Happiness Is A Well Organized iTunes

As some of you may know, I am really hoping for the man in the big red coat to get me an iPhone for the holidays. Well, in preparation for the event whether it happens or not, it motivated me to create a balanced, organized and awesome iTunes library which my iPhone could sync to. This means I want everything to be ready for easy sorting and syncing. Yes everything, album art, and all the fields filled in (minus ratings). So I copied non-iTunes store music over to my laptop from my desktop and started the process of filling in the loose ends.

The reason I am trying to get all the album art working, is because on the iPhone you use the newer cover flow method of viewing your music. In my case I was trying to get all the music under one album to go under one image for the cover art. The problem, is even if I copy all the same information to easy song except for the title of the song, I can not get some of the music to go under one album. For example, I have the Legion of Doom's album "Incorporated" and even though I have ripped the music directly from the CD, the album art splits into two images for the one album.

I would understand this if there were multiple CDs to the album, like Metallica's S&M 1 and 2, but they just split, and like I said, even after all the data in the entry being the same. I could ask my friend at the apple store but I was going to try and figure it out before I asked an "Apple Genius." He knows how much I loath apple computers. Although I have to say they make some fine other products.

CDs, iphone, ipod, itunes, legion of doom, metallica, organized, anal retentive, obsessive compulsive

Always Last Minute

Have you ever wondered what motivates people to not do something till there is barely enough time to finish the task? Procrastination works in marvelous ways. Thanksgiving always cracks me up. Don't get me wrong, it is by far one of the greatest holidays in my opinion, but people just take it a little too seriously.

I went to Safeway the other day to get batteries for the wireless Guitar Hero controller and already the madness of the Thanksgiving shopping had begun. I was not surprised, but was does surprise me, is how long some people wait to get that turkey and can of corn. When I used to work for Safeway there were many things that puzzled me, but one that always stood out was why people never shopped for the things they needed for Thanksgiving in advance? Don't leave me a comment saying that people just forget, or that they have busy lives that keep them from going shopping. If someone has time to put of load laundry in the washing machine, then they have time to shop early.

The week that the Halloween candy disappears from the shelves (which is actually the night of Halloween) they start loading the turkeys into the open freezers. This would be the opportune time to go out and get one, stick it in the freezer and not have to worry about it for a month. Sure, some people don't know how many people are coming for Thanksgiving, but you know... you could call them? Oh wait, we live in a society that is afraid to pick up the phone. (myself included) Also, it is not like you couldn't get a second turkey if you needed it. Everyone these days has one of those stupid "Set it and forget it" things.

What peeves me the most about last minute shoppers is that they always do it two to zero days before Thanksgiving. This causes people to stand in checkout lines that extend all the way down isles to the back of the store sometimes. This only further slows down the process, because people are fighting for positions with their fully-loaded karts while other shoppers are just trying to reach merchandise on the shelves. The isles are barely large enough for two shopping karts let a lone a whole checkout line full of them.

If I could offer some words of advice to you shoppers. Avoid the day time. Just go at three in the morning and get your shopping done if you absolutely need to shop before Thanksgiving. There is no one in the store and the shelves are stocked since the night crew has been hard at work filling the empty spaces that eager shoppers have created in the day. Also if you are going to go, leave your kids at home, there is no point in bringing your rug-rats into the store so they can kick and scream and make you look like a bad parent for not buying them a whole two liter of orange soda. I know, I love it too... I do, I do, I do ooo. Have some respect for the other pissed off shoppers. Chances are they have been sitting in the same crazy-ass line you have also been waiting in. Also treat the employees with respect, if you treat them like crap, I guaren-damn-tee they are not going to want to lift a finger to help you locate the organic stuffing mix. (It is in produce for some reason) Then again, you could avoid all of those things by going at three in the morning.

Even though it sounds like I have disgust for the holiday, Thanksgiving is actually one of my favorites. By the way, the lady at the register forgot to bag my batteries, so I will have to go back, but I will bring my camera and take some pictures. So be safe this holiday break, eat lots of good food, watch some football games and don't yell at your family members. I know I will be holding back the urge to. Happy Thanksgiving.

Procrastination, Safeway, long lines, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Holiday, Shopping, Guitar Hero,

Pinball Wizard

It has been confirmed. I officially have no life. That or no exciting games to play. Over the past day I have had a Space Cadet Pinball game open. Oh yeah, I had re-discovered the game after realizing that I need to always be doing three things at once. Multitasking has become my normal mode. Living and being on the computer were just not enough. So I was playing and just wondering how long I could keep the game going.

I looked at the high scores and sort of laughed at myself, thinking that I could do better. Well... I have. And in doing so I have proven that you CAN spend more time at your computer than you want playing a stupid game. I did that before with WoW, but this is something that comes installed on your computer. This has to be some record. I have never seen a high score like it. I played this single round, on and off for the entire day. F3 pauses the game and came in handy.

I literally got every medal that I think you can get. I activated the gravity field and multi ball mode numerous times. The missions keep getting harder but the points are insane. On the second to last mission that I completed, I was awarded ten million points for completing it. I am just going to sit back and enjoy the site of this high score. 414,120,250 points. Here is my screen capture.

That took so long to do, I might never open that program again. I really need something else, other than blogging and computer pinball to waste my time on. Got any suggestions?

Are You F@#$ing Kidding Me?

I try to keep from swearing in public and also not using vulgar language when I write, but I have just got to vocalize how much I hate censored music or "clean" editions. When you buy something in iTunes that is edited for adult content it puts a little [clean] icon next to your music. For music that has adult lyrics the also put in a [explicit] next to the song. But no offense to Apple, but that is the type of thing that makes a teenager listen to it.

I just recently got Sugarcult's album "Lights Out" and I was disappointed to find out that it was the clean version. I am 21 years old. There is no reason for there even to be clean versions of music available for me to search for. I want to listen in the original form that it was created, in all its obscenity goodness.

I do my online music shopping by getting ideas from Pandora.com which is an online music sampling space. They don't let you hear songs again once you have heard them, or let you choose songs for that matter.The Idea behind Pandora is to make the user experience music by breaking it down by genre and style of the music you like. Oh yeah, and they don't censor their music. With the whole Sugarcult thing, I was more disappointed than Chris Rock when he bought a clean Jay-Z album. Then again, being able to watch vulgar stand-up comedy acts, make people laugh like this one, (Only Click If You are 18+ years old. Adult Content)



How hypocritical of me to even give you a warning.
So again, the whole concept of cleaning up music confuses me. Kids are not listening to music and then going out and yelling obscenities because they hear them in songs. This is my same argument for video games. Kids are not going out and killing people with guns because they learned how to shoot in a video game. The thing is, everything a kid is going to learn is from the family and school environment they grow up in. So why the hell are we still putting warning labels and making clean versions of music? And don't even think of leaving me a comment about the warning labels on cigarettes. People who smoke choose to smoke also choose to cash their lease on life in early.

Inspiration On Demand

It is amazing what can happen in one day. Yesterday a comment was left by a moderator of jackbook.com, the website who was hosting the iPhone template I commented about not working. In the comment I got a copy-pasted how-to guide of how to fix the template. Even though I didn't mention it in my last post, I had taken the necessary steps to host the images for the template on my own and properly inserted them into the HTML editor. The comment felt like a weak attempt of saying "It's not our fault you're stupid."

I deleted the comment because I have moved on from the whole iPhone template and decided that it is easier to make small changes to the blogger templates in order to make it different but personalized. I am not HTML retarded for the record. I know how to make all the changes to the template to get it to work, but the comment left by the jackbook rep made me realize that they think I am.

Which lead to my early morning (for me) post about the politeness of comments on the internet. Sure I did call the result of my attempt to make the Iphone template work on my blog, " Transformed into a ridiculous piece of garbage," but it is not like I was directly insulting the creators. It was merely a creative attempt at me voicing my opinion about the increased difficulty of installing that particular template. You know... the main reason people make blogs. To publicly share their opinion.

I was shocked in the first place that they found me (even though I linked to them) and that they were peeved enough with my comment to try and tell me how to fix my template even though I have already decided to not go with it. The whole thing just put me in a sort of funk. Now that I think about it I might put the comment back up just so you all can see how funny the whole thing is. Sure people don't read instructions when they buy things, hell I don't read instruction manuals in video games I buy. But to assume that people don't read install instructions for blog templates (especially when they are not created specifically for you blog host) is like saying people don't read the details of their "cool-down period" before buying a gun. Am I going to get it immediately... NO!

But I have better things to do, like look for presents for the holidays and research the iPhone. I am going to end this post here, I am starting to sound like the ranter of old. Comments and critiques of the new blog look are still welcome. Let me know what you think.

Rise From The Ashes

If this is your first time viewing my blog, welcome. For those of you who are coming back and wondering what happened, I have a story to tell. Yesterday I was looking for something new to make my blog stand out amongst the rest. I wanted my blogger template to resemble an iPhone because of the most likely purchase I am going to make. So I looked around the net and found a template that looked awesome. (Their image is awful.) I loaded the xml file into the template modifier in blogger and awaited the transformation. My page was transformed alright. Transformed into a ridiculous piece of garbage.

Nothing that I saw in the demo worked. Everything including my profile was erased in my eagerness to have my profile look like an iPhone. In my haste I did not create a backup of my template for blogger. Which lead to the day long process of creating a new online persona. My blog used to be called, "Rants of a Former Safeway Employee" and I was known as "Bag Boy" Chris. While I enjoy blogging about the obvious faults of the company (and I still will), it was becoming too hard to focus all my energy coming up with a Safeway related post each week, especially because I only go shopping about twice a month.

So I made this new template and online persona and from what my girlfriend said, "It is more me." I agree. You still can't see my face in my profile photo, but at least I am not wearing a bag over my head. I spent some time trying to make the blog more personal because I usually speak my mind or share about things going on in my life. This, after all, is my serious attempt of building readership and practicing writing for an audience. So, it is not an iPhone template, but I think it looks good.

I am going under a new blogger name now, "Comatose Chris." I think it works pretty well. Dictionary.com defines comatose as: (2.) In a state of deep and usually prolonged unconsciousness. I have no problem with that. Speaking of which... I am going to take a quick coma. Leave any comments about the new name, blog or layout. Anything is appreciated.

Sleeping Awake

So when I can't sleep at night and when I wake up early it is usually because of my neighbor's dogs. As I mentioned in my last post, they woke me up last night, and the morning before that, and the morning before that, etc. I can almost count on being woken up every morning around 6 a.m. No alarm clock needed.

The same thing happens every day as well. The fence in the photo of the dogs in my neighbor's backyard that faces the back of our house and more specifically my window, is supposed to keep the dogs on the left side of that fence.(click on the photo to see what I am talking about.) Well, everyday, the little black dog makes it onto the right side of the fence and the brown dog doesn't like that, so it barks for hours upon hours until it figures out how to move the fence or the little black dog pushes it open from the other side.

As you can see in the photo, the dogs managed to open the fence today, like the day before it and every day since my neighbor built the damn thing. I guess I wouldn't care if that was all they did, but they bark at anything and everything. What makes it worse is they are always outside, their owners never let them inside. I can't even stand in front of my window or have the blinds open without them barking their little heads off at the sight of me in the window. It is sad too because I have a nice view. Maybe it is time to get a pellet gun.

My Curse

Why the sad blog title? Let me tell you. In the last two days I have been working in InDesign for a total of 18 hours. I know you might not think that is a lot, but I spend time in bed, not sleeping, but sitting there wanting to. Yesterday I spent the majority of my day working on projects for two classes which consisted of almost 8 hours worth. Today has been no different. I rose early due to the neighbor's dogs barking and even though my work has been minimal, InDesign is still open and I am fighting with my designs.

Last night when I got back from class I spent the remainder of my night chatting away on AIM and picking away at my designs like tar in my teeth. No, I don't smoke. It is just a good analogy. So my hind-quarters are starting to hurt because I haven't left my chair except for that eating thing and using the facilities. I think if I tried to get up, I would find that my body has melded with my computer chair. The title of this post comes from a band called Killswitch Engage and the song is called "My Curse" off of their 2007 album, As Daylight Dies. It is stuck in my head because it is on Guitar Hero III. Speaking of GH.

Last night I couldn't sleep and then I got up this morning, and while my computer was warming up I played more GH III. Haha, that makes it sound like a drug. I got through the second to last set on hard and then decided to come back to my computer and begin design work. I avoided getting online because the internet has been acting up all day. As it is right now, I am saving after every paragraph just in case I go to publish and the wireless dies again. Well as you can see above, I have decided to use my own images more now that I am designing layouts. I should be getting better with my point-and-shoot camera so I can become better in my field overall. Oh well. That is it for now. Onto more InDesign work. Adobe, if you are out there, I need a job.(Wink)

Dangerous Business Since 1986

I have come to the same conclusion as Ms. Puddin', that I have nothing to write about these days. There is too much going on in my life to find time to sit down and come up with something creative, other than what I have done in the past few days. I seldom speak of the things I do, but I haven't done it in a while, so I will describe my awesome weekend in Arizona visiting my girlfriend.

Have you ever just been in a funk? Well last week was like that. I was sick on Monday and didn't feel one hundred percent until Wednesday. Then I spent the remainder of the week doing work for classes in order to have nothing to do for the long weekend. My goal was accomplished but I was more exhausted than an asthmatic after running the mile.

I drove to my parents house after my night class on Thursday in order to get picked up by a car to take me to Oakland airport the next morning. My flight was early in the morning, 9a.m. Well, that is early for me. I had trouble keeping my eyes open, but was unable to fall asleep due to the large man that sat next to me. I don't understand it either. It was a Southwest flight, you know, the one where you pick where you want to sit. Who would want to sit next to me? A shady, up-to-nothing college student with a hefty pack full of electronic equipment.

I tried to reach my iPod, but the hefty man made that impossible. I was lucky enough to have put my copy of Wired in the seat pocket in from of me. It kept me occupied until we got to San Diego where I had to de-plane and board the connecting flight to Tuscon. On the second flight I was able to sit with no one next to me, but I was too awake from the whole experience that I just didn't bother trying to sleep.

So this past weekend I got to spend an amazing amount of time with my girlfriend. We went to some great restaurants, some of which I wish were here in the South Bay. We rented Fracture, which was a great movie. We also went and saw American Gangster, which was also a great movie, long but great. My girlfriend also took me to see the University of Arizona Icecats (their hockey team) pummel the Long Beach State 49ers. If you can't tell, I love hockey, and it was awesome to go with her, since she had never been to a hockey game before.

I was sad that I had to go home, it felt like a short amount of time spent together but I am not going to complain about the opportunity to travel for the weekend. So it is only a week from Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I couldn't want to start a diet more. Maybe it will be my New Year's resolution. You know... after I eat all that great holiday meals. After we finish the eleven pounds of left-over Halloween candy. Well I need to start working on my design project due tomorrow as well as the TOC and masthead for Access.

Long Long Way From Home

I just finished up another difficult Thursday. Last night I spent most of my time editing papers and start and finishing my design project. The ones you have seen in the past. This week's was a "letter to the editor" page. Finally I caught a break. Men's Health magazine doesn't have such a page, instead they have a bunch of ask experts questions. So I grabbed my beloved Wired Magazine and was overjoyed that I could re-produce their letters, or "Rants" page. If you can't tell from my title, I like rants.

I spent most of my night working on the spacing as you will see if you look at my page below. I stayed up and messed around with it until it looked almost right. Then I got up the this morning and was at it again. Doing those little unnoticeable things that make it a step above ordinary. Also making sure Optimus Prime was happy in the upper left-hand corner.

I am going to Arizona this long weekend to see my girlfriend and get away from all the "workity-workity" I have been doing. After fighting off a cold and still producing more than average work, I am ready for a break. And because I couldn't wait till Thanksgiving to visit her. I would like to thank Things-n-Stuff's "A" for making me the San Jose Shark's 2007 logo sticker. (Looks like the top left of my post) It is proudly displayed on my laptop for all to be jealous of. Anyway, I am going to bed so I can be up early enough to catch my flight. As always, comments and criticisms are encouraged. But go easy, this is my "Precious Wired" you are talking about.

MMORPG's: Like Cocain for Kids

I am what you could call a reformed massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) player. I used to spend hours of my day letting my hind-quarters meld with leather of my computer chair, playing World of Warcraft (My undead warlock on Crushridge server). It became a waste of time and as many other World of Warcraft former players will tell you, "just not fun anymore." I kicked the habit over a year ago now, and I have to say that it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I had more time to do homework that I wasn't doing in the first place. I studied more and spent more time doing work to my best ability. I started writing more, which probably lead to the creation of this blog. If I was still raiding and PVPing, forget it, I would be two more years away from graduating and 200 pounds heavier.

Now that you know where I am coming from, I figured I could buy Guitar Hero 3: Rock Legends and be able to put it down, with all my mental power and all. Well I can't. I think I have found something more addicting than MMORPGs and that is rhythm games. I looked back on the games that I have played in the past and there are a few that stick out in my head that make me realize I was addicted way before I even thought possible.

I was one of the first kids in my neighborhood to have a Nintendo power pad. This is not a rhythm game, but many people know where this is leading to. I was also one of the first kids to have those flimsy Dance Dance Revolution plastic pads for Playstation. I was hooked on rhythm games and I didn't even know it yet.

The game room on my parent's house was built and upon its completion it was graced by the presence of our very own DDR machine. Thats right people, I own one. I played every day and just didn't think about how hooked I was. How nice to be hooked on something that is exercise. When I moved away to college I couldn't bring my machine with me, so I picked up Guitar Hero.
This became the fatal flaw of my rhythm game addiction. First I played the first edition, laughing at anyone who could achieve such high scores and beat expert songs. Heck, I couldn't even fathom hitting more than three buttons. Who needed four, or even five? Then Guitar Hero 2 came out and that was the final blow. I played that game more than Ellen Degeneres likes to dance on her show. It was phenomenal.

To make the long story short, I have purchased GH3 as you might have read before, and I still can't put it down. It has been more than a week and I find myself drawn to play it with every waking moment. I could see myself buying the next one, but now that Neversoft owns the company, I feel like they will pump out newer versions every year and destroy the series. I mean, look at Tony Hawk, what game is he on now? Eleven?