in front of the tv all weekend?

August 30, 2004 by Eric Richardson

As you can see, I took the last couple days off here. My last post was Friday at 9am. Friday at 9pm I got a Tivo.

Coincidence?

Actually, yeah... But the Tivo has already made itself an integral part of my tv watching experience. I mentioned earlier in the month that the Toshiba SD-H400 was really tempting me, and in the end it won. I even purchased it despite missing the $199 sale, and having to pay $250 instead (before $100 mail-in rebate). The urge was still there, though, so I gave in.

I was primarily worried about how the Tivo and the Comcast digital cable box would interact. Thankfully it's better than I had feared. The cable box does have a working serial port, and the Tivo can use it to change channels. That keeps me from having to worry about any sort of an IR repeater. Channel changing is a bit sluggish, but other than that it's fine.

It's amazing how quickly it clicks that the Tivo is a very different tv watching experience. Last night Kathy and I were watching Sportscenter, and she walked into the kitchen for a minute. She returned for #2 of the week's top 10 plays. "Do you have the others?" "Sure." Hit the reverse button, back up a minute or two, and there we are at #10. That's what Tivo's automatic recording of live tv will do for you.

But you know all that; it's just me that's quite late to the Tivo party.

ah, hollywood

August 27, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I went to bed last night to the faint sound and smell of a diesel generator running in the alley down below me. I don't know what they were shooting, but the street outside my apartment was packed full of production trucks and personnel. Broadway was involved, too, with a bank of lights set atop the Palace Theatre illuminating the buildings across the street. Today the generators have been replaced with trucks. A good change in my book. Some Downtown residents get very cynical about filming. I'm not at that point, I still enjoy seeing it, but I will admit that there are times you wish it would just go away.

quitting before the race even starts

August 26, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I decided today, before even attending the first class session, to drop my improv class. It's a 2-unit class, and at some point in either this semester or the next I do need to take one of those. But I don't think that time is right now. This semester is a pretty important one in terms of reversing my long-term trend of slacking off and while it may not appear at first glance that dropping a class is the way to do that, well, I think it is. This also gives me a neat time in my schedule to add the 4 telecommuting hours I hadn't quite placed yet, so that's an added benefit. And it gives me just one more thing with which to blow up my spring schedule.

For the last few semesters I've been quite good at scheduling my life into just Tuesdays and Thursdays to fit in some full days at work, but next semester that just isn't to be. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'm going to be hereon campus every day in the spring, so why not be here for 18 units instead of just 16?

So that leaves me four classes for this semester, and I'm excited about all of them, so I guess that's pretty good.

daytime movie watching

August 26, 2004 by Eric Richardson

There's something about watching movies in the morning that just makes the rest of your day a little weird. Today was the first go for my speculative cinema class. It looks like it's going to be fascinating, but pretty intense. I'm one of only two non-cinema majors, and the other guy is only business because he's still trying to apply for film (a separate and much harder process). Several of the 20 students are taking this as a grad class.

This morning we watched the 1979 film Time After Time. Due to a scheduling conflict, we watched the film in the 350 or so seat Norris Theater -- all 20 of us. That was kind of weird. The movie itself was good. It just feels like you should get out of a movie and have it be night time, not 1pm.

Oh yeah, and the film had David Warner in it -- Sark from Tron. I love that movie. And he's also been in about 150 other things, but Tron's what's important.

on being not in charge

August 25, 2004 by Eric Richardson

It's funny attending something you used to be in charge of, but no longer are. I've been involved in Campus Crusade at USC since I was a Freshman, and from spring of that year through spring of last year I was running sound for their weekly meeting. Today is the first meeting of the new year, and the first time I haven't been running sound in two and a half years.

It's hard to resist that urge to hear something I dont like and want to go fix it. I hate bad sound. I think that's one of the only reasons I ever got into running it. Well that and it was "oh, you know how to work a sound board?"

The trouble for me was that I knew what I liked, but didn't really have any of the theoretical background to know the acoustic modelling behind how to EQ particular instruments.

Right now though I can tell you that an acoustic guitar doesn't need as much in the highs. Tinny acoustic is pretty rough.

Oh well, I'm a normal person now.