Through some curse I always manage to destroy a set of headphones. Maybe destroy isn’t accurate, but they always seem to stop working through what I consider no real fault of my own. I didn’t want to use the white iPod earbuds and advertise “Hey, I’m like everyone else with an iPod!!” So for a while I used these headphones that came with my laptop. The coolest part of those headphones was inline volume control. However, one day they just stopped producing sound unless the cord was in just the right position. I had to go back to the iPod earbuds. I was ok with this for a while until I noticed one day I’m having to keep the iPod cranked to full blast just to hear at a reasonable level. I almost thought I was going deaf until I realized that I can still hear everyday things just fine. I looked at the earphones and the connection at the iPod was looking like it was being ripped right out of the sleeve.
So it turns out there are 2 types of headphone connections, you have the straight in type, and the L shaped connection. The way I wrap up my headphones when not in use really stresses out the straight in connection and I think that’s basically what happened with the first two headphones. Now this wasn’t really my focus for my new set of headphones. I was looking for a good set of noise reducing headphones which means that unless I want to have this battery pod on my cord, I have to go with canalbuds. I wasn’t a big fan intially because the idea of jamming something so deep in your ear just seemed gross. But I didn’t want to go to over the ear or clip ons. So I settled in on these Sony Behind the Neck Ear Bud Headphones.
Overall, they’ve been pretty good. I had to turn on the equalizer to treble boost and they sounded terrific. I swapped to the large fitting and they do a really great job of muffling exterior sounds. The reviews speak for themselves and I agree with most of the things they say. They have a really short 1 foot cord with a 1 foot extension so if I ever got an armband the cord length would be awesome. Otherwise 2 feet is plenty long enough. The only downside is now I can’t pocket the headphones, I just have to take them off and put them around my neck. On the plus side, it has the L shape connector so wrapping it around the iPod should hopefully not kill them. That’s only on the extension though, the short cord has a straight connection.
Some other things I need to pick up for my iPod are a waterproof kit so I can listen in the shower and a car connection kit. I think a waterproof speaker was only around $20 but the car kit is around $120.
This will probably read more negatively than one who has played Diablo 2 might expect it to be. I should probably start out with my background with Diablo 2. Diablo 2 was my pre-WoW time sink. I spent hours upon hours playing it. I had a whirlwind barb, fury barb, firewall sorc, strafe zon, fury zon, some kind of horrible non-hammerdin pally, shapeshifting druid, the list could go on. I had tons of items that I sold on ebay for a good chunk of change. So needless to say, I was very familiar with the game sans-cheating. I could have probably played the game blindfolded. I knew what items were before they were identified and knew the range of values that would make the item good or bad. I almost knew the rune system by heart. It was gross. So going to play Diablo 3, you sort of expect a sort of familiarity. A sense of easing right in. That is actually not what playing Diablo 3 is like from the keyboard/mouse perspective. Read on to find out why!
In accordance with the new law as mentioned from Thoughts and Action, I will be building myself an Ubuntu box for classwork and to become familiar with the Unix/Linux environment. From my last upgrade to my current machine I have the following spare parts laying around
A8N-SLI Premium Mobo with AMD FX-55 Processor and 1.5GB DDR Memory
GeForce 8800GTX video card
80GB Hard Drive
Incredibly cheap, falling apart case
SB Live! 5.1 sound card
Possibly broken, crossing my fingers that it isn’t, cd-rom drive
Spare keyboard
Spare Logitech MX1000 wireless mouse
Couple of spare CRT monitors
So from the ashes will be reborn this unholy beast! Although asides from class, I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I may pop on MythTV or something. Anyone have any suggestions as to what one can do with such a thing? Also I may need a new power supply. If worse comes to worst, what I may have to do is buy a new case this weekend and transplant my current rig into a new case and build this tiny dude into my current one.
Secondarily and this is minor, is what to do about keyboard/mouse/monitor. Do I want to clutter up my desk with a fat CRT? My Dell 20″ has a free dsub input but the switching time is annoying. Most people suggest synergy so I don’t have to have a second set of keyboard/mouse laying around. I dunno we’ll see.
I’ll warn you first off by saying that if you never played Starcraft 1, there are going to be terms that I use that you may not understand at all. I’m not even going to provide a glossary either so deal with it. Again this is a super long post, so if you’re interested hit the break for more.
Covers Warcraft 1 and 2 with the expansion and the bump upgrade for War2: Battle.net Edition. Cool watch at 15 minutes in length, just as high quality as the other retrospectives.
I think for a while now I’ve lived with a seperation of thought and action. I mean to do one thing in my mind but my actions indicate otherwise. The downfall of it all is that I’m equipped to succeed yet I choose to drift along. My will power required to break bad habits isn’t strong enough. It’s almost as though I need to be brought straight to failure to realize that I have to change up my lifestyle.
Waking up today to my cat pawing at my mouth, I realized that instead of just talking about the things I need to accomplish and finish, I need to set in motion the plan to actually do the things I need to accomplish and finish. I snapped at someone this weekend for talking about all these things they wanted to do. I basically said, “Ok shut up already, just do it!” As I typed it out, it resounded within me for a bit.
Without going into too much detail, I think I’ve had this philosophical notion of my life that’s put a handicap on my abilities and progress. I’ve lived a life of trying to be behind the scenes and non-interfering with everything around me. It’s time I became a bit selfish and self indulgent to my own needs and priorities.
So with that, this is my declaration of progress moving forward! I need to finally break into programming as a hobby instead of just an activity I do for grades. I need to reduce the amount of time I participate in my other hobby and turn it into a form of study for my future endeavors.
As an aside, I think the use of Google Reader and Twitter compounded this feeling that I watch life instead of live it. I have an abundance of things I read about other people doing yet all I can say is an uninspired snippet here and there.
So my biggest plan for Blizzcon was to have a really interactive experience with me posting to Twitter in real time and to shuck out news as fast as it came in. Unfortunately, the center had closed WiFi this year, probably due to security, which put a huge block in my plans. I realize now how cool devices like the iPhone are since I could have just had one of those and used 3G or Edge (seems like mostly edge in there) to get updates out. So next year we’ll see. I’m looking at getting a G1 or some android phone since the monthly rates are cheaper. This post is SUPER long so read more after the break.
