I smell funny.
February 2002
This last weekend was loads of fun. On Friday we went to
Winterfest and saw Fenix TX and City High perform and that was cool.
I was all up in the front during Fenix TX and getting the crap beaten
out of me by all the moshing, so to get out, a friend of mine lifted
me above the crowed and off I went crowd surfing! I was pulled down
in the front by Staff Pro and put back in the audience. Needless to
say, that was so dope.
My machines have been upgraded to the most recent .NET Framework,
so hopefully they’ll run faster, although I haven’t noticed any difference.
Last Friday I went on a Saturday night dinner cruise on the Hornblower
in San Diego Bay. That was quite fun. The food was so-so, but the boat
was beautiful. More on the food in my dining reviews.
I’ve
been in the market for a new desktop stereo system for my room. So,
while at Good Guys this Saturday, my roommate Justin pointed out the
Nakamichi
CMS-5. I was a bit hesitant at first, as the system only delivered
25 watts of power to each speaker. Next to it sat a Phillips system
with "wOOx" (which is this crazy sub-type-thing that points
up out of the speaker) that put out 50 watts per channel. Well, 50 is
greater than 25 so the math pointed to the Phillips system, until we
ran them through some CDs, and well, damn. The Nakamichi system sounded
crisper, more accurate, "warmer" as Justin would say, and
just better. Plus, it was 1/2 price for a deal at $299.94. I just checked
online and it’s going for over $400. I brought it home and ran it through
Brad Mehldau’s Exit Music (For a Film) off of The
Art of Trio, Volume 3. Man, oh man! Audio was so much more clear.
I could hear instruments fills that I hadn’t caught before. The imaging
is so accurate that when I put some MP3’s on that were recorded at 128Kbps
they sounded like trash. So, I have my Aiwa system that was doing nothing,
so I took the speakers from it, put them under my bed, and ran a 1/8"
splitter from my computer out the Aiwa and the Nakamichi. The Nakamichi
sits on a shelf on top of my desk, and the Aiwa sits below by bed about
8 feet back. It’s turned out to be quite a cool setup, because the Aiwa’s
are not accurate at all in the mids and the highs, but deliver some
pretty decent bass. So, when using both, I get really sharp and clean
mid and highs out of the front of my room and some tight and delicate
bass out of my bed, so to speak. I’m excited. Next step, McIntosh!
I just got back from a very intense last two days in the
Bay Area. I left San Diego on Wednesday at 6pm to fly to San Jose, and
arrived and checked into my hotel. After calling my friend in Berkeley,
I for some reason thought I was too tired to do anything and told him
we’d hang out the next night. So, I took a nap and felt a lot better
and called my friend at Stanford
and decided to go visit him. That was dope and all, the dorms at Stanford
are amazing. I left Palo Alto and got back to my hotel around 2am and
slept till about 10am. I got ready, ate and then went for my interview
at Microsoft. Man, was that grueling. Five interviews in 4 hours. After
that, I went back to my hotel, and then drove up to Berkeley and met
my friend who goes there. That was lots of fun, and it was dope to see
him. I came back to the hotel again at 2am and had to wake up at 4:30am!
My flight was at 8:10 out of San Jose airport, and well with the whole
security deal I had to show up way early. That was brutality. Anyway,
I’m back in San Diego now and waiting to hear if I get an offer.
I’m flying to San Jose to interview with Microsoft again
this week. I’ll be be gone from Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning.
If all goes well, I’ll be able to get together with some old friends
who are at Berkeley and Stanford while I’m there, and go to downtown
SF.
Booya! My left thigh hurts for some reason. That’s odd. The
last few nights it’s been 55F here. FIFTY FIVE! What is this supposed
to be, San Diego or something?