CSpotRun and PorDible

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CSpotRun is a nice, fast, freeware PalmOS DOC reader. PorDiBle is a simple, straightforward, freeware drag-and-drop TXT-to-DOC converter for OS X. Perfect combination for when you need those Gutenberg texts on the go.

Animal Eater Frank Buckland

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Frank “Bring ‘Em Back Alive and Ready to Eat” Buckland made a hobby out of tasting animals: Horses, ostriches, kangaroos, mice, earwigs, even boiled and fried slices of flesh from the head of an old porpoise.

This article on the origin of the phrase “eating crow” includes roast giraffe, elephant trunk soup, and a disinterred leopard from the London Zoo in his menu. (It is unknown, however, if he ever did eat actual crow.)

PETA would love this guy.

(Myself, the wildest food I’ve eaten is itlog ng bayawak — monitor lizard eggs. They’re squishy and salty.)

Got a Zire!

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Looking back at my handheld concerns, I started wondering what I really needed, especially on my limited budget. Combo cellphone? Not really; my N3390 is more than enough for now, and my prepaid scheme is far more cost-effective for my current lifestyle. Getting the postpaid subscription which would come with a new PDA-phone would mean the added hassle of a monthly bill and a new phone number. I can do without something like that for another year or so.

SD expansion slot with color screen? Why bother, when I already have my iBook with its SD Card reader on hand? It’s not that crucial that I be able to see my Pencam photos ASAP. They can wait a couple of hours.

All things considered, all I truly need is basic PDA functions (calendar, addresses, to do list, memo pad) with easy OS X compatibility. Minor games and a PalmOS Bible aside, I don’t even need more than a couple of megabytes of storage.

So I bought a Zire. Small, simple, easy transitional handheld device. And the white casing matches with the iBook perfectly. This should last me a year or two, till better and cheaper PDA’s come out to suit my needs. (Oh, with a penlight stylus to compensate for the lack of a backlight.)

Windchill

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I smiled into the wind, and my teeth froze.

Here Beginneth the Spring Semester

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It was a loo-oong first day of school yesterday, with “Intro to Systems and Programming” from 9am to 3pm, then “Video and Audio for the Web” from 4pm to 10pm.

That first class was something of a disappointment to me, with the instructor pointing the entire semester towards working in an extremely specialized application whose main underpinnings were in MIDI authoring, and which lacks the capability to compile executables, export data, or post/get data to/from the web — objectives central to my aims for this semester. When the advisor said “Forget the web for this semester,” that was when I decided this class wasn’t for me. The web is where I work, study, play, live, and blog; simply setting it aside for the sake of a nascent and practically-proprietary authoring app is simply not an option.

I’m about to go and fill out a registrar’s form, so I can switch to Sound Design class, which is the other alternative requirement course. Given that, and my Video/Audio for the Web class, this is going to be a very production-oriented semester. (Sad news: the Advanced Network Art elective was cancelled for lack of enrollment. Video/Audio for the Web, however, is a worthy alternative, covering topics like production, post-production, streaming, compression, and web broadcasting. Fun fun.)

At 3:30pm, I present my thesis proposal. Top secret. Very hush-hush. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to Wet-Willy you.