decompiled » Life

HTPC

Jonathan — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:46:32 +0000

So I finally pulled the trigger and ordered the parts for a HTPC for my living room. Once I get it all built and setup, I’m probably going to cancel my cable subscription. I’m pretty excited about the specs of the new machine:

Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz (with on-die HD graphics)
Biostar Eco i2 case & motherboard w/Intel H55 chipset & IR remote
2 GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
500GB 7200 RPM HD
DVD/CD RW
802.11 b/g/n USB adapter

All for about $400 shipped. I’m hoping to get everything in by Friday so I can build it over the weekend. Then I’ll slap Windows 7 and Boxee on it and watch me some hulu.

More tasty food

Jonathan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:06:44 +0000

Last night’s dinner: Three-Cheese Pizza with Shrimp, Bacon, Avocado, and More.

Toppings: sundried tomato Alfredo sauce, garlic, drizzle of white truffle oil, shredded mozzarella cheese, crimini mushrooms, black olives, red onion, bacon, shrimp, avocado, ricotta cheese, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese.

Finished with some crushed red pepper, it was awesome. Next time, we might do something more interesting with the shrimp first and may forego the truffle oil.

Tasty foods

Jonathan — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:10:36 +0000

I’ve been cooking and eating rather well lately — mostly with my lovely girlfriend. Here are some of the super-tasty things we’ve made so far:

Steak with Grilled Avocado
Grilled steak served with lightly-grilled avocado halves.

BAMF Burgers
Grilled Bison burgers with Avocado, sauteed Mushrooms, and Swiss cheese (Fromage) all on a toasted onion roll.

Salmon Avocado Sandwiches
Sauteed salmon, sliced avocado, and garlic-caper aioli on a toasted sesame-seed roll served with extra sliced avocado and garlic-cheese bread.

Gnocchi with Fresh Pesto Sauce
Gnocchi tossed with a freshly-made pesto sauce, served with rosemary-garlic artisan bread and roasted garlic.

Beef Stir Fry
Strips of beef, red bell pepper, broccoli, zucchini, crimini mushrooms, shallots, and Serrano pepper, all stir fried in teriyaki sauce, served over jasmine rice.

Seared Scallops over Rosemary-Garlic Linguine
Pan-seared sea scallops served on top of rosemary-garlic linguine with sauteed crimini mushrooms and a rosemary, lemon, caper, butter sauce.

Seared Sesame-Crusted Ahi Tuna with Spicy Skillet Potatoes
Sesame-crusted Ahi tuna steaks, marinated in soy sauce, orange juice, and fresh ginger, pan seared and served with spicy skillet potatoes.

Definitely some tasty-ass-shit in my rather-biased opinion. One of these days, I’ll have to take some photos of the yummy creations we come up with. Probably more cooking action coming up this weekend…mmmmmm.

Drums

Jonathan — Sun, 09 May 2010 00:00:21 +0000

After I moved to Seattle, I needed to do something with my old Rogers drum kit. It was a pretty nice set and I liked playing it, but I almost never did cause it was so loud. In my old place, it lived in the garage, so at least I could keep some of the noise in, but in my new place, it just wouldn’t work. So, I made a phone call to Donn over at Donn Bennett Drum Studio in Bellevue and asked what he could offer.

Long story short, I ended up trading in the kit and some cash for a pretty solid electric drum kit by Roland (pictured above) plus a fairly nice kick pedal and some headphones. Since then, I’ve been rocking the hell out with my Zune HD plugged into the system. So far, I’ve got a few Death Cab for Cutie songs nailed and I’ve been mucking around with Radiohead, Incubus, and Deftones. Definitely a good purchase.

Birthday Brews

Jonathan — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:51:20 +0000

This is what my girlfriend gave me for my birthday:

I consider myself a very lucky man

List of beers:

Orkney Ale: Skull Splitter
Tiger
Mendocino Brewing Co.: Red Tail
North Coast Brewing Co.: Old Rasputin
Dogfish Head: 90 Minute Imperial IPA
Wychwood: Hobgoblin
Midnight Sun Brewing Co.: Arctic Rhino
Lhasa Beer
Dixie: Blackened Voodoo
North Coast Brewing Co.: Pranqster
Left Hand Brewing Co.: Milk Stout

Rest in Peace @djgraphite

Jonathan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:32:33 +0000

Yesterday, a close friend of many of my friends, someone whom I’ve met a few times myself, died in a motorcycle accident in northern California. I found out via Twitter. Over the past day, I’ve watched as word spread – mostly via Twitter and Facebook. As a small set of messages from those who were with him started being retweeted, the search feed for his twitter username, @djgraphite, quickly became very active. But as the retweets subsided, new messages took their place: People from around the world: some close friends, some acquaintances, some who’d never even heard of him, began sharing their condolences and memories of their friend, acquaintance, or fellow internet citizen. Even major sources reported on the tragedy – Robert Scoble, Macworld, and others I’m sure.

Seeing this response gave me renewed hope for the internet. Sure, there are cesspools of nasty people who couldn’t care less if you die, but then there are masses of normal, caring human beings who empathize with each other and bring the kind of support I saw yesterday and today for Vinay’s family and friends. It is sad that this needed to be brought on by such a tragedy, but it is reassuring that a tragedy could bring on such a reaction.

Rest in peace Vinay. I only met you a few times, but you clearly had a great affect on my close friends. You were generous, caring, and fun to be around. If anything lies beyond death, I hope that it is all that you wished for.

Keeping the balance

Jonathan — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:52:30 +0000

I was in a really good mood this morning. The universe decided that this wouldn’t do at all.

On my drive into work, a rock hit my windshield and put a 5 inch gash in the passenger side.

I had a relatively uneventful day until I started working on getting some test automation code to pass. I had to fix 3 failing tests. I figured out a fix, ran two and passed. The third still failed and it’s in an area of code that I don’t have any experience with, so that’s another day lost while the other team tries to figure it out.

I got hungry around 6:30pm, but no one got their shit together to leave until 8:30pm.

I went outside to wait for a couple friends and pulled out my phone to pass the time. The internet was being a bit flaky, so I rebooted it. On restart, it stopped working because my beta copy of the OS had expired.

Then my friends arrived and I found out that one of their girlfriends now hates me for silly reasons (that’s two for two of his girlfriends to date).

He went to go hang out with her while I went with the other friend to get some food.

We went down to my car which now has a two foot gash in the windshield.

We drove to Seattle, got some tasty beer and wings and then some ice cream at a pretty cool place we hadn’t gone before.

So, to be completely fair, the end of the day has good relatively well. Furthermore, I’m still in a good mood. Take that universe!

UPDATE: As it turns out, the new RAM I bought for my PC is defective too, so I need to return that. Also, it is fucking hot in my place.

Burgers

Jonathan — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:31:14 +0000

My faith in humanity just decreased one unit. I saw a man so fat that he was confined to a wheelchair roll into Jack in the Box with his service dog, order a bag of food, barely reach the counter to grab napkins, and then leave. What an unfortunate state our nation’s health is in.

Geek Toys

Jonathan — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:20:00 +0000

I got a new geek toy today: a shiny new Roomba vacuuming robot. Woot.com had a good deal on it, and I’ve heard great things about them, so I went for it. As I was unboxing the device, I saw a sticker on the plastic bag containing the robot unit with this on it:

This robot contains an electronic and software interface that allows you to control or modify its behavior, and remotely monitor its sensors. For software programmers interested in giving Roomba new functionality, we encourage you to do so.

That just made my day.

Anyway, time to go search the web for cool Roomba hacks!

UPDATE: I just setup my Logitech Harmony remote to control the roomba…awesome.

Photography

Jonathan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:14:09 +0000

Over the past month I’ve taken up a new hobby: photography. I bought a Canon 20D from my brother Kamran and started tooling around with it at every opportunity.

Yesterday, I went out to Capitol Hill in Seattle with Fred and Joe and took over 150 photos all around the neighborhood. We spent around two hours walking around and finding cool photos. Check out my favorite photos from the set on Flickr.

Also, you can always watch my Flickr photostream on the right side of my blog or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/decompiled.