Who the hell was the first idiot to put mustard on a hamburger?

Had a fun weekend... Friday night's excursion to Mama Gaia's was a blast... The Moms and Ambient Jungle were incredible, and the crowd was a lot of fun. Afterward, JP and I retired to Deli Haus, where we discovered that it's being closed down very shortly. Apparently, they've been losing money like crazy, and are beyond help. It didn't hit me too hard, since I've only been aware of Deli Haus for a few months... but JP took it really hard. That place has been like a second home for him, and you could tell that it hurt to lose it.

Enjoyed some Rocky Horror on Saturday @ The Castle in Providence, where I learned that the new RKO cast isn't nearly as much fun as their predecessors. Watched some movies, spent time with friends, and generally had a nice weekend.

Which is why I'm back in the office today.

New Year's Eve.

And guess where I'm going after work... to a party? To a nightclub? To the city to participate in First Night festivities?

Nope.

I'm going to go home and sleep. I'm still under 21, so the clubs won't take me, I don't have any friends who are throwing parties, and the city is going to be a madhouse.

So I'm going to just go home, read some more Idoru, and curl up in bed. Sleep in tomorrow morning, since I'm off. Just relax.

BBC Radio One! Now in Ogg Vorbis! Holy crap. I've spent over a year listening to the weekend shows over RealAudio, and cursing the muddy quality. Now they've got a test stream up in Ogg Vorbis format. It sounds great as a VBR streaming protocol, and isn't plagued by quite the issues that it used to have when I played with it over two years ago. Still has a high noise floor, but, who cares when the music is cranked! Go here for the details of the BBC's Vorbis testing.

Mmm... BBC Radio One... soothing to my soul at the end of a harsh couple of days of work. So nice.

Blogger is ultra-messed up right now after they got hacked, but, c'est la vie.

This week, while temporally short, has felt incredibly long and drawn-out. I've been bored out of my mind, and I'm kind of getting back to normalcy in the office (no more ultra-nifty R&D tasks left to do). I've also been really, really tired and cranky. I think it's just the holidays getting to me in general.

I picked up a hydrometer for the humidor that I got for Christmas, and it's reading a little low (only up at 65% RH when I kicked the ambient temperature up to 75F). Hopefully, that will be solved as the wood reconditions to the new equilibrium over the next week or so. Once I can lock it in at 70F/70%, I'll go out and pick up some Aristoffs and, perhaps, some Montecristos or Hoyo de Montereys to start filling it. My goal is, by the time I throw my birthday party in February, to have my small humidor completely stocked and have at least two single malt scotches (one bottle of Oban, and perhaps a Glenfidditch). Then again -- maybe I'll just delay my birthday celebration until the springtime, so we can sit out on the balcony and smoke cigars and drink in the warmer New Hampshire springtime air.

Hopefully, I'll be heading out to Mama Gaia's in Boston tonight to catch DJ LordBass and everyone else at the IDM-type event... if I'm really lucky, I might even get JP to come with me. I could do with a good party tonight. It'll help clear my head... I haven't been to a club for almost a month.

Thanks to Paco, I've encountered Freezepop, a small local band that does synthpop on Yamaha XG equipment, primarily the ultra-portable QY-70 sequencer. I've seen these things on eBay for about $125 or so, and I'm seriously thinking of picking one up. I'd love to go chill out at the coffee shop and just kick back with my headphones and espresso and compose some beatz. Freezepop has an incredibly beautiful vocalist (her voice, that is... though, she's very attractive, from what I can tell...), and the song 'Lazy' has fallen right alongside such songs as 'You're Not Alone' from Olive and 'Halcyon On and On' from Orbital as beautiful musical representations of love.

Well, it's lunchtime, so I'm going to go get something to eat. Stay tuned.

Dry mouth, sore throat, stuffy nose. The revelry of another sober night catches up with me, and I'm headed to go do Christmas with my family... at least my shopping is done! Mrrrnf.

Another gem.

This is, by far, the most frightening thing I've seen in a very, very, very long time.

All I want for Christmas...

Things I wish I could get for Christmas for my car:

• Cobb Tuning Stage 2 system for the MY02 USDM Subaru Impreza WRX. Go from the factory stock 227HP at the flywheel to approximately 320HP. I'd give my left nut for this kit.






• Vishnu Performance up-pipe for the Subaru WRX. If I can't get the whole Cobb system, the Vishnu up-pipe would let me run my manual boost controller without fear of pre-cat disintegration and engine destruction.






• Rumblesoft front skidplate and rear differential protector for the WRX. Made by one of the local guys from the Subaru club, it'd only be $200 for the set.

I think I'll start saving up the $5k for the Cobb Stage 2, and by the time I have the money, the car will be out of warranty... hmmm.

Okay, so I gave up. I'll just FTP it up to my hosting service, though, I really want to get rid of them. I mean, they're relatively inexpensive, and give me a lot of options for hosting the mail for the domain, but it's still not quite what I want. It's about time that I should get a net connection of some kind in my apartment... yet another bill. Heh.

Setting up Blogger... time to figure out some tricks to do this without FTP.