mobile fun

October 30, 2003 by Eric Richardson

Tonight I finally got around to trying to install a couple things I had wanted to try on the new laptop. So now I'm running Linux kernel 2.6-test9, have suspend to disk working, and have ACPI playing nice (including being able to use it to set brightness levels on the LCD). E-AcpiPower gives me a nice battery view.

whew... wrap-up time

October 27, 2003 by Eric Richardson

A lot has happened, and I've been busy, so I'm going to wrap up a lot in this one post. The three midterms are in the past now, so that's good, but as usual the interesting things aren't school, so let's not dwell on that.

Last Thursday I ran sound at the Ragazzi Room for Matt Wertz. I had never heard of him before Wednesday, but it was a cool show and I really enjoyed his music. I had sort of an odd vantage point, actually sitting directly behind Matt while he was performing. Fun stuff.

Then, Friday a couple of us from the USC Waterski Team headed up over the grapevine to a ski lake a little bit south of Bakersfield for a tournament hosted by UCLA's team. Waterski tourneys are always a blast, so it was really good to get back out there. I didn't ski well, but I hadn't been on a ski in about a year, so I can't complain too much. Read on for more on the tourney... — Continue Reading...

halfway through

October 21, 2003 by Eric Richardson

So I've had two of three midterms for the day. They've been a mixed bag. One was pretty easy, one there was a bit I couldn't remember. I don't really know what to think about the one tonight... Too early to see.

Right now I'm sitting in COMM 202, browsing the wireless web in windows after failing to get my wireless card working with USC's wireless network in Linux. I've got the big step, wireless in Linux, going. Now it's just a matter of figuring out the right settings for USC's WEP encryption.

muah haha

October 20, 2003 by Eric Richardson

So right now I'm posting this completely wireless, from Linux, sitting on the couch in my apartment. That's cool for me, in and of itself, but the really cool part is that I don't have a wireless access point. Luckily, several other people in the building do and either a) aren't smart enough, or b) don't care enough to run WEP on theirs, thereby giving me free wireless in the apartment. Score...

mmm... wireless

October 20, 2003 by Eric Richardson

My laptop arrived today, so obviously I proceeded to waste time I didn't have starting to play with it. Right now I'm sitting on campus making use of USC's wireless ethernet to download Redhat 9. We have a USC mirror, so it's a bit faster than it would be in my apartment. That said, it would be faster still if I had remembered to bring an ethernet cable and could plug in. Oh well...

doh. crunch time.

October 16, 2003 by Eric Richardson

Just went to check my schedule, and on Tuesday I've got three midterms and a paper due. I can't say that I've kept on top of things this semester, so it'll be an interesting weekend for seeing if I can really get myself to put the pedal down and concentrate. On the plus side, the paper correlates pretty well with one of the midterms, so preparing one is also preparing for the other.

bird karma

October 15, 2003 by Eric Richardson

California really introduced me to pigeons. I mean, sure, they'd been around before, but never really AROUND. Here, they're AROUND. I was sitting at the Carl's Jr. on campus the other day, enjoying my chicken strips, just people watching. At a table a few feet from me sat a girl, by herself. It was a big round table and she wasn't using much of it. She's just minding her own business, eating, and there's a big pigeon standing on the opposite edge of the table, staring her down. The table edges are rounded, so the bird's having to work a little. Its back claws keep slipping, and it keeps having to adjust, but its head isn't moving. It's just staring at her.

Most people would wave the bird away, thinking its mere presense within feet of their food would bring disease, but she didn't. She just sat there, eating. Freshman year Steve (another favorite) would have said that this was correct, and that the birds would notice and recipricate your kindness. I don't know that I buy that.

An army of crows could make like easier, though. "It'a a murder honey, a group of crows is called a murder."

i blame alan...

October 15, 2003 by Eric Richardson

Alan mentioned RSS feeds, which gave me the urge to get mine working again. I did so, and it can now be found here. I've never had any use for RSS, or RSS readers, but I know some people do and I do support the idea of aggregating content.

time to upgrade?

October 14, 2003 by Eric Richardson

Today I finally got the last $1000 of my fall financial aid package. This means that I can finally look at getting a laptop. My main computer is an old PII-400 that's been through a lot. Since I've been here, USC has added wireless on campus, and that's really made me lust after having something I could pull out anywhere on campus and be online. Now comes the point where I have to find something cheap (under $1000) that has the feature set I want. You wouldn't think that would be a very hard thing to do, since I don't need much.

On a laptop, I care about the screen, wireless ethernet, and not much else. And yet, screen size and CPU speed are intrinsically linked in the minds of manufacturers. I don't want a P4. I want a crap CPU, a 10gig hard drive, and a nice screen.

Right now I'm looking at a Toshiba Satellite A10-S127. It's $899 from CDW, which seems decent to me.

the world we live in

October 07, 2003 by Eric Richardson

On Saturday night I went to celebrate a friend's birthday at the Saddle Ranch at Universal Citywalk. Now, I've ranted about Citywalk before, so you might know already that I think it's one of the biggest rip-offs in the LA area. Parking is $8, which even in LA is pricey. I was making the trip by myself, so I decided to go via a bus and the subway, something I hadn't done since my freshman year (when carlessness meant taking a lot of iffy transit). I like public transit, but I don't like buses, so I was a bit non-plussed about that leg of the trip. Committed as I was to not paying for parking, though, I went for it anyway, and ended up as entertained by my trip as I was by the rest of the night. — Continue Reading...

Yardley - Berlin

October 07, 2003 by Eric Richardson

I go out and find a lot of bands, but it's not as often that a band comes and finds me. I first heard of Yardley, the soon to be band currently mostly consisting of Lee Beth Kilgore, when Lee Beth emailed me a question and happened to casually mention at the end something about having her own band. I checked it out, and was impressed, and made it out to see her play a couple solo shows.

Then, last week, I saw her play with accompaniment, and the experience is totally different. I wrote about that show, so I won't repeat it all here. What I will do, though, is post a link to a live mp3 of Berlin from that show. Lee Beth mailed me links to a couple of songs from the show, and in the days I've had them I don't think they've moved off my playlist.

two nights, two shows

October 05, 2003 by Eric Richardson

For once I had plans for two nights of music and actually made good on getting to both of them. I love it when that happens. Anyway... Thursday night Jessica, a friend from school, and I went to Genghis Cohen and saw Lee Beth Kilgore. Genghis's music room is cool, though not really like anything I've seen before. It's a longer than wide rectangular room with rows of benches (more like pews). There's a probably 18-inch table top running along the back of each. Anyway... A cool setup. Lee Beth was playing her first show with new electric guitarist Jeremy Shockley (hopefully I spelled that at least close to right). The richened sound does a lot for her. Though I'm very much a non-musician, I think it must be really freeing to not have to worry about both leading and carrying with the acoustic. The full sound really lets her vocal range come out and shine.

Friday night Magilla and I went and caught Saucy Monky and Paper Sun, two bands that really need to count as one and a half. They shared a drummer and bassist, just swapping out each band's front two. Room 5 is one of those places with no cover, but a required drink. Prices weren't that bad, though, so no big deal there. The room itself is nice, though small. Lots of wood and plaster gives it a nice sound. Both bands put on a good show. I've written about Saucy before, and really all the same things apply to this show, so I won't bore you repeating myself. Definitely worth the trip.