theMediaman.com

Last night was a total geek-out night.

While watching a DivX 3 encoded copy of Blade on Murdoch, I installed Win98 on a co-worker’s home computer and started playing around with a demo version of Poser 5 while sipping on a Creemore. ahhhhhh……

My Murdoch project is better than ever. After Sigma Designs released the Beta 2.0 drivers for the Xcard, I could sort-of play older Divx content on my old P200. However, when things got really complicated - lots of motion or colour changes - then the new drivers would fail and start stuttering the audio and video.

After installing a 3rd Party app called “JovePlayer“, things went much better. I had previously avoided installing JovePlayer 2.1 since it has much higher system requirements than what is inside Murdoch. Up until now, the more barebones ver. 1.1 was on my system and still ran slowly - but gave me what I needed.

Last night I threw caution to the wind and installed JovePlayer 2.1 anyway (I’m a WILd mAn!). Turns out the software not only runs faster than 1.1, but looks better, is more customizable, and even plays the older DivX 3 content better than the stand-alone drivers. There’s still the occasional slowdown or skipping, but it’s far less often.

Another benefit is the fast-forward and rewind skipping works better under JovePlayer 2.1 than the Sigma Designs software. It usually sync’s up right away, or within a second or two… even faster than the Xcard Player.

The big selling point for the Xcard is how you can play AVIs and Windows Media files that aren’t supported by the Xcard hardware, but it requires a very, very fast computer. Luckily, there’s a way to turn this feature off so it doesn’t try to make my poor, clock-challenged Pentium One run complicated functions.

After shelling out over a hundred bucks for the hardware, I was not ready to pass out another $20 US. Especially for software that has features that I should have gotten with the card. However, $20 US was over $32 Cdn. just a few short months ago… but with the dollar bordering on 75 cents now, it’s almost $26 Cdn. How can I pass up a sale like that?!?

Did you watch Futurama on Sunday? Probably not, since it was on at 7:00 and FOX usually chooses not to show it without notice.

Anyway, everyone gets a $300 rebate from the government surplus, and the whole episode is on how the different characters spend it.

Fry uses his $300 to buy 100 cups of coffee throughout the episode. By the 50th cup, his whole body is shaking and contorting. At cup 99 he can’t hold the cup still, and after he drinks cup 100, he enters a different plane, where time slows down for him… sort of like that lame movie directed by Cmdr. Riker.

I’m thinking of trying to accomplish the same goal this weekend and see if I can reach a higher (faster?) plane of existance. I’ll probably have to pick up the Club Pack size of coffee grinds, but for any great art there’s always sacrifice.

Simone and I went to Edwards Gardens on Sunday… excellent weather… in order to play with her new digital camera.

I’ve got some really great photos of Simone that will let me start using up that 50 digital prints card I got from Hwan. Simone was snap-happy, testing everything her new toy could do. I got to talk about Physics and polarized light. Everyone’s happy!

This Summer, I’m hoping to get out of my apartment more. Simone knows that it’s easy to get me out of my basement on a sunny weekend, but I don’t initiate such actions. She has to be the idea person, and I’ll be there for eye-candy.

In other news, I’m fast approaching my 10,000th day on Earth. Born on February 26, 1976, I’ll be 10,000 days old on Monday, July 14, 2003. I’ve been having trouble figuring out the best day to celebrate and have a party. Here are the options:

• Previous Saturday: The closest day when everyone can attend and stay late, but it’s only day 9,998
  
• Sunday night: We could celebrate the event at midnight, but people have to work the next day
  
• The Day Of: Everyone needs a reason to drink on a Monday night
  
• Following Friday: I’ll have already passed the date.
  

I’ve already received suggestions, and after counting up official votes and email-in-ballots, the overwhelming conclusion seems to be to have it on July 12th.

So it seems that’s when the party will be. However, first things first… I have to dry out the carpet in my apartment. Rainy season sucks when you live in a basement.

Click here to show your support for Marg Princess Warrior in her run for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Here’s what I wrote.

Go Marg! Smite that tax evading, boat riding, Blue Liberal Martin!