Absurd Singularity

What would it take for you to engage in mortal combat? ;-p

Since I last wrote about my earphones back in June, I've sold off both the Etymotic ER-6i and V-Moda Vibe in favor of the bit more pricey Etymotic ER-4p which I really like. To me it's a pretty perfect blend of clear highs, mids, bass and outside noise suppression. Its cord is of a much thicker and heavier quality which also helps cut down on microphonics and occlusion. The only faults I have with it are that it only comes with triple-flanged and foam earbuds and the connector is L-shaped. The cheaper ER-6i had two different-sized double-flanged earbuds included as well which I liked because I found using a double-flange with my right ear worked best. As for the connector, I tend to prefer ones that stick straight out.

Now, the one major problem I have with the ER-4p is really no fault of its own. It's Apple's fault that they made such an annoyingly non-conforming earphone jack for their iPhone. Because of the ER-4p's L-shaped connector, it won't fit without an adapter. I first tried the Belkin adapter (because it was the first to be released). Utter crap. Granted, it did what it was supposed to do but it looked absolutely horrible doing it. You basically had like 2 inches of stiff plastic sticking out the top of the iPhone. A few weeks ago I accidentally purchased the Monster headphone adapter. Accidentally because I didn't pay close enough attention to its design and thought that there was a flexible cord connecting the connector and adapter. There wasn't. Like the Belkin, it's flexible stiff plastic and while it's thinner than the Belkin, it sticks out even more! So that was returned as well.

And finally I tried the newly released Shure Music Phone Adapter for iPhone. I had high hopes for this one because it also had a built-in microphone and control button. Sounded good, but reality was much different. For one, the plastic housing containing the microphone and button was relatively large and just felt cheap although the plastic construction made it quite light. The button, while a good length and rubbery, needed what I felt was stronger than required presses to function (especially if you wound up pressing by the edges). And lastly, because the adapter already comes with a good 2-3 feet or so of cord, when used with any regular earphone (besides Shure's own), you wind up with an extremely unwieldy Franken-earphone. Very disappointing. So this got returned as well.

Luckily, by this time, V-Moda had just launched the second iteration of their Vibe Duo earphones for the iPhone. The first model came out rather quickly after the iPhone's introduction and while it had a built-in microphone, it didn't have a control button to go with it so you'd still have to yank out your iPhone from wherever it was stashed to answer calls or switch songs and such. Their new model fixes that shortcoming so I picked one up quick. Like it's Vibe predecessor, it's a very good set of earphones and I believe V-Moda was even able to get more bass out of this one cause the Vibe Duo's bass was good enough to even impress my bass-happy coworker with the Ultimate Ears. Obviously the thumpier bass takes its toll on the mids and highs but that's to be expected with single-driver earphones. The microphone/button housing on it is much smaller compared to the Shure adapter but the button is a tad too small as you usually have to fumble around with the housing for a bit before you figure out where it is. But otherwise, it works really well and has replaced the stock iPhone headset for me.

So what about my ER-4p? For now it's relegated to at home duty, plugged in to one computer or another. I ordered this 3" audio extension cable from RadTech but unfortunately it's backordered till mid-November. Hopefully I'll be able to get it in before our trip to Taiwan where I'll use it with the iPhone on the plane since it'll just function as a music player while we're out there. Griffin, along with some other no-name brands have also released adapters based on the same premise but they're usually about an inch longer and in this case, shorter is better. If only Etymotic would come out with an iPhone-specific set of earphones...

and to the point.

Not entirely correct but what the hey.

Each one folded from a single sheet of paper. And you thought your crane was badass.

I've always been a sucker for new beverages on the market. Most of the stuff I try are one-shot only kind of deals, not good enough to warrant future patronage. Every once in awhile I run into something worth obsessing over. My current beverage of choice is this Half & Half Lemonade Tea by Sweet Leaf. Their whole line of beverages are certified USDA organic and not so massively sweet like Snapple. Plus I've always been a sucker for tea/lemonade mixes. I've also tried their Original Sweet Tea, Mint & Honey Green Tea, and Very Berry Hibiscus Tea and didn't like any of them except for the Half & Half. Erin liked their Original Sweet Tea though but she didn't see anything special about the Half & Half.

Unfortunately the only place I've been able to find this liquid goodness is at Mitsuwa. I've seen the brand at Whole Foods and A&P as well but they've never had the Half & Half yet. Fortunately we usually hit Mitsuwa every weekend and I'm single-handedly decimating their stock. If I see them on the shelves I buy them all. So far that's only meant 5 or 6 bottles max each trip. I'd buy them by the caseload if I could. So if you ever visit the Mitsuwa in NJ and see them for sale, don't buy any. ;-)

Ever since I started using a DVR, I rarely watch live TV anymore and I always skip through the ad breaks. This new Sony Playstation 3 ad however, was intriguing enough to make me rewind and actually watch the thing. Finally, an ad for the console that actually makes it look good. Prior attempts were relatively ho hum or just downright creepy. And the song's quite good as well.

can I install an OS or two in two days?

A LOT apparently. Earlier this week I received my Western Digital 320GB SATA laptop drive from NewEgg to replace the existing 250GB drive. Figured I'd do a clean install again (after already doing one a few weeks back for Leopard) but this time I'd also give Boot Camp a whirl.

Now my typical Mac hard drive setup is to partition it into 3 distinct drives: the main OS partition at 32GB, a separate application partition at 12GB, and whatever space is remaining in the third partition to house my data. Why split them up? So if I need to blow away the OS (like during a new OS X point upgrade) or if anything happens to the system for some reason, I won't have to reinstall my apps and data again. With that in mind, I partitioned my new drive into 4, the aforementioned 3 and then a new 32GB FAT32 partition to install Windows XP SP2 on.

After installing Leopard, I then ran Boot Camp. Problem: Boot Camp Assistant won't do anything unless your hard drive has only ONE PARTITION. !@#$!#$!!!! Fine, not a big deal, I hadn't moved any data into the new drive yet so redoing the partitioning was doable. So I repartitioned to one and let Boot Camp do its thing. So, second time through, I now have Leopard and WinXP installed. Now, how do I set up my other 2 partitions?

One of the features in Leopard that I was excited about was the ability to mess around with existing partitions using Disk Utility without it destroying the data. Of course it's still a good idea to back up before you start playing around but if it worked as advertised for the most part, I'm a happy camper. So, knowing this, my next step was to boot up with the Leopard disc, run Disk Utility and repartition the one big Mac partition into my usual three. And that's exactly what it did. So the whole repartitioning bit worked great. Only problem? I could no longer boot into Windows. If I opened up the Startup Disk preference pane, I could see the Windows partition but if I selected it and then rebooted, I got a "startup disk could not be found" or something to that effect error. Damn, back to the drawing board.

Alright then, screw Boot Camp. With Leopard, the only thing Boot Camp Assistant (BCA) really does for you is create the FAT32 partition that Windows needs to install into. I can do that myself using Disk Utility already so why bother with BCA and its asinine "one partition" only rule? So I booted up with the Leopard disc again, went back to my 4 partition scheme, installed Leopard, and then popped in the WinXP disc and rebooted. Problem, the WinXP installer couldn't see the FAT32 partition that I had set aside for it. What the hell. So maybe BCA was doing something more besides just creating the FAT32 partition?

By this time I was pretty annoyed about the whole situation so I just gave up. Recycled the FAT32 partition into my data partition and resigned myself to just using Parallels as I was before. However, the next day at work I was talking to our IT guy about it and he suggested that I try setting the partition to free space instead and take a look at the Apple Support forums to see if other people were running into the same issue. So that night, I first tried the free space route, no dice. Then I puttered around the support forums but no one was writing about the same situation that I was in. Then I google'd and found this site talking about how to triple boot Windows, Linux and MacOS X. While not exactly what I was trying to do, I found the answer to my problem in this section of the site talking about Disk Partitions and their Limitations.

Basically, Window's legacy MBR partitioning system is only able to see 4 primary partitions. So why wasn't my 4 partition system working? Because Apple reserves the first primary partition for something they call the "EFI System Partition." This extra partition doesn't show up in Disk Utility. You can only see it if you run "diskutil list" from the command line. So you actually only have THREE partitions to work with if you want Windows to install. Long story short, once I merged my applications partition with my main OS partition, THEN the Windows installer was able to see the FAT32 partition set aside for it and install properly.

Thankfully, setting up Parallels to use the WinXP partition directly as a virtual machine was a lot more hassle-free than setting up the WinXP partition in the first place so now I can dual boot Leopard and WinXP and use Parallels to run WinXP and Leopard concurrently. So after installing Leopard at least 5 times and WinXP twice, I'm finally a happy camper. =p

Oh, and the 320GB Western Digital drive? Working like a champ so far. ;-)

Whuh oh. I guess if your name begins with an "F" you're screwed. ;-p

So I was wandering around the grocery section of Mitsuwa tonight when I saw this. I was all set to buy a pack of it (4 for $6) but Erin wouldn't let me because she didn't think we'd be able to finish them all off by tomorrow. Apparently they've been around for quite awhile as this guy tried one back in 2004 but this is the first I've heard of and seen it. At first I was all excited that some crazy company had actually genetically modified an apple to taste like a grape but apparently no such chicanery was involved. It's just Fuji apples soaked in grape juice for an extended period of time. I guess if I really wanted to I could just do that myself at home. =p

As anyone with kids will know, taking them on a plane trip can be quite the experience. Well, we figured if we were going to do it, we might as well do it big so Devon's first plane trip was a 17 hour flight across the world. And that's just counting the actual flight time. Door to door we were out a good 29 hours. We weren't quite prepared for the worst, but we weren't totally unprepared either. Thankfully, Devon passed this test with flying colors.

My biggest concern was what effect the changes in atmospheric pressure would have on his ears when the plane was taking off and landing. Apparently zero. Completely unfazed. Erin didn't have to breastfeed him during those times and he seemed more interested in watching the flight attendants scurry about doing their jobs and looking out the window during takeoffs and landings.

Things were made easier for us as he basically followed his regular sleeping schedule even in completely new surroundings. Since our flight took off around 10:30pm and then they gave us a meal once we hit cruising altitude, he got to sleep relatively late but then he was pretty much out till we refueled in Anchorage, Alaska. He slept a little bit then as well since the stopover was extended for an hour and then he slept a little more after the meal they gave us after taking off from Anchorage. So he was pretty much awake and a handful for about 6 hours. Which isn't so bad. We kept him occupied with toys that we had brought along and he had fun chatting with the old couple seated behind us. The worst part was trying to eat with him around as he'd want a taste as well or he'd dig through the food on the plate/bowl and chuck them into our laps. But overall, smooth sailing all the way. Hopefully it'll stay that way on the return flight home.

unless it's crustaceans. Not for the very, very soft-hearted.

on ruining the environment with gas guzzlers. Was wandering around the Eslite bookstore yesterday and ran into these awesome, modular wood cars in their little children's toy section. Erin mentioned she had seen them online already plus that they were for older kids (3+). But I think Devon would have fun with them since he likes cars and things with wheels.

But digging around on the Interweb about the brand revealed an interesting article on the beginnings of the company that documents the perils of navigating the Chinese/foreigner business relationship. Written back in February of 2005, this predates the huge lead-laden Chinese toy recalls of earlier this year which is the only thing that gives me slight pause when it comes to actually purchasing these toy cars since they are still manufactured in China.

Even if Devon can't appreciate them now, I could still start stockpiling/collecting them now for when he's of age. Especially those limited-edition models. ;-p Just hope Devon doesn't lose interest in wheeled toys by that time.