Well, I broke down today and pushed back my new computer purchase. I picked up the Buffalo LinkStation and a 200 gig hard drive at Fry's. The HD was $119 for 200 gigs with a $50 mail in rebate. I really would have liked to get the 250 gig Maxtor they had on sale yesterday, but I didn't see the ad until it was too late and I'm too impatient to wait for the price to come down again (they had the 250 gig Maxtor for $109 with no rebates - it was back up to the usual $189 today). So, I've got a Seagate in there and I've never really had any problems with them, so I figured I'd give them a try - plus, at $120 with a $50 MIR, the price is right. The LinkStation, on the other hand, can't be had for under $300 anywhere on the net, so when I saw it advertised for $299 (regular price: $349), I had to get it. I ended up paying about $12 more than if I had ordered it online (thanks to taxes), but I have the piece of mind knowing I can take it back should it not work and not have a hassle.

The new TV-SERVE 200 gig drive is being formatted - it uses EXT3 - a linux format I believe - so it's a good thing I just got a new drive rather than trying to transfer over the 250 gig Maxtor I've got in my computer right now. After it's done being formatted, I'll copy over some test files (both XviD and MP3) and then boot up the LinkStation for the first time. I can't wait!

URL: Seagate Technology Parallel ATA (PATA) Hard Drive Interface Overview

A few weeks back, the Washington Nationals were in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers and the only real story was Jose Guillen coming back to play in SoCal again. Last year, he played for the Angels and was suspended without pay for the last few games of the season (I think 10 games) after throwing a fit when Angels manager Mike Scioscia took him out of the game for a pinch runner. He reportedly confronted Scoscia and threw a helmet in his direction. Bad move? Sure. Worth suspending without pay for the rest of the season? Maybe if it had been the first time. Earlier in the season, he ripped his own teammates for not retaliating after he was hit in a game and then later in the season he got into an argument with Scioscia about some other stupid topic. Jose Guillen obviously has problems - he's now played for 8 teams in about 10 years and after leaving each team, that team has gotten significantly better - the Angels went on a 7 game win streak when Guillen was suspended.

So, Guillen comes back to Southern California and says he has no hard feelings, what happened in the past happened in the past, yada yada yada. Fast forward a few weeks as the Nationals come to town to face the Angels in interleague play. Game 1, nothing happens. Before the game, Nationals' manager Frank Robinson doesn't allow any reporters to ask questions about last year (specifically referring to Guillen's suspension). Fine. Whatever. They already asked him about it when he was in town to play the Dodgers. Game 2, 7th inning, Brendan Donnelly comes in to pitch for the Angels. Frank Robinson has the umpires check his glove and they find pine tar on it. OK, fine. He uses tine par to get a grip on the ball. From all that I've seen, heard, and read over the past few days, pine tar doesn't cause the ball to break more or have more spin or anything like that - it's just for getting a grip on the ball if you have sweaty hands and don't like the rosin bag. And, it's an accepted practice. Donnelly said last night that you're going to see a lot of pitchers with brand new gloves this weekend since their old ones had pine tar on them. But either way, the rules don't allow for any foreign substance and Donnelly was thrown out of the game. No problem there. Mike Scioscia, however, stands up for his players and tells Robinson that he would challenge any Nationals pitcher that came in to which Robinson threw a fit. The benches cleared and during the next few moments, Jose Guillen had to be restrained by 4-5 different players and coaches so he wouldn't come to blows with someone on the other team. Guess the anger management classes aren't working.

So that's all fine and well, until I hear both Frank Robinson and Jose Guillen say they have no respect for Mike Scioscia - and why? Because he stuck up for his players? Because he reiterated what all the analysts, talk show hosts, and former players have said - that pine tar is only used to get a grip? Well, I'm not quite sure why Robinson is so cranky other than the fact that he's 70 and just had eye surgery and probably hasn't had enough prune juice and he may be backed up, and while I should cut the guy some slack, he's got no class in my book. Keep it on the field. Challenge the pitcher if you want, but don't go to the media and be a little crybaby about it after you already got your way.

And now, to Jose Guillen. After the last game of the series, he called Mike Scioscia a "piece of garbage." Why? Because he still holds a grudge over the last season. The season in which he ripped his teammates in the media. The season in which he had multiple confrontations with Scioscia, and the season in which he was suspended because he has anger management problems and threw a little hissy fit because he didn't get his way. Wake up Jose - there's a reason you can't stay on the same team for more than a year or two. You have a problem. I really didn't care that much about Guillen before the series with the Angels. I didn't like the way he acted last year, but I let it go. I moved on. But he didn't. He's still upset with Scioscia, the Angels, and pretty much the whole world because if things don't go his way, they don't go any way at all as far as Guillen's concerned.

I really wish Guillen would have said something Wednesday night, at least then, an Angels pitcher could have thrown a ball at his ear. But, of course, he takes the cowardly way out and blasts his former manager and players after the game is over, knowing that he most likely won't face them for a few more years, and he does it through the media. Jose Guillen is a chicken shit and shouldn't be playing baseball at all. I don't care if he can hit the ball and play right field. He's got quite a few problems - the least of which is his anger.

Of course Scioscia took the high road through all of this and comes out on top. "I hope Jose can move on. I hope the anger-management classes helped him," Scioscia told the Orange County Register. "At some point, you have to let it go." Guillen comes out looking like the asshole he is.

URL: ESPN.com - MLB - Guillen blasts Scioscia

The Hawking HNAS1 showed up today, however, I'm still debating as to whether or not I want to take the 250 gig drive out of my computer or if I want to buy a new one. Unfortunately, I missed the 250 gig Maxtor on sale at Fry's yesterday and today, however, a nice new ad comes out tomorrow, so maybe they'll have a good Maxtor or Western Digital 250 gig drive on sale. Or maybe they'll still honor the $110 price from earlier today.

URL: Fry's Electronics Ad

And now...an update on "TV SERVE" my ambitious idea to rip and compress all my TV shows on DVD to a hard drive and then make them accessible from my TV at any time. A "video on demand" with the shows I want to watch - available at any time.

The original specs called for a dedicated media center PC which I was going to use to display the video files on my television. However, even though I do have a PC that works, and the gigabit ethernet I've got installed is fast enough, the whole interface sucks. I use VNC to play the files and have a remote control that works for the most part, but the response is slow and it's just not working like I planned.

In steps the Buffalo Technology LinkTheater. The LinkTheater plugs into the network and automatically locates any shared drives and allows you to play any and all media over a network. So with the LinkTheater, I'd have a dedicated box to display my videos on screen and the interface will be MUCH improved. It only costs $300 and I'm pretty close to getting one, however, $300 in a LinkTheater is $300 less towards my PC which I desperately want to build.

The other hurdle I need cross is the hosting of the files. Again, I was going to set up a central file server to host all my media files (video, music, DVDs - I plan on ripping some DVDs bit for bit so I can access movies in DVD format at any time - but just the really good ones since they take up so much room). But the problem with a central file server is that it's not cheap to setup (I'd have to convert one of my old computers and probably upgrade it a bit) and the configuration wouldn't be easy either - but it could be done. What's great though is the advent of NAS (network attached storage). All I need to do is take one of these little contraptions (Hawking HNAS1), throw in a hard drive (which I already have) and plug it into my network. Unfortunately, it's only 10/100 and not 10/100/1000, but for standard transmission of DVDs, ethernet will be fine - ethernet would probably work for transmission of HD content as well if I so choose. I already purchased an extra 5 port switch which I plan on plugging in behind my couch (yes...I have ethernet there) and then all I have to do is plug in a Hawking HNAS device (or any other NAS) and configure it via my computer. And viola! Instant serving of TV programs throughout the house. If I run out of space, which is likely, I just need a new hard drive, a new Hawking HNAS and there we go, another 300 or 400 gigs of storage. Should I want to add another 400 gig drive for backups, I just need another HNAS device. So much easier than a file server. So much simpler. So much cleaner. Should they come out with 10/100/1000 HNAS's, I just would have to get a gigabit switch (probably $30) and move over the hard drive and I instantly have as much storage as I want network attached at gigabit speeds.

And what about serving this up in another room? Just buy a new LinkTheater for $300. Not a cheap option to put in every room, but if I've got one in my room and we put one in in the main room, we're set. I can instantly serve up old Deadwood episodes. Want to watch a Simpsons episode from one of the first 5 seasons? Done. Want to watch MacGyver, MI-5 or ANY X-FILES? You got it. No booting. No passwords. Just switch over from the cable box to the LinkTheater and you're set.

And, for the curious, here's the stats on the recent ripping I've done. After getting 81.2% compression with season 1 of the X-Files, I expected the same, however, my compression ratios dropped to 56-62%. That's not bad, but instead of an episode taking up 320 megs, it takes 772. I thought at first that it was because I upgraded AutoGK, but then when I ripped Season 5, I got a nice 75% compression ratio, so I just think it varies from disc to disc, season to season. After I'm done ripping and compressing MacGyver: Season 2, I'll probably try some animation again. I wasn't too pleased with the initial output of Futurama when I tested it out before (even when using the AutoGK animation filter), but maybe with the upgrade, it'll turn out better. After all, I do have 5 seasons of The Simpsons to start on...

Series	Season	Episodes	Uncompressed	Compressed	Size(Un)/Episode	Size(Com)/Episode	Compression Ratio
Arrested Development	1	23	21.1	5.46	0.917	0.237	74.1%
Deadwood	1	12	33.2	4.58	2.767	0.382	86.2%
MacGyver	1	22	39.3	11.8	1.786	0.536	70.0%
MacGyver	2	22
MI-5	1	6	15.8	2.86	2.633	0.476	81.9%
MI-5	2	10	?	4.95	?	0.495	?
Seinfeld	1, 2	20	18.7	4.46	0.935	0.223	76.1%
Viva La Bam	1	8	7.0	3.55	0.875	0.443	49.3%
The X-Files	1	24	40.9	7.69	1.704	0.320	81.2%
The X-Files	2	25	44.2	19.3	1.768	0.772	56.3%
The X-Files	3
The X-Files	4	24	43.4	16.3	1.808	0.679	62.4%
The X-Files	5	20	35.5	8.62	1.775	0.431	75.7

Update @ 10pm - Just ordered a Hawking HNAS off of Newegg. Apparently, they only support up to a 250 gig hard drive, but that's fine. 250 is the size of my current TV SERVE drive anyways. Problem is, the TV SERVE drive is currently in NTFS mode and I might need to switch it over to FAT32 (not sure though - I just skimmed the manual and the only thing it says is it supports hard drives up to 250 gigs).

Update 2 @ 10:30pm - Of course, there's always the new Maxtor Shared Storage device which weighs in at 300 gigs. Best price online is $320, but it seems like you might be locked into the Maxtor filing system - not sure though. But for $320, it's pretty expensive. A good 250 gig Maxtor drive with a 16 meg buffer can be had for around $120 usually (maybe $100 with rebates) and the Hawking HNAS is another $100. So I think that still is the way to go. The Hawking seems to be more flexible even though it only goes up to 250 gigs as opposed to Maxtor's 300.

URL: Buffalo Technology - Products

Since Julia wanted to know...the testing on Saturday went fine. They're basically all the same. The written test is your standard grammar, punctuation, reading comprehension, spelling, map reading, memory test all rolled into 100 or so questions. To pass, you needed a 70%, I scored 89% which was pretty good since I know I missed about 8 on the memory part since I wasn't quite sure what to try and memorize and since there was a lot of information. The physical agility test was next, which, when compared to the SDPD agility test, was cake. Rather than rolling all the necessary parts into one long timed event, there were 5 different events, giving you the chance to rest in between each one and just collect your thoughts. First was the 99 yard obstacle course - they said 20 seconds or lower was a good time - I scored 20 seconds. Then the 6 foot wall then the 6 foot chain link fence - both of which I did very well at. After that was the dummy drag which I think I did great at - couldn't really tell since we were timed down to the tenth of a second and you can't really tell if others are faster or slower and then the last event...the 500 yard run (just over 1/4 mile - nothing compared to Julia's 26.2 miles). I finished in 113 seconds - not good, but not bad either. Anyways, each event has a corresponding score to go with the time. I don't know the exact numbers, but for example, 113 seconds could be 80 points and 112 seconds 82 points and so on and so forth. So after finishing the events, I was scored and came back with a 507. Before testing, we were told that any score above a 500 meant that we were "Academy-ready" - and even though I'm not ready for the Academy, it was nice to break that 500 barrier.

However, the true test comes tomorrow. Rather than giving us the personal history statement to fill out, we jump straight to the oral board. During the prep classes I took for becoming a police officer, the oral board is where I know I need the most work. So we'll see how that goes tomorrow. As I type, I'm also printing out facts about the City of Orange and the Orange Police Department as they most likely will ask me questions about the city. Hopefully my preparation will put me above others, however, my poor interviewing skills will drop me down a bit.

On a completely unrelated note, I had my one year review at work today. Pretty saddening...I've been there a year and can't really stand it. However, I don't really have any other options open to me right now and they've been pretty accommodating as I search for a police job (they understand that for most people, working as a teller is a stepping stone - either up within the bank or up outside the bank - and since I don't want to go up inside the bank...). But at the end, they asked if I noticed a pay raise on my last paycheck. The sad thing is, I didn't. Now, I probably would have noticed if it were a substantial raise, but it was only $0.35/hour and when you work the occasional Saturday (paid as overtime), you never really notice a $30-$40 increase as one Saturday would give you that nice bump. But I figured that $0.35/hour over a standard 80 hour week is only $28 and after taxes and all that other crap, why would I notice such a paltry sum? I was joking with my coworkers saying that if I didn't get a raise, I'd quit. But $0.35 is pretty darn close to no raise at all in my book. Taking a pay cut and working at Fry's would probably end up making me more money considering the employee discount I'd get.

URL: BB ~ Blake's Blog

I love earthquakes! Just barely felt the one below - a nice 5.6 near Palm Springs/Anza. Pretty weak here in Orange, but still felt it - took a few minutes for it to show up on the shake maps, but there it is. And they just reported it on Fox News - so it must be true - right?

URL: Recent Earthquakes - Info for event ci14151344