Another Template Preview

Right, for all those of you who have been watching:

Here's the latest template.

Hopefully something will come out of this one. I'm working on synthesizing a template that incorporates that navigation bar and the features I enjoy from this template and another one I've seen. After that, the last thing would be to make it significantly more readable and aesthetic.

It's late, and I've been listening to Journey's Greatest Hits all day, so I best be getting to sleep before this really starts affecting me.

Alibris :: Part II

Alright! My first book from Alibris arrived today! It's the right edition, so I'm stoked. Boy, it was packaged like it was a collectable. Which, I suppose it is, because it is a first edition. I decided to get the first editions of the six book series because I already had four from that year.

My Asimov collection is almost complete, aside from the other hundred books he wrote.

Apple - PowerBook G4 12-inch

Well I can finally admit to it:

“More.” It’s the word that best describes the new 12-inch PowerBook G4.

It has more speed: it’s 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 167MHz system bus provide impressive performance gains. It offers twice the video memory — 64MB, to be exact — resulting in a noticeable boost in graphics performance. It provides more storage, coming standard with a 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive. It’s available with a 4x SuperDrive that delivers double the DVD burning speed. And, the pièce de résistance, it ships with AirPort Extreme built right in.

I didn't get the SuperDrive but it's still been a great thing, compared to my Gateway Solo 5300 (PIII 900Mhz 256MB PC133 RAM 10Gb HD). I think it needs a little bit more RAM, but the PowerBook has kept pace with my Athlon box, GeForce 4 Ti 4600 aside.

So about the things I've already installed:
* Firefox with the respective web development plug-ins
* Camino
* UT:GOTY Demo and UT2004 Demo to check out performance
* Quicksilver
* Reiner Knizia's Samurai
* The aforementioned StepMania

That's about it so far. I'm waiting for the 1.1.1 release of OpenOffice.org, which requires XDarwin, which I'm having trouble installing.

Needless to say, Quicksilver is the app of choice. Justin Blanton's review is what originally got me hooked on the concept. It works really well, aside from some problems I had with it running in the background during games or the key combination I setup and OS X's default keys for switching input methods. (Japanese support in OS X is a dream come true!)

Did I mention the battery life is excellent and the speakers are great? You'll probably be seeing more of this Apple stuff, but here's a few places I frequent in regard to Macs and development:

* DrukenBlog, don't fear the name, it's a great blog
* Justin Blanton's Blog: Life. Technology. Politics. And I think he's a local!
* Daring Fireball: Mac Nerdery, Etc.

StepMania

It's only a temporary fix, but it's close enough until I can get the real thing. Yes, DDR.

Here's a few songs from DDR MAX 2 that I enjoy:

* Kind Lady
* Buring Heat (3rd Option Mix)
* Break Down
* Afronova
* Graduation

I hope to sell my gaming desktop and relpace it with a PS2 for DDR, DVDs, and all my favorite games that were co-released on PSX or PS2.

A day of surprises

Today ended up rather surprising. I got my first comment here on Melon Soda, even though I have yet to purchase a domain. The Japan websites began to come together. Now all I have to do is build them into a Blogger template and choose colors for this year. Which means I'll be able to send out prayer cards. I've got thank you cards to write for graduation too, now that we have the pictures.

Oh, I also made a purchase today. Something I'm really not at liberty to talk about quite yet.

We went and saw the 3/4 scale Vietnam Memorial today too. No one we knew was on it, but my mom went and checked her high school yearbooks all the same. It was a pretty amazing site. But considering I saw the real thing in DC a few years back I wasn't taken aback. However DC was a night and today there were tons of people there, especially since it was actually Memorial Day.

I made scones according to Rachel's recipe. And they turned out great!

Alibris: Rare Books

I just found Alibris while looking for the missing two books in Isaac Asimov's Robot City series. I was able to get first editions of both volumes and now my set will be complete.

It looks like a great place to buy or sell hard to find books. I just may have to set up an account, or at least look up my first edition of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of The Jedi. I know I've been keeping those books around for some reason. I just don't know if the market is there yet with all that stylized flop prequel trilogy.

Missing Artists

I came across this page of missing artists today and find it rather sad to see what's happened to a few of my favorite bands.

Good news is PFR still lives. Maybe. Well, okay, so Joel Hanson has two solo CDs, kind of like the whole Dogs of Peace thing with Jimmy Lee Sloas. (That was a good album, if you like PFR.)

For those of you who don't know, PFR (aka Pray For Rain) is an band of Christian guys who popularized Christian rock music right along with Petra. These guys were big name rockers, and I've got all their CDs. If you're keen to the sound of the British invasion (and you know who I mean) you'll like PFR. Check em out at your favorite online retailer.