iTunes 4.5: Just Say No

to the tune of: Friends In Low Places by Garth Brooks

I must say, Apple's getting sleazier by the day.

The new iTunes 4.5 trumpets exciting features like playlists you can re-arrange while playing (like the ones in WinAmp years ago) and lossless encoding (like Windows Media 9). Tempting eh?

The real reason Apple is releasing an upgrade is to break all the cracks in its copy protection. MyTunes and getTunes no longer work, nor does FairPlay. Although someone's already cracked the new security, it may take a while for someone to release a Windows version.

But worse, the new version is completely incompatible with older iTunes 4.x. If you upgrade, you won't be able to listen to anyone's iTunes 4 libraries. But if you don't you won't be able to hear 4.5 music collections. And the only compelling reason to use iTunes goes poof in a cloud of brushed metal smoke. So sleazy. Apple's getting good at this coercion thing. Even Microsoft makes its stuff backward-compatible...

Lemme know if you find a replacement for MyTunes that works with 4.5.

this job offer will self-destruct in 5...

to the tune of: Nancy's Waltz by Natalie MacMaster

It's like The Man of Stanford is plotting against me.

Tuesday I got a friendly e-mail from the registrar informing me I was being switched to grad tuition, and that "it might be a good idea to check" how I'd pay the extra $2K they slapped on my bill. The Registrar's office was befuddled, and no one could explain why this happened.

Wednesday at 1 PM I was awarded an RCC job in Rains. Which is exactly what I wanted. Problem is that at 6 PM the offer was withdrawn because I wasn't at my computer to accept it. Before I realized what had happened, they had offered the position to someone else. The irony here is that the ResComp people I called and e-mailed took nearly 10 hours to get back to me. But they don't really care; as far as they're concerned, they have someone to fill that job, and it doesn't matter whom.

Friday I went to go start the grad housing draw process, made necessary by not having a staff position. I had just filled out this massive form, including eight housing preferences and a handful of probing questions about what sort of roommate I wanted that took a good 20 minutes to deliberate over (and a draw group name/password that took another 20 minutes) only to have the housing site go down on me and lose everything I had entered. Sigh...

But I don't care, 'cause I feel grr-EEEAT!

Pics from my surprise birthday party.

i'm only 0x16...

to the tune of: Hope On Fire by Vienna Teng

22 is old. Older than dirt. Older than some things older than dirt, since according to Nick, dirt is 19 1/2. And what a birthday it's been:

Morning interactive grading: 1 for 2. Even with the reminder e-mail, I still had one sectionee forget. This does not bode well for the quarter.

After missing two calls during my one successful IG, and AT&T playing a cruel trick on me (who'd have thought I had to reboot my cell phone to make a call), I ended up with an interesting three-way call with my parents and little brother. Something about three-way calling just seems opposed to the two-way dialogues typical of social conversation. But one resulting phenomenon: I got three different weather reports; they were each proud to report that Detroit was experiencing a freak heat wave in the 80s. Given that this month it's usually been about, oh, 10 degrees warmer here, this was a Big Deal to them.

I started off with a Wheel of Fortune taping in SF with TBP. It was a lot of fun... We got there and discovered we had VIP tickets, which means we were the part of the audience that actually got taped. Along with a disturbing number of Santa Clara students and people from Cal. For good measure, Cal brought their whole band and their cheerleaders. We clapped our hands sore, Ryan Bickerstaff of FroSoCo fame won some money, and some Stanford frosh won a car and $20K. They actually have people whose job it is to walk the aisles and indicate to people when they should clap and to shush them when everyone in the audience knows the answer to the puzzles.

The second show featured this guy from San Jose State who must have been trying to become the next William Hung. He definitely had energy, screaming at Pat that he wanted to buy vowels every chance he got (and even some chances he didn't get) and gesturing wildly each time he guessed wrong or lost a turn. He also thought he could will the wheel away from Bankrupt spaces by screaming at it. (Aside: Why would you ever buy vowels unless you can't think of any consonants to guess?) But he was a somewhat lovable guy, and so when after racking up $13K and (through buying out their stock of vowels) getting the puzzle down to "DON'T BREATHE A _ORD OF THIS TO AN_ONE" he spun again, and guessed...L? Granted, he spoke English with a Chinese accent so maybe his grasp of spelling wasn't the best, but still...

Later tonight I got back and had just about forgotten about my birthday when I was heading out the door to a group meeting when Guy stopped me, saying, "Something might happen..." It turned out some of my friends had been plotting a surprise party at 9, the exact time I was going to meet with my group. And it was a nice surprise, certainly. And unexpected. But all was good; I shifted the meeting forward and did my best to feign surprise even though everyone knew already. Surprise parties rarely turn out to be complete surprises in my experience, but knowing people were planning a party for 15 minutes is just as good I think. I felt kinda bad for making them ruin the surprise but they had no way to know, and they'd been secretive enough beforehand so neither did I. Still, it is truly the thought that counts, and it was much appreciated.

Questing for: An English translation of Vienna Teng's Green Island Lullaby.
Taking nominations for: A superhero to dress as for Big Dance next month.

that might hurt their draw numbers...

to the tune of: Boogie by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Jason just sent me some stunning pictures of today's fire at CroMem. No details yet on how the fire started but everyone seems OK.

Not that I really wanted to live there anyway...

yet another reason not to upgrade your AIM

to the tune of: Deora Ar Mo Chroi by Enya

So I'm minding my own business and suddenly I get this popup inviting me to download this Viewpoint Toolbar. Which is funny, since I never installed any Viewpoint software. A little bit of research revealed AIM decided to install this without my consent. It turns out to be some form of spyware which thinks it's entitled to be on my computer but provides me no real benefit. Curious, since it wants to direct me to use Yahoo!'s search engine. Though I don't know what sinister purpose this serves yet, I generally dislike things randomly popping up and asking me to download things I don't need. Of course, I probably wouldn't have noticed it had it not conveniently announced its presence, but still. You can theoretically remove it through Add/Remove Programs. Stupid AIM.

On a less rantful note, the future of nicological technology is here. Are you sick of being told when and where you can light up? Well now, there's a solution...

ahhh...

to the tune of: Whadaya Want by Casey MacGill

Today: Bohemian! National! Polka! This was the first time I actually danced the whole thing without screwing up.

Next time you're at In-N-Out, the secret password is: "animal style French fries". Trust me.

mmixed it up

to the tune of: Nara by E.S. Posthumus

Ahh, Jammix. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well when the birthday dance came around and missed out on that, which is sad cause it was cross-step and hustle, two of my favorites. But at the end we practiced the music set Richard had picked for the Wacky Walk. Perhaps polkaing, swinging, and hustling for 20 straight minutes in the blazing June sun in a black robe might not be the smartest thing to do. But I'm still going to do it. Without anyone I know in the stands to see me make a fool of myself, what have I got to lose?

Yesterday I went to Karen's baptism. It's frightening how many churches there are in Palo Alto--and they're all right next to each other. And many of them are pretty segregated too. This one was a Korean church, which meant bilingual testimonials. Which was cool and all, but I kept hearing words that sounded suspiciously like Japanese and trying to find them in the English translations.

Random Easter observation: It seems like Christians spend way more time talking about how Christ died than how He lived.

Note to self: Bring flowers to any future baptisms.