Monday 31 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

A philosopher once asked: “Do we gaze at the stars because we are human? Or are we human because we gaze at the stars?”

Pointless, really. Now, is it possible to purchase a laptop that has built-in speakers that actually function “well”? That is a question!

At the weekend, I purcased a set of external speakers for my laptop. There was quite a selection of speakers available, most quite small. Small is good, but… of the speakers which actually have a technical specifications section, almost all reported their frequency response as “220 Hz – 20 kHz”. Which isn’t too good.

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Monday 31 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, I started reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain the other day.

I can’t draw very well at all. I had always assumed that there was some “trick” to it, some special technique that makes the seemingly impossible task of reproducing several billion lines with mathematically precise position, orientation, curvature and scale somehow tractable. So I took a course of drawing lessons. As a result of this, I discovered that… there isn’t any technique at all. You have to just practice, over and over again, endlessly, for many decades, and then, maybe, you’ll become a mediocre drawer. (Despite our teacher’s bold claim of “by the end of this class, you’ll all be able to draw well”. That didn’t happen!)

This book boldly asserts that once you learn how to enter the mystical trace-like state of the True Artist, you will instantenously become able to draw anything you desire with astonishing realism and effortless ease. In just a few days, this book will show you how to enter The Trance, and then everything will magically happen for you.

Yeah, right.

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Monday 31 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, after having an entire week off work due to a cold, I’m now back again. The scene of devastation I came back to was… well not actually as bad as I’d feared, but still not good.

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Friday 28 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

750 GB Serial-ATA hard drive: £110.
Portable USB-powered speaker system: £19.
Trip to Pizza Hut: £24.
Your mum asking everybody whether you get a discount because it’s your birthday today: Priceless.

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Wednesday 26 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

I bought myself an expensive easter egg. I don’t remember what it cost me, but damn, I can’t believe what it’s like inside. I opened the metal tin and found the egg wrapped in an irridescent purple bag with a purple silk drawstring. When I got the egg itself out of its foil wrapping, I discovered that the chocolate is so thick you almost need a knife to cut it! Usually these things are made of paper-thin chocolate, but this thing could almost be measured in centimeters!

(I just measured. It’s 4mm thick chocolate. Wow.)

Inside the outer egg is a second, slightly smaller egg, an another (different coloured) foil wrapping. Apparently there are several of these, and in the very center there’s some chocolate truffles. I can barely wait…

(Mmm, nausea!)

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Wednesday 26 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

How times have changed! Do you know, some of the “instruments” provided by Komplete consist of several GB of data and take almost minutes to load? Good thing my computer has a vast bucket of RAM!

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Tuesday 25 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

Nine tenths of a gig.
Biggest ever seen.
God this programs big!
MS Word 15.
Comes on ten CDs!
Word is fine but gees!
Sixty megs of RAM?!
Oh Microsoft, Microsoft, joker all the way.
I’ve sat here installing Word since breakfast yesterday!
Oh Microsoft, Microsoft, moderation please!
In case you hadn’t noticed, four gig drives don’t grow on tree!

Damn straight. I defy you to find a 4 GB drive today! They just don’t make ‘em any more. Interestingly though, I do remember it taking hours and hours and hours to install programs like Word, and that no longer seems to be the case. So at least one tiny thing has improved in 10 years.

Anyway, right now I’m installing Komplete 5. I say “installing” — it’s been going for over an hour now. And forget 15 CDs; this sucker comes on 12 DVDs! 36 GB of data, and it’s taking a while to copy. Indeed, I had to rearrange the contents of my harddrive to find a space to put it all in. Damn, and to think I thought I’d never fill 200 GB…

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Tuesday 25 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, about Friday…

My friend arrived. We succeeded in locating my mum’s ironing board. And the iron. (!) And he ironed his shirt and trousers, and showed me his tie. Suddenly I feel really under-dressed! Anyway, we decided to take two separate cars. In the end this turned out not to be terribly necessary, but things could have been different.

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