Mike Says Meh|The blog of Mike Kauspedas | Hosting by www.gearhost.com

1000 free mp3′s from Microsoft. Windows 7 free for a year and now 1000 mp3′s as well. Lets all be PC’s.

http://www.myspace.com/windows

I’m not saying any of this is good but its free. So just download them all and listen later, delete what you don’t like. These may not be in the list but here’s some tunes I’ve been listening to. Some new, some old.
Metric – Help I’m Alive
Animal Collective – My Girls
The Clash – Straight to Hell
Passion Pit – Little Secrets (The reeling is awesome as well)
Phoenix – Lisztomania (great band regardless of song)
Angie Reed – Hustle a Hustler
Bon Iver – Blood Bank
The Penelope[s] – Stuck in Lakaland
Cibo Matto – Stone
Client – Zerox (N Joi Radio Edit)
Empire of the Sun – We Are The People
Tegan and Sara – Back in your head (tiesto remix)
Bon Iver – Skinny Lover
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
Paper Planes – M.I.A.
p.s. this site has tons of free music too http://www.rcrdlbl.com/

I was taking a look at the trailers on Apple’s site and ran across two interesting movies coming out. Both of them sci fi which is automatically a plus.

Moon

This one looks awesome. Its about a man working alone on the moon to mine resources for Earth. He has no live communication and can only send and receive recorded messages. It looks like his only other companion is a computer with a Hal like voice. Scenarios like this are always great. The root of sci fi is always “what if” and taking a deep look at the what if of human nature in scenarios like this is great. I watched the trailer and couldn’t stop thinking about the scenario itself. From the grander perspective of whether we would actually send one man into space or to the moon alone to how you would spend your time while there. Are video messages from your wife enough to keep you going? What kind of man does it take to do that? I also love character driven stories. I have a lot of hope for this and anticipation. Something I hate when seeing a movie because its common for hollywood to let us down.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/moon/

Surrogates

This one is a movie about robots you can control from home. They live your life for you providing you with complete safety. They’re super strong, never die, and bring the world peace. Oh, and if you have robot sex with another robot you can feel it. Even though your robots are doing it, not you. If your robot dies you just buy a new one. But someone figures out how to kill real people by killing their robots and this causes Bruce Willis to get beat up a lot and ultimately save the day. (Or not which will make the movie awesome if he’s the only real person left at the end.) There’s probably some cult or religious wackos that decide this isn’t the ultimate plan for humanity and shut off all the robots. I think the whole story is pretty clear from the trailer. Despite all this I’ll go see it because I love motha f’n robots.

Meh, is all I can say for this one. Robot puppets. I don’t think that’s been done before … But it does look action packed and if we’re lucky could have a good story. Its probably worth it just to see Bruce Willis with that awesome 80′s comb over. Funny he didn’t build a robot for himself with a bald head? Isn’t that his schtik?

http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/surrogates/

Here is my attempt to make some 80′s retro space sci fi thing. Gaze upon its horribleness.

Click the crap above for a full size

Got the new furniture right at 3pm. They brought in the entertainment center and put it together. Then one of the book shelves. Finally, half the couch. Yep, half. Our sales guy screwed up and only put half of it on there. Although its a whole unit so I don’t blame it entirely on him. Grace and I ended up going all the way to the Thornton store to pick up the rest of the couch. Hooked up the electronics and TV last night. Now I need to find some speaker stands for the rear speakers and an ottoman. The guys that brought that furniture and moved it in were great. As soon as we figured out half the couch was missing they called right away and got it squared it away. It was no hassle getting it from Thornton, except we had to get it from Thornton. Which meant rush hour traffic on I-25. I plan on giving American a call to see what we can do. I don’t think its unfair to ask for some of the delivery fee back.

Grace and I have finally grown up and we purchased a bunch of matching furniture. We’re trying for a more contemporary look without going ultra modern. Right now everything we have is beige and stupid looking. I can’t wait to get rid of it. Here’s the new stuff we got.

This is our new couch, Ashley Larson-Cinnamon

Our new entertainment center for the LCD and gadgets.

A new area rug. I think its either olives or cells breaking up making babies.

Something to hold our DVDs.

Something to hold our books.

Everything comes next weekend, Grace and I are uber excited to get everything. I’ll take some pics and post what it looks like in our tiny white walled apartment. Which I’m sure will be akward but we’re not planning on living here forever.

Next time you’re in American Furniture Warehouse down in the DTC/Parker area ask for this guy. He was awesome, incredibly nice, and very knowledgeable. We’re used to getting amazing service at American but Mark definately went above an beyond. Not pushy at all and helped us put everything together.

Mark Edwards
pmarkedwards@comcast.net
303.799.904

I almost forgot, we have to go back after we get everything to decide on an ottoman as well. We saw a nice leather one that matched with hidden storage and the tops flipped over with hard trays to set drinks on.

This is one of my favorite sites but I visit it about every 3 months. Because each mix is a few hours long and just one visit gets me around 20 hours of listening. I highly recommend the essential mixes from BBC1 but of course you can grab the latest live mix from your favorite DJ. Richard Durand and Paul van Dyke have two great sets. The Justice set is also awesome.

Yay, I got a new Macbook, while new to me. I found a used one on craigslist for $599. Its a 1st Generation White Macbook 13″. So far I love it.

2GHz Intel Core Duo Yonah
2GB DDR667 (originally 1GB)
120GB SATA (originally 80GB)
SuperDrive (DVDRW)
Intel GMA 950 64MB Video
13″ LCD 1280×800
USB, firewire, Wifi, etc

There’s a crazy story behind this too. I took a look at the laptop over at the seller’s house and everything worked great. He had just installed OS X (10.5) and it was at the registration screen. So I went through the steps, took my picture for the profile , and loaded the desktop. I checked the specs and was happy it wasn’t the lowest end (1.8GHz w/ 512MB) so paid and went home.

When I got home the thing wouldn’t boot. I got pretty scared because this is craigslist after all and its not like I can return it to a store. Fortunately the seller was awesome. I told him I thought it was just a bad hard drive so he gave me 10.5 DVD and a new hard drive to test with. Sure enough that was it. So I ended up getting a larger hard drive.

I also pulled the RAM I bought or my work laptop and popped it in. The RAM is pretty neat, it slides in behind the battery. You have to remove a thin metal cover and there are two levers which eject the RAM. Then you jus slide in the replacement and put the cover back on. The hard drive works the same way. I tried to put in 4GBs but it didn’t like that. I can only put in one 2GB stick as well although I read online there is a 3GB kit you can buy that works. Probably has to do with the number of banks in the RAM or something. 2GBs seems to work great though so I have no plans on upgrading.

Of course I had to try World of Warcraft on it. I can run WoW at 1280×800 on the Intel GMA 950 with everything on low and the graphics at 16bit. I get 30fps if I stand still and no one casts a spell. Frankly its good enough for using the auction house or maybe some farming. I’ll stick to my PC or work laptop when I really wanna play.

Besides, I got this for working, learning, writing, aesthetic appeal, and coolness. There’s no way I can go to a coffee shop without a Mac. I would surely be laughed at and thrown out.

If you didn’t know any better you would think I’m liberal. I ride my bike to work and I own a Mac. I also like open source software. Maybe I should put a GOP sticker on the back of my Mac, but that may get me kicked out of a coffee shop as well.

It hurts to simply move my leg, just lifting it even while sitting. But that good kind of accomplishment hurt. I walked up the manitou incline on Saturday morning. A spur of the moment idea between a couple friends and I. Its one mile of 30-40% grades with gravel covered stairs, rusted out drain pipes, and steps that almost require you to climb to the top.

Its not just getting to the top though. Anyone can get to the top, it just matters how much time you have. I think most people, even those that aren’t in great shape can probably do it in about an hour and ten minutes. Last year when I tried it about a month after I got into cycling I did it in about that time. This year was different though.

In my effort to loose weight and combat the 8 hours of grueling sitting I do all day I got into cycling. Then I fell in love with cycling. And now I eat, dream, read, and bathe cycling. I love it so much my incredibly painful muscles can’t stop me from hoping on for a short ride to try out my new shoes and computer with cadence monitoring!

Back to the incline. With all this cycling I’ve been doing it so happens I’ve gained some muscles in my legs. Amazing I know. I guess my body responded to my new live by building bigger muscles to push me faster and farther. My last year of cycling has paid off, in a 44 minute time going up the incline. But the cost of pushing myself is hurting so bad I’m thinking about driving to work tomorrow. A very unhappy thought.

I’ll get over it though. In a few days my aching muscles will be gone and I’ll be trying to keep an avg 90 cadence in wash park. The incline was worth it. Think of it as Colorado’s personal rite to summer, that every Coloradan should participate in. To encourage a long and sun filled summer so I don’t have to ride in the rain.

The price of gas keeps going up and the truck isn’t using any less. I admit Grace and I don’t live too far from work, and I try to ride my bike as much as I can. But both of our cars don’t get great mpg. And the price of gas isn’t going down. If it hits $4 a gallon (nat’l avg is $3.79 now) we’re looking at this in gas costs:

2004 Dodge Dakota, fill up twice a week, 24 gallon tank, $2,304 annual

Honda Fit, 10 gallon tank, 2x week, $960 annual

I know that’s not entirely accurate but its obvious the fuel costs on a sub compact car are going to be a hella lot less than a mid size pickup truck.

and this is coming from a guy who 6 months ago wanted a Suburban or equally sized vehicle.

So I’m going to test drive one, and maybe a Civic, and then see if I like them enough to buy one. Right now the Fit is the cheapest best gas sipper I can find. I’ve never owned or driven a Honda, but they’ve got an excellent reputation and the Fit has great reviews.

Plus this is one of the coolest commercials I’ve seen

If I’m not getting ganked by a couple 70′s or pulling too much aggro, my PC itself is f’n up. It seems like someone doesn’t want me to hit 70. He-who-shal-not-be-named obviously cares little for the life of Mindouglas, a simple Tauren Shaman trying to make it in the World of Warcraft. Well, a simple over heating power supply won’t stop me. In a few minutes I “Mike-man-shiped” an 80mm fan onto the rear of the PSU to suck hot air from it. PC hasn’t shut down since. And I found out magma totems make great rogue repellent.

It took me longer to post this blog then it did to tie that fan up.