Well, that was an awful lot of sleep I got.

Twas a pretty good day, but it ended on a bit of a shitty note. I HATE the fact that there seems to be no consistency whatsoever in terms of when MDF will crack as a result of not pre-drilling a hole enough. So, the presentation of the second part of the recent hardware hacking stuff shall have to wait, because it's not done. I can't make cutting noises quite this late.

I don't have a handy way of linking these things, but here are some links that I've stumbled over since the last (substantive) entry, which were saved in a draft entry, and now unceremoniously slapped together here.

Check this out - tron computers. Cheap-ass but really really cool mod from MetkuMods, one of the places that got me into hardware experimentation.

I'm gonna sell a bunch of stuff on Ebay during their freebie selling period, and so I'm looking to do the financially responsible thing and immediately roll that money over into needless computer upgrades. I found this crazy ass thing in my looking around, and though it's way too expensive, I may end up getting its much more reasonably priced little brother. Crazy looking stuff, but it eliminates the fan-style dead zone in the middle of the heatsink.

And now, the first bit of Game Grid related hackery of late. In addition to getting the lightgun stuff all happy and good, and organizing the unholy mess of wires in the back, I've now completely redone the power switch on the side, complete with spankin-new indicator LED. Pictures and quasi-amusing descriptions are available at Imperial Surveilance.

I've made a prelim list of geek projects for the summer - stuff that for the past year or so, I've been saying "When I get time..." I'm going to wait to post the whole list, but of the game grid-related stuff, I've now done 2 of the 3. Hopefully soon there will be pictures posted of the third section, and then I honestly can't think of much else feature-wise to do to it except feed it quarters. Sawheet.

Of course, really I have another idea for the game grid, that is purely cosmetic, but still respectable hackery. These lists have a way of blossoming that way.

Anyway. Blue LEDs are cool. The game grid is cool. I am the curator of things that are cool. One day women will find me fascinating and handsome for this.

For the past little bit (that's my way euphamistic way of saying "For a period of time that I have lost track of") I've been doodling more with Reason, and have found an illicit copy of a little program by Ableton called Live. It is the melted cheese to Reason's ham. The rich peanut butter to Reason's jelly. Oh, am I going to make some incredible things with this.

It fills in all the stuff that's missing in Reason, because the Propellerheads know they shouldn't bother doing what other people are better at- multi-track mixing, final effects, recording. The chorus filters on this thing are heavenly. And it supports ReWire, which means I can pipe real-time Reason audio channels into it for mixing, effects, mastering, etc. You hit play in Live, and reason starts playing. You adjust a loop duration in Reason, and Live knows before you can Alt-tab over to it. ReWire is cool as hell. Finally I can mix live reason stuff with loops and rendered audio from other sources in a really easy package, and tweak every little damn thing. Plus, it sounds absolutely fantastic. Look out for more cool stuff, even if you hated the last track.

Aww yeah. Don't have to mess with reason's pathetic-ass mastering qualities any more. It's a wonderful program, but it's a bitch to produce pro-sounding music from it and it alone.

Now I think i'm gonna watch the finale of the first season of Celebrity Poker Showdown, because I missed it the first time around, and though I know who won, I wanna see how Schiff does. It's interesting to note that Jeremy produced this show - someday I really have to meet that man. Also, the 2nd season looks bad friggin ass.

I dunno why this particular marketing-department-crafted fever didn't catch me before - my brother was obsessed with the world poker tour the first time it was on Travel Channel..but this past year or so, man, it's hooked me. I still pretty much suck at it, but I am now one of those weirdos who gets transfixed by televised high-stakes poker.

Anyway, I'm gonna go watch that and hopefully sleep before daylight, so see y'all tomorrow, same bat time, same thing with the whatever.

Hold 'em's still for sissies.

[all in]