flameworthy, yet also funny comment and he takes it personally. The guy goes into length with why I'm wrong. In the end I apologize, because uptight bitches never let discussions die without going into length as to why they are right. At first I was considering giving the guy a friendship slot, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth it after his most recent lengthy reply. I won't foe him because I did use the word bitch, which in hindsight wasn't necessary. Sometimes people take /. way to seriously, but in a poll discussion of all places blows my mind.

In completely seperate news, I am contemplating buying a pickup. I have the income to swing it, possibly even a brand new truck, but I am having a horrible time legitimizing it. I don't know why I have such a tough time making "long term" financial decisions. In retrospect the only such choice I have really ever made was the choice to go to University. Which was several years of being poor, but now is paying off. This isn't as hard as I'm making it: I'm single, no kids; the only thing is school loans, which I don't start paying on till after December - and that's only a $200 payment per month. Is it worth keeping a shitty car (mechanically solid but it's a 1991 Oldsmobile for @!@#$ sake) and paying off my school loans fast? If only I had a wife I wouldn't need to make financial decisions.

So I knew I needed to get new pickups, so i took my oldish Epiphone Les Paul Special (kinda junk - but definitely bad pickups.) One is the Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) and the other is a Seymour Duncan 59 (SH-1b.) I put two $70 pickups in an old guitar I paid $200 for about 10 years ago. But it sounds great.

Better in fact than the Ibanez I just bought. I paid $620 for it. It may not need a new neck pickup, but it at least needs a hotter bridge pickup. I also need a good distortion pedal; when I was in high school I had a DOD Big Pig Fat Distortion but frankly I don't want to use it anymore. I want a Tube Screamer, or a Boss Metal Zone. From what I understand, for straight up Death Metal/Thrash Metal and such the Boss is great (and what I'll get), whereas the Ibanez TS is more of an overdrive which only gives good distortion in combination with a good amp and its distortion. Anyways, it feels good to play guitar after not playing any while in college. If I keep practicing and getting better I will next have to get a nice Gibson Les Paul or perhaps just a Gibson Explorer.

Also: I recently installed a couple hard drives in my at home computer in Raid 0 (striped) and it flies. Winamp goes through the mp3 tag info so fast it's rediculous.

1.) Testament - Return to Serenity (especially the first version on 'The Ritual', but the version on their live ep 'Return to the Apocalyptic City' just lacks the original's intro.)
2.) As I Lay Dying - Confined (metalcore, turns out they are a Christian band)
3.) U2 - Like A Song
4.) In Flames - Artifacts Of The Black Rain
5.) Metallica - ...And Justice For All (They played this live recently in Portugal for the first time in 18 years!!! - Robert Trujillo is one of the best things to happen to Metallica, and the fruits of that are now taking place.)
6.) Otep - Possession
7.) Trivium - Washing Away me in The Tides (I've listened to this at work over 70 times according to my winamp info on my @ work machine. The only other song close is the As I Lay Dying song I mentioned.)

I never would have guessed I liked MetalCore this much. I took a gamble on As I Lay Dying and I really like them. I have also really gotten into Thrash Metal, just recently Testament and Overkill. Next I will check out Exodus. If anyone has other suggestions feel free.

This guy, UbuntuDupe can't let his experience die. I am starting to wonder if he is a paid Microsoft shill to try to discredit all of the work of the community. The worst part is that his repetitious banter is totally eaten up by the people on Slashdot. i.e. not the real free software community, or the Ubuntu inner circle - but the user community which are more akin to fanboys. Someone called him on it and the post got modded up.

Anyways, he has posted a bunch of comments today that I found interesting (in a bad way), you may too. For a while he was actually posting great comments, and I almost took him off my foe list about a month back, but now he has renewed his membership and will remain a foe.

What beverage do you use to get through your day?
I used to drink coffee (heavily in the morning) but am now drinking Green Tea in sizeable doses.

If you read this please leave a quick reply as it would be interesting to see your answers. For those interested here is the latest /. poll that I found dealing with this. I bring this up because I am basically going through withdrawals, and have been for the last couple weeks as I cut back. Green tea has anywhere from 1/2 to 1/6 the caffeine. For me/us it's probably on the 1/6th side since we make our coffee strong and use light to medium roasts. For anyone thinking of cutting back - do it slowly! Trying to just quit 'cold turkey' is tough. I still have a cup if I need it, and I still drink Vault Zero, Mountain Dew, etc. I just want to give my heart some calm, and my teeth a chance to lose their stain. (ps, I have draink coffee since about the age of 12.)

Today was a long day, full of hardships dealing with Microsoft's threading code, and in particular ObjectLock. But tonight I discovered the beautiful John Petrucci - Glasgow Kiss. And for those familiar, notice how even Running Wild Riding the Storm incorporates some of the various melodic aspects to its metal (particularly during early parts of the solo). As an aside (I really need to escape the MS Visual Studio Compiler) I trully love the sound In Flames and Dark Tranquility created - even if I like Metallica and Overkill/Testament/Megadeth more.

here it is He doesn't comment on /. much, as his comment history is sporadic, but he definitely has a great point in that post.

I am currently contemplating getting a new computer. The one I have now is a single core amd 64 3200 w/2gigs ram and a 160gb hdd, and a nvidia 6800.

Here's the info on the new one. It's a fairly simple system, meant to be capable but low on energy useage. I haven't included an OS because I would likely put Ubuntu or Solaris on it. Either that or put *nix on my current computer and migrate Windows XP to the new computer. I am not worried about the 8600gt, I prefer to buy video cards cheap enough to upgrade when needed.

So here's the question, is 2 gigs of ram good enough for a new computer? Is a dual 2.0ghz cpu fast enough? Is a cheap AMD X2 worth getting, or is it wise to jump up to a Core 2 Duo?
All in all, for a sub $600 computer I think it would rock. (There's $55 in mail in rebates.)

TFS doesn't support rollback, or undoing a checkin. Richard Berg apparently is the Microsoft shill that has the job of reaffirming to the faithful microsoft buying public that they don't need it. Here is an example MSDS Forum entry about it. There are others, just craft your google search appropriately.

In non-tech news, what started as 7 people has now grown to about 15 in our weekly soccer get together. In just two weeks! It's pretty cool. It kinda started with one of the new summer interns, then a Brazilian student and a Peru(vian?) student joined in, and next thing you know we've got enough people for a very fun game. Hopefully we can do this all summer. A person doesn't trully know how out of shape they are until they play soccer. Luckily I'm a decent goalie ;-) .

Last night a friend and I went to Walmart for no reason at all, and by some stroke of luck they had a Wii in stock! So my question is, what games do you folks suggest? (I only picked up Wii play so far, and primarily for the extra controller.)

I just did some reading, and the classic games feature on the Wii is turning out to look real nice. I will definitely checkout the 'Virtual Console' games soon. Hell, I would guess that i'll play these older games more than the new Wii games. I really hope they release the original Final Fantasy games for the VC as well, trying to play the rehacked versions on my GameBoy Advance was painful.

I will keep this brief: HR1022 has been introduced to committee. It has 47 co-sponsors. (I mentioned this bill previously after the virginia tech shooting.) Is it about time to buy that AK you always wanted?

I am not sure how to say this, not necessarily because I care about how others feel, but because I am not sure how I feel. I finally graduated from the university. I say finally because I was supposed to last year, but had to take two classes yet this spring. I say I am not sure how I feel because ... because I don't really feel different. I am glad I now have a Computer Science 'B.S.' degree, but that's about it.

It feels good to not let down family; who wants to get mostly through an education and not finish? It feels good to make my dad happy. But my mom never finished college, she doesn't talk about how it all happened but i think my parents met at some point and she left school for one reason or another. My dad talks about the past much more than my mom. Maybe it is a father-son thing, where he can talk about it, just as if we were sitting around fishing and chatting about anything. Back on subject ... I guess the main thing is that it is hard to realize that now the next phase of my life has to begin. Maybe now I will get back to coding more often, and reading more (like I did before I went to college.)

Anyways, raise a toast, hurra!