Comedian Marc Maron & fan. I only wear my Gaiman/Bachalo Death shirt for special occassions. 5/12/08.
Eating While Sleeping
As someone who doesn't have a Myspace page (Murdoch==evil), I hope this modest page will suffice for the times when I actually do want to share my thoughts.
May 27
Eugene Mirman from “Flight of the Conchords”
Barnaby’s Pizza: Des Plaines, IL. 5/12/08.
Barnaby’s Pizza is always a gooey, cheesey work of art!
Barnaby’s huge stain-glass windows bring back such memories for me.
We used to have two Barnaby’s in Madison, and they were always a favorite destination for our family. Sadly, they closed in the early 80’s, and were replaced by a short-lived Bally’s arcade/restaurant chain called Tom Foolery’s. Whose dumb idea was that?!
Every Barnaby’s restaurant looked like it was carved instead of constructed. Fine woodwork everywhere, including the menu board. The seats have a curved back to them, and my brothers & I would always bring our Hot Wheels are run them up & down the backs like it was a bridge.
Another stained-glass window. Barnaby’s remains much as it was when it opened in 1969. I do miss the little pencils and menus they’d have at each table, as well as the paper plates. My dear father loved drawing on the plates with the pencils for the amusement of his sons. I still have memories of a childish drawing I did of the now-forgotten Marvel hero, The Human Fly.
The immortal Pub Burger! In April, I ate one for the first time in 16 years. Is it possible to be passionate over a burger?
Mar 17
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Japan’s Banking Crisis
In the late 1990’s, reporter Robert Krulwich explained the Japan banking crisis. Virtually everything you hear here is being replayed in the current U.S. economic debacle, except we’re doing it on a far larger scale! Oh crap!
Oct 27
Here’s another look at my sketch of a French model (2002) in much finer detail. It was done in pencil on charcoal paper. It once looked fantastic, but I made the mistake of erasing the eyes & hair and redrawing them. It never looked quite as nice after that. If I ever try again, I’ll start from scratch. I really ought to, because it’s based on a very beautiful photograph (which I should post someday.)
Oct 21
An unfinished drawing of a French model from 2002.
Oct 13
A recent, rejected drawing of a co-worker.
Oct 02
» Bill Maher on Clarence Thomas
Since Clarence Thomas has been in the news a lot this week, here’s a profile of Thomas courtesy of Bill Maher. This is from the May 25th, 2007 “New Rules” podcast. Bill Maher notes that Clarence Thomas sat through 68 hours on the bench without asking a single question.
Sep 11
Running MP3, OGG on Stackless
I haven’t returned to my book training yet (curse this lethargy! :), but I did take some time today to make a backup of my Stackless Python setup on my PSP, and created duplicates to test the OGG and MP3 playback with my title screen exercise. In my last post, I mentioned that I’d gotten the script to run on Stackless initially, and I then tried to integrate MP3 streaming as per Carlos’ tutorial at themindcaster blog. Not only did I fail to get the MP3 script to run in the title screen script, but when I tried to restore the original, silent title screen script, Stackless would not run the script at all.
The good news is that I managed to get both scripts to run successfully in my script. I got an OGG from the Brian Jonestown Massacre website to run, and I tested four different MP3’s. Strangely, the MP3’s seem to take longer to load & run than the OGG version. The size & bitrate of the MP3 seems to play a role. I found that an MP3 from Soundpool’s Myspace page ran too fast. “On High” was 4.3 MB, with a bit rate of 96 kbps and a sample rate of 22.050 kHz.
Here’s what the adjusted code segment looks like for the MP3 player:
def main():
scr=psp2d.Screen()
img=psp2d.Image('lemonstart.png')
fnt=psp2d.Font('font.png')
fnt.drawText(img,20,50,’LEMONADE STAND’)
fnt.drawText(img,20,102,’Press START’)
scr.blit(img)
scr.swap()
pspmp3.init(1)
pspmp3.load(‘TFIV35.mp3’)
pspmp3.play()
while True:
pad=psp2d.Controller()
if pspmp3.endofstream()==1 or pad.cross:
fnt.drawText(img,220,210,’END OF STREAM’)
pspmp3.end()
scr.blit(img)
scr.swap()
#break
I saved the initialization until after the first screen was blitted, and then moved the endofstream condition after the psp2d.Controller line in the original exercise. I commented out the break so the program wouldn’t end once the song did. When the song ends, it blits an “END OF STREAM” message to the middle of the screen.
I’ll post these scripts here later in the week.
