Time Flies When You Are Having Fun

It really does!

And The Silence Was Gone!

Today i’ve bought myself a new toy!  Namely this little fellow:

A Sansa Fuse!  I already had a Creative Zen MicroPhoto mp3 player for quite some time now and it was my trusted companion through thick and thin.  We have been through a lot together and this is not a goodbye blogpost my good friend!  But although you are brilliant with my precious music files, you have one big flaw in your design.  You don’t play Ogg and/or Flac files and your idiotic maker in all his stupidity refuses to teach you that (in the form of a firmware update or something).  Don’t take it personally, i still love you, but he can go f*ck himself!  That’s why i started to look for an alternative that 1. had Ogg and Flac support and 2. was Linux-friendly.  After reading a lot of reviews and visiting many sites of mediaplayer manufacturers, the obvious choices were one of the iRiver or Sansa players.  I chose the Sansa Fuse because you can increase its storage capacity with Micro SD Card’s and also because it had a rather nice price tag.   I bought the 4 gig model that included a free 4 gig Micro SD Card, so that made it 8 gig for the price of 4!  Plugged my new buddy in and my PC immediately recognized and mounted it with a nice icon on my desktop.  Now that’s what i call Plug and Play!   I dragged some songs into it’s music folder, detached the Sansa and was greeted by welcome screen and a rather nice looking interface.  And half a minute later i also figured out that round button isn’t for pressing but more like a wheel!  I quite like the interface, but when i was exploring my song collection i noticed that not all the songs i copied on to its drive where showing.  To make it worse, the songs that weren’t showing were the Ogg and Flac ones!  Another minute went by when i found out that you needed to update the Sansa’s firmware in order to get the Ogg and Flac support.  And the download section didn’t contain any Linux version of their firmware updater.  Again a couple of minutes later i discovered why!  You didn’t need that updater!  I just had to download a small file, drag it into the Fuse folder on my desktop, detach it from my pc and start the player.  A pretty looking dialog with the words “updating firmware” showed up and half a minute later it was finished.  This time all my files were showing and playable!  The sound quality is comparable with my Zen and that means it’s superb!  Another big plus for the Fuse compared to the Zen is battery life.  The Zen can do about 8-9 hours max on a full battery, but the Fuse literally can go on 3 times as long!  Yes i like my new toy and i hope it’s as robust as the Zen. (that after almost 3 years still works brilliantly)  But only time can tell…

Music, Monsters and a Beautiful Princess

Few things in live give greater pleasure than music.  So the music-addict in me was overjoyed when i got Sennheiser HD 595 headphones for my birthday!  I wanted those for years! ^^  Though i have to admit that i was a bit disappointing when opened the box.  They didn’t look very robust and the plastic felt a bit cheap.  But i use my headphones when i’m sitting in a chair or in bed, not in a war zone or on a jungle expedition.  So it’s not that big a deal, which brings me to the important part… the sound quality!  I plugged them in for a testdrive, started Bent – As You Fall (Micah’s Swollen Booty Mix) and boy was i in for a shock!  Not only is it a brilliant song to test your soundsystem, but the sound was so warm and you could hear so many details.  The last time i was this impressed with a soundsystem was in Sven Vath’s Cocoon club in Germany.  The “hard” work of ripping all my cd’s to flac and high bitrate ogg’s really pays of with the sennheisers! ^^  I “tested” it with other songs, to see how it handled other music genres, and my precious new headphones passed with flying colors.  From Beethoven to Sasha and Digweed, Radiohead or Ricardo Villalobos, it all sounds so beautiful.  Highly recommended!

That brings us to the monsters part of this blog.  I started designing a microblogging app for Twitter, Identi.ca and Jaiku.  At the moment it still only is a terminal app.  To my own defense, it is a working terminal app!   You can post to twitter and see your timeline, but i’m working “hard” on the graphical interface.  Trying and figuring things out like “to webkit or not to webkit, …”. Definitely To Be Continued!

One + One = Three!

A couple of weeks ago we (my gf and i) found out that there’s a baby on the way.  It was totally unexpected.  But when i heard it, it actually gave me a warm feeling inside.  I feel GREAT! ^^  Although that may be a bit harsh to say when your girlfriend is sick half the time.  My poor sweety.  Thanks to all this lot’s of things are going to change.  Our planned holiday next summer is off, cause the baby is expected at the end of july/beginning of august.  I did do some rescheduling though, i really hope that she is going to like her christmas-present! ^^  Another change is that my training room is going to be redecorated into a baby room.  I still have no idea what i’m going to do with all my weights.  Any suggestions?   I don’t really care all that much for most of the other changes.  Yes there will be less freedom, less partying, more responsibility, … But it’s not that we go out that much anymore and i can always ask my sister to babysit.  At least she’ll spend her time on something useful for once! *grin*  Ow yeah, just one last thing to all you journalists out there.  Please stop writing articles about how bad most men are as dads, unless you at least give some good advice in them!  Because reading stuff like that right now is quite annoying and scary at the same time.

The box… you opened it… we came!

This is a blog i actually wanted to write for Halloween. But like you can see, that didn’t happen. It’s…

My Personal Top 5 of Scariest Game Moments!

It’s NOT a top 5 of the scariest games i’ve ever played!  Although the numbers 1 and 2 of this list would also be number 1 and 2 in that list, numbers 3, 4 and 5 would have been a fight between Aliens vs Predator II, Clive Barkers Undying, Doom III, Resident Evil, F.E.A.R. and Quake.  But this top 5 is about the scariest moments.  Moments that almost gave me a heart attack.  We start with number 5…

5. Duke Nukem 3D

This is the first game i’ve ever bought!  The whole drive home I had the box on my lap, eager to install it.  Got home, rushed to my pc, inserted the disk and waited for the installation to finish itself so i could finally start playing.  And so i did… which brings me to the moment i encountered something called a sentry drone.  It’s some kind of flying machine that was waiting for me in the shadows of the room i was about to enter.  I entered the room, a pulsating noise on the background… i turned to the right and… *tudum tudum* whaaaaaahr! …What a game and a good start for this list!

4. Doom II

While Duke Nukem 3D was the first game i bought, this was the first game i got as a present.  Yeay for my sister!  The game itself isn’t that super creepy, but i contains demons.  The fact that this demon isn’t that big and that it has a pink skin doesn’t make it so terrifying… But the little bastard has a habit of waiting for you behind closed doors, so when you open the door it’s *growl* and your heart skips a beat or 2.

3. Half Life

Another masterpiece.  It contains lot’s of scary moments, but the one that earns this number 3 spot is this… After the failed experiment you wander through the black mesa complex, kill some zombies and headcrabs. You solve some puzzles, until you reach an elevator.  It goes up and arrives at the next floor… you step out and notice an electricity cable hanging from the ceiling and a headcrab that is slowly crawling towards you.  I stood still and waited for it to come close enough for me to kill it with my crowbar.  But then suddenly the little monster reaches the cable and *BZZZZzzzzzt* *big flash* it electrocuted it.  I thought “glad i waited in front of the elevator or it would have been me, another scare moment avoided!” and i carefully walked around the cable with a smile.  Seconds later i noticed a zombie trying to hide from me in a corner, so yet again another scare moment avoided!  And that made me overconfident.  I entered a room, found a dark airvent i had to enter… crawled through it… until i thought “hmm i can’t see sh*t anymore, let’s try my flashlight!”.  I pressed the L button on my keyboard to turn it on and exactly at that moment a headcrab jumped towards me…

2. System Shock II

And now the 2 scariest games i’ve played! System Shock II is no game for the weak hearted and personally i think it should have a warning on the box!  And i’m not kidding!   We are talking about the year 1999.  Games back then didn’t have impressive AI’s.  In most games back then the monsters just ran towards you or waited for you behind a corner.  That was it!  So i started playing System Shock 2.  Immediately you can sense the creepy atmosphere, lot’s of strange sounds, never too much light.  Things explode, you see glimps of bio-mechanical organisms walking away, scientist getting chased by those things while you look through thick glass windows, but nothing attacks you!  The tension builds and builds, you just know something is about to happen!  More things explode… It is only a matter of time now… and so it does… a couple of dead creatures later i reached a room where you could see through the floor.  The was some kind of strange monkey-like monster in it, jumping and doing strange things.  I looked at it and for a moment it was like it was looking back, like it was actually thinking.  I ignored it and explored the room i was in.  And then it happened, a “Jurassic Park” moment.  A “Ksssht”-like sound of an automatic door.  It didn’t bother me cause the door i just entered wasn’t automatic and didn’t make a sound like that.  It sounded far way.  I saw a computer that i could use and started hacking it when i heard a “Iiiirk”-like sound, very close to me.  The moment I figured out what had happened it was already too late.  The little monkey creature found its way through all the rooms and hallways AND it knew how to open doors!  The result was… … euhm… i kinda spilled my drink all over the floor when i had accidentally hit my glass…

1. Aliens vs Predator

Nope, not the mediocre movie.  That’s Alien vs Predator, this is about the scariest game ever made!  In it you can to play as a Marine, a Predator or an Alien.  Playing as an Alien is very very cool.  You can climb on walls and walk on ceilings, f*ck gravity!  Playing as a marine on the other hand is what this top 5 is all about!  Unlike playing as an Alien, what makes you the scariest creature in the game at that moment, or a predator, who has special visual modes to track aliens or humans so you can see them a lot easier, the marine only has some kind of tracking radar device.  You see little dots on a rader and hear a bliep when there’s movement.  The downside is… When a door opens, it blieps.  When a elevator goes up or down, it blieps.  Letting you think that there’s an alien or predator running towards you.  Let me give you some examples of the problem.  You start the game as a marine, in your room, in some kind of military-base.  Your superior calls you and asks to come and meet him because something seems to be wrong.  You leave your room and hear your first bliep of the game when your own door closes itself.  That already made me think something behind me was about to attack… nothing happened… so i continued walking with my real life heartbeat now up to 120+ bpm.  I arrived in a large room with some elevators.  Large room = lots of place for aliens to hide!  I slowly walked forward… my heartbeat rising… my rader began to bliep… heartbeat rising some more… but nothing happened except for an elevator that arrived.  I stepped in, got to the next floor and slowly started to explore the next hallway.  The elevator behind me automatically descended and made my radar bliep again. I followed the path and to the right you could see some kind of alienship.  It looked exactly like the one in the first Alien movie!  I continued my slow walking pace.  One eye on my little radar the other in front of me, when i arrived at another descending elevator.  Bliep… bliep… bliep… bliep… everyone who has seen the second Alien movie (Aliens) can imagine how the next hallway looked like. I was, again very slowly, walking forward and away from the elevator. But the blieping sounds didn’t stop and a new dot appeared on my radar.  I could hear my own heart beating with the dot coming closer and closer.  Much faster then i had expected, when a few seconds later an alien jumped before me at an incredible speed!  Result: Dead ingame, almost dead in real life, my mouse laying on the floor and i almost tripped my chair… *catches breath* When i picked up my mouse from the floor and placed it back on my desk my first reaction was… WOW!  I filled my glass with some coke (I still drank coke back then, not anymore), took a deep breath and started playing again.

It now is December 2008, AvP came out in 1999, almost 10 years have passed and no other game made in those 10 years comes even close!  Not even the sequal, which is actually a better and more fun game than the first one.  But it’s a tiny bit less dark…  Aaah those good old days!

Time flies when you are having fun

December is in town and that means PRESENTSMONTH!  Christmas, New Years Eve and of course most importantly… *a moment of silence* …my birthday!  But don’t worry you still have 23 days left to save up and buy me something pretty!  About presents, this weekend my gf and i went to a beauty spa.  Sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, massage,… it was so relaxing!

Some geeky news now… the last pieces of my new (server)pc arrived this week.  I assembled it and while i was doing that it got me thinking.  Why didn’t i make this new quad-core 4 gig monster my own personal desktop pc and turn my old P4 2gig desktop into a server.  It’s more than powerful enough for our tiny home network, so that’s what i did. I took the gfx-card out of the “old” and into my new pc, installed Arch Linux (on the desktop) and Debian (on the server) and both are now up and running!  Now i “only” have to put all our files on the fileserver and organize it a bit.  All this stuff is just pure geek heaven! ^^

Eee PCs, Glas Shards, Lost Necklaces and Santiago

A couple of weeks ago i got a beautiful present from my gf.  A tiny eeepc from Asus! ^^  I installed Foresight Linux on it.  Foresight Mobile has a very very pretty interface and is working like a charm!  The keyboard needs a bit getting used to, but it’s not like we are using it for typing letters or huge documents.  I (we) are very happy with it! ^^

I’m still waiting for the last parts for my server to arrive, the waiting is getting quite annoying… In the meantime i’m working on a little pygtk program, that will be totally useless unless you are a Ferrarifreak.  At the moment it’s nothing more than a database of all the cars Ferrari ever made (and their specs) with a shiny interface around it.  But i only started and have lots of ideas!  PyGtk and Glade for the interface design really are a joy to work with.

Last week i was smart enough to trip a glass of water (or milk) from my desk and stepped into a broken glass shard while i was trying to clean up the mess i made.  Which resulted into a deep cut in my foot.  Something i forgot for a moment later that evening when i went for my evening run.  I had to stop after only a couple of meters and ended up with a gross looking sock and an annoying feeling in my foot.

More annoying news, i seem to have lost my necklass!   We searched (almost) everywhere in our apartment, but if it’s lock is broken it could have fallen off everywhere. *sniff*  My gf did make some delicious pancakes to cheer me up and her plan was a succes!   We got a great offer this week from a friend of ours.  He lives in Santiago (Chili) this and next year for his work and invited us to stay there for a week in februari.  Too bad both of us have to go to work/school then cause Santiago sounds incredible!

It’s almost time to start dinner, so have a nice day!

Choices Made

And the winner is… Arch Linux with KDE(mod)4.1 and i like it.  A lot!  After some fiddling with the art theme and the fonts it looks pretty and it flies!  It’s really a joy to work with!  Surprisingly i love plasma, surprisingly because i usually want a clean desktop with (almost) nothing on it.  All my Gnome desktops only have shortcuts on it to mounted disks or drives, nothing else.  But my new kde4.1 desktop has lots of plasmoids on it.  Hurray for plasma!  Although i do miss a “Remember The Milk” and a “Identi.ca” plasmoid.  But i am going to do some research on making plasmoids and then maybe try making one i need myself.  To be continued…

This week the last parts of my PC are going to arrive, so i can finally start building and installing it.  It is going to be used as a fileserver, something that will really come in handy.

This weekend has been so relaxing and fun!  Yesterday i was invited to dj at a party, had lots of fun and after the set i did we (some friends i work with and my gf) went to another party.  Possibly one of the best parties i have ever been to!  It was pure magic!  Nice people there, incredibly good music and the perfect company with me.  It got very late but that didn’t matter because today it’s sunday!  And sunday only has one purpose… staying in bed till the afternoon and relax after a *cough* tiring workweek.