| Norcal, Part Deux |
[Aug. 21st, 2005|04:21 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  restless | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Music - Welcome to the North | ] |
( Off to sunny Sunnyvale! )
( ...Saratoga, Oakland, Pasadena... )
Karen, have a great trip to Italy -- I'm sure you'll have a blast and learn a lot! Mimi, hope to see you before another year goes by. Jon's sister and her boyfriend, although you will never read this, it was a pleasure meeting you and I wish you all the best. Greg and KT, well, I'll be seeing you around, definitely. And Jon, it was a pleasure roadtripping with you -- I'd do it again any time.
That's all, folks!
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| best way to play ipod in car |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|07:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Kasabian - Test Transmission | ] |
I'm fed up with using FM transmitters to play my iPod in the car. The sound quality is mediocre at best, and it's a pain in the butt fiddling with the radio trying to find empty stations to broadcast on when driving anywhere more than 20 minutes away.
No more.
( You: "Is this another really nerdy entry that I'll probably have no interest in?" Me: "Uh..." You: "Great..." Me: "Hey, it's MY journal. I'm not *begging* you to read it or anything." ::sulks:: )
Looks good, sounds great (power provided by my iGo universal car charger) -- note the wire running out from under the wood trim (also, the handle of my window squeegee makes an appearance on the right)
Chuck your old transmitter and enjoy your crystal-clear tunes!
Note that this solution isn't iPod specific. I've also successfully routed in sound from my PowerBook and my GPS navigation system. Sa-weet!
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| iPod upgrade |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|05:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grateful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bruce Springsteen-From Small Things(Big Things One Day Come) | ] |
I somehow convinced my parents to upgrade my iPod (they're too kind). My mom was going to get a pink mini, but I said if they felt like upgrading mine she could have my silver 4GB mini. I think she was kinda sad to forgo the pink one, but I've got a little surprise for her.
My old iPod mini gets a sex change
The song titles, if you can't read them, are "Black Star" (Yngwie Malmsteen), "A Lack of Color" (Death Cab for Cutie), and "Playing With Pink Noise" (Kaki King) -- all really good songs (hey, just want to make sure the level of detail I put into these pics is appreciated ;-)
The new iPod is pretty sweet -- 20GB, and they're all color now, apparently.
Can hold most of my burgeoning 21.09GB (and growing) music library
Oh, and I'm a Brick master...
209 on my first try. Skillz.
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| new camera! |
[Aug. 14th, 2005|05:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  enthralled | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Filter - Take a Picture | ] |
In a fit of frustration over my old broken camera and the trapped pictures it refused to relinquish, I broke down and bought a new one.
The 5-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD20.
This baby is small -- less than 3/4 of an inch thick and about 3.5 oz. One-third the volume of my old camera.
Downside is, it doesn't have optical zoom (only digital) or a viewfinder (only LCD display), but those are things I never really use anyway, and I'm willing to sacrifice them for its incredibly small size.
$265 at BuyDig.com, plus $55 for a 1GB memory card at Newegg.com. Not bad considering it retails for $400. (Now I just need to finish this website I'm working on so I can pay it off... x-P)
More posts to follow!
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| 21 |
[Aug. 8th, 2005|06:28 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Something Corporate - 21 and Invincible | ] |
The once-belligerent arm wrestlers were able to quickly resolve their differences...
( Oh, Austin's up to his antics again... ) |
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| sad times in camera land |
[Aug. 4th, 2005|08:25 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Idlewild - A Modern Way of Letting Go | ] |
Well, I would be entertaining you, my faithful readers (viewers?), with some more pictures of my high-larious antics, BUT my cheapo 4MP Gateway (yes, Gateway) digital camera has chosen to crap out on me, leaving me with several fine entries worth of pictures that may be irretrievable.
I'm not too torn up since I only paid about a little over a hundred bucks for the camera, but I definitely don't have the money for another one right now, which is sad.
I guess for now I'll have to make due with the pics I already have. There are several entries that have been in the works now :::cough::: for quite a while that I may finish. Until then, I'll leave you with this small glimpse into my life...
Both food groups make a regular appearance during Austin's breakfast -- meat and sugar! Mmmmm...
(See? Now aren't you really going to miss pictures like this?)
Now off to take my guitar/marketing finals. Hooray.
Oh, and MY 21ST BIRTHDAY IS ON AUGUST 8TH!!
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| episode 3 abridged script |
[Jul. 22nd, 2005|11:09 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Mae - The Everglow | ] |
This hilarious "abridged script" of Star Wars Episode III sums up excellently what I was feeling while watching it.
EDIT: Also, if you've just got oodles of free time, check out their LotR scripts too (links on the lefthand side). Sooooo funny -- even though I actually enjoyed those movies. |
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| The ol' HP... |
[Jul. 19th, 2005|08:59 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
Well, I finally finished the [insert-s-or-f-here-as-you-see-fit]ucker last night. Impressions may follow (lj-cut of course, don't worry), but now I have to rush off to gee-taar class. Horray! |
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| blah blah |
[Jul. 16th, 2005|09:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
Why am I putting off reading this book like it's some 15 page paper that's due tomorrow that I haven't started yet?
Page 11 still awaits.
Yeah.
Time to grab some dinner. Maybe. |
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| props |
[Jul. 16th, 2005|05:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Seether - Fade Away | ] |
Just wanted to give props to Dictionary.com, as I just realized that their Word of the Day today (July 16), apparition, is a tie in with the whole Harry Potter craze. (As the dust-jacket of the new book reminds us, "Sixth-year students learn to Apparate". Can't wait for that. Ahem. Okay, I'm really going to go read the book now...) |
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| Harry Potter and the Half-Assed Proofreading Job (no spoilers) |
[Jul. 16th, 2005|05:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pessimistic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Bravery - An Honest Mistake | ] |
I must say I've been excited to begin the next Harry Potter book. Mind you, not so excited that I'd run out to get the book at midnight last night, but certainly excited enough to wake up today at about 2 in the afternoon and trudge the 1/4 of a block down the street to the Barnes & Noble. Huzzah.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I got distracted by other things for a while, so I didn't get around to starting it until about 20 minutes ago. I wouldn't even be posting this entry right now if it weren't for this!
The SITE, therefore, of Fudge stepping out of the fire...
A blatant typographical error! On page 10!
At first I thought it must be some alternative British spelling, so I looked it up. No dice. Whassamatter, did the spell-checker not catch that homophonic mistake, Jo? Could this be, perhaps, the result of far too much secrecy surrounding the text? Did Rowling's pre-release paranoia prevent a full complement of proofreaders and editors from ripping this thing apart before it was published? (Woah, nice unintentional alliteration there, if I do say so myself...)
For the most anticipated book in history, expected to sell over 12 million copies within the first 24 hours, I would have expected a little more care. Major respect lost there, J.K.
The Christian extremists were right! These books are corrupting the minds of our children, confusing them with homophonic similarities! Next thing you know, all the Harry Potter readers out there will have become Wiccan, crack-smoking homosexuals!
Whew, okay, I'm done. I'm gonna go bust out my crack-pipe and finish this son o' a bitch. Page 11, here I come...
See you in a couple days.
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| why is Austin never online anymore...? |
[Apr. 19th, 2005|02:10 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  energetic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Chikinki - Bus | ] |
Some of you may have wondered why I haven't been online at all in the past, oh... 8 months or so.
Well, it's because I forgot the darn password to my AzygousFrog SN, and none of the "forgot password" emails can seem to get through to me.
I've been on and off now and again using my .Mac SN -- "atkurtz@mac.com", but that's rather boring, and when my free .Mac subscription runs out, I'm not going to pay to renew it.
So I finally signed up for another SN. I couldn't really come up with anything creative, so for now I'll be on as "AzygousFrog2".
I don't have access to ANY of my old buddy list contacts, so unless you just want to stalk me, send me an IM sometime.
Oh, and please don't email me at AzygousFrog unless you really need to get a hold of me -- it's still set up to forward to my phone, meaning I have to pay for messages sent and received.
See you online.
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| wow... |
[Apr. 17th, 2005|01:15 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Moby - We Are All Made Of Stars | ] |
Well, I just heard that my little brother, Lawson, got hit by a car while biking today -- BUT HE'S OKAY! Good thing he was wearing his helmet. Some dude just barreled into him while turning -- Lawson totally had the right of way, but the guy didn't see him there. He was thrown up into the windshield and shit. Lawson got up and went over to the driver afterwords to let him know he was okay, but the cop that just happened to be there and witnessed the accident went over and made him lie down in case he injured his neck or something. Even though he appeared to be totally fine, they still took him to the emergency room in an ambulance with a collar on one of those board thingies because there was so much damage to the vehicle that hit him.
And it turns out he was perfectly fine, apart from a couple pieces of glass they had to take out of his back, and his fancy bike that got totalled. The doctor examining him (also a biker) said if he hadn't been in such great shape he would have at least broken a few bones or something. The guy who took the glass out of his back was a dirtbiker, and they all swapped stories of their biking accidents. Awwwww.
So it's really made me think -- it's so easy to take family for granted. I've never really missed home since leaving for college, but I'm glad I'll be visiting for a week come the end of this semester (first week of May! woot!).
It's also made me realize what a lazy-ass I am. Lawson's so intense about working out -- he usually runs or bikes some insane amount of miles every day and does weights and stuff for cross country and track where he throws discus. :::sigh::: Makes me think I should really be keeping up on the whole working out thing too. Last summer I was up to running the UCLA perimeter (4+ miles) almost every night. It's all about falling into a good routine, and I haven't had that since moving to the Marina. I don't even have shitty Connecticut snow/rain to deal with.
So the plan is, I'm going to start running again. But I don't think I'll take up biking -- it sounds too dangerous. :-) |
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| hot solar eclipse action! |
[Apr. 8th, 2005|06:54 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  giddy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Velvet Underground - Who Loves The Sun | ] |
Today Greg and I found out that we saw the same solar eclipse from Europe on August 11, 1999. It was pretty cool/intense. One of the most unique things I've seen in my entire life.
I was in Dachau, Germany -- Greg was in Luzern, Switzerland.
According to Mapquest UK, that's 234.6 miles apart. Driving. That's close. Small world.
Green Star: Greg -- Luzern, Switzerland
Blue Star: Austin -- Dachau, Germany
Red Star: Location of greatest eclipse (45°04.8'N; 024°17.3'E)
( I'll cut this image for you cuz it's huge... )
It was a total solar eclipse (of eclipse magnitude 1.029 **) lasting 2 minutes and 23 seconds.
** This means that 1.029 of the Sun's diameter was obscured by the Moon. (For total eclipses, the eclipse magnitude is always greater than or equal to 1. Duh.)
Thanks to NASA for the extremely useful and interesting information above.
Cool, huh?
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| kak-tye! |
[Apr. 1st, 2005|01:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Kaya Project - Walking Through | ] |
What kind of living thing do you get for a person who couldn’t even remember to feed his pet lizards as a kid?
Oh yeah! Say hello to "The Three Amigos"! Bienvenidos a mi apartmento, Tres Amigos! My parents know what I can handle.
All I have to remember is not to touch it. ... Ouch!
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| deja vu |
[Apr. 1st, 2005|12:45 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | US3 - Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) | ] |
Hey, any of you ever get that nagging feeling, "hmmm...I think I’ve paid this bill before..."?
Not me.
My Verizon account summary:
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| back in the saddle |
[Mar. 31st, 2005|04:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | unproductive | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Crystal Method - Keep Hope Alive | ] |
Last night, as I lay sleeping, a booming voice spoke to me...
"Austin, the mighty tome that is your LiveJournal hath lain dormant far too long!"
And I'm all like,
"damn... leeme alone, Booming Voice. it's 3am and i'm tired..."
And then I went back to sleep
...and then I found five bucks
But um...the point of the story was, that darn Booming Voice was right. I've been pretty lazy. If all goes well, expect some major catching-up posts. A few may be pretty dated, but hey, better late than never, right?
Right?
Is anyone still there?
...
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| miracles DO happen, but life still sucks sometimes... |
[Feb. 18th, 2005|12:43 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | shaken, grateful, depressed | ] |
I just had possibly one of the worst ADD moments of my entire life...
So I was at UCLA all day today -- hung out with Karen/KT/Greg/Jon which was fun! Greg, Karen, and I hit up Ralphs ~10pm to get some groceries. I got back to my apartment around 11:15, came inside, got ready for bed, then as I'm going to sleep around 11:45 realized, "oh shit! I forgot about the groceries!"
So in shorts and an undershirt, I throw on my flip flops, grab my car keys, and grumbling, trudge out to get them. It's chilly now, so I try to get all of them in one trip. Carrying six or seven heavy bags, I hurry back to my apartment, reach for my apartment keys...uh oh.
I'M LOCKED OUT!!! DAMMIT! WHY did I only bring my CAR keys???
Okay, calm down...no problem. Think, there's gotta be something you can do... I went through a quick list in my mind:
- Get keys from the apartment manager. Problem: office closed at 7pm.
- Call the apartment emergency lock-out number. Problems: the number's on a card in my wallet, on the other side of that damn door.</i> Also, my cell phone is on the other side of that damn door.
- Call a locksmith. Problem: no phonebook, no phone
- Ask to use a neighbor's phone. Problem: it's now 11:50pm, and most people wouldn't take kindly to being woken up by a stranger late at night.
- Drive somewhere for help. Problems: with no apartment keys, wouldn't be able to get car back into garage later (or myself back into the building), was essentially in my underwear (awkward), wearing flip-flops (not great for driving), no license or ID
- Shoulder/kick the door in. (yes, I actually entertained this notion for a moment -- the deadbolt wasn't bolted) Problems: noisy, suspicious, would probably cause damage to door, wearing flip-flops, not shoes.
- Pick the lock myself. Problem: with what, my groceries?
- Sleep in the car. Problems: 8am stats test, no alarm in car, apt office doesn't open until 8am
Having gone through every conceivable possibility, only #7 and 8 seemed remotely feasible. I decided to see what was in my car for #7. I trudged ALL the heavy groceries BACK to the car to check.
Problem: relatively new car, not junked up yet. There was a napkin, a few coins, and some textbooks -- not a single paper clip, pen cap, or any other bendable piece of metal. :::sigh:::
I decided to go looking for something. I walked ALL OVER my apartment complex in my PAJAMAS and FLIP-FLOPS in the COLD looking for little pieces of metal on the ground for over 15 MINUTES!! (which seemed more like an hour in this situation) I really didn't know what else to do. I was so frustrated -- I really felt like crying. So sad. But keep in mind, there really was no alternative that I could see, except for #8.
So I began to think about #8. I could just explain to my professor the next day what happened, and I'm sure he'd understand. Still, it would be uncomfortable all night, and slightly embarrassing the next day. :::sigh:::
So, having worked my way down the building, I was finishing up scouring the first floor (finding nothing -- the place was way too clean) and I was just about to head up to my car (to sleep), when I heard a door close!
I quickly flip-flopped over to see who it was. Some guy was coming out of one of the offices!
Me: "uh...what do we do if we lock ourselves out?"
Him: :::skeptical appraisal of me in my PAJAMAS and FLIP-FLOPS in the COLD looking UNCOMFORTABLE::: "well, call the lock-out number"
Me: "well, uh...it's in my wallet, which is locked in my apartment along with my cell phone"
Him: "oh, well actually you're really lucky because i'm the guy that does it and I just happened to come back for something I forgot in my office. it's a $25 fee, though, check only"
Me: :::SOOOOO relieved!!!::: "fine, whatever, can I get you a check once I get inside? I uh, don't have my wallet on me"
Him: "okay, do you have any identification?"
Me: "well...in my apartment"
Him: "okay"
So he unlocks his office, goes inside, gets a copy of my key, and comes up and unlocks my door! I wrote a $25 check and showed him my ID.
That was the best 25 bucks I've ever spent.
And how f#%&ing unbelievably lucky that the ONE guy who has access to the apartment keys at night would be just leaving his office at 12:17am, and I happened to run into him (my apartment complex is huge). In over 25 minutes of wandering around I didn't run into a SINGLE other person.
I still can't believe it.
Then later, unpacking the groceries, I realized another thing I forgot -- my 18 pack of eggs, which I paid for, but forgot to put in the cart or something. Aww...and I really wanted eggs for breakfast before my 8am test... :::sigh::: :-(
I've also realized this Strattera stuff totally wears off by about 7 or 8pm. It sucks.
I just need this day to be over. |
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