Today, I grabbed Nora, and my little digital recorder, and drove to Irvine. Yes…Irvine. Definitely not my first choice for a concert venue, but at least I got to see Nine Inch Nails.

As you can see from the picture above, the 5D MkII would have been wasted where I was sitting (and you thought I had hookups for tickets - HA!). There would have also been the risk of me using the 5D MkII as a weapon against the drunk Ed Hardy / Affliction ASSHOLES who felt that their conversation was much more important than my enjoyment of the show. Between asking them to shut up, and telling the drunk fat bastards who kept seat hopping in front of me and Nora to move so she could see, the concert experience was not “great”. Great set from Trent, but the assholes, mixed with the crap seats and the lack of closed circuit screens for about 90% of the show (thanks a lot, Irvine), made the experience a bit “meh”. I won’t even mention the three hours of 405 traffic, or the fact that my stomach was not in the best of shape for the duration of the show. Oh well…at least I got to see Trent. Plus, my recording of the show turned out a hell of a lot better than I expected it to…at least, until the assholes started running their mouths off. Again…oh well.

Terrible Lie
Live, Irvine, California, May 20th, 2009 (sample - play mp3)

Thanks to Trent Reznor for allowing fans to record. Sweet!

I just received a DVD-R (actual DVD-Video format, not just a data disc) of some video to upload.

Stupid disc would not rip for crap! “DVD Player” would play the disc, but it appeared to be playing nothing. The Finder window for the disc said “0 items”! Using the Terminal to read the disc got me this:

BRAT:SONY_DVD_RECORDER_VOLUME brat_mac$ ls -al
ls: .: Permission denied

WTF!

How about the permissions of the disc? Hmmm:

d–x–x—

WTF! Why would a DVD-R standalone burner burn a disc like this!!?!?

Fine. Brute force:

BRAT:SONY_DVD_RECORDER_VOLUME brat_mac $ cd VIDEO_TS
BRAT:VIDEO_TS brat_mac $ ls -al
total 5921600
dr-xr-xr-x 2 brat_mac brat_mac 456 Jan 2 2004 .
d–x–x— 3 brat_mac brat_mac 88 Jan 2 2004 ..
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 12288 Jan 2 2004 VIDEO_TS.BUP
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 12288 Jan 2 2004 VIDEO_TS.IFO
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 98304 Jan 2 2004 VIDEO_TS.VOB
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 36864 Jan 2 2004 VTS_01_0.BUP
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 36864 Jan 2 2004 VTS_01_0.IFO
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 1073709056 Jan 2 2004 VTS_01_1.VOB
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 1073709056 Jan 2 2004 VTS_01_2.VOB
-r-xr-xr-x 1 brat_mac brat_mac 884240384 Jan 2 2004 VTS_01_3.VOB
BRAT:VIDEO_TS brat_mac $ cp VTS* /Volumes/*Mode

Logic on this: All DVDs have a “VIDEO_TS” directory, so I changed directories to where
the disc said there was nothing, and - viola! - there WAS something! A simple copy command (cp), and now I have the DVD.

A huge F U to Sony for making a machine so user UNfriendly!

I want my 20 minutes back!

So, to all of you hitting this blog from a Google search for “SONY_DVD_RECORDER_VOLUME” won’t rip, try this (on a Mac):

* put the disc in
* open “Terminal”
* Change directories to the disc (most likely “cd /Volumes/SONY_DVD_RECORDER_VOLUME”, without the quotes)
* Change directories to the VIDEO_TS folder (”cd VIDEO_TS”, without the quotes)
* Copy the VOB files to another drive (”cp VTS* ~”, without the quotes - that would copy the VOB files to your home directory)

Hope I saved you some headaches!

A nice shot using the 5D MkII. This is 10:30am in my computer room. Note no overhead lights. I have the natural light from the blinds, and on the Jerker desk (I already know the jokes - please stop) I rigged up some cool running Dioder lights from Ikea. So what’s the problem?

THE MESS!

I am a neat freak. You wouldn’t know it from looking at that picture though. My desk is cluttered! My computer desktop is cluttered! My home office is stacked to the ceiling with discs and tapes that are still waiting to be archived. I don’t get any free time for myself anymore. Literally. I’m actually compressing a web clip while typing this!

I need a maid.

I don’t need an intern. I don’t need someone to do the work, because by the time I explain how to do the work, I could have done it already…twice over. I need a maid, to seriously give this place a proper scrubbing, and sort my crap!

You think I’m lying? Try looking at the picture above, over-exposed (in Photoshop)…

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try and walk three feet from my desk without tripping over something…

Today (April 29th), I conducted an interview with Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti (using my new camera - the Canon 5D MkII).

Eric and I touched upon both the 1990 “Wherehouse ‘riot’”, as well as the Jimmy Kimmel Hollywood Boulevard concert on April 23rd.

Watch the end of the video, for an idea I proposed.

YouTube links:
HD Video | HQ Video (HD only recommended for fast computers)

UPDATE:
The blogs are picking up on the story!
Laist | Los Angelista

(opens up in a new window - it’s that big!)

I got a new camera for a client’s show last week - the Canon 5D MkII.

I had read many things about the camera online. Most positive, with a few negatives.

My personal experience - WOW!

The image above is a 1920×1080 VIDEO screen capture! Look at the dust on my car radio! I’ve never been prouder of dust!

The f-stop is set relatively low, hence the odd focus. Cut me some slack. Until last Wednesday, my life had been “point-and-click” cameras. SLR is new to me…and I love it!

I have LOADS of pictures I have taken so far, but something about seeing the dust on a car radio just said “post worthy”.

Look for a LOT of new pictures coming soon…

Oh yeah…

I caught a few seconds of Macca’s fireworks
(crappy Fuji F40 audio and video - sorry…didn’t bother to get a proper photo pass)

’nuff said!

Pillage is my CD ripping app for Mac. It uses the CDParanoia library to properly rip a CD.

If you are happy with iTunes as-is, keep on using it. If, though, you want proper rips of all of your CDs, use Pillage!

Pillage has (finally!) been updated to work with iTunes version 8 (just tested v8.1.1).

Pillage is back!

I have kept this secret for a while now, but I did a radio edit of the new Depeche Mode single, “Wrong”!.

Click here to go to the download page, and enjoy the EXCLUSIVE mp3!

You ever wonder how a day could be wasted? I mean, you know you sat at a computer for 14 hours, and worked non-stop, yet you feel like you did nothing?

Spam. Evil crap! I almost miss the days before “social networking”. There was a HELL of a lot less spam!

If you are a spammer, please contact me. We can arrange for you to meet me at the batting cage…and I can hit you instead of the balls!

Grrr….