Category: Fun!

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Toshiba Gigabeat S + Windows Media 11 and URGE

I got a new MP3 player this week. Needed something more than my 5-year-old iPOD. After a dreadful experience with a bad sync cable having to be replaced I am happy to report — this thing is awesome!

It has the new Windows Media Mobile player on it, and this plus the new Windows Media Player 11 is really a slick little package. WATCH OUT Apple! This could be the iPOD killer. iTUNES is nice, but I’ve never cared for it’s interface — and comparing it now it’s actually really staid and old looking compared to this new combination I have. Plus it effortlessly found all my pictures and videos, and synced them with the gigabeat player. Very slick.

The Toshiba gigabeat player itself is well designed — 30GB hard drive player with good connection options. You can even output to a TV and watch the videos you have on it (cables came included). Volume and sound are great, and the screen is gorgeous.

So as a part of Windows Media Player 11, they have bundled the new URGE music store, run by MTV. So I signed-up for the free trial. I have to say I’m impressed. Every obscure song I looked for they had, and then I got into the “More music like this” feature which searches for other artists and songs that are similar to what you have selected. I found more cool stuff and songs I remembered and loved that needed to be in my collection immediately! It was easy to select them, they downloaded and synced, again, flawlessly. Even with album art to boot!

After the free trial it costs you $14 a month — but it’s for all you can eat. Or you can purchase songs for $0.99 each. So I guess you could get stuck and tethered to the service if you don’t by the songs outright (which, I’m sure, is what they want). However, searching and sampling all these songs was very easy, and I’d spend the money just for the directory and searching service alone.

Anyways, enough fluff. None of this is new — others have done it before. But the entire “package” of this combination is very nice — This is good stuff. I can’t believe something like this came from Microsoft.

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Bumbershoot


The heat notwithstanding, I ventured out to the annual Seattle Music festival. To be honest, I was a little dissapointed at the lineup. Or perhaps I’m just getting old. The only selections I desired to see were Blondie and the Steve Miller Band. So on Saturday I walked the 3 blocks from my apartment (nice!) to Seattle Center. I had an hour and a half before Blondie. This event is now is so effed-up that would you believe that I finally got into Memorial Stadium and got to listen to the last 4 songs only!! And the stadium wasn’t even full! What’s up with that?! Could they not open more gates? I arrived in standard time an hour before I wanted to listen — and the stadium wasn’t even full! Very dissapointing. Bad Seattle people, bad.

(I’ve been doing a lot of rants lately, huh?!)

On the flip-side I did meet-up with my friend Lauren and had a hoot of a time watching the Rat City Rollers play in their roller derby tournament. It was oddly fascinating to watch, and fun! And plus the campy factor was high, so of course I was all in!

Click here to watch roller derby chicks battle it out!

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Holy cow — I got comments!

So after tweaking this website blog a bit I noticed I had comments for some of my posts! Oh shit — people ARE reading this crap. That’s funny! 🙂 Sorry if I seemed to ignore you — I had the “moderated” type as all the bots out on the internet try to post stuff automatically and it’s all garbage. Didn’t realize this stuff was there!

Will check and see if I can get email notification when posts are made, though!!

[update 11/9/2006: with the new blog software, all the old comments went away ;( ]

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Seafair 2006!


Ahhh, Seafair!!

My friend Daniel from the Fly-In invited me to go out on his boat during the annual Seafair extravaganza in Seattle. We had a great time watching the Blue Angels. After the Blues we picked-up Claire and had great fun swimming, went to eat, and then watched the fireworks show that was new this year.

Even better was that I’m so close to the water, I just took a cab to the dock and walked back home (or at least that was the plan…it was so later after we got back that after dropping Claire off in Ballard I got off with her to save the boat a stop — she gave me a ride home. But I could have done it!)

Here is the photo gallery

Vid: Here come the Blues!

Vid: High Delta break

Vid: Last pass –love the boat horns!

Vid: Fireworks, with bonus conversation about matching socks

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What *IS* that sound?!

So on a groggy-eyed Saturday morning I keep hearing this jackhammer sound around the house. It’s driving me batty — I’m going from room to room trying to find out what the heck it is.

So I go to my office and restart my computer, and notice the sound is louder — Oh great. So I open the window and what do I find — A Woodpecker has taken up residence on my neighbor’s chimney! Whats hysterical is that it’s an aluminum chimney — so the bird just ain’t gonna see any productive work. Or perhaps he’s hot-to-trot for a lady woodpecker and showing off his manlyness…

Anyway, I got it on my camera. I had to laugh, not because it’s a woodpecker (although funny enough) but that I was searching for this noise for about 20 minutes!

Watch video

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Germany Videos

Here is all the best videos I took (from my new camera of all things!!) Lots more photos to come from Munich, Berlin photos are below, but the videos are the funnest…and here’s all of them. Requires Windows Media Player, which most PCs already have, and a high-speed connection

Ride the bus along the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin. Public transport is so awesome, except in Seattle. Berlin buses were the nicest I’ve been on.

Watch German TV. This was a “springer-esque” show — gotta love the announcer guy and the look on the woman’s face at the end!

Watch the Glockenspiel in Munich. I love the crowd’s “ohh, ahh” at the start

More Glockenspiel

Drink with people at the Hofbrauhaus. This was between lunch and dinner, so not much of a crowd, but still really fun!

Hofbrauhaus cheers! Short, but fun as everyone clicks their steins!

Riding the train at 200 KPH. The trains were on-time and comfortable.

My connecting train arriving in Fulda. Or so I thought. This was the wrong train — I got on it by accident. Luckily it was going to Munich as well!

Passing by Wurtzburg on the train. This town looked charming from inside, this video doesn’t do it justice — lots of church spires on the other side of the train (so I couldn’t really shoot those)

A snowy arrival of….something! Obviously some sort of publicity stunt, this was in Munich as I was walking along. Apparently there was some sort of German soccer star there as well — I had no idea. It was funny to watch, though.

What is it? More of this important jewelry unveiling in Munich, complete with TV coverage and motorcycles.

Riding the Munich Subway. The cleanest and nicest system I’ve ever been on (but the Berlin busses were nicer…)

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It is so good to be home

It is so good to be home

I am back from my vacation to Germany. I had an incredible time and both Berlin and Munich gave me some great stories to tell. One thing is for certain, and the reason I travel: you can always find friends wherever you go — just be yourself, share a beer, and viola!

However, it is so good to be home. Really, it is.

I took a lot of pictures and notes, so in-between loads of laundry this week I’ll be uploading and sharing the stories. Stay tuned!

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Greetings from M

Hello from the “Secret capital of Germany”! I’m in Bavaria after a long train ride from Berlin. It was good that the train ride was long, because I had a lot of recovering to do from a last-night party in Berlin — more later.

Berlin was BIG and spread-out. Thank GOD Munich is compact — and pedestrian friendly!! My feet thank you, Munich! This is my first real day here, and then I’ve got tomorrow and then I come home. Which actually is not that bad. Munich is so compact I’m covering a lot of ground and still having time to enjoy things.

BTW, hello, SNOW!!!!! Munich got dumped on the day before I got here, and there is about a foot of snow on the ground. It’s still snowing now. I love this — it’s perfect for me and the setting of Bavarian Germany.

Just got back from lunch at the Hoffbrauhaus! I drank 2 liters of really good beer, and am now walking off the buzz. Perhaps now I see why Munich is walkable — ahhhh, this all makes sense now. Nice planning Deutchland!

My last night I’m in a really nice hotel by the airport, so I will be uploading my photos then.

Another interesting note: you#ll see that I make fun of the Torino olympic opening ceremony and it#s music — so 80#s. Well, it must be a Europe thing, because it is ALL OVER THE PLACE here — everwhere I go it#s on the loudspeakers — I’m jazzing-out to ‘Celebrate a good time’ right now in the Internet cafe! How funny!!

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