snowed in and karaoke paradise

We finally had a snow storm yesterday after days of forecast warnings that came to naught. Actually it was kind of funny because they keep warning that it will snow in Wednesday so everybody got all prepared, the school closed down, people stayed home etc etc. But it was perfectly clear on Wednesday, and apparently this was the reason.




You see the large amount of green ? That is all snow storm, you see that hole in the middle where we have perfectly clear weather? that is us. thats right. But finally on Thursday, our snow bubble burst and we got the full onslaught. Although, for once, the west side got the bulk of the dump while my house only got the very edge of this Canadian storm front.

So being at home, and couldn't remote into work because the other 30,000 people were also trying to remote into work at the same time. I decided to put my exciting plan for Karaoke Paradise into action.


Now I have like 3 karaoke machines at home of various age. The problem is tho, I don't have songs to go with them, and I don't want to keep changing disks every 3 songs. So it is highly inconvenient. Now I was thinking originally of buying a karaoke machine in China like we did a long time. But after shopping around I realize apparently home karaoke is no longer popular in China. People just go to a karaoke place where they can sing and get food for like 10 yuan or something ridiculous like that. So the selection is seriously lacking. Then i have found out that my friend here has a home karaoke setup using a laptop, Internet connection and a microphone mixer. So I decided to copy that. Now, I couldn't convince myself that I need a $700 laptop so I can sing karaoke so I decided to rebuild my old machine (the one that the hard drive died). it still have everything intact, except it is missing the HD and a CD player for booting. So I took my old DVD drive off my new uber-machine so I can put it back into KP machine. I also have a spare 80gig IDE HD Cloud gave me when I was whining about my HD last time so I figure it is all a go.

The machine assembly was relatively easy, although the master-slave thing gave me so much trouble because I keep switching them around and the DVD won't boot. So after I got that set up. Time to install XP pro. A process I have only done like 5000 times before. The first time it was a success. I installed everything, hooked the machine up dual monitor with a spare monitor (for song selection) and my plasma ( for mtv). Now all i have to do is upgrade to SP2 get the 1000 security updates and download a karaoke program with songs. It all went downhill from there. Right after I upgraded to sp2, the machine wouldn't boot. It says


file is corrupt or missing : system32\config\system.


Now this is kind of a serious error. I thought maybe I corrupted the registry when I was installing sp2 cause I really was forcing it down its throat pretty fast. So I tried like 10 more times to install XP using various different options like deleting old partition, quick format, full format. And none of them worked. GRRR!! so my next plan is of course.. whine to Velius. Velius is awesome as he suggested that I wipe down the install disc and try again. Amazingly it worked! This time everything was perfect until I decided it is a good idea to upgrade to sp3! boom, the error is back. After almost tearing my hair out. I have decided the failed HD drive curse of 2008 is still with me and there is only one solution to this problem, a new SATA HD from newegg. When all else fails, throw more money at it =P


oh and this is the mixer I ordered.
http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-Stereo-Monitor-Matrix-MON800/dp/B000MJ40D2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1229372329&sr=1-1

So now i have to wait another week or so before continuing my KP saga.

4th place again

I really enjoyed tonight's trivia game despite coming in 4th AGAIN!! We are so close everytime. We had about 8 people there, well 7 + one guy who only wanted to have dinner but we forced him to join haha. He contributed the answer to "Christie Hefner to step down as CEO of this company". Which everybody guessed but he actually knew haha. We had some really good answers coming out of nowhere. Like CloudSix knowing the TV theme to Air Wolf.(??) Tyrtle knew the compound that was used to grow cartilage for joints. We totally rocked the country names with Z in them category, including three countries in Africa that has Z but doesn't start with them. Did great in "current events", not so well in "this day in history" (forgot to study). and Kirason, Tyrtle, and I totally embarrassed the rest of the team by cheering for the theme to Xena The Warrior Princess (WOOT!!)

CL visits Seattle

The weekend went by super fast. I took CL to the airport last night and everything is back to the same old stuff again. I had a really fun weekend with CL. It turned out to be really good weather on all 3 days which is so rare in winter here. CL joked that he brought good weather with him and I am glad. On Friday, M dropped him off at Pikes Place Market while we were at work. Then, we had dinner with Snoopy at Tamarind Tree, this nice Vietnamese restaurant tucked in a corner of chinatown. CL is a vegetarian so it took some thinking trying to find appropriate restaurants but I think I made some good choices thanks to Snoopy's help. Afterwards, we spent some time chatting and I showed him my vacation pictures (Xbox comes in so handy). I haven't talked to CL in 4 years and even then we barely hung out so it was nice to getting to know him again. He didn't seem to change much, but then he says neither did I haha.

On Saturday, Kirason and I took CL to the Space Needle, Kerry Park and EMP. I haven't been up on the Space Needle for a while but I really enjoyed the trip. It was a particularly clear if not sunny day. We could see every detail of Mt. Rainier and the Olympics. Kirason and I also amused ourselves at their new display that shows the panorama view at different times of the day. If you rotate the time dial really fast, you can see the ferries and sail boats come in and out all through the day. It was fascinating. Then at night, we crashed CoreSD's holiday party at McCaw Hall. They showed a special performance of the Nutcracker ballet. Then afterwards, they had a live band going, a piano bar and lots of food and drink. Everybody was dressed up and we got to see lots of friends. I really enjoyed the party.

On Sunday, I decided to try this vegetarian place at U-District called "Veggie Veggie" (so unique i know -_-). I found it on the intertubes. It actually turned out to be really good and they had these soy fish that had the exact texture of fish meat. I wonder how they did that! After lunch my schoolmate Tris came down from Vancouver to meet us. We also met up with Snoopy again so we had a mini reunion. I took them to Alki Beach for the amazing night view and then hotpot for dinner. I am quite proud that everything went off without a hitch since planning really isn't my strong suit at all. Even Snoopy said I did a good job :D.

Not the End

Ok. Velius was saying that the title of my last post is like an ominous omen that signals my abandonment of this blog. So I figure I better come and start posting again. I mean I have to at least keep pace with Snoopy right?

I am looking forward to the weekend because my friend from college CL is coming up to visit. I haven't talked to him since I graduated so I am sure we have alot to catch up on. Of course I also have to plan out his visit but now that I have experience planting the Veggie trip it should be a breeze. I will probably take him to the Space Needle and then Kerry park, Pike place market and pioneer square. On Saturday Night, We are going to go crash the Core OS group's holiday party at McCaw Hall. THey are watching a performance of Nutcracker! How cool is that. Our xbox party is at some club with "macabre entertainment". not interested humph..