Archive for February, 2008
Make your own indie album cover
BJ| February 27, 2008 12:24 pmThis one is circulating forums and blogs, but hasn’t hit anything like Digg yet, so some people might not have seen it yet. It’s a fun exercise though. Here are the steps to making your own indie album cover.
Step 1: Band Name - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
Step 2: Album Name http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last 4 words of the very last quote is the name of your album.
Step 3: Album Cover Art - http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Step 4: Track List http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randomredirect
The first 11 or so articles you land on will be your tracklist.
Here’s what I get.
Band Name: Anetumumab
Album Name: Spring of Happy Quotations
Cover Art:
Track List:
- KV 430
- Lewis Clark County
- Genetic Algorithm in economics
- Mingmonkul Sonakul
- Mysterious Sleeping Sickness! Defend Young Girls’ Hearts!
- Link Sleuth
Since I’m pretentious I’ll just have 6 10 minute tracks. Obviously, with a name like Anetumumab it’s IDM.
I have a new desktop picture
BJ| February 26, 2008 12:56 pmI may have to change it though. Too many people are stopping by to comment.
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New PC build, what and why.
BJ| February 25, 2008 12:40 pm |
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It’s that exciting time every 2 years when I put together another PC. The goal in this one is to build a Home Theater PC. I won’t be running windows media center or even Vista media center, but the goal is to play high-def content on my TV. The TV in this case is a 46″ 1920 x 1080 LCD with a 60hz refresh. The best solution for non High def content is Xbox Media Center on a hacked Xbox 1. The Xbox 1 CPU isn’t exactly up to task at playing anything using h.264 or Xvid at anything higher than 540p or hr.hdtv (in scene parlance).
First I had to settle on a mid-tower case that was quiet, could be closed and locked (I have kids remember and this is going in the living room), cheap, and looked dull enough to not draw too much attention to itself. Considering the built-in 500w power supply, I decided to go with the antec Sonata III. It’s marketed as being quiet, has easy access to the internals via a locking side panel, and most importantly has a locking front panel. I was really hoping for something that had a side CPU duct, but couldn’t find the combination of price, locking front panel, and side duct. It’s a bonus that the case looks almost identical to our speakers.
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The CPU is the next part of our build, and thankfully the new 45nm process Intel Core 2 Duos are out… In fact they’re sold out at most places online. There are a few online retailers that have them in stock but they’re marked up 50-60 bucks. Luckily Fry’s has them behind the counter. $225 for a 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 6mb L2 cache. Sweet deal if I must say so. I’m going with the stock cooler for now, unless I find it makes too much noise. I don’t really plan on doing much overclocking so it shouldn’t be an issue.
For the motherboard I chose the GA-P35-DS3L. It has a p35 Northbridge and ICH9 southbridge so no raid. This is primarily a client computer in the sense that I’ll be streaming content over my network (wired… Yes I have run cat5e to most every room in the house), so paying the extra 70-80 for raid, more USB ports, and a few extra SATA ports wasn’t important. I’ll be using the Optical audio out. The reason I chose a p35 motherboard is that they usually work out of the box with the new wolfdale core Intel chips… or at the very least only require a bios flash. There have been issues with Nvidia motherboards and the new chip. Particularly I chose Gigabyte because they typically have upgraded built in sound compared to other motherboards in the same price range. With optical out it doesn’t matter really, but just in case, I like to be prepared.
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For a graphics card I could have just went with pretty much any Nvidia card that support purevideo, or any ATI card that supported hardware decoding. This ranges from the very cheap to the highest end cards they make. Lucky for me the 512mb Nvidia 9600GT just came out and at $169 it was a no brainer. It should even allow a bit of gaming. The deal breaker, over paying a little more for an 8800GT, was the temperature during use. The 8800GT with a single slot cooler usually hits 90 degree Celsius. The 9600GT hit about 60-65 Degrees. In a media PC this is important.
To round out the list I also picked up:
- MS Media Center Remote
- Logitech 3200 MX Wireless Mouse + Keyboard combo
- Samsung Spinpoint T 500GB sata drive
- Samsung 20x Rewritable DVD drive
- 2gb CAS 4 DDR2 800 G-Skill Ram
Total cost $931.
This week in the Atchley home 2/18 - 2/24
Heather| February 24, 2008 10:30 pmApple juice! Apple juice! Apple juice! If ever there was a kid addicted to apple juice it is Sophia Atchley! BJ and I call her our little juice-a-holic. She asks for it all day and will slug down 8 to 10oz within 5 minutes and still ask for more. When we go anywhere we always take a sippy cup with us. The other day I was going to a store in Lewisville and due to rushing I grabbed whatever cup was lying around, which happened to have a bit of apple juice in it, but not much. It was enough for her to get a taste of it, I suppose, but not enough to satisfy her. In the car she began her ‘fake’, unsympathetic whining for apple juice and I knew I couldn’t make it to the store and back dealing with this. I had to make an emergency apple juice pit stop at Sonic. Within 10 minutes she drank her whole cup and by the time we got to the store I was filling her cup again with the last of it. Some days I worry she is drinking too much juice and not enough water so BJ and I have begun watering her juice down. She hasn’t noticed the difference which is great for us. Let’s hope one day she gets addicted to water…..
Sophia is repeating words she hears more and more. Not only is she picking things up from other people but from the TV as well. BJ and I have really cracked down on what we say but also what we watch. In some ways I feel I have lost a bit of freedom, but for Sophia’s sake I am willing to pay the price.
Granny bought Sophia and Phoebe birthday gifts early this year. They both received bunches of new, super cute clothes for the summer. They also got some nice church dresses that I can’t wait to post pictures of them in.
Sophia can now open doors with little or no difficulty. I’m not sure if I love or hate this new talent. We crack her door at night before we go to bed so when she wakes up she can get out without calling for us or getting scared. There have been a few nights we have forgotten, but it hasn’t been a problem because she has surprised us by walking into our room in the mornings. THAT I do enjoy so she can help herself, but I also don’t like the idea of her helping herself into our room or BJ’s office. So far so good, she hasn’t tried to get into rooms she shouldn’t. We hope this lasts.
Sophia has shown me she has truly graduated from bottles and is also a very considerate little girl. Out of horrible laziness on my part (we were going to be leaving soon and I didn’t want to pour a whole new cup of juice) I offered Sophia a bit of apple juice out of Phoebe’s bottle. She didn’t drink out of the bottle and immediately went to Phoebe’s room (where she was sleeping) to try and offer it to her saying “sister, sister”. I let her know Phoebe was sleeping and couldn’t have it but thanked her for being so sweet.
Sophia is obsessed with Pixar movies but is especially in love with Finding Nemo and Cars. She has seen them enough times to be able to repeat parts of the movie while watching them. In an effort for her to feel connected to the movies we bought her a stuffed Nemo and Lightning McQueen dolls. She absolutely loves them and calls them “Nemocars” all the time.
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We buy our diapers at Costco which come in big boxes. Sophia enjoyed her Monday afternoon hiding in the box and letting us spin her around in it.
Phoebe turned 7 months this week. We celebrated by letting her taste some chocolate milkshake for the first time.
Phoebe had a weight check appointment this week. At her 6 month appt. she was only 12.4 pounds, way below what she should be at her age. It has now been 1 month and time to check again. This time she weighed in at 13.1 pounds. Yay! She gained a pound.
Auntie Jennifer and the cousins came to visit this week. Sophia really loves her cousin Gwendolyn or “Gwennie” as we call her. Whenever Sophia had to leave Gwennie she wimpered for her repeating her name over and over again. She really enjoys having an older girl to tag along with to show her new things and play with.
I have to call BJ out on this. I went shopping with my mom and sister the other day so of course I did my hair and makeup. When I came home I put on some pajama pants and slippers. I was doing the dishes later that evening and BJ says to me “Did you take a shower today?” I gave him a look of disbelief and said “Do you not see my hair and makeup? Are you that used to coming home to me in pajamas and not bathed you just assume I haven’t showered?! I guess I better start taking care of myself each day.” His response to not noticing the makeup and hair was a stutter of some silly excuse to cover himself. Shame on him to not notice the difference and I suppose shame on me for not showering more often (?)
N the game
BJ| February 22, 2008 11:45 amThe most dangerous group in America…
BJ| February 21, 2008 1:36 pmSophia sure is a sweetheart
BJ| February 20, 2008 11:48 am |
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Last night Heather had a meeting with some people from church. They convened at our house so it was my duty to distract the kids enough to allow them to have their meeting with as little interruption as possible. At first we just played with toys, but obviously an almost 2 year old is going to want to show off as much as possible when any visitors are around. So our old stand-by came out. Since the living room was used and the TV off limits, this left with using the laptop to watch either Finding Nemo, Cars, or Kikis Delivery Service, possibly Toy Story. After starting the movie we went to her bedroom and I brought her foam princess chair (a tiny pink chair with disney princesses on it). She chose cars.
We started the movie and I found it a convenient time to take a nap. She was completely enthralled, so I didn’t think anything of it. Apparently while I was falling asleep she I had bumped up against her princess chair. I felt a pat on my shoulder and heard her say, “shhhh, Love you daddy.” Which when we’re putting her to bed seems to be our ritual. When she’s making noise we’ll say, “shhh, night night, love you Sophia.” When I roused after a few minutes I looked and Sophia had moved her chair over to give me room. She smiled at me and gave me a hug then went back to mimicking storyline elements from cars.
This is a nightly ritual for me now.
