You poor take courage, you rich take care

[hedgiewan]

Rest in peace, beloved scarf, which is probably getting driven over and pounded into the pavement of Grand Avenue as I type. That, or it has managed to totally conceal itself in Ellie's car, and we'll find it years later. I made that scarf about seven years ago, and it took me a long damn time. Partly because I kept ripping it out and starting over, but still. It has served me well, and I anthropomorphize too much, because I hate losing things because I'm worried that they'll feel abandoned.

So tonight Brixton and I went to Clickity Sticks and I bought yarn for a new scarf. Tomorrow there is a Smif Club of MN knitting group meeting, which would be fun to attend and productive, too, but it's all the way in Plymouth, I work at 5 tomorrow, and my car may not be fixed by then.

Which brings me to the next point: have you ever had your master cylinder die? Don't. It sucks.

Fortunatly, I have The Best Sisteril Ever. Ellie has been letting me borrow her car for over a week now, and I cannot even begin to express my gratitude. I could do most things without it if I had to, but those 5am shifts at work would have been especially miserable in this week of near-Canadian temperatures if I had to take the bus for an hour to get there.

On Wednesday I go back to the U for a second interview with a PI in the neuroscience department. I am a little nervous after five months of retail work about taking a job with actual responsibility. Suddenly I am much more afraid of disappointing people than is entirely reasonable, and I dislike that feeling. I also dislike the realization that I shy away from responsibility. Double self-esteem whammy.

On the other hand, I'd get to learn a lot of really cool techniques, I'd learn a lot about neuroscience (which I have not studied), and my project would concern circadian rythyms, which hold a special place in my heart. Also, a regular schedule, nice-seeming boss, an easily non-car commute, HEALTH INSURANCE, a reasonable amount of money, something like self-respect, free classes at the U, using my brain, and vacation time. Things that most people take for granted... I just need to not be as dazed as I was at the last interview, but I won't have worked at 5am, so that should be no problem, right?

When I get a real job, one of the first things I'm going to do is buy myself a new MP3 player. Any suggestions? Well, I've got a pretty prohibitive list of demands, but let's see what we can come up with:
1) 40 GB or larger, HDD memory
2) drag&drop interface, no proprietary software
3) integrated FM tuner
4) voice (and preferably radio) recorder
5) line in/line out
6) at least 16 hours of battery time under normal conditions

Quick! Find me an MP3 player! Go!


the hedge abides.

Comments

[ethel.livejournal.com]

alisgray, saracura and I are probably going to be knitting together as a regular Monday night thing. Join us!

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

It's a possibility, if I stop having to work at 5am on Tuesdays. My roommates have not been so good about following through on our knitting-night plans.

[tmancer.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the job interview!

Suxxors on the scarf loss. Maybe it's keeping my friend's license plate warm - she lost it in a car accident on the corner of Dale and Summit. It could happen :)

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

Eesh. I hope your friend and her car are OK. My scarf is at least just an item loss, instead of damage.

And it wasn't that far away- I lost mine at Victoria Crossing.

[eqe.livejournal.com]

Master brake cylinder, you say? Why yes, one of those failing resulted in my family spending an entire week of our vacation in Roundup, MT (http://www.google.com/maps?q=Roundup,+MT) in 1992 or thereabouts. And once we finally got the replacement part, we drove straight back to Minnesota.

Yes, I'm still bitter. :)

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

Master clutch cylinder. But both suck to not have. I remember vacationing with my family in Colorado Springs, CO and having both clutch cylinders on the car fail as we were pulling into the alley parking lot for the Nikola Tesla museum there. Sucks trying to get a Saab (or any other uncommon foreign car) fixed in a strange town on short notice.

But then, we were at least in something vaguely resembling civilization.

[paddle2paddle.livejournal.com]

Ummm... holycrap. Whatever you get, expect to drop some cash. I suppose they're slowly coming down in price, but I spent well over $100 on a 1 gb mp3 player (all that we really need) a little more than a year ago. I think you may be looking to buy a new computer.

On a related note, the memory in MP3 players makes me laugh. Not that terribly long ago I had a computer with two hard drives, one 6 mb and one 4 mb, and one of those died. My mother has been working on an old laptop with a total of 4 mb memory (and less than 2 of those are free).

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

Dude, I know, a 40GB MP3 player is bigger than my hard drive, and my computer isn't *that* obsolete. But the reason that I want lots of storage on my MP3 player is because I can't rip and store all my CD's onto my computer, so any sort of flash drive player really doesn't make sense- if I wanted to switch the music on it, I'd have to rerip the CD's each time.

I am expecting to drop a fair bit of cash. I had an iRiver H340 up until it was "lost" in the airport last June, and that was over $400... I was just expecting to have it for a little longer. They are still less expensive than a laptop with a bigger HDD and a small flash player, though, and more convenient.

The big problem I'm having is that the H340 met all those criteria, but they don't sell it in the US anymore. So my options for getting that back are to buy it overseas and loose out in the exchange rate and import taxes, or buy it on ebay, where they are rare enough that I'd be paying what I paid for it new. Also, I have this unreasonable expectation that if I'm buying technology two years later, it should be both significantly better and significantly less expensive than it was when I bought originally, you know?

[pygmybugs.livejournal.com]

I feel you on the "jumping back to your skill set/level" job weirdness. After 4 years of super-cushy, vastly overqualified, could-do-it-in-my-sleep job (while still technically in my chosen profession), going back to what I'm capable* of kinda scares the buhjeezus out of me. Part of me worries I've grown slack or forgotten things, or that I'll look stupid (and oh boy*, do I hate looking stupid).

You, my dear, are the S-M-R-T. The world is a lesser place if your giant, throbbing mad scientist brain is not doing giant, throbbing, mad scientist things.

[magicmarmot.livejournal.com]

MP3 player: if you're looking to remain free of the DRM anchor, I would suggest taking a look at the Creative Labs Zen Vision series.

http://www.creative.com/products/pmp/

My friend has the Vision M, and he loves it. I've been drooling over the vision W.

[wyliekat.livejournal.com]

week of near-Canadian temperatures

Har har.

;-}

[fee-b.livejournal.com]

no one needs to learn about SLEEP more than you do, my dear.

my best friend made me a scarf when I was a senior in college (lo, those many years ago...) and if I lost it, I would definitely cry.

but you know me, I cry about everything. guh.

=)

[tmancer.livejournal.com]

hey, I forgot to ask in the first comment:

Having fun driving the GTI?

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

They haven't caught me at it yet. ;)

While I can't help in the MP3 player question...

[talkshowhost.livejournal.com]

...or, really, the Master Cylinder death thing, I just read an article that made me think of you. Take a look when you have the time.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/4548306.html

Hope everything else is well.

[jhimes.livejournal.com]

not the maroon one you spent so much time on in college?! *shocked, agast look*

[hedgiewan.livejournal.com]

The maroon one, but I seem to remember finishing it before college. Was I still working on it my first year?

[jhimes.livejournal.com]

you were still working on it at Thanksgiving I think.

MP3 players

[zordok.livejournal.com]

I stumbled across this product today:

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/

Only comes in 20 and 30 gb versions, unfortunately.
But, it uses USB mass storage protocol, so you just dump media files on it, it has a FM tuner (and can RECORD from the radio, a rarity!), voice recorder, they claim 10 hrs battery when watching video and 18 listening to music, and has line-in/-out with recording for both audio and video! In addition to USB client, it has a USB host port, so you can download pics from your camera to it. Oh, and it plays 8 million file formats.

"Only" $350... but it coems with a free 1gb flash based mp3 player! Heh.

Re: MP3 players

[zordok.livejournal.com]

http://iaudiophile.net/reviews/a2/review.htm