Around the Web…

Places I have accounts around the web:
Livejournal (2)
MySpace
Blogger (2)
WordPress
GMail
Yahoo
AOL
AIM
Kiko
Planzo
Writely
ProtoPage
Fyuze
Hoverspot
Digg
del.icio.us
This Place I Know

None of them do everything I want them to.

stereotypes

I heard a new one yesterday.

French Canadians are great at putting up drywall.

The joke goes liek this: What’s the different between a frog and a toad?  A toad can’t sheetrock.

working on resolutions

So it’s not even 2006 yet, but I’m setting some goals for myself. Some esay, some no so easy. Here are a few preliminary ones:

1. Before October 3rd, 2006, I will weigh less than 200 lbs. I will still weigh less than 200 lbs. on January 1st, 2007.
2. I will get my company’s website up and running. The soft deadline in February 1st, 2006, and the hard deadline is April 1st, 2006. This will include both the Blattcave Productions site and the Blattcave Podcasting site.
3. I will move into a house I own at the latest of when my current lease expires on June 10th, 2006.
4. I will continue my involvement with Inside Pulse and hit my deadlines for my soon to be every other week column

Just a preview.

is it legal to download and play ROM files?

Recently, the Library of Congress created a few exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that are raising a few eyebrows.

Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

This, of course, leaves itself wide open to speculation and interpretation. Is the Nintendo Entertainment System considered an obsolete format? It’s no longer manufactured by Nintendo (although a few third party vendors are now making systems that can read original NES and Famicom games ever since the patent ran out), and is only available used in gaming stores and on ebay.

Does this mean that they are obsolete? The original media can’t be played anymore. Or does Nintendo’s announcement of the ability to play games in emulation on the revolution circumvent this and suddenly the DMCA covers them again? Nintendo re-released the classic line-up in Animal Crossing and for the Game Boy Advanced, does this mean that they’re covered there too?

Do these NES rip offs protect the Nintendo copyright on these games because suddenly the original media works on something available today? Or because I can’t walk into an f.y.e. and say “I’d like a copy of Tecmo Bowl please” and get the game mean I can download a ROM file and block field goals with Lawrence Taylor to my hearts content?

Does the Revolution’s emulation count as being reasonably available? You do have to buy new technology, and the original media can’t be played on it regardless. Much like if you’re told “No!” on porm night, this is up for interpretation and migh not be as it seems.

I think until the first court case (and I think there will never be one) this will be a gray area.

Does A Dog Know When His Birthday Is?

Exactly one year ago today, Matty was adopted by me for a mere $75 and another $75 donation. I can’t tell you how unmeasureably better Matty has made my life. If you’ve been thinking about adopting a pet but haven’t gotten around to it, please go out and adopt a dog, cat, rabbit, ferret, horse, etc. that needs a home. Avoid the pet stores, find a kill shelter and look for a friendly dog or go to a no-kill shelter that adopts dogs from kill shelters, or just a no-kill shelter.

I adopted Matty form the North Shore Animal League on Long Island, NY. They were one of the shelters that sent planes and vans down to the gulf coast when the hurricanes hit earlier this year knowing that hundreds of pets would be displaced as a result. Recently they took dogs in from China that were heading towards being slaughtered. Their website doesn’t reflect the amount of dogs, cats puppies and kittens then actually have there.

Another great directory online is petfinder.com.

When walking through the Animal League I looked at a few dogs, they were all barking pretty loudly except for one who looked like he was sleeping. He was very cute and had an odd body shape to him. I pointed him out and said “That’s the one, but I want to walk though and make sure.” Sure enough, I walked by all the other dogs and none of them stuck out liek this one did. I asked to play with him for a few minutes, but first I had to wake him up from his nap. He came to, and what an odd combination he was! Part Basset Hound, part German Shepherd, this little guy had the body size of a German Shepherd on the legs of a Basset Hound. His coat was a Shepherds, and so was his face, but his ears were turned down, and when he wagged his tail, his whole body swung around because he was so excited. They weren’t sure of an exact age, jsut somewhere between 2 and 3. He was neutered, they knew that much. I wish I paid closer attention, but I’m pretty sure he was saved from a kill shelter in West Virginia. I’ll have to call and ask if they still have that info on record.

A few thrown tennis balls, hugs and face licks later, I had filed the adoption papers. Thanks to my references (my sister and my friend April) I drove back to my parents house with Clawson in tow.

My mom didn’t know I went to adopt a dog, so she was pretty surprised when I came home with a dog. She even broke her one rule she said she’d never break (no dogs in the house ever again), and she admitted he was a very cute dog and thatmaybe she’d let him in the house next time I was home. From there I went to my sisters to see if he socialized well with her golden, and they socialized great. When I went to pick up some supplies from the store, my sister said he waited by the door the whole time.

Later that night I decided to change his name to Mattingly, or Matty for short. The rest, as they say, is history.

Failed Silence CD release show

So when I was working on the In the Face record that recently was released, I also worked on a Failed Silence full length. This one is special because I’ve been working on the tracks for nearly 3 years now. I started recording Failed Silence in my junior year of college, and finally got four songs out of the boys my senior year. A friend, bluegrass guitar guru and all around awesome guy Jay Arsenault, recorded a few more songs that year too, but nothing was ever done with them.

Tim Brault, the drummer, played drums on a project of mine (The Dangers of Mercury. In return for his services I recorded drum tracks for some more Failed Silence songs. Well, eventually we re-tracked all the older songs’ guitars, bass and vocals to put out this new CD. So some of the drum tracks are from around the fall of 2002, and some from the fall of 2004. Some were recorded at UMass Lowell, some were recorded at Big Little Feet in Trumbull, CT.

This is another CD that I put my work into because I think these guys are great. If you’re in western Mass on Sunday the 13th, come on down to Chicopee and watch Failed Silence put out their first full length in over 5 years as a band. The show’s at Cabot St. (Google Local) at 6:00 pm. (Click the flyer for the larger version)

The CD is different to me because it lent well to artistic expression during the mix. A lot of unstandard things were used in the mix and I think it stretches what I thought was “right” to do to a song. Bottom line is that I think it’s cool.

Failed Silence on MySpace – “Correcto” and “Awesometism” are both uploaded there.