Many people coming from miles around

[austin_dern]

So, do I look a bit more fleet of foot? spaceroo was kind enough to bring me some memory chips, expanding the iBook to 640 MB RAM, and we installed it this morning and ... all seems to be well, so far, knock plastic. We gave it what we hope is a reasonable trial, including some memory-intensive challenges like playing a DVD. For this, we used one of the tougher DVDs I have, a collection of the early 60s King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons, which are mighty challenging to watch.

So anyway for today we took a trip on the full north-south line of the MRT, giving a fair view of suburban Singapore, which is admittedly not that greatly different from the area where I live, or from any reasonably suburban spot like you'd see in New Jersey (which passes for 'urban' in most states). This was all along the way to Orchard Road, the big downtown shopping district, an area proud to try appealing to tourists and shoppers.

Usually there's something big or at least odd happening (see earlier entries about, for example, the ``Entry point for half-lane cheerleader zone'') and I expected something would be ready for the 40th National day (9 August), but nothing much was happening. The street musician who a few weeks ago just left the synthesizer on Generic 80s Tune was playing what sounded like the Marty McFly cover of ``Johnny B Good.'' We watched aquarium (complete with sharks) in Ngee Ann City, and looked without success for better earphones for spaceroo's much-too-soon flight home. At least we found out the recommended impedence for earphones to be iPod-compatible (32 Ohms), which is valuable information for people who can hear differences in speaker quality, unlike me. I noticed also ``Otter Bags'', plastic bags in which an iPod can be sealed to keep it safe from water.

Trivia: In its first year of operations about 8,744,000 vehicles used the Holland Tunnel. Source: New Jersey: America's Main Road, John T Cunningham.

Currently Reading: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones.

Comments

[patchoblack.livejournal.com]

o/` To hear your playing music when the sun goes down. o/`

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's a very peppy song, but we were both amused when he started riffing the way McFly did when he got off the song. We'd just been joking about him doing that.

[chahala.livejournal.com]

Oh... otter bags! I should have thought of that... put a little dementional warp in the bottom and get free ipods.

Chahala

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

They are transparent, you know, so it'd be harder to make off with one.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Best of Wishes with the iBook progress!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Thanks. All seems reasonably stable for now; we can hope for the best.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

For this, we used one of the tougher DVDs I have, a collection of the early 60s King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons, which are mighty challenging to watch.

Is that because of some obscure coding mechanism used on the DVD, or because they're 60's KFS Popeye cartoons?

I personally get along well with basic headphones. While I can hear the quality between a $15 pair and a $90 pair, I'm also usually listening to my iPod on commute, and there's enough background noise to make it negligible.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

(Finally catching up here ... ) The King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons are very challenging to watch because they're really quite poorly made. The animation was distributed to about seven billion companies, for one, none of whom had the time to do basic tests to make sure they were going on model or were respecting things in Popeye's basic design, like, oh, he has five fingers on each hand, or has one squinty eye. Music is better than the Rudy Larriva Looney Tunes, but that's more or less by default; it does pretty reliably miss script cues, and sound effects are erratic where present at all.

And the writing, well. It reaches the point that one's grateful when the credits reveal the cartoon will be made by Paramount/Famous Studios -- the studios which had just ground Popeye down into a boring slop of cartoons -- because then you know the story will at minimum make any sense. You often get herky-jerky plotting and dialogue, and it's just refreshingly bracing. I miss these cartoons.