So today I got my iPod and SG-1 Season 8! I have renewed faith in Federal Express... the iPod was waiting for me as soon as I got up. (UPS followed about 10 minutes later.)

First, Stargate... I believe my copy of Threads is the much sought after long version. I don't think I'll have to exchange! All the other episodes are about 45 minutes long (00:43:36, to be exact) and Threads is 01:05:37 long. Yippee! I'll have to compare it to the one I recorded, though.

Next, the iPod! 60 gigabytes of musical goodness. It took me several hours getting the thing set up, because a silly plugin called "Multi-Plugin" (that I used to get my Inspiron's media control macro buttons to control iTunes) kept crashing for some random reason. 500 songs into the transfer and BAM! iTunes crashes. At first, I thought it was because one of my albums is written in Japanese, so I managed to upload one album at a time, and, well... it worked. So okay, whatever. Then I noticed the album artwork wasn't showing up on the iPod's screen, so I went and cleared it all off and tried to put them back on. 35% of the way through, iTunes crashed AGAIN. So, okay... maybe it's the album art that crashes it. So I go and mass recompress all the cover images and retag the files with them, and retransfer all the files. CRASH! This time, however, I decided to see if the crash message had anything useful in the debug information and...................................... yup, it did. The problem was occuring in DLL "multi-plugin.dll". So I uninstalled that dude and retransferred everything AGAIN and, tada! Works perfectly now.

After that, I experimented with encoding video for it. It went smoother than most of my experiments. I was able to locate a free program called Videora iPod Converter that quickly and easily turns just about any video into an iPod video. It's not the most streamlined program ever, but it works. I was able to transcode a Simpsons episode and watch it, heehee.

Next on my list is to figure out how to synchronize notes, contacts and calendar entries.

Nooooooo!!

Apple ships with Federal Express...

There goes all hope of it getting here on time.

Hmm... notice anything different?
If not... then good!! You're not supposed to!

But for those dying to know, I've upgraded to Wordpress 2.0, and while you can't see anything different (except for the version number at the very bottom), the administrative panels have got a major facelift. It's sooo nice looking. All the plugins I use seem to be working properly, too, which is doubly nice. Version upgrades make me happy.

Speaking of happiness... today, I've finished processing all my albums into iTunes! With the exception of a few miscellaneous mp3s scattered around that don't belong in any album. So I'm all ready for my iPod! Which, unfortunately, hasn't shipped, yet... I specified 2-day shipping, though, so it should get here Thursday! (And so should my SG1 DVD set, if neither company screws up, like Amazon almost did with Mom's Christmas present.)

But anyhoo... that's the news for the day.

Today is a "good" day. I put that in quotes because, well, possessions doesn't make one happy, but anyway... I bought Stargate SG-1 Season 8 on DVD. I've been considering purchasing the thing because good ol' MGM screwed up the set and released a short version of the episode called Threads. The episode originally aired in a 1hr 30min timeslot, but MGM released the version designed to fit into a 1hr timeslot.

Anyway, to make a long story short, everyone was seriously upset and MGM decided to set up and exchange for anyone who wanted the long version. The only catch is that you must have had to purchase the set in 2005 and sent in the exchange request by January 31st, 2006. So to be absolutely sure I got the long version, I just finally broke down and bought it.

I read a thread on Gateworld.net Forums that someone had actually managed to buy a Season 8 package and get the long version without exchanging, so maybe MGM has started releasing the set with the long version now. In any case, I didn't want to take any chances. (I pray I get the long version, just to cut down on extra worrying and work and such.)

But, even better, I bought a 60GB Video iPod! I still don't exactly have all the money, but the credit card bill won't come again until the end of January, so that's plenty of time to get enough. My Rio PMP300 is all but dead... shorting out left and right... so I can be using the iPod now, while working.

Meh, so much the better... Dad's a pain to work with. The louder and clearer my music the better.

Whoops... forgot to mention the Blogshares button.

It's a game designed like the stock market where blogs are sort of like companies, I guess, that people can buy and sell shares in. I have no ghastly idea how or why someone would want to play it, but I saw that it had cached an entry for my blog while I was searching Google to see if it'd spidered my new site.

I figured I oughta sign up and see exactly what it was. I'll give you a little warning, though... I'd gone there once and it had really creepy ads. Nothing worse than what you'd see on TV, but still. (Although I haven't seen any lately.) So I signed up and decided to "claim" my blog under my username... and to do that, you have to code the image onto the site so the next time it scans the page, it sees the link and confirms that you own the thing.

So yup! That's what that is.

So yes, as you can see, I have Google Ads stuck on my blog. Why? I was bored... and I was in a mood to see how it worked! Soooooooo... yeah, it seems to work. I think... all it's been doing is talk about iPods, though. Interested in seeing how/if it dynamically changes to what I've written about lately or if it's just... broken, since I read on their site that dynamic content (aka blogs) are a bit weird.

But anyway! In other news, Amazon sent out an order a whole 24 hours later than they said. Will the package be here by the 23rd? I doubt it... so I'm kinda ticked off, even if it was my brother who ordered the thing. It's the principle of the matter... or something.

The great thing I've found out about Sennheiser is that they provide you with replacement parts for your headphones! Yep... headphones parts. They make their products with removeable cables and ear cushion thingies. Why? Well... I've got friends who tell me they've been using the same pair of headphones for yeeeeeeears without anything going wrong with 'em. But guess what? I'm not them, hahaha!! I can easily go through a pair of headphones every 8 to 12 months. I wear the things almost 24/7 and therefore get tons of wear and tear. Soooo, usually, the cables get yanked and twisted and so forth until finally... the wires break and a speaker shorts out. Now, my hearing is sensitive enough (or whatever) so that if my music suddenly stops coming in through one ear, it literally throws me off balance and gives me a headache.

So anyway!! To the point... since I'm tired and wanna go to bed. Once these Sennheiser headphones get shorted cables, I can buy a cable for like 7 bucks instead of a whole new pair for 70! This is already the second pair I've gone through. ...and about the ear cushions, well... Usually, I don't keep a single pair around long enough to need to replace them, but... now I see why they offer them. The plastic wrapping stuff has shredded itself and the stuffing is all puffing out everywhere and IT'S ANNOYING!

So to make a much longer than needed story short, I bought some replacement pieces! Both speakers are shorting out now, and I decided it was high-time to get some. Unfortunately, the silly things are out of stock and they emailed me saying I'll get them in 4 to 6 weeks!! Arrrrrrrgh. This is what I get for trying to get the most out of something.

In mooooore other news, I've started watching The Simpsons! I've shocked a few people by telling them this... but I don't reeeally know why they think I wasn't the type. But anyhow, it's not something I'd suggest as a super-hilarious comedy... because it's not. It's weird, and silly, and is the master of parodies and hidden jokes.

Oh, and speaking of shows, I saw the new Mr and Mrs Smith movie a few nights ago. It was, hmm... pretty good, actually. I can't exactly put my finger on why, exactly. But it just is! It kind of has the feel of Ocean's 11 and 12, which are, of course, both amazing movies, too. Fantastic Four, which we saw next, was just plain AWFUL. In every way imaginable. But then we saw The Island and wooooah. That was one heck of a film... in every way imaginable. I heard it didn't do too well in the theaters, which is sad... the trailer made it out to be some super-sleasy movie about who knows what. But it's really, really good. Very much like Gattaca, which is also a very cool movie! If you haven't seen it, then do so. It's like... and unofficial classic... or something.

So anyway... there you go. A quick (or not so much) update from..........me!

From the Slashdot post:

"Intel, Apple, Samsung, LG, Nat Semi and Silicon Image formed a consortium to promote Unified Display Interface (UDI) as the new standard to connect computers to monitors and TVs. UDI will be HDMI and HDCP "anti-piracy" compatible."

Look who's helping support this new wave of DRM. Nope, not Microsoft, as everyone is so keen on accusing for everything imaginable... it's Apple. Your friendly neighborhood computer manufacturer that can do no wrong is promoting content filtering on the hardware level of your computer.