Audio content is a big thing to me. I listen to NPR podcasts quite a bit when I’m at my computer and they are a great way to multitask without a screen in your face drawing your precious visual attention. I was browsing my professional blogs, “problogs” as I call them and got to Lifehacker. It had a link to Learn Out Loud which is a site with free and paid audio downloads. Why is this important? I found out that Project Gutenberg has audio books…finally. I remember going to Gutenberg and wondering if plain text was all they were going to do. I really admire this site for the wealth of information they provide and have used it for many years now. I’m going to download “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” and see how it is. This is text read by a human…as opposed to a computer, which is awful. I downloaded Don Quixote read by a computer and could barely stand the first two sentences. There is something magical when someone is reading a text that they are excited to speak about that captures your attention and makes it worthwhile.

Meanwhile, if you’re a book freak like me and are technologically inclined, there is the free CD/DVD project. It is an archive of all their texts in multiple transmission mediums, including BitTorrent. If you go to the tracker page, there is a World Big torrent that is 88 gigs, which is pretty fatty for all text. I’m assuming that torrent includes their non-english offerings, which are ample, like the number of links in this post.

AEP also has news on the fire, since not many places are carrying it and I’m quite narcissistic.

So, in local news…

Katie and I were without power yesterday morning due to a substation fire. After the constant blackouts over the summer, this was an odd occurrence at this time of year. I opted not to shower in the light of candles, as I worked close to home the past couple of weeks, but Katie had no such option. She has been quite a trooper about getting dropped off at school at 7:30 and picked up at 17:30 every day. I was impressed that AEP had restored power by noon on the same day. They also have a diagram talking about their response to outages, though it would be difficult to read this if you are one of the affected parties. All in all, I saw more FUD about this power outage during the day than anything else. My colleagues at work were worried and quoted three days of no power. The local news said two days when I checked at noon. Personally, I think the frequent power “hiccups” of summer were related to this substation going nova and perhaps this highlights a larger problem with AEP or local government. Perhaps I shall investigate further to satisfy my curiosity in this.

Everyone is interested in good stories. The entire world is built upon compelling stories…look at the Bible for example. Stories are the glue that hold us together. I was watching “Rome” and realized that we have finally come full circle with the good ideas. HBO is recycling Roman myth/history and people are clamoring for more. This is the height of hubris and I’m jealous. Yes, “Rome” is a commentary on current US policy and modern society, I get that. That is no excuse for not coming up with an original idea. I, myself, have come up with an original idea and am currently writing a novel about it. That is what you do, not rip off 3000 year old stories.

Why is it that whenever I want to play WoW there is an update to download and it takes about a year to get it to finish updating my system?

Whoa! After the update, I have this new window up in front of me instead of my game. Its called the World of Warcraft Launcher and I hate it. If I wanted an extra step to play the game I would walk around the room first. I hate it so much, I’m throwing it away. Restarting WoW…yes! I have successfully killed the WoW Launcher. I rule my computer once again.

went to see Harry Potter and the ______ of ______. (Fill in random nouns for the spaces. Eg. “table” of “pans”) It was ok. I think its good to see the kids grow up, but they seemed old for fourteen years. There was also a lot of information that I felt was omitted in favor of not having an eight hour long movie and it makes me want to read the books now. I always feel that way when encountering a new universe. I must have all the knowledge available at that moment so I can understand character motivation and guess at future outcomes. I’m just that way, you know? I will confess that this wasn’t my choice completely. I surprised Katie with the movie to kick off our “Week of Fun” week. This is the week before our one year anniversary and I wanted it to be “fun” so I chose an activity each day or so that we could do together. I planned on going on a walk tonight, but Katie’s AppleCare package showed up a day early, so we’ll do the old switcheroo. OH! The walk is a surprise, so don’t tell her!

I got in! I just checked yesterday and I’m in print in the WSJ. Kristian is going to be SO jealous. Sometimes you do get rewarded for hard work. Just to be clear, Fry’s column, Real Time, ran on Nov. 14 and I’m near the bottom. I just called Ralph and he seemed overwhelmed or perhaps just extremely tired. Either way, he wasn’t expecting it and that is what I like.

If you haven’t heard about the Sony rootkit debacle, well, crawl out from under your rock and read Bruce Schneier’s blog about it. His commentary can be found in Wired magazine as well.

Well, its official. The Tahoe is in great health. A couple of weeks ago I ran over a nail and had to get my back driver tire patched and that started off a round of questions about the validity of my ride after the cross-country trip this summer. Started off with new car insurance and added renter’s insurance as well. A funny thing: my credit score is actually pretty good. It got me over half off my renter’s insurance. Next, I went to AAA and got a preventative car inspection, which is free to Ohio AAA members, and passed with flying colors. I have to make a decision at some point about snow tires, but I hear that the snow is light around here, so I’m holding off.

So after watching the gas prices around here fall to the lowest levels I have ever seen in four months…they jumped .20 higher. I was driving around on Tuesday plotting my next gas purchase and all of a sudden somebody somewhere got the fun idea of charging more money for the same damn gas in their tanks. I continue to protest that gas prices can’t be that volatile. It really comes down to ignorance though. Ignorance of the supply chain, the current price per barrel, which dropped below $59 today by the way, and any sort of viable alternative. Well, I for one, will bend over gladly for this…I can’t do anything else. I rely on my car SO much. My job requires me to drive to multiple locations depending on different factors. The possibility is there every day. I freaked out last week when I had Jiffy Lube replace my turning bulbs and they installed the wrong bulb on my left side. I drove all week with a left turn signal that wouldn’t work if I had the lights on and would work if the lights were off, only the dashboard would flash opposite of the bulb. Only after I took it to the AAA Car Care mechanic and they replaced the faulty part did I feel better about my transportation, yet I worry that the car will have something break, as machines are wont to do, and I’ll be S.O.L. Besides spending next Saturday at the same AAA mechanic for a diagnostic test that will set me back $80, I have no other options other than renting a car if I need to get around. A bus schedule will do me no good and I don’t have good friends to give me rides. If there was a viable alternative like biodiesel, ethanol, or even fuel cells I would jump on that wagon gladly.

Looking back on my last couple of weeks, I have to say that Katie and I are adjusting well here in Columbus. I voted in my first Ohio election yesterday and experienced my first “electronic” voting apparatus. It was this large board with blinking lights next to paragraphs that were valid issues for me to vote upon. So I voted by pushing the yes or no button, which had a light next to my selection. It was all very 1980′s in its feel, which is cool for a moment and then you realize that twenty years of finger grime is on this board and I calmly wiped my finger on my pants and hit the green submit button at the bottom to finish my voting experience.

I heard back from TJ in Taiwan. He is a good friend from Whitworth who is taking a year with the HESS organization to teach english to small adults and even smaller children. He sent pictures and if he gives his permission I’ll post them because they are worth posting.

For those of you who use a Mac and iTunes, you really owe it to yourself to look at Clutter. It displays the current song’s album cover in a window, but it gets better. It allows you to drag that cover art out of the window onto the desktop and it becomes a quick replay button when you double click on it. Its really cool when all the covers go away when you close Clutter, so no worries about errant windows. Very cool.

Back to the gas thing: I feel that there is a connection between the current round of senate hearings with the oil CEOs and this price spike. Reading on the WSJ.com site, Lee Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil said he gave control of pricing to the individual operators to “ration” existing reserves of gas. Bullshit. I’m wading in it and now so are you. ExxonMobil has received the largest “windfall” surplus of all the big five oil companies. Somebody’s priorities are out of sync with reality. I cannot fathom how the connection works exactly, but its local, not national. The reason its catching my attention is that all the places I got cheap gas for the last several months are all the most expensive now. I’m so confused.

On the subject of gas marquees: I’ve seen a creative use of that space that normally is reserved for the mid-range and high-end octane. One gas station listed the low end octane gas and then diesel, which is more expensive, and finally cigarette pack prices, which are astronomically expensive considering you’re lighting it on fire.