a whole lotta screwin!

i took my ibook apart the other night. i think i was working on it for maybe six or so hours. it was basically unusable because you had to keep the screen very still and only at a specific angle or else the backlight would flicker on and off as you use it. through some internet searching i found that this is a common problem with ibooks and i found the part you had to replace. unfortunately maybe 4 months ago when i decided to take the computer apart to get to the root of this problem, i completely stripped two screws that held the bottom casing on, making it very difficult to remove the case without cracking it.

enter the ez-out. my father brought me home this two-piece system for removing stripped screws- one is a drill but that you use to bore into the middle of the screw, and the other is like a reverse-threaded screw, that as you unscrew it, it grips the beheaded screw tighter and tighter until it comes out. pretty neat. so i managed to get the bottom of the ol' ibook's case off and set about searching for the part to be replaced.

i took out the keyboard. i took out my wireless card. i removed the bottom panel, the top panel, the screen's casing, a whole lot of very thin shielding, the screen's backlight and inverter, and i'd say 50 or so screws, all of which were well under an inch long-- there were quite a few that were maybe half a centimeter. finally the whole bugger came apart:



cut to two in the morning. after a couple of false starts of completely assembling it and realizing the trackpad didn't work (there was a second cable for it that i inadvertently knocked out), I booted up. The screen works! The backlight is fixed! Let's see... still get wireless internet... trackpad and keyboard back to normal... speakers making sound... CD drive ejects and.... crap. disks won't show up on my desktop. i have a feeling it's some metal bar that i couldn't put back (i think i used its screw for some other part) so to get that back in would take another complete dis-and-reassembly, and i'm really not ready for that. i can put up with using an external drive or my desktop computer when i need to read optical disks until i get my coveted powerbook.

there are a good twenty or so screws still sitting on my desktop, and there are a few bulges that weren't there before (isn't that the story of my life), but i have still been able to do my homework on the train and in the library with the bugger, so i'm fine with that.

if i haven't scared you away yet, you can see pictures of my ibook's vivisection on my flickr page. and if you're disappointed that this post was about me taking apart my computer and not about me having sex, well... so am i. so am i.

the art of grifting

"good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!"

there are apparently rules to follow to get your fellow subway riders' attention, and this is the opening phrase. as soon as this phrase is spoken, a palpable sense of uneasiness fills the subway car as you and your fellow riders are wondering- just what does this person want from me?

the ensuing speech usually follows a standard form. the speaker quickly identifies him or herself, explains his or her cause, and whether they are asking for your money or for you to consider accepting jebus, it always ends with a 'thank you, and God bless!'

I've heard quite a few of these speeches in my one month of daily subway riding in new york. Some of the stories are pretty rough- there was the AIDS patient who had lost control of his bowels and had to wear adult diapers (he wanted money for his medication) and there were two sisters, maybe ages 12 and 8 and with no parents in sight, selling candy bars to raise money for their cheerleading team. there are the singer / songwriters, whom i usually feel like i should give money to but rarely end up doing so. i saw one guy selling a book of poetry he had written- i actually thought that was pretty cool, but I wasn't feeling very social and didn't want to have to talk to him about his book, and he was perfectly fine selling his book to the cute-ish girls sitting next to me and explaining the poems to them.

i've seen some people trying to sell the rest of the train on the whole jebus* thing, too. my apologies to the evangelists among you (what the fuck are you doing reading my blog? i thought you didn't believe in the internet... and gravity) but... man, those people really get to me. maybe it's part of the whole Jewish ethos of non-evangelism-- correct me if i'm wrong, but from what I know, we don't ask you to become one of us (hell, I'm sure a Chasid would take issue with me even calling myself a Jew)-- in fact, if you want to convert, you have to ask a rabbi three times before he'll 'let you in'. (Sorry for giving out our Big Secret, fellas). well, this morning a fat white guy with a white-haired beard gave his rendition of the Great Subway Speech:

"Good Morning, ladies and gentlemen! I'm not here to panhandle you or try to sell you bagels or candy, I just want to tell you good morning from Jesus Christ, the real Jesus Christ- I'm not a Mormon or a Jehova's Witness!"

At that moment he looked around either to see if people were saying "PRAISE THE LAWD!!!!" and falling on the floor or to see if there were any Mormons or Jehova's Witnii who were ready to take up arms with him. I kinda feel like he threw the bagel thing in there to make a swipe at Jews, but that's just my standard-issue persecution complex taking over. I did make eye contact with a few people who were rolling their eyes at the guy. Keep your evangelism outta my morning commute, jerkass.

Anyhow, Maybe the Great Subway Speech is to grifters and streetside evangelists what The Aristocrats is to comedians. Anyone have any ideas for mine?

squawk

i usually hate these quizzes, but this one's funny. i would have rather gotten 'monkey', but internet quizzes don't lie!

You Are A: Parakeet!

This popular bird is kept as a pet in homes all over the world. Originating from Australia, parakeets like warm weather and lots of seeds and fruit. They are also known for being messy and quite loud! But you cannot look at one without falling in love.

You were almost a: Monkey or a Duck
You are least like a: Turtle or a GroundhogTake the Cute Animal Test!

when i look back at all the crap i learned last week

(it's a wonder i learned anything at all)

observations and things i've learned over the past week or so:

- you can't stop moving in NYC. at least whenever i'm in nyc and i'm not sitting down, i feel obliged to walk around- if i'm waiting to meet someone, i'll circle the block just so as not to be the clog in the artery on that street. compare this to four or so years of days in which my entire physical activity consisted of walks to and from my car and to the cafeteria within my building. i may have lost a bit of weight in the last couple of weeks on this basis alone.
- there are more restaurants per capita in nyc- and especially on university (between broadway and something)- than... who the hell knows, anywhere i've been though. and the prices really aren't bad, especially if you know where to look. there's a place called Dojo that's a block away from all of my classes (which are all in the same building) that i've probably been to 4 or so times since starting class... they have hippie-ish and quasi-japanese food, like tofu-hijiki burgers, and they serve breakfast until 5pm. you can get a soy burger there for like $3. Good stuff. also there's a place i'm fascinated by called beard papa, a japanese snackey treat joint that specializes in cream puffs. mmmmmm.
- if you add all of the odd partials of a signal (i may be saying this wrong), you get a square wave. i.e.... sin(x) + sin(3x)/3 + sin(5x)/5 + sin(7x)/7... repeated to infinity... will result in a 'square wave'. ray, wes... help explain this?
- corollary to the last one: i'm making a webpage for my nyu work, because that's what everyone does. i'll keep you posted when that happens so you can look at my nifty square-wave-generatin' java applets and research papers on such cool topics as cochlear implants and pitch recognition. eventually stuff will end up at http://home.nyu.edu/~bak282 .
- if i absorb 40% of what i'm supposed to learn over the next semester, i will rule the world.
- and finally and most importantly... freshmen girls are much, much hotter when you're a creepy grad student.

iko-oh, iko-oh, everybody, let's go!

146 7th ave.

i'm moving to park slope, bitches.

well, probably. that is if our application goes through. apparently the place is nice... our realtor showed it to a group of girls who tried to pressure him into giving it to them by offering him a check on the spot, but all we have to do is cough up a massive amount of money for semi- and un-employed asses and it *should* be ours. i told you that my future apartment will be occupied by two students and an aspiring filmmaker? yeah, a landlord's dream.

so this is quite exciting. the place is awesome- the bedrooms might not be that large, but they're certainly not manhattan small, and the price is right, and the kitchen has a gas stove and lovely granite countertops, and we live above some hippie juice bar. which probably means we can buy some dank weed there. i haven't used the word 'dank' since... ever.

scratch those last two sentences. moving in to a place is quite a financial kick in the nuts though... the whole first month / last month / security / realtor's fee (in our case, we each have to lay out something like $4000) is not that fun. but the experience of getting this place was so much better than the experience we had earlier today, when we met with a broker in manhattan at city apartments. apparently all they do is mindfuck you-- you go in there with expectations, they tell you that whatever your expectations are, they won't be met, then they tell you that they deal with "95% of the apartments in manhattan" and that "you'll have to make some sacrifices." they'll interrupt their conversations with you by taking cell phone calls mid-sentence- obviously a girlfriend calling you to pick up half and half on the way home is more important than dealing with clients at hand- and they'll make ridiculous claims that if even one of you doesn't pass the credit check, you'll need one guarrantor who earns 80 TIMES the monthly rent of the apartment annually- i.e. for a $3,000 apartment, you need someone who makes 1/4 a million dollars a year- for the landlord to consider your lease. so basically they play this horrible game of intimidation that is probably designed to make the more weak-minded (usually me, except i had two other guys with me) cry and then cave in and take a 200sf studio apartment in a shitty location (anyone ever been to roosevelt island?) because the realtor convinced them that they really can't do any better. you ask any questions and they say 'that's just how it is... this is manhattan!' so if the place in park slope goes through, we will be done with this bullshit real estate game once and for all... at least until daver decides to break the lease a month into things when he realizes he really misses his e*trade job and that filmmaking ain't for him. (he could say the same about me and good ol' raytheon, i suppose. especially if he had the opposable thumbs necessary to operate a computer keyboard.)

classes are pretty damn cool. two are heavy on the programming, as i probably have mentioned-- one's in java, and one is basically (for those of you who know this kinda stuff) LabView for musical stuff. Two are my music-y classes, one in theory and one in aural (tee hee) comprehension... and those have already been kicking my ass in terms of how much work i have for them. but hopefully by the end of my years of musical remediation (oy) i'll be able to do neat tricks like be able to tell you what scale degree you farted in (if you give me the tonic of the fart-scale) and compose some nifty atonal pieces by simply disobeying everything they taught me. then there's the big survey class where we gloss over all there is in the world of digital audio and music. it has a pretty intimidating textbook that reads like stereo instructions, but it's going to be quite interesting. it is through this class that we are supposed to develop our own identities as grad students in this program by writing weekly papers and doing frequent oral (tee hee) reports on topics of our choosing. i'm debating whether to do my first report on cochlear implants (basically something you can implant into a Deaf person's brain to get them to hear again- pretty f'ing amazing, if you ask me) or something like wireless technology and how it can apply to music. there is also the big world of simulating the analog world in a computer- i.e. a company like line6 that makes guitars, amps, and recording interfaces that pretend they're other guitars, amps, and recording interfaces. that stuff's pretty damn amazing and i do have to keep the bottom line in mind as i dive into a topic that may very well lead to my master's thesis-- what will i want to do and what company (if any) will i want to work for when this whole grad school charade is over?

i also had commented on how diverse our program is, not just in ethnicity but in people's pursuits in life. we have old and young, male (mostly) and female (under 10 / 35 in our year). we have people who own their own indie labels and their own studios. and i found out last week that one girl in our program is a pop star from the united arab emirates. wicked.

i may have finally caught up on sleep, which means i could think about doing homework now (12:42 in the morning). this grad school thing is certainly no walk in a park. but you know what? my brain has really missed me. i've been neglecting it for quite some time.

someone say 'hi' sometime. but preferrably in electronic form. i'm running out of daytime minutes.

love,
b

bollywood thrill

classes began. i was hoping i'd be posting more but this shuttling back and forth between westchester and the city sucks. i either have to fix my ibook* or buy a powerbook. anyhow... where to begin? so my first class- Java programming for music systems or something like that- the teacher didn't show. one of the graduate assistants improvised for maybe 20 minutes and showed us what he did for the class- basically a webpage that will make bleeps and squeaks randomly. very practical. so not having the professor show up to my 1st class and being led by some GAs was a bit disheartening at least.

so that ended and we then had the big survey class that every master's in music technology student has to take- Digital Audio Processing. This course basically covers as many concepts as possible in the digital audio realm (which is quite vast) and will eventually lead to a thesis-like project. One of the graduate assistants did his work on cochlear implants, which really interests me. All the first year master's students in my program are in the class- i think there are about 35 of us. Pretty small program. The professor's a very intelligent and well-spoken guy. We did introductions in the class and it really made me appreciate the diversity of people in our program. Many many music geeks of all ilk (ilk?)- some studio owners, some avant garde electronic music producers, some married old people, some guy who apparently made scores for Nickelodeon shows (i want to be his friend), and an Indian woman who was in the software industry but really liked Bollywood movies so she wants to get into scoring them.

Shit, it's 2:03am. I'll have to fill y'all in on my music theory and aural comprehension class soon but they seem like they'll be very interesting and I'm quite intimidated by them because i'm in that class with a bunch of music major underclassmen who seem to know it all already. The biggest shell shock of this whole experience so far is the feeling of having something excellent expected of me. I mean, I've spent the past 4 years being told exactly what's expected of me (not bloody much) and I seemed to do pretty damn well at that with minimum effort... but this grad school thing, the nature of the assignments is kind of a sliding scale. I could do my DAP homework in 5 minutes and do it decently and correctly... but in the first handout our teacher gave for that class, he said that 'fulfilling the requirements will result in a satisfactory grade of a C'. A *C*! I can't get that in my master's program that I so valiantly left my life behind to pursue! ...Have I become a grade-grubber? Because I feel like for the next two years there will always be the pressure of doing just a little more on everything to make things that much better. But ya know, maybe that isn't the worst thing that could happen to me.

The brooklyn apartment quest is also moving along nicely. More soon. Now sleep. Ug.

oh, before i sleep: this picture (yes, photoshopped) is brilliant and horrible. but mostly brilliant.

'night


*my 2-year old trusty ibook developed a bit of a problem- the backlight for the screen goes off if the screen is open to the wrong angle, which makes working on it very awkward. being the overzealous geek that i am, i figured out what the problem was- apparently it's very common- ordered the replacement part, and tried to open the ibook up. problem is that i stripped two of the screws on it and now it's mostly screwless and the screen still hasn't been fixed. i heard all i can really do now is use a dremel tool to remove the heads from the screws. i really really really covet a 15" powerbook but i also really really really don't have the money. but since when have i cared about that?

longview

Classes start tomorrow. Giggidy. I've had surprisingly few dreams of walking into a final exam in my underwear and having not gone to any classes at all that semester- this used to happen at least once a semester to me, so maybe I've conquered my subconscious in my old age. Who knows.

I hung out w/ good ol' Daver Epstein the other night. We shared tales of just how giddy we are to have left our respective soul-sucking jobs* and crappety crap cities** (daver having quit a job at e*trade in DC to move to NYC to become a filmmaker, and me... aww, you know my story) and to have ended up in NYC pursuing what we think we want to do with our lives at this point in our lives until we realize that it's really pointless and we walk back to our old corporate jobs with tails between our legs... but it should be fun while it lasts. Anyhow, for some reason, Daver has always seemed to have a very vested (vested?) interest in my life and where i take it, so he offered me three pieces of advice that he thought I should follow. He listed them 'in order of increasing controversy' and I will repeat them here for your consideration / amusement:
1) I should only wear t-shirts. no more collars.
2) I should get a punk rock haircut. But not full-out punk rock. Maybe dignified punk-rock. Like that mohawk-like haircut that Maddox Jolie has. stupid lucky brad pitt.
3) I should get me some Ritalin / Adderall. I suspect the last one is equally for Daver, who would like to score some from me, as it is for me and my horrible textbook case of attention deficit disorder.

So contrary to my and many others' expectations, I am now most likely NOT going to be spending the next two years in my parents' house... Daver, Tom, and I will probably be getting a place in Brooklyn in October. Home has been treating me well, though... I think my father and I have developed a sort of mutualistic alcoholism... my mom can't drink, but my dad has a taste for expensive Chardonnay, so he will always ask me to join him in a very passive-aggressive way that I believe I've inherited from him... i.e. "I wouldn't mind it if you happened to open up another wine" or "were you thinking of having another glass?" But hey, who am I to complain about drinking wine that is a good $20 / bottle more expensive than what I usually treat myself to...

I have picked my classes. Thanks to the music theory course I took this summer (clue #214 to Raytheon that I was quitting, but nobody really seemed to catch on until I threw the shit directly into the fan) I placed out of basic musicianship in the horrible music theory and history exam I took last Monday, so I'm taking Music Theory I this semester. Maybe I'll get to re-meet the hot sophomore acting chick who I sat next to during the placement exam again. Hellooooo, rebound! (oh yeah, so I'm single now, too) (Winnie, you don't read this blog, right?) My other courses are pretty dorky- two are programming-related, one in Java and one in this music programming language / environment called MAX/MSP, which apparently is used very extensively by the performing community. So maybe I'll develop my electronica alter-ego this semester. I'm accepting all submissions for names. And I'm also taking the big survey course that all the students in the grad program (I think 35 each year maybe?) take that goes over all sorts of concepts of music, technology, and the intersection of the two. One of the grad students that has been advising me on course selection did his thesis on cochlear implants as a result of a paper he wrote for that class, so that sounds quite interesting. And my school week ends on Wednesday at 1:45 pm. Not too shabby.

And that's that. I still haven't put pictures of Matt & Vicki's beautiful wedding nor the afterparty ('shantytown 2005') with the jumping castle and dunk tank online, but I will soon. I also have some pictures and bootleg video clips from the awesomely outrageous Green Day / Jimmy Eat World concert that Sandy was so wonderfully kind enough to take me to last week. And did I mention I'm single for the first time in 4 years?

Take a number,
B


*sorry, my dear raytheon lovers
**sorry, my dear boston sympathizers