03/11/2005: "Highly parenthetical babbling"

So, it's blogging once again tonight. I suppose I could go work on my short story, but it's been a long day and I'm flagging a bit. That said, it's been a pretty good day as far as I'm concerned. The big news for me is that the iRiver H320 mp3 player I ordered showed up today. Which, I was really hoping it would but I had convinced myself that it wouldn't get here until tomorrow so as not to get my hopes up. But man, this thing is cool. It's slightly smaller than my guitar tuner, it's 20gigs, it plays oggs (my digital music format of choice), it's allegedly got about 16 hours of battery life (of course, I haven't been able to verify that since it hasn't even been in my posession that long), it displays pictures (which um, seems pointless but whatever... still cool), has an FM tuner and recorder, built-in voice recorder, and, if I want to install the Korean firmware (which may or may not void the warranty), will play videos to boot.

So then the majority of the day was spent ripping some of my records into .ogg format (cause mp3s suck with all their corporateness). And so far I've only gotten about 60 cds ripped, which accounts for maybe half of my essential records. I figured I would just put the essentials on for the moment, then add the supplemental records as desired. But yeah, so far I'm seriously happy with the thing. I'm actually listening to it right now, which might be a little ridiculous (note to all you people who spell the word "rediculous" - you are all idiots and if you continue this mispelling I shall cause your skulls to be ground to powder with misery and sorrow. mend your ways or face my wrath.) since I'm sitting here in front of my computer which can play music just as well, but hey, new toy you know.

The other thing I did today was finally finish Jude the Obscure. Sweet monkey, that was a depressing book. I mean, I'd read (and incidentally, loved) Tess of the d'Urbervilles so I wasn't expecting happy tea parties in the sunshine or anything but wow. That was some good pain. Of course, that's what I love about Thomas Hardy. You're reading along and you're thinking to yourself, wow, it can't get much worse than this... and then bam, it's way worse. And again, and again. It gets to the point where it's almost comical. And at least in Tess and Jude, once you get near to the end of the book... ta-da! Brutal murder! And the one in Jude is partictularly horrific and came straight out of left field (I mean, it makes sense from an analytical stance, but I seriously did not see that coming). Loads of fun. And if anybody out there reading this has read it, that ending scene with Arabella was just way too funny. Still, that said I think it'll be awhile before I tackle anymore Hardy. As much as I like him, 500+ page Victorian novels tend to take a really long time to read. I need something quick and pulpy after that. Maybe some PKD (heh, I just noticed the can of Ubik in the background on that site.) or something.

Speaking of which, I wish they'd fire whoever is casting these PKD movie adaptations. Affleck in Paycheck was bad enough (though I still actually enjoyed it) but Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder in A Scanner Darkly? The hell? Maybe I could see Winona as Donna, it's a pretty big stretch but it could work, but Keanu as Bob Arctor is just wrong. Not even close to as wrong as him as John Constantine, but wrong nonetheless. Actually why are they still putting him in movies at all? But I digress. At least Soderburg isn't directing (he was supposed to be for awhile there). I guess he figured ruining a Lem novel was enough.

Ok, what the hell am I talking about? I think I blanked out there for a minute and kept typing. Ah well, I'll leave it up.