Evilxyzzy

Cold nights, cranial drills, rose scented perfume

2009-07-06T09:11:22Z

An introspective weekend
Night after night pondering
A song comes on, a snap back so fast I get whiplash
Reminds me of a time I'd rather be in
Reminds me of a place that could have existed
Thoughts of previous futures that never happened.

10 years. 40 years.
Both measures of age and regret.
Neither have quite arrived, but inexorably they march towards.

A choice made, more regret banked for a rainy day,
Withdraw it all and roll around in it like catnip,
bathe in industrial strength self-pity.

I long for family, for friends
Afternoons staring at the water
Afternoons crunching through the leaves

I wonder which mistake was final?
Which choice was final?
Maybe none? yet?

I know I'm having a bad weekend when my brain actually thinks like this. Little spurts of memory, of times and places that happened or were wished for. I second-guess everything I've done down to the colour socks I'm wearing. Maybe its brought on by yet another holiday? Don't get me wrong, I like time off although I just spent a week and a half home sick which gave me a good solid case of cabin fever.

Ah well, more drivel. more wasted bytes. more wasted time. a few seconds closer to 10, a few seconds closer to 40, but no closer to the point.

Voice Synthesizers

2009-07-04T10:02:25Z

I just wasted several hours on something that on several levels seems quite trivial.

So, I have this thing about 80's vintage voice synthesizers. The really robotic sounding ones done with dedicated hardware. Over the years I've slowly acquired several chipsets that were around in the 80s. In this particular case I'm playing with the National Semiconductor Digitalker. This chipset stores sorta-compressed voice data in PROMs. I decided that it might be a fun idea to back up the PROMs, so I do some digging and figure out that the PROMs used were similar to AM27S49s with one minor difference, the second ROM has an inverted Chip Enable line compared to the first. Makes it easier to wire up the circuit as only a single chip enable line is needed and you don't need an inverter.

This makes reading the chips kinda amusing. So, I make up a little adapter that slaps an inverter on the CE line, and then I try to read the PROMs in my normal "modern" ( mid 1990's vintage ) EPROM programmer. No luck. Thats fine, I have an 80's vintage unit that will read PROMs going back to the beginning of time, so I pull it out. At that point the 80's called and said the soldering iron was warm. I had to make up a custom serial cable to get this thing to speak to its software. Did I mention I have an old Lunchbox-style computer that I use for driving this old equipment?

Anyhow, to shorten a rambling story that no one gives a shit about anyway, to read these PROMs ( note that I haven't even started on assembling the circuit that will drive the chipset, thats another battle ) I had to make an adapter for the chip enable line, fire up my ancient prommer, make up a new serial cable, find a working floppy disk, dump all the roms in Intel Intellec format which I'd never even heard of, research that format and find a utility called BINEX that converts it to standard BIN format, then double check that everything had converted properly.

Time to eat some dinner which I kinda forgot to do. Tomorrow I'll try and combine the ROM sets into a single EPROM image with the images loaded backwards so I can just tie the CE line to the uppermost address line. Then when I make an AVR frontend for this, I'll tie the CE line from the voice synth to the address lead, and the CE line from the EPROMs back to the AVR so I can bank select the various voice rom sets I have.

See, and you don't care any more about this then when I started thus proving that Livejournal is all about masturbation.

CSI

2009-04-06T06:15:32Z

On one of my many work trips to Vegas I caught CSI on TV. The original that takes place in Vegas.

Within one episode I realized I wanted to know more about some of the characters, but never did.

Every time I went back, I caught a few more episodes.

A month or so ago I told the PVR to record episodes, and I would watch 2 to 4 a night; whatever it recorded. After a few weeks they started to rerun, so I decided to buy a couple seasons of the DVDs used. Within a week I had ordered 3 more seasons and before they had even started to arrive I had ordered up to Season 8.

As of right now I have watched all 8 seasons. In something less then a month. I have 9 or so more episodes to watch of Season 9 and its over for me.

Why?

I'm not certain. Two characters really caught me. Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle. Two fictional characters ( the actors that play them don't really interest me ) that are so perfectly broken. Gil is so dysfunctional I can't even think of a way to describe him, and yet he and Sara...

I guess thats the point of good fiction, to make you want to know more about the story; to make you care about the people. Anyhow, the two people I watch the show for are gone as of Season 9, well, 1 more episode with Sara and 8 or so with Gil and then all over. No more need to watch.

Maybe I think I'm like Gil? In some ways maybe I am. My attention to detail when focused goes far beyond his fictional abilities. Social lives are about the same except I am more able to avoid human contact at work.

I've watched something like 130 hours of this show so I could watch a romance blossom. A whole lotta blood, a bunch of geeking, a bunch of other characters that I didn't care much about. Thats not true I suppose as I do like the other characters, even the ones I didn't originally like.

130 hours of imagining being someone else? Is that it? Is that why I watched?

In that 130 hours I could have done so many other things. Exercised. Built more synth gear. Made music. Learned to knit. In 130 hours I could have packed up all my shit and moved back East or into the Desert to pursue my own Sara Sidle.

I suppose at this point I could start writing horrid FanFic, I'm certain that would amuse people I know no little amount.

I think instead I am going to get up out of this chair and do something else for a while.

Maybe when I read this later I will figure out what I can't right now. Figure out what has been bothering me the last few weeks. That is after all why I write this stuff, not for anyone else to read but in the hopes that if I reread something I'll finally *get* it.

Textbooks and early morning ramblings

2009-03-04T09:35:16Z

I'm staring at a math textbook.

I willingly ordered it.

It is sad that my pursuits have led me to needing math that I never got to in school. It is also sad that these pursuits have led me to the equivalent of an archeological dig for information that hasn't been common since the 1960's and doesn't seem to have been taught since the early 1970's.

No, I'm not being mysterious, its just that the subject is mind numbingly boring to most people.

Haven't had a smoke in 5 or 6 weeks now, kinda losing track of when I stopped. Time for the recurring theme of my postings on LJ, HUGE MAJOR INSANE CHANGE ABOUT TO HAPPEN ANY MOMENT!! Yeah, right. Not even gonna continue down this posting path.

Whee.

Facebook

2009-02-22T06:52:21Z

Okay, there seem to have been ways in the past to do this but anyone know how to link Facebook and LJ? I feel the urge to rant and length and Facebook doesn't exactly have the facilities to do this... I bet Ragnar knows how...

Klingon Proverb adjusted for reality

2008-05-04T06:07:50Z

A thousand cables can be cut in one night by a loose bunny.

Eurobeat

2008-03-03T03:10:53Z

A couple of you know that I have a recurring fascination with Eurobeat. If you don't know what eurobeat is, consider yourself extremely lucky. It has an annoyance radius of about 7 car lengths at any level of volume.

Anyhow, it sorta dawned on me. Its innocent. Well, as innocent as pop music ever is, but its bouncy fluffy pointless happy music the likes of which haven't exactly been popular in the US since the 80's and actually more like the early 80's with New Wave and the bouncy annoying pointless synth-based music I grew up on.

I've gotta get off this kick tho. One drawback to Eurobeat is it sits at around 150 bpm or so. This is just fine and dandy until you pass by the CHP officer on 280 doing just shy of 100mph. Fortunatly it was late at night, the roads were empty, and (s)he just blinked his lights at me to slow down. Very nice of him/her.

Oh god, I've been in California too long. Trying to be gender conscious in a fucking LJ post.

Ah well, more painting to complete.

Bunnies

2008-02-25T09:09:26Z

Q. When is a bunny not grumpy?

A1. When she's asleep.

A2. When she's eating, right before she goes into a food coma. See A1.

Tea

2008-02-24T06:41:49Z

I just made a pot of tea.

Its a very good pot of tea.

To sorta quote Dylan Moran "I feel like I need to get a room"

http://www.makes-scents.com/blueb2oz.html

I also like their decaf Jasmine Green Tea, but this blueberry tea... Holy crap.

Life Alone

2007-12-26T06:29:55Z

So, after many years I once again live alone. Only been a few days so far and I'm still rearranging things.

Living room is much more crash-pad comfy now with new sofa&things. More stuff to do like I need a DVD rack and havent found one I like yet. Started to rearrange my studio area a bit so I can make all my music gear accessable again as I have a few things I've been working on in my head and on softsynth scratchpads that I want to try and realise.

The soft throb of dub is pulsing through the livingroom right now. This I think is one of the things I have missed the most, well, that and being in a real relationship but thats not in the cards right now more by choice then by happenstance as it seems ( weird how that works out eh? ).

Its safe to visit now as I have nothing heavy left to move... and yes, there will indeed be a party probably Mid-January. Waiting to hear from a couple people to decide what form it will take but I've been hearing from people who haven't contacted me in many years so it could be a good one.

Life in Vegas

2007-12-08T07:34:06Z

So I've been in Las Vegas now for 10 days.

Yesterday if you'd asked, I would have been *so* ready to leave. Today, after finishing up the last of my work-related work, I'm not so certain. I think the sunset yesterday has something to do with this. Clouds low on the horizon a deep dark orange. It was amazing.

My brother called me about a job offer. We'll ignore that for now. ( its tempting but I'm still pondering it ). He's gotten, well, weird in his old age. He made some comments about spirituality and the like. Standard-issue bible-belt kinda stuff, totally ignorable but it got me thinking anyway. It got me wondering what I'm all about. Why I continue to exist. It got me thinking about where I want to live and why, or if I already live in the right place. It got me thinking about religion. Now, an interesting thing about me and religion. My views havent changed much in 25 years or so. In fact, I know when I left the path of that which I was raised on to within a few weeks. It happened just a short time before my Episcopal Confirmation. Its funny that the bible study classes I had to take *for* my confirmation, made me doubt and eventually leave the church. Oh, don't get me wrong, the church itself still holds many memories and feelings for me and I do like to visit -the place-, but the religion itself is not... meaningfull? I'm not certain the proper word to describe it. I think that the guiding principles of the Church have been lost, that the "good" that seems to be the basis of most religions has been downplayed too far.

But anyway... thats not exactly important, its only a brief trip down one of many thoughts in my head currently.

My life is changing right now. Soon I will live alone again. Work should be interesting and even challenging and fun for the forseeable future. I have high level plans for changes I want to make in my life. I know what I'm going to work on personally/outside of work...

But I dont yet know what my purpose is. I suppose most people don't ponder this question head-on like I do, but thats how I'm wired. Somewhere inside I *know* I know my purpose. Its just a feeling I get I can't quite grab on to it, but its there just out of reach. Sometimes when the light is just right or the air has that particular smell, I can almost feel it in a weird sort of way.

I dont know. I was hoping that writing this would help to structure what I'm feeling at the moment, but it doesn't really. Tommorrow I'll make the 9 hour drive back home and that should give me a little more time to think and maybe I'll come up with something. I know I'll be back out here in a few weeks to do more work.

Over a year....

2007-06-03T10:04:58Z

A year between posts. That might actually be a new record for me. Not that this is a real post, more a 3am "Wow, I feel the urge to post to LJ" post.

So this is what a nervous breakdown feels like

2006-04-07T07:40:05Z

So, last week Monday thru Thursday I didnt feel so well.

Friday I felt unwell enough at work that I took a happy fun trip in an Ambulance to ER. At ER they checked me out, decided it wasnt anything physical, released me. Told me to go home and friggen relax and see a doctor next week.

Last weekend... not much relax for various reasons despite doctors orders to the contrary. Special thanks to a friend from work for talking to me when I needed to reassemble my sanity.

This week, go to doctor, get checked out. I'm fat but beyond that, nothing. Blood sugar fine, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc etc. Remarkably not unwell.

So, WELCOME TO STRESS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHSJHGASJHASJDGHJKdjkfhgaskjdhgfaskjdhfgsdf.

Funny funny, people say they're stressed all the time. Hell, I used too also. I can tell you that you arnt stressed until it hits you in waves so hard that you cant focus on anything thats actually stressfull and your heart is pounding so hard you ACTUALLY THINK YOU ARE DYING. Hee Hee Haa Haa! FUN! Dr did offer to prescribe happy pills, but I'm not a fan of those.

Anyway, a day and a half completely alone sofar and I feel better. Restrung one of my guitars and been poking at it, thats relaxing. Little bit of a headcold but thats getting better. Hopefully tommorrow I'll spend some time Out Of The House and wont get too freaked out.

Thats all folks!

Help me with something...

2006-02-18T00:34:33Z

It would be really cool if this could get passed around.
Could people please link to http://www.timrocks.org with the link "Have Fun"
Something like <a href="http://www.timrocks.org">Have Fun</a> would be great.
Thanks! Have Fun

Gee, been a while

2005-10-04T08:23:23Z

So I havent posted anything since, uh, March.

Well, Now I have.

Hrm.

2005-03-28T22:47:18Z

BLACK

??Which colour of Death is yours??
brought to you by Quizilla

Cranial Drills

2005-03-20T08:04:18Z

http://www.neurodynamicsinc.com/drill_instr_standard.html

Okay, now, first off we have a place with full instructions for a Cranial Drill on their website.

Then you read more and find out its a DISPOSABLE cranial drill. Like, a Bic Cranial Drill.

WTF?

Thanks Ragnar. sigh

2005-03-09T08:26:28Z

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

"Posts from the Ether Tue Mar 8 12:21:07 PST 2005"

2005-03-08T20:23:06Z

Lunch!
Would you eat the lips of a busty blonde wizard?

Hrm.

2005-03-02T07:27:33Z

You are 'regularly metric verse'. This can take
many forms, including heroic couplets, blank
verse, and other iambic pentameters, for
example. It has not been used much since the
nineteenth century; modern poets tend to prefer
rhyme without meter, or even poetry with
neither rhyme nor meter.

You appreciate the beautiful things in life--the
joy of music, the color of leaves falling, the
rhythm of a heartbeat. You see life itself as
a series of little poems. The result (or is it
the cause?) is that you are pensive and often
melancholy. You enjoy the company of other
people, but they find you unexcitable and
depressing. Your problem is that regularly
metric verse has been obsolete for a long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
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evilxyzzy @ 2005-01-30T13:38:00

2005-01-30T21:39:04Z

*sigh*

"Posts from the Ether Mon Jan 3 20:12:55 PST 2005"

2005-01-04T04:14:48Z

"Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things." - Lawrence Bell

"Posts from the Ether Sun Nov 28 01:51:52 PST 2004"

2004-11-28T09:54:03Z

Guess where I am?

"Posts from the Ether Fri Aug 27 11:26:02 PDT 2004"

2004-08-27T18:26:01Z

About 5 feet off stage. wish you were here.

Fuckit.

2004-08-25T18:16:06Z

Okay, I'm not bothing to do anything for my birthday as Out of the handfull of friends I have in the area only one has shown any interest in all in hanging out with me and my misery.

Fuck it.

Evilxyzzy

Cold nights, cranial drills, rose scented perfume

Voice Synthesizers

CSI

Textbooks and early morning ramblings

Facebook

Klingon Proverb adjusted for reality

Eurobeat

Bunnies

Tea

Life Alone

Life in Vegas

Over a year....

So this is what a nervous breakdown feels like

Help me with something...

Gee, been a while

Hrm.

Cranial Drills

Thanks Ragnar. *sigh*

"Posts from the Ether Tue Mar 8 12:21:07 PST 2005"

Hrm.

evilxyzzy @ 2005-01-30T13:38:00

"Posts from the Ether Mon Jan 3 20:12:55 PST 2005"

"Posts from the Ether Sun Nov 28 01:51:52 PST 2004"

"Posts from the Ether Fri Aug 27 11:26:02 PDT 2004"

Fuckit.

Thanks Ragnar. sigh