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I don’t get DRM for music. They’re already selling whole albums in non-protected, unencrypted formats (ie the CD), which you can rip and do whatever you want the songs. But if I only want one or two songs off an album, generally I’m stuck with whatever lame DRM’ed, compressed format they feel like selling. And don’t tell me I can go buy a subscription on one of the non-DRM MP3 sites…I only want a few songs at a time, and very rarely what they’re selling (although I did recently buy a copy of Jonathan Coulton’s ‘Code Monkey’).

So what’s the purpose of DRM? To force me to buy entire albums when I only want a couple of songs? To prepare me for some kind of sucky future in which most music is DRM’ed and there are no CD’s? C’mon. Is it so much to ask? I *want* to pay for a copy of these songs. I just want them in the same format I’d get them in if I happened to buy the entire crappy album. You don’t seem to mind selling me a CD that I can rip to whatever format I like. Maybe it would encourage artists to produce albums that are more than just a few good songs, with the rest being filler?

Speaking of DRM, kudos to Sony for making their first-gen blu-ray stuff export full-res over all connections. It almost makes you happy to be an early adopter (well, early/middle anyway, 3 years) of an HD monitor. Still, even though we had a DVD player within about a month of their original release, I doubt I’ll be getting off the fence with regards to HD or blu-ray DVD. It’s not so much the player as the thought of replacing the media in one format or the other.

There is some weirdness going on in my mom’s family right now. My mom has two brothers and a sister; one of the uncles we see all the time because he comes up to cut wood (he and my mom have wood stoves and have benefitted greatly from our abundance of fallen trees). Another of my uncles, I see more rarely because he’s pretty busy, but we get along well enough. The weirdness comes in with my aunt.

I don’t know who said what or when, but my mom and her brothers seem to be estranged from my aunt. It hasn’t always been that way; things seemed ok my freshman year in college (coming up on 16-17 years ago! Wow!) when my parents owned a house on the same street as my aunt. Then my parents moved back to California and didn’t return to town til about 2001. Sometime during this period, things went really bad in the family. I don’t have any idea why, nor why my uncles and aunt don’t seem to get along now either. It seems to have spread to my cousins, too; I seem not to have gotten a return Christmas card for at least the past year, probably longer, from one (maybe she didn’t send any. No idea).
At any rate, it seems things are coming to a head now that my grandfather is gone, because my grandmother’s probably going to be moving in with one of them and no matter who it is, somebody’s going to be upset, because it means to see my grandmother, someone will have to go to someone’s else’s house to see her (no more neutral grandma-house ground). I heard that one of my cousins was very upset to hear she might move out to my mom’s house, because she felt she’d never see grandma again.

I was rather flabbergasted by this. I had no idea things were so bad. I certainly hold no ill feelings toward anyone in the family (I really don’t see them that much, you see…) and I really don’t know why anyone would feel they couldn’t come out here (heck, I’d be happy to see anyone who felt like showing up). I know my mom wouldn’t mind at all, either. But nobody asks anyone else because things are just too weird. I have no idea what the problem might be; I do know of one incident that upset my mom a bit at one family gathering and she had pretty good reason, but other than that, nothing specific that I know of. I’m sure there’s lots of stuff from my aunt’s point of view, but I wouldn’t be privy to that. Maybe there was some incident or series of incidents; I just don’t know.
Anyway, file that under ‘WTF?’

Man, I really would like not to be sick any longer. It’s been 16 days now and I still feel like my head is going to explode and my lungs keep rattling; last night I even got a somewhat scary blind spot in my vision on one side for a few minutes. Picture me panicking, trying to google ‘temporary blind spot’ and being unable to read the results. :P Got another doctor appointment on Friday and will probably go unless all the symptoms suddenly disappear tomorrow.

What do they make at the Beech-nut plant near utica. Did it ever involve beech nuts?

New tool, was not so good (x 13ish)

Traffic in Albany still sucks

I still remember most of the backroads by sight

I couldn’t find the damn cat on boylston street.

Walking on concrete for lots of blocks is not as fun as walking in the woods

Signs telecom still needs work

• 5 people with cellphones on one side, and fingers in ear on the other side huddled in the one spot with good reception
• The words “Go ahead” more then 1 time while talking on the phone

85 is slow while leaving Boston

Gregs pizza was damn good, and i’m glad he’s found a job that he likes ;)

“La la la Lola”

the network is down

Home is where i get to take a nap.

Last week sucked. Last Tuesday my grandfather died and the same day I came down with a bad enough cold/flu that I ended up missing the funeral on Thursday (wasn’t conscious much last week). And I’m *still* sick this week.
The good news was, Grep doesn’t have a tumor or a heart problem. Paul took her in for ultrasound and it turns out she just has weirdly compressed ribs, probably a congenital problem or an injury while still a very small pup. We still don’t know why she’s been wheezing worse since her last dental exam.

MMM MMM Good ?

• Murphy (law)

• Moore (law)

• MacGyver (above the law!)

• Clerks II
• Superman Returns
• Nacho Libre

That should keep you alive at least through the summer. A little longer:

Tivo Series 3. Junk your cable company’s piece of crap DVR.

The Time Odyssey series.

If you’re looking for something more long-term, try the Earths’ Children series. 26 years from the first book til now, and we’re still waiting for one (or) more. We’ll be lucky if the author lives long enough to finish it.