I got 99 problems but this blog ain't one.

High Quality...

2010-03-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

Well apparently I caught the audio bug again... specifically pertaining to headphones this time. I recently purchased a set of Koss PortaPro cans and while they are good headphones, I wanted more... as usual. So... I just picked up a set of Sony MDR-XB700's and they look beautiful, but how do they sound? Beautiful as well. I originally demoed them on my sister's iPod and I was impressed, but since the iPod drives them at a lower power I did not get the full effect. My amp drives them at more power so they get a chance to really shine. The bass these things reproduce is incredible for a set of headphone costing less than $200. The mid-range is great as well, only just a little overshadowed by the low end but more than listenable. The highs are precise enough for me without being too harsh, I don't think I can pick up that high of a frequency anyway. All in all I am pleased and impressed, especially at the price I paid... $141 total. So after selling my Sony MDR-V6's to my sister, I am glad to say I found some replacements... and I am no longer left with the desire for headphones that reproduce a sound I am satisfied with. I do occasionally miss my good old V6's, but I know sis is putting them to good use.

On another note, after purchasing the headphones I walked out of my local Fry's and got approached by some con man wanting money... he quickly turned and walked away from me without completing his question, but I will not discuss why right now. Anyway, that wasn't the point... the point was... I laid eyes upon this beautiful, sexy machine in the parking lot...

I think my jeans stretched a little in the front when I looked at her, she is so gorgeous.

So yeah.

Later.

News...

2010-03-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

I have been up to so much lately... let me see...

I have just recently started uploading videos to my You Tube channel, most of them relating to guns and knives. I am going to try to keep entertaining and informative content coming as long as I can think of it, however I must say I'm not the most creative producer when it comes to recording videos... but I shall try nonetheless.
I haven't been buying knives like I used to, but I still have several new models in mind to get... mostly Spyderco. I really need to get another safe because the one I have is getting a little too full of the knives I already own.

Let's see, what else?

Oh... I just picked up a pair of headphones that are incredibly good, the Koss PortaPros. These things are what I would call entry level audiophile quality. I would not have believed the sound these 'phones are capable of if I hadn't tried them for myself, because looking at them offers nothing. They look like cheap headphones from the 80's, but they are definitely not cheap... they're $50. Well, that is cheap for audiophile quality... but anyway. These are also, hands down, the most comfortable set of cans I've ever slapped on my noggin' so I love them for that alone. I highly recommend them to anyone that wants to hear things in their music they've never heard with lesser headphones. You would not believe the bass and mid-range reproduction on these little retro looking 'phones... it's truly unbelievable. I've been going through and listening to my entire music collection all over again. Anyway, enough about that.

Alright, well I'll probably have more to say later...
but right now I gotta go take care of some other stuff.

Later.

The Sheepdogs

2009-11-05T02:06:00.001-08:00

The Wolves = those who wish to bring harm to the sheep.

The Sheep = those who carry on about their daily lives, they consist of the masses and are usually unaware of the potential dangers.

The Sheepdogs = those who look after the sheep, protect them from the wolves, and warn them of the dangers.

Wolves look for any advantage over the sheep, but are often scared of the sheepdogs. The sheep are also often scared of the sheepdogs because they have teeth that remind them of those of the wolves. What the sheep do not understand is that they are protected by the teeth of the sheepdog from the teeth of the wolf. The sheep do not realize that the wolves will still have teeth if you take away the teeth of the sheepdogs. This will simply leave the sheep at the mercy of the wolves, as the sheepdogs will have no teeth to defend the sheep or themselves. The wolves would then have an easy prey. The banning of teeth will only apply to the sheepdogs since the wolves will simply not abide by the rules anyway, and only the wolves will still have their teeth.
The sheep must learn to appreciate the teeth of the sheepdogs and not let the teeth of the wolves influence their appreciation, because it is the teeth of the sheepdogs that allow them to carry on about their peaceful lives.

In case you haven't figured out by now, the "teeth" I'm referring to are our guns.
Remember, gun laws only apply to the good people... and good people don't want to hurt you.
So let's not take away the "teeth" of the good sheepdogs that want to keep you safe from the wolves.

Mr. Porter

Y u peepol cannot spale or yoose punkchooashun enymor?

2009-09-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

I need to get this out of myself I guess, so I will just dive straight on in.

I have noticed an ever increasing trend in the lack of anything resembling intelligence on the internet these days. I cannot believe some of the shit I read, and I'm what you might call an open-minded person. So what am I talking about? Well, it's many things, but here's a few to get us started...
1. spelling
2. punctuation
3. text speak (on the internet, it's only acceptable on character limited phones)

Trust me, there are many more things that add up to my frustration, but let's discuss these for a minute shall we.
Spelling... a seemingly long-lost art. I understand if English is not your first language, but if it is, then I'm talking to you. First of all, if you are writing something then it's safe to assume you are expecting someone to read it, right? Right! So if you do not spell the words correctly then it's flushes the context of the writing down the toilet. I know when you are young they teach you to sound the word out, but there is a point in your life where personal responsibility becomes an issue and you should then take it upon yourself to learn how to spell the f'ing word. Sounding out your words only works well when using words like "C...C...Cat", and "D...D...Dog" and does not necessarily work well when trying to spell a word like "knowledgeable." What really drives me crazy is that people do not use the spell checking features widely available to them, the very basic one of these being a dictionary.
Alright so what about punctuation? What punctuation? I do not see that much of it anymore. Punctuation also helps to place your sentences in the proper context, it conveys emotion and lets the reader know intent. A question mark shows that the sentence is a question, an exclamation mark shows excitement, and a period says that you are finished with that particular sentence... neat huh?! Oh and don't even get me started on the comma!
So now on to text speak... I can understand if you are doing this while on a mobile phone that limits how many characters can actually be sent at one time, but why is it necessary on the internet? I think it all comes down to laziness, or maybe ignorance. I don't know if I want to blame the school systems or the parents, maybe both. I have actually read magazine articles where there were too many spelling and grammatical errors, seems like maybe the editor was high when that particular article passed their desk. This is all becoming more commonplace each day. People seem to have thrown the beauty of the written word out the window. I mean, how many people actually use a pen and paper anymore? I for one, have a very extensive collection of pens and happen to be a
connoisseur (whoa! there's a nightmare word for the new internet youth!) of the art. I guess my ultimate point is... what the hell happened to proper technique and learning in general? Is there any such thing as a standard curriculum anymore? I thought we were supposed to get smarter as we moved into the future, but I guess all we have done is let the technology do all of the work for us. We used to read and imagine the storyline, now we are fed images from a screen. We used to do mathematics, now we use the damn calculator on our cell phone. We have become to complacent a society to the point where we overlook such discrepancies. As long as we can see who the next American Idol is, everything else seems irrelevant. There are many American idols, but I can assure you they are not as famous. Our priorities are all f'd up and we don't care, we don't try to correct it, all we do is push forward more garbage. Our children deserve better than this, we deserve better. Let's not keep the ignorance alive.

Darkfield Rat

2009-08-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

I just picked up a brand new Logitech mouse today... the Performance Mouse MX. I love this mouse already after only a few hours of use and normally it takes me much longer to warm up to a new peripheral, especially a mouse because I'm pretty picky about those. The Performance MX is a replacement to the MX Revolution, but I think the Performance MX kicks the MX Revolution right in it's USB dongle. I love everything about this mouse so far, so I am going to list some of the things I love about it.

It's rechargeable (single AA eneloop) but when it runs down you need not stop using it to stick it on a charging cradle, you simply plug the USB cable into the mouse and then into your computer and continue using it while it's charging.

It has a plethora of useful buttons unlike many other mice on the market, the most useful of them being the stealth type button that lays beneath your thumb as you rest your hand on the mouse... I have this button set activate Windows 3D Flip for switching between my windows faster.

The wireless micro receiver it comes with is Logitech's new Unifying technology. This allows you to only use one wireless receiver with multiple new Logitech wireless devices, thus only requiring one USB port for them all... nice move Logitech.

It uses Logitech's new Darkfield laser tracking technology that will track on the most difficult of surfaces, including glass and glossy surfaces. The laser detects at up to 1500 DPI which just happens to be the DPI that I ran my Logitech G9 at for the past year, so it's comfortable to me.

The scroll wheel seems much faster and smoother than on my G9 and left and right scroll functions are smoother too, although I have left scroll set to minimize windows and right scroll to maximize them... it's just feels better to me.

The materials on the mouse give it a very pleasing feel in the hand and I especially love the aluminum surrounding the area where your thumb sits... nice and classy touch, much nicer than the glossy black plastic found on the Logitech MX Revolution if you ask me.

Overall it's just a nice mouse and I am satisfied with it completely at this point. As a matter of fact it's the only mouse I found suitable to replace my Logitech G9 so far.

So finally, here are some quick pictures I captured of this lovely rodent...

News... I guess...

2009-08-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

There's not a whole lot new going on around here, but I suppose it would not hurt for me to ramble on for a few... so here goes.

I got a new keyboard on which I am typing this right now, it's the Logitech Compact K300 keyboard. It's a nice little compact keyboard that still features a number pad and all the usual keys and has a nice feel to it. The keys feel like a hybrid between a laptop keyboard and a desktop one and they have a nice, yet tactile feedback. For a mere $30, plus what the state gets, it's a good little board that offers me everything I like in a keyboard. I especially like that when you hit FN to alter the function of the F Keys, the orange icons (hotkeys) glow brighter to alert you as to their newly activated status... nice touch considering the price. Logitech has some nice peripherals coming to the market in the next few months. Anyway, just thought I'd mention this.

I modded one of my fan controllers to have white LEDs rather than the stock red/blue ones. The Sunsbeam Rheobus controller now looks much better in my opinion. I hooked up and extra 1 terabyte of disk space for storage too, though I'm not sure what I am going to put on that disk at the moment... maybe a backup of all my data, or I guess I could download a whole bunch of other shit. I've been encoding some video and burning DVDs with some new software I found and I'm sure that could take the better part of a terabyte if I let it.

I downloaded and installed the RC of Windows 7 and gave it a go for a bit. I like it overall and I do think that it improves upon Vista in many regards, especially in hardware scaling and overall performance... however... I cannot, I repeat CANNOT live in an OS without my beloved skins and icons. I have the irrational urge to customize every interface that I am involved with, this is why I hang out in the screenshot threads over @ the [H]ard Forum. I am customization junky so for that reason I will be sticking with Vista until 7 comes out... I buy it... and there's more support behind it from the modding community. Besides, I have no problems with Vista after service pack 1, it's been rock stable for me.

I successfully installed OSX Leopard 10.5.6 on my PC (I.E. Hackintosh) and I came to a few conclusions which I will outline now. I do not like it. I think it is pretty, but I don't find it to be as useable for me as Vista (or 7). As a power user I just don't like it. So for me personally Leopard is just some eye candy, but in reality I made my Vista installation much better looking and more useable. I don't like the way that Leopard is laid out... the taskbar in Windows trumps the Dock in Leopard in my opinion, it's faster for me. While using Leopard I had to immediately install Firefox because Safari is a joke, but this is probably an unfair statement because Internet Explorer in Windows is a joke with a stupid punchline. I've long touted my devotion to Firefox so I might be a bit biased... wait... no I'm not, Safari and IE just suck... they really do. Maybe it's because I am just more used to a Windows interface... true, but I somehow think that Leopard is just limited in what it can do compared to Vista. I do know one thing though, all those Mac vs. PC commercials on TV are b.s. They make people think that Macs are the savior of the free world and they can do no wrong. I mean you don't see Microsoft running smear campaigns against Apple... they don't have to I guess, considering MS still has the majority of computer users. There seems to be too much politics in computer use these days. People will tell you that Macs and Leopard "just work" but I got Leopard to "just freeze" more than I ever did in Vista. I've only crashed Vista once and that was completely my fault. I really don't see why people disapprove of Vista to the degree that they do, I mean I'll agree that it was over-priced but that's really the only beef I have with it. Leopard fanboys (and girls) would probably get pissed at the previous comments but if they want to argue then I can surely shoot holes in their arguments. As a matter of fact, I have many more points I could make about the different OS installs I've been playing with... but I'm going to save that for another time. I am not a fanboy... I just go with whatever works best for me. Screw all the Mac vs. PC, Ford vs. Chevy, nVidia vs. ATI, Glock vs. XD bullshit out there. So people need to get off the anatomy of the manufacturers and start using what they like because they like it, not because they're told to like it. I'm sure I'm just wasting the energy in my fingers typing this however. I guess it stands to reason that there would be more sheep than shepherds though... so carry on.

Vacation Photos

2009-08-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

I have been sorting through the many things on my computer that I have been meaning to sort through for awhile and I finally got the ones of our vacation to Hot Springs sorted and some of the better ones uploaded to my Deviant Art. Anyway, I found this one and it tickled me...

The others are on my Deviant Art, as I said, go take a look.

This looks like fun to me...

2009-02-28T04:05:00.000-08:00