Whoooo!

The Hornets won their first playoff series in New Orleans, beating the Mavericks of Dallas! Too bad I'm stuck in my office working... Anyway, this is awesome. I'll be there (meaning watching on TV from Pittsburgh) for Round 2.

Kings of Leon

Well I know I'm like 5 years behind the times here, but the Kings of Leon album, Youth and Young Manhood is really good. You should give it a listen.

Hmm...

I can't hear out of my left ear at all, and I'm pretty sure it's because of ear wax... Ew... Q-Tips seems to help not at all. Does anyone know the name of that chemical you put in your ear that causes the ear wax to come out? I'm dying here.

Government Coupon

As one of the eight people in America who actually uses bunny ears to get my TV, I am somewhat interested in the transition to digital broadcast television for 2009. I had seen all those commercials, and decided to fill out the form to get a coupon. Well on Friday, my government coupon arrived (right top), entitling me to $40 off a digital converter box (right bottom).

A couple of things are actually nicer about watching digital tv. For one thing, because there are extra digital bits, you actually get program information along with the signal, so I know what's coming up next. The signal seems to be clearer, and I even get some 'bonus' channels, like a 24-hour-a-day Pittsburgh weather channel. Sweet dudes. I'm ready for the digital revolution.

I also have an extra coupon, if anyone is interested.

Ciera's Wedding!

CierasWedding0132
Originally uploaded by DixiePistols.

I finally posted some pictures from Ciera and Saul's wedding!

Click for more...

Fortress of Multitude

Whoa, guys! Check out this video:

It's about the Fortress programming language, the language I will be working on this summer in Austin, TX. Even cooler? That guy on the right, Eric Allen, is going to be my boss!

Update! Livejournal Sucks!
Try clicking on this link if you can't see anything above, as I cannot...

Three Rivers, CA

This weekend I was in California (Three Rivers, near Fresno) for the wedding of my colleague Ciera. The wedding was incredible, and we even got to spend a little bit of time at the Sequoia National Park, also amazing. We had no cell phone reception whatsoever, so I apologize to those of you who tried to contact me over the weekend.

Pictures coming soon.

Urbanhike: Crafton, PA on April 26th

Just wanted to let you guys know that next weekend (not this weekend) we'll be hiking around Crafton, PA. Here's the info!



Join us for the inaugural Urban Hike of 2008!

We're starting the season in Crafton, the boyhood home of Bill Cowher and the current home of a 24-hour donut shop and much more. Spend a few hours exploring the area with us on Saturday, April 26th beginning at 1:30 pm. We'll park at the Sharp Edge Creekhouse, 288 W. Steuben Street. Check out their web site to see a map and get a taste for what we'll be tasting after the hike.

Our hike will last 2-3 hours. As always, we recommend that you wear comfortable shoes, and bring water, sunscreen, and a sunny disposition. If you haven't hiked with us before, no RSVP needed-but if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@urbanhike.org. See you there!

Java Type Inference Sucks

Why doesn't this work?! Boo Java.

Variable unpacked_var =
  (this_copy.unpackedVar == other.unpackedVar ?  
    this_copy.unpackedVar : 
    throw new IllegalStateException("Unhandled casee"));

Goth Guys

Oh man! Gmail ads are the best!

Home Slice!

On Friday night, I saw John Vanderslice at the Andy Warhol museum, an incredible experience. I heard about him through Tom, basically the only person I know who listens to him, and therefore Tom gets bonus points for introducing me. The concert was great. The band was incredibly tight. The sound was great, and John had plenty of neat old analog equipment, for which he is pretty well know. (This is partially the reason for my renewed interest in the electric guitar.) He was really funny, and seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. The selection of songs was good too, mostly songs I knew from Emerald City and The Life & Death of an American Four-Tracker, the only two albums I have, but also some ones I had never heard.

The highlight was the end, when he and his band-members went out into the gallery area for some acoustic songs. It sounded even cooler with the natural reverb of the room.

Go to his web site. You can listen to his entire new album, and I'd be surprised if you were disappointed.

Vienna Sausages

It's official: I'm going to Vienna in May! 

Sucks more than CMUsual

I just today received a letter, sent through the USPS, sent to me on March 5th from New Jersey! How crazy is that?! It's been bouncing around the in CMU mail system for a month. One of my biggest pet peeves about having an office at CMU is how there is no consistency between the USPS deliveries and the package deliveries. An address that will work if given to the UPS folks will utterly fail if given to the USPS folks...

New Song!

Hey guys,

It seems like clockwork, but Sick Ridiculous and The Sick Ridiculous (that's now the official capitalization) has a new song. It's called, The Giving 43 Billion Dollars to Charity "Blues," and as always it can be downloaded from our MySpace page. Hope you enjoys.

Pizza! Time

My best friend from high school, Rand, is now in a band out in LA. They used to have a somewhat ludacris name, but now that they've gotten some interest from actual music people, they are known as "Pizza!"

Anyway, they just released an album and it's available for free on their web site. Their music is somewhat avant-garde, but they are extremely tight musically, and have some clever songs. My favorite so far is bird-dreams.

SIGBOVIK 2008 Conference Report

Sunday afternoon was SIGBOVIK 2008! This year I had a great time wearing three different hats. As Guy Fantastic, I was the MC for the day, introducing the speakers and (more importantly) stalling with the dumb A/V equipment was giving them trouble. As Nels E. Beckman, I presented my work on Relentless Parallelism! You can read the full paper (both pages!) by going to my publications page, and you can see the slides from my talk here. I thought it went pretty well. Finally, as lead singer/lead guitarist of Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous, I performed a rousing rendition of The Theme from SIGBOVIK along with Tom.

The highlights? Well Tom's Tom VII Entertainment System Hero, was pretty rad, although right at the moment when he was to give his presentation things stopped working. He made a parody version of the Guitar Hero games that takes his MIDI files and converts them into a musical score that can then be played just like in Guitar Hero. And because the XBOX 360 GH controller is USB, you can really play the game!

Otherwise, the phrase "The Majestic Stopcock" sticks out. I'll be laughing about that one for a while.

Sick!

By now you've probably already heard, either from Wired or Rolling Stone magazine. But just to be safe, Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous have a new song. It's the Theme from SIGBOVIK, and you can listen and download from our myspace page.

A couple people said they couldn't download the songs because they weren't on myspace. We understand. We plan to upload our songs somewhere else real soon.

Phone Jerk

Well I said I'd never do it. Turns out I lied. After having phone envy for entirely too long, I finally broke down and got a fancier phone.

I am now the proud owner of a Blackberry Pearl phone. It's pretty small and has Quasi-QWERTY capabilities. Boo ya. Send me a text so I feel special.