Corey’s Blog

I have had this post in the works for a while but have not had the motivation to finish it. A recent post at Gizmodo has inspired me to get it done. In honor of the inspiring post I will first list the iPods we currently own. I will then present the long and possibly embarrassing list of other Apple products I have owned and Apple products that currently inhabit the Marion household.

iPods

3G iPod 15GB
original iPod shuffle
pink iPod mini
product (red) iPod nano 8GB
iPod nano 2GB

Previously owned Apple products

Macintosh SE/30
Macintosh Performa 450
Power Macintosh 6100/66 AV
Powerbook Duo 210 and Dock
MessagepPad 210
MessagePad 2000
Stylewriter 1200
Stylewriter 2400c

Currently owned Apple products

Powerbook 2400c (sitting idle at the office)
iBook 500 Mhz (dead screen)
17″ iMac 800 Mhz (yes, the lamp)
Power Macintosh G3 300 Mhz (original blue and white, at mom and dad’s house)
Power Macintosh G4 400 Mhz (upstairs music server/web surfer)
Power Macintosh G4 Dual 867 Mhz (current work-at-home machine)
MacBook Pro 2.2 Ghz (using to write this post)
Mac mini 1.87 Ghz (media/photo server)
Apple TV (currently streaming last weeks episode of The Office from the mini)
iPhone
Airport Extreme
23″ Cinema Display

So there it is for now. I got the SE/30 right out of college so that is about 18 years of Apple history.

After a few months of inactivity the iPod Nike Sport Kit is finally getting a workout again. We have our first 5K of the season coming up in Kernersville on Saturday. We also have one other race scheduled in March and another in April. I will continue to keep track of my times on the Runtimes page but here is the list from last year with some notes. My goal this year is to break 30 minutes, hopefully on Saturday, and keep them under thirty minutes. I was very close on three of the last five in 2007. We also are looking to run a 10K in the fall if all goes well.

1. 36:49 - Skyline Run, Charlotte 4/28/07 - First 5K!
2. 34:55 - Race for the Cure, Winston-Salem 5/5/07
3. 32:10 - Go Far 5K, Greensboro 5/19/07
4. 34:18 - Retro Run, Greensboro 8/25/07 - My excuse for the slow time here is 95 degrees at 7pm when the race started. Miserable.
5. 32:09 - Charleston Distance Run 9/1/07
6. 30:22 - Thin Mint Sprint, Greensboro 9/29/07
7. 31:05 - Cannonball Run, Greensboro 10/13/07
8. 33:00 - Mayview Madness, Blowing Rock 11/10/07 - This is unofficial. They have yet to post times. I also subtracted about 30 seconds because I forgot to end the workout as I crossed the finish line. And this race was slower because it was freaking two miles uphill and one mile down!
9. 30:38 - Go Far 5K, High Point 11/17/07
10. 33:36 - Gobbler, Greensboro 11/22/07 - My time dropped on this one because I was running with two seven year olds. Very impressive for them though!

I just added three new photo sets to my Flickr pages. One is a set from Corey and Cynthia’s annual fall escape to Blowing Rock. One is a set of pics from the Christmas holidays. The third is pure geek. It is a set of spaceship drawings from my earlier years and was inspired by a set posted by cohort Dave Seah. Enjoy!

Hello to everyone visiting from the link on the 2007 Marion Family Christmas Card! We have had a very busy year and everyone (especially Cynthia and Corey) are looking forward to, as Connor has been calling it, a 14 day weekend. Take a look at the 2007 Highlights album at my Flickr pages and join us as we try to look past the “Holiday” sales and the forced “Happy Holidays” greetings and remember the real reason for the Christmas season.

That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terribly frightened, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Savior-yes, the Messiah, the Lord-has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!

Feel free to leave us a holiday message in the comments!

I always enjoyed these segments on the David Letterman show so I thought I would write a quick post about a recent experience. It is no secret that the new Battlestar Galactica series is a can’t miss for me. I am a big fan of sci-fi in general but the gritty reality of the stories and the character development make the show a fascinating drama that just happens to look like science fiction. I think one of the things that contributes greatly to the show’s success is the outstanding musical score. I purchased the season sountracks as soon as they became available and have enjoyed each more than the last. I decided to drop a quick note of appreciation to the composer, Bear McCreary along with a link to my BSG icon sets at the Iconfactory. You never expect a response but my mailbox today had a “From - Bear McCreary, Subject - RE: BSG Season Three” item at the top of the list. It was a very quick note, thanking me for my kind words. He thought the icons were cool too. Nice!

This is a test post. I just finished migrating my site to Dreamhost so I wanted to try a few things to shake out the bugs. Thanks to Anthony for the tech (and moral) support.

I thought about this as soon as I saw the first “leaked” shots of the new iPod nano appear on the internets. Yesterday I decided to toss together a quick mockup of what it could have looked like. I just saw the piece John Gruber posted about Apple’s “The Beat Goes On” event and decided to put my little photo illustration up for the world to see. It does pose a few problems like compatibility with current docks but Apple is known to toss things like that out the window occasionally. I think it looks a bit more elegant than “fat nano”. What do you think?

Gedeon had a great idea. He, Anthony Piraino, David Miller and I would list our 20 favorite movies and then post at the same time. Easy, right? Not so much. I like movies. I like movies a lot. I like a lot of movies. I decided to take my inspiration from an epsiode of The Office. The temp starts a fire with a cheese pita and all employees evacuate to the parking lot where Jim takes charge. He decides one of the activities while waiting for the all clear will be Desert Island. You must list movies that you hope are in your luggage if you get stranded on a desert island. It was more difficult than expected to come up with 20 movies I could watch over and over for the rest of my life. Not as much to pare down a large list but to assemble a small one.

Here it is. In no particular order but roughly grouped by genre. I have also noted where movies are common across our lists.

Desert Island Movies

• The Princess Bride
  “My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die.” (Also chosen by Anthony and Ged)
• Fletch
  “Can I borrow your towel? My car just hit a water buffalo.” (Also chosen by Dave)
• LA Story
  Classic modern Steve Martin. With a tiny bit of Patrick Stewart. “You cannot have ze duck!”
• Say Anything
  I know, chick flick, but quirky enough to be excused.
• A Fish Called Wanda
  “Avoid the green ones, they’re not ripe yet.”
• Raising Arizona
  “Son, you’ve got a panty on your head.” (Also chosen by Ged)
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  Only slightly less hilarious than Raising Arizona but I like it more every time I watch it. (Also chosen by Ged)
• Die Hard
  I remember being completely exhausted leaving the theatre. THE definitive action movie. (Also chosen by Anthony)
• Brazil
  Only if it is Terry Gilliam’s cut.
• 12 Monkeys
  My second favorite Terry Gilliam movie.
• Kill Bill 1 & 2
  I consider these to be one movie. Modern classic. Tarantino is a master of the musical score. (also chosen by Ged)
• Highlander
  A friend from high school introduced me to this classic. I vividly remember my first viewing. “There can be only one.”
• Aliens
  Like Die Hard, I distinctly remember being completely exhausted. THE definitive sci-fi action movie. The original is a horror classic but this is so much fun to watch. (also chosen by Ged)
• The Empire Strikes Back
  I will never forget the opening sequence of Star Wars unfolding on the big screen with surround sound when I was 10, but Empire is the best of the series. (Also chosen by Anthony and Dave)
• Star Trek The Wrath of Khan
  The best of the classic era Trek flicks. As a die-hard Trekkie this had to be on my list.
• Star Trek First Contact
  The best of the Next Generation flicks.
• Tron
  I was 15 when this came out and the effects blew me away. They still hold up pretty well.
• War Games
  The original hacker/geek movie. Ally Sheedy.
• The Matrix
  Groundbreaking, why couldn’t they just leave it alone!? (Also chosen by Anthony and Ged)
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  I refuse to single one out as my favorite. I see the series as a 12-hour movie. (Also chosen by Anthony and Ged)

Guilty Pleasure Movies - It was also Ged’s idea to add a few that you are reluctant to admit to watching in their entirety if you happen to pass them while channel surfing.

• Top Gun - (Also chosen by Dave)
• Starship Troopers - (Also chosen by Ged)
• Predator
• Waterworld
• Happy Gilmore
• True Lies

Compare and contrast…

Gedeon
Anthony
Dave

Right now I am seriously wishing that Heroes and the Office were on CBS…or ABC…or Fox. This NBC/Apple tiff over distribution on iTunes is causing me more stress that it probably should. I do enjoy having Michael Scott and his crew over on my right-side Apple 20″ Cinema Display just under my Photoshop palettes and next to Twitterrific as I push pixels at the Iconfactory. Amazon Unbox is useless to me, note the aforementioned Apple product, and I do not have a Tivo. How am I to get the new seasons of two of my favorite shows onto my Mac?

I bought every episode of the office from iTunes last season. Come to think of it, as Ged has mentioned on his blog, I would probably not be watching The Office if not for iTunes. I also bought a Season Pass for Heroes. My plan was to buy season passes as soon as they were available for Heroes, The Office and probably Battlestar Galactica (I am assuming that will disappear as well since it is an NBC Universal property). So, basically NBC has lost approximately $120 of my entertainment budget. I am curious. How much were you planning to spend for NBC shows on iTunes during the upcoming season? Let’s send NBC Universal a message, leave me a comment and we can add it up for them!

I just uploaded a few more pics from the beach. Click here to take a look. We are having a great time. The weather has been perfect so far.