Lewies Blog

At one time, all of my 3000+ MP3 and AAC files had been tagged with ratings, album artwork, categories, etc. This was mainly done using iTunes over a long period of time. I started looking around and found a better tool to take care of the tagging and quickly identify witch files are missing specific tags. MediaMonkey is my new hero. Forget about iTunes. This software has the ability to fetch artwork, track names, artist, label, year, etc. direct from Amazon. I have a choice of many different amazon sites to choose from as well (UK, Germany, Japan, etc.) which comes in handy for imports. The manageability of my music within the product is great. I’m able to view music by album, artist, Composer, Genre, Year, etc. The one that I love is the ability to list music without album artwork. I have about 1644 files left to tag. It also has the ability to rename the files on my computer and network drives according to a format that I specify. I prefer <Album Artist>\<Album>\<Track#> - <Title>. The software is free, but a paid version gets you a bit more features. I’m debating on getting the lifetime membership so I’ll be privy to all future updates. The one thing that it seems to be missing is the ability to detect (or even host) media servers on my network. At this time, only the PS3 and Windows Media Player are able to detect the media server. Who knows… maybe sometime in the future that capability will be available.

I started digging around in a few boxes hoping that I could find my CD case of software. I knew that my ACID loops were in there. If I could find them, Then I could start playing with the trial version of ACID Music Studio 7.0. The trial comes with no sounds at all to play with. It is practically useless. I found the software and even better - I found my old ACID 2.0 Music software. Woo Hoo! I spent forever and a day trying to figure out how to register it since the original developer had sold the software to Sony. The codes that I had turned out to be bogus when I tried to register with Sony. I finally found out that I could associate my old email account to reclaim the codes. It’s a good thing I reactivated that email address a few months ago. The thing keeps paying for itself over and over again. It sent an email out to my old email and then I was able to reclaim the old Acid software code. Woo Hoo! So now I get to start playing with loops and see if my interest is involved enough to actually upgrade to version 7 or not. At least this way I don’t have to worry about time limits and I can actually produce something too.

Today I discovered what the rest of the LBP fans probably know already. The game has been delayed not by the developers, but by the distributor - Sony. The problem boils down to one of the songs played in the background of the third planet. It refers to the Qur’an quoting passages from religious literature. I visited the songwriters myspace site and listened to the song in question, Tapha Niang. It begins with a peaceful instrumental. When it does get around to the lyrics, it sounded to me like something from Africa. In fact, the world with the song has a Safari theme to it and is called “Swingin Safari”.

I am not offended by the idea that the lyrics are there. However, Sony pulled the plug to avoid any legal issues with offending Muslims. There have been a few arguments from different viewpoints. Some people say that they would rather choose not to buy the game rather then to restrict the freedom of expression. However, business is business. The game is delayed until at least the 28th of October, and I’m seeing chatter that it may be delayed until the first week of November.

I just wanna have fun already.

Last month I had looked into tools to notify me when any of the databases at work went off-line. I primarily looked into a beta of SQL Response by Red-Gate since I would automagically own it when it would finally be released. The SQL Toolbelt bundle that I have would include the software. I found many problems and made recommendations. After the beta was over, the Red-Gate folks contacted me and asked for my address so that they could send me a T-Shirt. Today I came home to see a 6″ cubed red cardboard box. Inside was plenty of shredded documents and a shirt (odd packaging for a shirt). I took out the shirt and discovered that it was wrapped around a coffee/tea mug - which within contained a pen, some mints, and a 1 GB USB thumb drive. I gave the drive to my wife since she loves the color red. Originally shocked that they would give me a t-shirt, I was simply impressed that they threw in all the other goodies.

After two months, I finally got virus protection setup on my computer. I was delaying the purchase of Norton Suite. I preferred McAfee, but the last time that I tried installing it on a 64 bit vista operating system, I got a big denied message and found out that it would have cost some big bucks for a business version of the same product that Comcast offers free. After helping my brother in-law setup his computers through his Comcast email address, I decided to give it a go again just in case. It’s been a year and a half now, and vista 64 bit is starting to become the norm in a lot of homes.

Thankfully, it paid off. Everything installed fine and was up and running. I am now fully protected with scheduled cleaning, defragging and backup tasks.

National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is coming up soon. I’m debating if I want to go through with it or not. Every time I try, I end up getting a block of some kind, or tend to distract myself. Should I do it or not? On top of that, I’m in my last block of classes before I get my Associates. So I’m just thinking about all of these things going on at once. Maybe I’ll try, but remain uncommitted. I don’t know.

My cat Ashe is gone.

These are my last memories of him.

I saw signs just as I walked in the door. The front door was open, indicating that mom or some activity had happened. I went to go change the cat food and water, but someone had already done so. I went to the back room to find Ashe, who is often laying on a cat bed that he prefers to lay in rather then the covers on the bed, but he wasn’t there. I picked up the covers hoping he was napping or trying to get some heat, only to have my wife come in and give me the news.

I knew it was close, but I didn’t want to believe it. Ashe had been working up an oder. It honestly smelled like decay. I took a closer look at him last night and tried to clean him up a bit. I assumed that it was mucus, and a lot of it dried to his face. I tried cleaning it, but I started running into blood on the paper towel so I stopped. I was able to get a lot of mucus out of one of his eyes though. I didn’t notice any smell after I was done. He was just so weak. We used to call him sumo kitty at 22 pounds. If he wanted to be pet, he would jump up on your lap you were sitting down and then work his head in under your neck. A few weeks ago the vet weighed him at 8 pounds. He started to step down into the sink and lick some water. I got out a bowl for him and filled it with some water. I was happy to see he was still thirsty.

After we were done, I set him on the floor and started to walk away to my room. He wasn’t following me. He was just setting there. I picked him up and carried him to my room where he immediately walked to his cat bed.

Like so many nights before, he rested in the cat bed next to me while I tried to stop crying so I could sleep. Just having him try and be pet by me just made it worse. He used to have so much power when he tried to get my attention. I remember that he would often push his whole head under my chin and lay on my chest at night. Any time he walked around the bed last night, another feeling of sadness just swept across me with each step. The last thing he did before I went to sleep is he crawled under the covers and laid by my side.

I woke up this morning and he was still alive. Every morning I make a point to pet him and make sure he’s still here. I put some covers over half of him because my room is cold in the mornings. He came out of the room with me today and got some water. I set another bowl of water next to the water dish in case he preferred something a bit more fresh. He went on drinking out of the dish while another cat went for the little bowl. I thought to myself, at least they are not bothering him. I grabbed some drink mixing packets from the closet. I had to make sure i didn’t open it too far and bump him with the door. It was only a little space.

With the increase in activity last night and this morning, I was hoping that maybe it was just a respitory problem that was slowing him down at the moment. I could get him some antibiotics this weekend and help clear it all up. I helped him a few months ago to clear it up. This is when he and I started bonding. After he had gotten better, he would always sit near me, or on top of me. On the days that I work from home, I would often find him on my lap while I was too busy looking at my computer screen. Every now and then I would find him there, move him the the floor, and repeat the process all over again.

My wife told me once that she used to know exactly what he wanted. She would hold up her hand with her fingers spread apart. Which ever finger he choose would result in a back rub, massage of the ears, or something else. I tried to figure it out, but I never could. I didn’t know if he didn’t trust me, forgot about it, or maybe didn’t understand what I was doing. I tried it one last time last night, but it didn’t work. I ended up just massaging his ears and rubbing the side of him. Rubbing against his back was upsetting because I could feel every backbone.

Ashe is my wife’s cat. Until his fate was known, I had always considered him as my wife’s cat alone. Since then, he has only been my cat for two weeks. Last week the vet called me asking how Ashe was doing. I couldn’t talk with her because I knew I would break down if I did. I missed the guy before he was gone. Even now I can’t stop. I am upset that I care about him. And I am upset that I think that I should think otherwise. Sometimes I had wished it was over with so I could stop hurting, and then I would get upset over that.

My wife took him in to the vet to look at the dried mucus and see what could be done about the stench. The vet told her that it actually decaying flesh and that it was time.

This is all I have left of him.