xamox's blog

WTF? We don't need no education.

2006-04-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

So I came across this video and had to post it on Youtube. It's very weird, but I like it cause it is very original, it reminds me of something the aphex twin would do, except put it into a song.

So I am officially done with School! Hooray, pip-pip cheerio, and all that good stuff. The next few days I will most likely be laying around about as ambitious as a sloth. My jeep is fucked up again, hooray to that, it's some sort of electrical problem, I'm guessing it's a short to the starter, but we'll see. Luckily I fixed my bike last week so I can start riding that around. I figured with gas $3/gal, why not? If I ride 2 miles to work everyday, and 2 back, that's 4 miles a day, 20 a week, 80 a month. And that's 80 more miles a month of physical activity than I do now.

I came across this in search of something other than iTunes. Don't get me wrong, I like iPod's, just iTunes can suck my balls. It is the slowest, clumsiest piece of shit software I have ever used. So I wanted something else to fill the void of getting subscription based IPTV. You may say, why this instead of Youtube, Google Video, etc. Well they are built for clips, this is built for shows that air on a weekly basis. I suggest checking it out, there is actually a lot of channels and there is probably something you would like, IPTV is the next big thing, so climb aboard.

Democracy - Internet TV Platform

thus,
-xamox

Who says that policitians are anal. Party down with the governer of California!

2006-04-22T16:07:00.000-04:00

I just had to post this, hilarious.

Phew......

2006-04-20T21:42:00.000-04:00

So recently I have been job hunting like a madman. If you read my previous post, I had a few interviews, and of course they gave me the spiel about how I was the best canidate and all that shit, but of course hadn't heard anything back. So I decided to not depend on them and started picking up applications. Monday I went out and picked up around 20 applications for local businesses and filled them out. What a bitch it is writing the same exact shit 20 times. Well, after a couple interviews and shit I got an e-mail today that I got a job. I'm super pumped cause it was the job I wanted the most of all the places I applied. The people seem really cool, and the software is pretty crazy. You can check out their website: Roadsoft. The first thing they want me to do is revamp the website, then I will be working on the actual software with them. I'll get to work with a bunch of civil engineers and programmers.

Last Friday was kind of cool. After yoga Kassi and I went to a show up here. There were 3 bands that played. The first band was called, "No Second Chances" and was a little high school band with the members seriously like 15 years old (we asked). Being a metal head I can honestly say that they were pretty damn good. They messed up a few times but I think they had some serious potential. It was funny to see this little kid on stage, in a little squeaky voice, and say something like, "this song is called: death is ugly" or something to that extent and then start screaming in a deathmetal tone. The other bands we seen were Afterburner Orange and Spare the Rod Spoil the Child. That was the 2nd time we've seen Afterburner Orange up here. The first time was at a place called "The Shaft" up here, which I thought the sound engineer sucked cause you couldn't even hear the vocals, this time they played at level 2 skatepark. Spare the rod was okay, they almost sounded like they were just jamming I think they are trying a little too hard to be Norma Jean.

thus,

-xamox

update (4/22/06): The other company I talked about called me yesterday and offered me a job. I decided to keep the one I already got though. It's right on campus, where as the other one is 20 miles away, so I can ride my bike instead. They are about the same pay scale too. Plus the guys at the job I took seem way less uptight and more of the type of guys I would get along with. They joke around a lot, which is my type of personality.

Fucking Bitch, ask this ninja.

2006-04-14T10:43:00.000-04:00

So I made this video because on youtube there is a lot of retarded shit that get's high ratings, it makes me question the mentality of people who use the internet. There is a guy on you tube and his little skits are called, "Ask a ninja". It's a guy dressed up in a ninja suit answering questions about ridiculous things, such as if midget's could be ninjas. I also seen another video of someone practicing martial arts and someone said how badass it was and I said not compared to this video I have of shaolin monks. So I decided to merge the two with a dronebox track, which the timing fit perfect into the scene, and posted it on Youtube.com. We'll see what happens.

enjoy,
-xamox

Jesus Christ, it's 70 out.

2006-04-12T11:21:00.000-04:00

So yesterday was another odd day. It was 70+ degrees up here, and is fucking awesome considering it was like 45 a week or two ago. So I bailed on class and enjoyed the day by taking the doors off my jeep and cruising around and walking fuse. It's crazy to see the relation between nice days and shitty ones. So many people where driving around yesterday, the funny thing is the good ole' MDOT engineering team (oh yeah I'm talking about the ones who engineered the yooper loop, and the new tunnel by the beach) decided it would be a good day to work on the bridge. So one lane of the bridge was closed down on probably the busiest it's been since Carnival.

Later in the evening Kassi and I decided to go rent a movie. It was starting to rain at the time and we seen a guy hitch hiking, so we picked him up as a nice gesture. Well I'll give you one guess as to what he started talking about not even 10 seconds after he was in the car, okay, ready, guess?.....................................................................That is right, Jesus. He was like, "have you accepted our savior Jesus, blah, blah, blah." I was like, great. Then he started telling us how he used to be a professional boxer and was a world champion. And how he used to be a millionaire but Jesus told him to give all his money away to the poor. He told us that he is good friends with Muhammad Ali and that he is going down to Kalamazoo in a few months to stay with him. He is good friends with George Foreman as well. He told us he was that way because he has partial brain damage from boxing and no one will give him a job. He asked us for a couple bucks cause he hadn't eaten in 4 days and said he wouldn't spend it on Alcohol. When we dropped him off he asked if he could say a prayer for us and we let him and gave him a few bucks. He smelled like cigarettes really bad and I can only imagine he probably has a drinking problem. I figured you never know how messed up the world is, so when I got home I did a couple searches for his name, even synonym searches and found absolutely nothing. He was a really nice guy, I just think he has a lot of problems, and I guess if Jesus is a vehicle to his recovery, tear it up.

I had a couple interviews recently. Both for companies up here that I didn't even know existed until last week. The one was for a company that makes simulation software for the government, and the other that manufacturers circuit boards. The one for the g-man I had to interview with 4 people, supposed to be 5 but one of them had to take off. So it was like 3 hours of interviews straight, which kind of sucked. I hope I get that one, the interviews seem to go well, and the pay and benefits would be awesome. The circuit manufacturer would pay alright, I would probably start inspecting circuit boards or something but could work my way up. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed(I got my fingers crossed Freddy, my fingers crossed) that I get a call from one of them soon cause my broke ass needs a job.

thus,
-xamox

p.s. We rented the Oscar winner "Capote" and it really blows my mind how movies like this win. It was probably one of the most boring movies I have ever seen.

Folklore the Movie.

2006-04-03T01:17:00.000-04:00

This past friday Kassi and I went down to Marquette for an advanced screening of this moving called folklore. Her friend starred as one of the main bad characters in it. It was about a forensic detective that has his family killed by this cult. They took his baby for some sacrifice and he hunts them down in the movie. The badguy is a vampire and he is trying to open some portal by killing the baby. It was a pretty good movie, considering it was a b-film. It has really good production and pretty good acting considering it was done by a bunch of people at NMU. It was shot exclusively in Michigan too which was pretty cool. There was a scene where they were at cliff cemetery which is up here in the keweenaw. And there was a waterfall shot at Hungarian (at least I thought it was). The movie was two and half hours long which I think they easily could've cut an hour out. Also there was this part with this really corny fairy that appears and it made the movie seem way cheesier. The fight scenes were actually pretty good.

We went down to Marquette a little earlier that day and hung out for a bit. Kassi's friend also owns a place where concert's are held and I guess the Suicide Machines are going to be playing there soon. We also got some Thai food from this restaurant that was pretty badass. The lady Aoy moved here from Thailand, the place was packed and it was just this little restaurant where she cooks everything from scratch. You also got huge portions for like $5.50, it was seriously like 2 meals in 1.

More pics can be found here.

thus,
-xamox

Your Momma knits socks that smell.

2006-03-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

[Click to Enlarge]

So you ever have those days where you wake up and you know it's going to just be a weird day. Like the world has a weird vibe about it or something. Well today was one of those days for me. It was really nice out today and I think everyone up here has spring fever. So after I got back from class, Kassi and I went for a drive because it was so nice out. Also she got a new subaru because her other car died. We cruised up the back way to calumet. Well Kassi's friend was back in from Iraq (army). So we cruised out to Pelkie, which is way out like 40min south of houghton. When we first pulled into the farm I get out and there is a Cow head on the ground. I was like, holy shit, that's pretty crazy. So I took a pic of it. We went in and hung out, it was pretty cool. Everyone was pretty drunk, and we got a video of this kid singing "baby got back". People were telling jokes and shit, and the best one I heard was "Your momma knits socks that smell." All in all it was fun and pretty hilarious. You can check out the other pics here.

It was also weird out today because there are so many people out. Everyone up here seems to be jonesin' for summer so bad. What is weird is it has been the mildest winter since I have been up here. I know I'm excited for summer to get here. I also read that facebook is going to IPO for $2 Billion.

The other day was weird as well. It was nice as well and people were running around. Kassi and I cruised up to copper harbor as you can see from the pic below. Later we went to family video that night to rent a movie. As we were leaving we ran into our buddy Zak and he asked if we wanted to come over to his house and hang out. We did, and I forgot that Zak has a studio. Not just a recording studio but a super badass one with Electronic drum set, keyboards, mixing board, tube pedals, sound booth, the works. We just fucked around for a little bit and recorded this track in the first take. I played guitar and Zak played drums. Then Zak is like, we have to laydown some vocals, and I said for him to tear it up. So he said, let's make it about fast food. He went into the booth and tore up the vocals on the first try. I about pissed myself laughing when I heard it. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did. The song is called, "Fast Food Death", it reminds me of a song from CKY like mustard man.

Listen here: http://www.xamox.net/fast-food-death.mp3

[Click to Enlarge]

thus,
-xamox

Enslaved to Machines.

2006-03-23T20:05:00.000-05:00

I came across this video, dubbed "Tetra Vaal". It's just a fake but it looks super real. It really makes you think what is in store for the future. I honestly think the graphics look better than in the movie "I, Robot". And it seems even more of a realistic sceneraio.

Wonder Showzen

2006-03-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

I came across this show the other day and thought it was pretty hilarious. It's made like a kids show but is for adults. The content is very graphic and not for the easily offended. I highly suggest watching it. The new season starts the 31st of March.

Don't Copy that Floppy.

2006-03-19T11:11:00.000-05:00

This is a video from 1992. It's hilarious to see how much things have changed in the past 14 years in computing.

33 inches of Shit on Myself

2006-03-17T10:29:00.000-05:00

Shit on me. At least that's what the weather did up here monday. You see last week was my spring break and all was well up here. It was around 55 degrees, all the snow was melting, and I was getting spring fever. Rarely getting to see the sun is quite depressing, so with a whole week of sun I felt quite energetic. Then came monday. I went to bed sunday night and when I got up it looked like it had gone from spring to winter in 1 night. It was snowing a shitton, we got fucking dumped on is what I meant to say. We got 33 inches of snow in one day. Hooray.

In other news I have started getting back into shape. I started lifting weights and doing jiu-jitsu again. I still remember most of the basic jiu-jitsu techniques but I have forgotten much of the advanced stuff. I also picked up my bike and am going to fix that up to go trail riding this summer. I talked to a guy at jiu-jitsu and I may be working construction up here this summer if I don't get a job related to my field. I am done with my current job at the end of this semester and need to find other work so I started updating my resume, references, portfolio, etc. Job hunting is always a good time, I'm sure most will agree.

I am going to try and piece together a server this weekend so I can run my web hosting. I don't want to run it on my main machine due to lack of security in windows. I want to put my shit on lockdown, IDS, Firewall, etc.

"I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of widths." -Funny Quote I heard today.

waiting for summer,
-xamox

2006-03-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

I came across this pack mule about a week and a half ago. I waited for it to get to google video because they can handle bandwidth much unlike many other video services out there. The funny thing about this mule is I just read about it in a book I am reading called "The singularity approaches: when humans transcend biology" and he talks about robotic pack mules in the book, but the book was written a couple years ago which I thought was funny.

enjoy,
-xamox

New Website

2006-03-09T20:49:00.000-05:00

Well I finally took the time to make a new website. It can be found at www.xamox.net. It isn't currently in PHP like I wanted it to because I am waiting for a new version of linux to come out in a few days so I can format my computer, then I'll setup apache, php, etc on my local machine. Once I get php going I plan to incorporate my blog into the layout as well as a few other things. Let me know if you come across any problems on the site.

Make sure you click Refresh or press F5 when you get to the page because the page maybe cached.

thus,
-xamox

Put the drugs down.

2006-03-05T15:26:00.000-05:00

I came across this clip on VH1's webjunk. It is super fucking cracked out and I can't say I've ever taken part in a yoga class quite like this.

Yeah Spring Break!

2006-03-03T12:46:00.000-05:00

*warning: Spring Break is not for everyone, above results may vary.

So I have offically started spring break. I don't really have any money to do anything so I'll just be staying up here. I have a few things I want to accomplish over break, and have a stupid school project to work on, but I plan on it being productive. You will just have to keep checking my blog on what I accomplish. Enjoy my mom's pasta dish below as well.

After getting back from class this morning I was board and made up this little track for chooch, fresh, or anyone who cares. I don't think this will develop into a song or anything, it was just me jamming. You can tell by the ghetto ass drum beat. Chooch or fresh, or anyone else for that matter should make me up some drum tracks so I can lay some guitar to over break.

Listen to Clip Here

thus,
xamox

Olivatsri Oil - Pasta Dish Recipe

2006-03-03T10:56:00.000-05:00

This is the recipe for my family's famous "oli oil". Like a martial art it's simplistic in nature but can take years to master. Anyone who has eaten at my house knows of this dish and they can contest just how good it is. I just got this recipe from my mom. Enjoy everyone

Serves: 2-3.

Ingredients:

2 cups of olive oil (preferably extra virgin)
2 whole heads of garlic chopped
3 jalapeno pepper (more for hotter/spicier)
1 lb of linguini pasta (or preference)

Instructions:

Simmer oil, garlic, and peppers on low until garlic starts turning a golden brown (approx 1hr.)
Boil Pasta and put 3 tbsp of salt/lb of pasta in the water. Once the noodles are ready, strain, but do not rinse.
thoroughly mix pasta and oil.
Eat.

Spore: This game is insane!

2006-03-01T23:48:00.000-05:00

I came across a video of this game. This video is 35minutes long but really badass. It's a game where you start off as little single cell, and you keep evolving, picking traits you want each generation, you eventually evolve to sea creature, then land creature, then start forming tribes, then civilizations, then countries, then start taking over planets, solar systems, etc. Pretty much just evolution. Check it out, the graphics look really good too.

Shooter Game

2006-02-25T19:39:00.000-05:00

I came across this game and thought it is fun to waste some time on.
Give it a try.
Use mouse to shoot and move. Space bar reloads.

Post 1984

2006-02-24T14:02:00.000-05:00

4th Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Looking at the current state of things in the news I would say it's the 1984th amendment. Currently the government wants to get access to large companies databases such as MSN, Yahoo, Google, etc. (read more). It seems we are on the path of changing from re-active to pro-active measurements. I'm sorry that there are child porn rings on the internet but I don't want to give up my privacy so the G-man can tear through my shit and try and profile me. The thing is too is that many things are deemed illegal and wrong but the people who want to do it find a way around it, while the average person is the only one affected by it. Take for instance that drugs are illegal. Many people still do them, the ones that want to anyways. I think in the future as more things start shifting towards digital that this will become a major concern, hopefully not before it's too late. The best way to prevent against it is use encryption in your Instant messenger and e-mail. I suggest GAIM with the encryption plug-in.

Torrentspy is undergoing some legal action. It's another search and seizure. I think what has happened is that they now want everything to shift towards DRM. They problem with DRM is all the consumer statistics involved. They will know everytime you play a song or a video, where you played it, what your personal trends are, and I don't think it's good. With neural nets it's easy to find patterns amongst a data set. What they will look for is the outlier and wonder why there was a skew in your daily habits. Maybe get flagged enough and you'll be put into question, who knows. In fact this happened at my bank not too long ago. People can laugh if they want and say, "oh xamox, settle down on the conspiracies" but it doesn't take a lot to just look at the world around and use some logic as to where it's progressing.

thus,
xamox

p.s. My hit's have jumped up because my stuff was set to unique visitors instead of page views, so I have actually had like 5100+ hits to my blog. Rock on! Thanks to anyone who reads this crap.

pictured above:
sikorsky - cypher 2
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
(half life 2 anyone?)

Teen angst & Emo!

2006-02-21T18:49:00.000-05:00

I choo-choo-choose you!

2006-02-15T08:21:00.000-05:00

(click to enlarge)

So for valentines day I surprised Kassi quite a bit. I told her that we were going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant up here. So we got all fancy and that jazz. I told her we had to run to the ATM for cash. Well we went to Houghton and I stopped at the ATM and told her to get out. I told her that I had a surprise for her, and that her valentine day surprise was to pick out a piece of art she wanted from the art gallery (which is right next to where she teaches yoga). Well I walked her in and then told her to follow me. I took her next door and brought her to the back. You can see from the pic above that I had it all setup for dinner. I got dinner from the library as carry out and had it ready there. I told her that I had a study review at 6pm so I could go and set it up. I also bought her a tea kettle, chocolates, and 3 body sprays (bath & body works).

Pandora now supports playback in your playlist, so you can view my playlist here, and listen to samples of my favorite tunes on it.

I also had to post the video below. It is a badass multi-input touchscreen display. It could really change the way we interact with computers. Think Minority Report. Worth checking out.

Winter C.

2006-02-13T16:31:00.000-05:00

So winter carnival is over. This was my 5th one so it was nothing spectacular. The statues weren't quite as impressive as the previous years either. Probably due to the poor weather. Of course this week is really going to be fun because of course I have 2 assignments and 2 exams this week due, plus an exam next Monday. It was cool to get to hang out with fresh since he came up for a few days. I thought about going home for spring break but don't think I am going to just because it cost to much and I can't afford it if my jeep breaks again. At least up here if it does I can walk to school and know local's who will fix it for much cheaper than a mechanic downstate will.

We went to the gay bar in gay,mi up here. I have some pics listed. Anyways as I was coming back from the bar the sun had gone down and it was starting to get cold out. The roads way out there aren't plowed very well and were really icy. I ended up just losing control at 45mph on the road and started heading towards a pole, I was turning left, and then hit dry pavement and turned left, it shot me across the other side of the road and hit the bank (like 2 feet from a speed limit sign), spun around twice and then went into the ditch as the picture you see below (buried). Luckily everyone else was still at the bar a few miles back. Someone drove by a few minutes later and for some reason wouldn't give me a ride (not sure if he thought I was a psycho or what) but told me he would get my friends. About 10 minutes later they showed up. Shannon has a subaru and I was thinking it had a trailer hitch. Well of course it didn't. I didn't have a shovel or anything, but luckily we had the mastermind himself fresh funky fingaz.

Fresh ended up finding a cane in my car and dug snow out that way. We kicked the jeep into 4-low and rocked it out while Shannon drove. I thought I was going to have to get pulled out by another 4 wheel vehicle but we luckily got it out. What pissed me off is there where like 3 separate cars that had driven by and didn't even stop to see if we needed help. I always stop and help people in the ditch. Especially when one of them was a blazer and I had a toe-strap. But it didn't matter, we got it out. Well we started to leave and then I hear shannon's car spinning. It was so shitty where I was at she got stuck just pulling on the side of the road with an all wheel drive vehicle. Fresh and I tried to push but couldn't get it out. The problem was that where the plow had been it was really icy and solid, but on the other side of the line it was soft snow. So her car was right on each half. I toed her out with my jeep but we weren't even sure about that because her car is new there was nothing to attach to, just all plastic underneath. We both got out and laughed about it, luckily things could've turned out worse.

Statue Pics can be found here.

thus,
xamox

Crazy Parrot.

2006-02-10T14:44:00.000-05:00

This is a little cheesy but it's pretty crazy how much shit this bird knows. It makes me wonder if animals are collectivily getting smarter as a whole. The more domesticated they become the more we probably influence their thinking and communication way more then we have in the past. I think that people favor these traits, in cats, dogs, birds, etc. And natural selection is forcing them to become smarter.

Half Life on the iPod Nano.

2006-02-06T01:06:00.000-05:00

This is a video clip of someone running half life on their ipod. They are running ipod linux and port of half life for it. I just thought it was interesting. It will be funny to see if in a few years you will be able to play half life 2 on a portable device.

Bye, Bye Movies!

2006-01-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

So the screenshot below is of a new game called "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars" and it is coming out sometime in the near future. What is pretty crazy is that screenshot is of in game play. I read something that Robert Erbert stated that "Games will never replace movies." With games like this I don't know how they couldn't. They are interactive movies pretty much.

I guess tech is trying for some world records this year aparently.

Carnival is already next week, hooray I suppose. Who all is coming up here anyways?

-xamox

(click to enlarge)