Firefly

Tuesday, 19 September, 2006 at 10:54 pm

Yesterday the Sci-Fi channel was playing a few Firefly episodes. I didn’t feel like doing anything else, so I watched one episode because, well, I see quite a few Firefly icons on Livejournal which makes me curious about a series that has such a following, and also because Jewel Staite is in it!

The episode I watched was “Safe,” and that made me really want to know more about this River character, so I watched a few more episodes. I’d seen “Our Mrs. Reynolds” before on Fox late night programming, but I only watched off and on until I saw Jewel Staite’s character, and I wasn’t drawn into the series then.

Now I’m really interested in Firefly. Not interested enough to go out of my way to see the rest of the series, but if it’s on I’ll watch it, and I’ll add the movie to my must-watch (eventually) list.

Windows Media Player encrypting CD ripping

Saturday, 19 August, 2006 at 12:33 am

One thing worse than having nothing to say is having something to say but not wanting to write. *forces self*

So I’m still tweaking my desktop computer, trying to make it an evil stationary clone of my laptop. Tonight I wanted to rip some songs from a couple albums I’m getting rid of, and decided since I’m just ripping these songs for storage, not exactly something I want to add to any playlists, just to rip directly to my desktop (the storage comp., since it has 4x the space). But that plan grinded to a halt with

Windows Media Player cannot rip the track because a compatible MP3 encoder is not installed on your computer. Install a compatible MP3 encoder or choose a different format to rip to (such as Windows Media Audio).

showing up every time I tried ripping songs.

Backtrack a little. I don’t remember when I did this, just a few days ago I suppose. I downloaded LAME, RazorLAME, and Audacity, just because my laptop has them. Well not just, I do want to get some use out of them, even though I don’t really need them on my desktop.

The problem now is, I don’t remember how I got WMP (version 10) to rip CDs while LAME is on the comp. Did I turn LAME off somehow? Uninstall it and save it somewhere else? I copied all the settings from my laptop to my desktop. Still doesn’t work.

I downloaded CDEX along with (/after) Audacity, and that worked fine for that CD that I wanted. But tonight’s CD, ugh. It just wouldn’t work. I kept getting a … something about not being able to read from drive F. No shift, Sherlock, there’s nothing in the F drive, it’s in the E drive!

Meh, I’m thinking it was because there’s some “extra” on this CD that’s accessed on the computer. Of course, I could confirm or bust that theory by sticking in the other CD I wanted to rip. But at this point I am feeling WAY too lazy/aggravated/tired, take your pick. It’s also because of that reason that I haven’t tried out Exact Audio Copy yet.

<monku mode>
Solutions I have found on the internet for my problem:

  • upgrade to WMP 10 (that’s what I have, and despite what they say, it doesn’t encode mp3s)
  • encode in any bitrate other than 128kpbs (too bad that’s the first thing I did, before even realizing I had a problem; I like 192kpbs; besides, I can’t choose any 128kpbs option, it goes from 56 to 192, newer version?)
  • get an mp3 encoder (Microsoft’s solution; I don’t feel like paying!)
  • edit the registry to fix things (this is mostly for WMP 8 and 9, but I found a version for 10, and heck no, I’m not touching the registry!)
  • download a free ripping program (but I already have WMP, I don’t want more programs on my comp, why do I have to do all this work? *whine*)

</monku mode>

save Harry Potter

Tuesday, 1 August, 2006 at 11:58 pm

Don’t Kill Harry!

That cracks me up. Probably because Harry Potter isn’t one of my favorite characters. I don’t really care for him. As long as she saves Ron and Hermione I’m happy.

But I have read stories where characters I’ve cared for have died. Thinking about it though, I don’t know if I would have those characters saved. Their passing adds something to the story, I suppose.

On the other hand, I’ve never read a story where the main character died. That is a bit weird, don’tcha think? Then again, I do want to see Harry die. I just think it would be … different. Something new. It would definitely make an impact. XD

Oh! I just remembered, a Neil Gaiman story had the main character die. Definitely, definitely, the character couldn’t have NOT died. It would have been a weak, lame, boring, disappointing conclusion.

On that note, hmmm … *grin*

update and a wounded bird

Friday, 16 June, 2006 at 1:04 am

New layout, finally. I had this one planned for … maybe a month. Or longer. I don’t really remember. See if you can find what I’ve hidden in the image. *grin*

Umm, update on this list I made, I am done with Spring classes! No summer classes this year, I wanted to see if I could get a job. (So far, no luck. Then again, I’ve only really looked at PetSmart. I was hoping for an easy, out of the way job like filing clerk, but I dunno where to look. So, on to retail.)

I got an apartment! Yay! And I met my brother’s friend whom I’ll be spending the next year with, yay! *snrk* I’ve met him before, though. I don’t really know him, but I think I know him enough to know he won’t be annoying, haha. I found out today another of my brother’s friends is going to Cal Poly, too. My mom wants to know where he’s staying. >b

I haven’t bought my new domain name yet. I was going to, but then I bought a couple presents from Amazon, so that charge is waiting to be paid on my credit card. (I don’t really like to use my credit card too much, maybe no more than once a month.) I was thinking of switching from inangeling-dot-net to angeling-dot-net, just so maybe people will know what I’m saying when I verbally tell them the url. But then, I like INangeling-dot-net. Just because it’s not so obviously an angel name, and it also ties in with the Inconsistent Angel Things still. muahaha.

When I showed this layout to Mum today asking her opinion of it, she thought my website was called Flimsy Science. *blink* Just like some other person who will remain unnamed. Does my domain name really look like that?! Well I guess it’s awkward seeing flimsy and silence together like that. The mind just doesn’t read it like that. Oh well.

I meant to update (over, since it’s Thursday Friday) a week ago, but I didn’t. I was cleaning my room (it was a mess!) and stuffing things in my closet and helping Mum clean the house for a family party this weekend. The result of that is I forgot what else I wanted to update on. ahaha.

Oh! Yesterday around 5 pm I heard this screeching that I thought was coming from outside, but it wasn’t. Shadow brought a bird inside. >_> Mum and I caught it, and it turned out to be just a baby, that couldn’t really fly. (Otherwise we wouldn’t have caught it, hunh?)

Mum found a wound on it where skin was missing, and it was all bloody, so we decided to take it in to the vet. Alll the way in Santa Monica. Yes. During rush hour. Look at us and call us silly. But it wasn’t that bad. We avoided the freeways and took weird side streets. The vet said he didn’t know birds, so he couldn’t do anything, but the receptionist gave us the number of the California Wildlife Center where they might take the bird, so we went back home.

Today we drove the bird there (it’s off of Malibu Canyon Road, woo, fun!) and dropped it off with a $50 donation. I don’t think it survived. >_> It wasn’t very active or peppy when we left it (did MY driving do that? o.o), and Mum said it didn’t sound like they were going to sew it up or anything. Boo.

The ending of that story is: Shadow gets his bell put back around his neck! So now we know when he’s in the house. And outside, scratching himself … even in the middle of the night.

Westly and Angelides

Wednesday, 24 May, 2006 at 5:32 pm

Yesterday while watching Today, I again saw Steve Westly’s commercial about how Angelides is attacking him with negative campaigning, how Angelides didn’t agree to a non-negative campaign, how Angelides compared him to … who? Nixon, some other people, because of his tax ideas. It made me wonder, yet again, what exactly Angelides’ ad was like, and why I hadn’t seen it so far.

Later in the programming I saw Angelides’ commercial saying that Westly attacked first and that actually Westly wants to raise taxes on three things (I don’t remember what; I don’t ever pay attention to tax promises stuff in campaigning) and … I forget what else, I’ve only seen it that one time. When I saw that, I could only say, “What the hell?”

So Westly’s negative commercial was out first? I’d have to see it again. After seeing it three times so far, I was lead to beleive that Angelides had a negative ad out first, and Westly was just responding. (Actually I always wonder who really throws down the gauntlet starts the negative campaigning during election years.) Tricky, tricky man.

But I’ll still vote for him [in the primary], because he played the environmentalist card. :b (Go green!) And, dang, Westly’s petition is still short over 500 signatures. ;_;