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Weekend

Saturday I walked the perimeter of East Potomac park. This is a long, smelly, dirty walk. As the park is given to flooding, there was all kinds of nice flotsam along the way: dead fish, tree branches, snack food wrappers, and many empty bait containers. Dozens of people were spending the afternoon fishing the Anacostia and Potomac. I hope this was entirely for fun and that no one actually ate the living containers of pollution. For all of it’s lack of charm, there are a few worthwhile sights: the Awakening sculpture, the meeting of the Anacostia and Potomac, seeing the Wilson bridge and the masonic temple off in the distance, watching planes take off from National, Georgetown in silhouette against the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial.

My original plan was to go geocaching in downtown DC. This is where you are given GPS coordinates and have to find something hidden there. But I don’t have a GPS unit and couldn’t lock on to a wireless AP from the Mall. Oh well. Anyway, any group that borrows terminology from Harry Potter (non-cachers are called ‘muggles’) is automatically lame.

Sunday was a trip to IKEA where I finally solved my bedding issues. There you buy a cover for a quilt and the stuffing separately, so you can get nearly any shade. Of course, it costs just as much as a normal comforter but they do have dark blue so who am I to complain. I did not eat the food.

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Pulse

As a consumer of all types of liquids sold by heartless multinationals, I discovered this week that a plastic Evian bottle cap mates perfectly with a Coke bottle cap to make a little enclosure. It occurred to me immediately, nerd that I am, that this would make a good project box for any really small electronics project. Not having any such projects in mind, I decided I would make something simple and useless, and what’s more useless than a flashing LED?

The circuit for a blinking light is pretty straightforward – it’s just a timer chip with an LED on the output. Except for the batteries (I used two 3V watch batteries taped together), I happened to have all the parts on hand: a 555 Timer chip (from a red box that I never built), 3 resistors, a capacitor, an LED, wires and some perfboard. This site has more info if you want to build your own. I just picked my own combination of resistors and cap that had a frequency around 2 Hz, then proceeded to do one of the worst soldering jobs ever, then cut up the perfboard so that it fits nice and snug inside the bottle cap. Now, I think it is time to listen to some Floyd.

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Beyond

The high point of last weekend for me was buying new bedding to match my new girly blue walls. I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, located one of the two navy blue comforters ever made (for a price that reflects its rarity), along with a set of equally expensive 350 thread count sheets. Seriously, is it so hard to manufacture a plain blue comforter? I visited several stores, and there were only three such comforters to choose from: one was jersey knit (out), another had a satin sheen (out). If you want one with flowers or paisley crap all over it, you have it made. The third blue one, yes this is the one I bought, and I was sure it was perfect: solid navy blue color, no frills. Until I got it home and pulled it out to discover that it was adorned with bows. Bows! Back into the bag you go.

Last night I took it back to the BB&B. The lady at the exchange desk asked if anything was wrong. “No, it just has bows on it,” I said. That got a laugh. What I meant to say was that I’m on to BB&B’s plot of mass emasculation, but that’s another battle for another time. The sheets though, they are really nice.

I require a vacation this year to some area of limitless sun, such as the Carribean, Mexico, or South America. Anyone interested? Ryan, Dave, Len?

Speaking of Mexico, today is that day of celebration of dubious Mexican history. My plans? Go home, watch a DVD, drink a bottle of Cuervo. It’s good for you.

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Brains

A recent purchase from the buy-two-get-one-free table at Borders, I can’t decide if The Zombie Survival Guide is bizarrely funny, or just bizarre. It does at least nicely complement a viewing of Shaun of the Dead, though.

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Realtime video transmitted over wireless

A long time ago, I lost my way. And by “way” I mean “the F-connector die set for my racheting crimper.” That thing is impossible to find. I’m trying to locate it because I just got a large new aerial TV antenna so that I can get more hi-def channels (for a mere $25 – don’t waste your money on the $100 ones at BB or CC). I plan to mount the monstrousity of aluminum in my attic and connect it via RG-6 running through the same path in the walls that my cat-5 cables take. This will be a bit more challenging the second time around since the holes in the walls cut for that purpose are now all sealed up. Anyway, last night, unable to make a 100′ cable without the crimper, I assembled the antenna in my living room and connected it via some short coax I had around, and the results are fantastic. Before, I could barely receive FOX and get nothing else; now I get all the networks, mHz, and PBS in glorious digital picture and 5.1 sound. Hooray for the electromagnetic spectrum! WB still doesn’t come in, as if I watch that anyway. Maybe this weekend I’ll get it all setup in mythtv so that when I record, say, the mind-enhancing television show 24, mythtv uses the HD card instead of cable.

(Kill your TV.)

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Flicks

Since I’m a recent Netflix subscriber still determined to get my money’s worth, I’ve been watching tons of movies lately. Last night I watched Cidade de Deus (City of God). What a powerful movie. I was planning on watching only the first hour because I started it relatively late, but it really drew me in. It’s like Menace II Society with subtitles, but more violent. And you even feel empathetic towards a murderous drug dealer, for a little while.

Also, I watched Sideways last weekend. Vastly overrated and really, really boring. If only the directors had spent another half hour spelling out the painfully obvious grape-as-life metaphor! The movie just made me want to go to a winery… and punch everyone there.

Cinco de Mayo is coming up so I need to find something to do for that. Also the Chili Cook-off is coming up – anyone going?

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En Español

If I had it to do over again, I would’ve taken Spanish in high school or college. Not only would I then have the obvious benefit of being able to hit on J. Lo in two different languages, I would also be able to help out the occasional lost non-English speaker. Telling someone how to manuever the complexities of transfers at Rosslyn is difficult enough without a language barrier, but yesterday I tried to help a guy who asked, “Donde esta cor how?” I think he was asking how to get to Court House, but I have no idea, really. He also showed a card with an address on 14th St in DC, but said that he wasn’t going there. Right, that’s not confusing at all.

After several minutes of gesticulating, I think he got the point: Orange line, this platform, one stop. My limited Spanish vocabulary stops short of colors, so I couldn’t really convey which train to take, except by indicating the number two. Yes, I suck at charades. My train, the blue line, arrived first, so I don’t know how he fared, so to speak. He may still be wandering the tunnels of the DC subway system. Good luck, amigo. Vaya con dios.

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Codetalkers

Last night I went to see Col. Bruce Hampton and the Codetalkers, with special guest Jimmy Herring. Hampton of course was the brainchild behind the unit who rescued the aquarium, where Jimmy first came to acclaim by literally dozens of fans. The crowd at historic State Theater last night was also pretty sparse, around 150 at the most, but those of us who made it caught a real treat. The State bills Codetalkers as “eclectic,” which was right on: selections ranged from bluegrass to standard jazz progressions, all mixed in with the band’s great stage antics. (At one point, on cue from the colonel, everyone began playing with their instrument behind their head. Including the bass player. Who was playing an upright string bass.)

I’ve raved about him before but I have to say that Herring once again reinforced my conviction that he is today’s best unknown guitarist. He effortlessly plays in, around, and outside the changes, at times with a Allman-esque pentatonic simplicity, at others with blistering arpeggios and bebop riffs. Also contributing was local Ron Holloway on the sax. I thought I had seen him play before, and after poking around on his website, I’m pretty sure he sat in on a DTB show at the Birchmere once.

Codetalkers aren’t what I would consider “serious” music, but they are all serious musicians, just having fun on stage. And if you don’t have a good time watching them, you suck.