Travis Pettijohn: Blog

WMP Keys, a Media Player plugin to let you assign global keyboard shortcuts. Pretty handy to not have to alt-tab or jump to the mouse to perform common WMP functions.

Requires Windows Media Encoders and FLAC.

foreach ( $file in dir *.flac )
{
	# Prep input and output filenames 
	$shortName = $file.Name.Substring(0, $file.Name.Length - $file.Extension.Length);
	$wav = $shortName + ".wav";
	$wma = $shortName + ".wma";
	
	# Decode FLAC to WAV
	& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC\flac.exe' -d $file.Name

	# Encode WAV to WMA Lossless
	cscript "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\WMCmd.vbs" -input $wav -output $wma -a_codec WMA9LSL -a_mode 2

	# Cleanup
	del $wav;
}

I was in choir in high school with Leslie Hunt, who's a finalist on this season's American Idol. It's a show I don't normally watch, but this season, I think I'll have to. This is about the closest I've ever been to knowing a celebrity. That makes me famous, too, right? :)

Steve Jobs on DRM.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. ...

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? ...

Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

Last night I went to see Honeyboy Edwards at a show hosted by the Old Town School of Folk Music (where I take guitar classes). This guy is a blues guitar legend. He'll turn 91 years old this July. 91! Unreal. One thing that makes him so special is that he's one of the last living links to Robert Johnson, a founder of Delta Blues who died in 1938. Honeyboy was even with Johnson on the night he died. Johnson is cited as an influence by tons of famous musicians, including Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and U2, to name a few. The show was solid. He's old and slowed down some, but he still plays deliberately and with precision, with a raspy hollow voice. It was definitely worth seeing. You can catch him at the Chicago Blues Festival this June 8-11.

On Saturday, I went to The Chicago Diner at 3411 N Halsted with some friends for dinner. It's a vegan/vegetarian place and it was really good! We were all in awe at the choices. Chris and Katie are both veggies; Dan (Katie's brother) and I still eat meat, though less now that we used to. It was hard to decide! For appetizers we had mushroom and spinach quesadillas and some nachos with fake-meat chorizo. For the entree, I settled on a red pepper ravioli that was quite delicious. Others ordered seitan burgers and a pulled seitan BBQ sandwich. It was all really good, and I'll definitely be back!

After the delicious meal, Chris and I went to Kingston Mines, a blues club that's been around since 1968. Quality music, I'll tell you. Watching those guitarists play so effortlessly made me so, so jealous. The place is clean and orderly, not super expensive and they have an air filtration system that works wonders. It was a good weekend :)

Friday night, I had a dream. I don't remember what the dream was about, in fact, I don't remember the dream at all. All I remember is that I woke up and I remembered this track I had heard a few times back in college (I might have the MP3 somewhere). There was a man with a really unique, full, booming speaking voice (Godlike, perhaps?), and he recorded an album about colors. It had some off-the-wall stuff with his voice laid over jazz, stuff like how green didn't want yellow to be in spectrum, but blue stuck up for yellow, reminding green that blue and yellow could get together and make their own green. I didn't remember all those specifics during that moment in which I awoke. I just had some notion of that guy in my head, and I thought was that I needed to look that guy up when I woke up for real. I thought that maybe I should write something down. Nardeen. That's what I should write down. Ken? But I didn't get up; my desire to sleep won. I rolled back over and told myself that I needed to remember to look something up.

Amazingly, when I finally woke up Saturday morning, I actually did remember that I had told myself to remember something. Something like Ken Bardeen or Ken Nardeen. I wrote down Ken Nardeen on a scrap of paper within five minutes of being awake and went about my day.

At some point in the afternoon, I tried googling for something about voice, colors, jazz. Nothing seemed to come up, so I gave up. I was so certain that Nardeen was so wrong, so way off, that I didn't even try searching for it.

Then Sunday night, I was driving home from my Aunt and Uncle's home where my family had just gathered for Christmas. There was a story being read on NPR, something about a golden dreydl (as sundown of the 25th was the start of Hanukkah this year). The voice prompt on my GPS unit went off, so I turned off the radio to listen and navigate a few turns. A few minutes later, I turned the radio back on.

It was him. That voice, it had to be him. Telling Christmas stories over jazz tunes. Yes, it was him, I was certain. So I listened. And at one point he said, "Oh, hey, it's me, Ken Nardeen," in that unforgettable bass of his. Something like Nardeen. I still wasn't sure about the pronunciation. But I was shocked at how close I was.

This morning, I turned to Amazon and Google to figure it out. Ken Nordine is his name. He had a holiday special on WBEZ. Plus I found that album Colors. Give it a listen (especially the track Yellow; open that link in Windows Media Player).

What are the odds that I'd (a) wake up thinking about something so random, something I haven't thought about in years; (b) actually remember it the next morning; that (c) he would happen to have a program on the radio the next day; that (d) I would happen to be tuned in to that particular station at that particular time and that (e) my memory of his name would be so close to being correct? Slim, I can tell you that. Or maybe I'm just psychic. But wow, what a random sequence of events. Whatever the odds, that Colors album is now on my wish list.

I had a pretty fun weekend. Friday I went to a happy hour, drank beer and watched the Sox game. I'm not a huge Sox fan, but I'm happy to see a Chicago team in the running. Being that I live on the North Side, this is Cubs territory. There's not a ton of excitement, given the significance of the situation (I live across the street from a few bars, so I have a good indicator outside my windows). I can't help but wonder how nuts this place would be if it were the Cubs. I guess I should ask someone who lived here last year.

After sleeping in on Saturday, I took a walk down to the Old Town School of Folk Music and picked up some fresh strings for the guitar. I'd had the last set since I got the guitar in December '04. So I walked back home, changed the strings (broke the high E in the process...damnit...good thing I bought two packs), and decided that I had to do something outdoors since it was so perfect outside.

I took a walk toward the lake, stopped in at a sushi place and had a bargain lunch special. The rolls were good, the fish was so-so, but all in all it was a very tasty late lunch. I then continued on to the lakefront and plopped myself down on the rocks at the shore and read for about an hour. The crashing waves...the sun...the breeze...the peace...it was almost like vacation (almost).

After that, I went to 3 Penny Cinema and watched The Aristocrats. The Aristocrats is a documentary about a sort of inside joke in the comedy industry. The joke is simple: "A family walks into a talent agent's office and says, 'we have a great act for you!' 'Let me see it,' says the talent agent." At this point the comic telling the joke improvises the most filthy, vile, incestuous, scatological act he can imagine. "'Wow,' says the talent agent, 'what do you call that?' 'The Aristocrats.'" (Watch South Park perform the joke for a prototypical example.) The movie is worth seeing, but (as I was previously warned) it suffers from very distracting editing. As for the cinema, it's a small, two screen theater that still only costs $6.50 for a ticket. Plus I live about 1.5 blocks away. Good enough.

Sunday started with me going to my guitar class at Old Town School, as usual. Then I decided to go for a run. I don't think I've run for much beyond two miles since track in high school, but today I decided to push it. (In fact, in March 2004, 2 miles was an accomplishment.) I ran almost four miles and felt great. I don't know what got into me. Maybe it's my soggy belly, or maybe it was seeing all those fit, trim people with their LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon t-shirts walking around town recently, or maybe the trouble I've been having falling asleep the last few weeks. Whatever it was, I ran about twice as far as I have in probably five years. My route: up to Fullerton, over to the lake, south along the lake to North, stop to stretch, cross over Lake Shore Drive, run back up to Fullerton, back to home. It felt great! Maybe I can make longer runs more regular.

I did some laundry after that, and have been watching some baseball this evening while diddling around on the computer. I'm experimenting with running Virtual Server 2005 on my Media Center, with Server 2003 running in a virtual instance. I want Server 2003 somewhere (mainly for IIS6 and multiple concurrent remote desktop connections), but I don't want extra hardware. My Media Center Box has plenty of oomph (though it needs a pinch more RAM). I'm frustrated by XP's limitation of only one interactive user at any given time. Two people can be logged in at any given time, but only one can be interactive. In other words, I can't remote desktop into my Media Center box and do work while at the same time playing music with the account logged into the console (hooked up to the TV). Another frustration I'm having is that I don't have a "home" computer anywhere. Every time I get a new laptop issued by work, I transfer my primary operations there, since I already have too many computers. But I'm thinking I can set up a "home base" in this virtual instance. Remote desktop in and I'm home. It won't work for things that need to be on hardware (DirectX, for example), but being able to leave MSN Messenger or AIM signed in somewhere (given that I can't sign in at work) might be cool. More to come.

Who exactly is buying Ashlee Simpson's records, and how did she manage to get on SNL a second time after that first debacle?

I saw U2 at the United Center last night. It was a great show. Bono did his soap box thing (I was told that he was actually pretty restrained this time). I agree with what he has to say (promoting human rights and equality), but I paid for the music, not the preaching. Still: it was a great show.

I'll leave you some jokes: What's the difference between Jesus and Bono? Jesus knows he's not Bono. How many U2 members does it take to screw in a light bulb? One: Bono to hold the bulb while the world revolves around him.

On Friday, I got my hair cut at a salon around the corner, maybe 200 feet away from my door. The timing was perfect. I stopped in on the way home from work to schedule an appointment and she said she could fit me in right then.

After the haircut, I dropped off my dry cleaning at the place right next to the salon. Another short walk.

Saturday was spent moving and playing with my Media Center and home theater. It's looking and working pretty sweet. My entire music library, time-shifted HDTV, divx movies...all driven by a remote control.

I walked to 2200 N Clark to Indian Grill (it has the same owner as Bombay in Champaign) and had some delicious saag paneer for dinner. They wouldn't let me substitute naan for rice, which caught me off guard. I really thought she was making a joke when she said no.

Saturday night when I decided that I needed a snack, I went to the Chipotle downstairs and got some chips and guacamole.

Today when I woke up, I walked out of my building, crossed the street kiddy-corner, went to the Starbucks right there and had myself a coffee.

For lunch, I walked halfway down the block and had a sandwich from Potbelly's on Lincoln. I love those peppers!

Early in the afternoon, I walked a half mile to the Dominick's on Sheffield and Fullerton. It's a cool store—it has two stories. Produce and deli stuff on the ground floor; cans, boxes and refrigerated items on the second floor. Elevators included. I got three bags worth of groceries and walked back home.

For dinner, I took a random walk, heading south down Lincoln, then looping back up Clark via Armitage. I found a gyro place and had way too many calories for dinner.

After eating, I decided to keep walking. I headed two blocks eastward to Lincoln Park Zoo. I think I may have been there when I was a kid, but I don't remember specifically. Anyway, it's really just a park, an extension of the sidewalk. There's no entrance, no gates, no turnstiles. The sidewalks on the street lead to the sidewalks in the zoo. So I took a walk through the zoo. It was a nice walk, though the little girl standing on a bench and screaming, "GIRAFFE! HEY, GIRAFFE!" was a temporary distraction.

On the way back home, I stopped on one of the other corners of the intersection I live on and grabbed a copy of The Onion. I took that to a pub and had a pint of Sierra Nevada.

This evening I registered for a Guitar 1 course at Old Town School of Music this fall. It should be fun!

City living sure is convenient and full of opportunity!

I was spinning the radio dial the other day and heard some rock/pop on what I thought was Oldies 104.3. I stayed tuned and heard that it's now "Jack FM." They still have the same call letters (WJMK), but it's a completely new format. They seem to have gotten rid of live DJs. You know, like an iPod plugged into a giant antenna. Their website seems to still refer to the oldies version. I miss their jingle already.

Edit: I found some news stories about this. Chicago Tribune business news, Sun Times opinion piece. The Trib article makes references to the iPod-like programming. I swear I didn't read that before I made this post. I guess it happened a few weeks ago. "...By burying the story over the weekend, they hope to minimize criticism from the press and outcry from the public. That no doubt figured into the timing of Infinity Broadcasting, which waited until 4 p.m. Friday (June 3) to blow up two of its heritage oldies stations." Stupid bottom-line mentality.

One more story with a great quote from the man responsible:

"My job in leading the company -- for better or worse -- is to make every radio station as profitable as it can be," he said.

"People want to put their goddam foot on your neck whenever you make a change. The problem is that there's a lot of people who don't have the balls to make a change. OK? We're on the offense. We're not on the defense. OK? We might have made a mistake. Right now, I don't think we made a mistake."

Like buying music at the iTunes store? Does DRM make you claustrophobic? Enter JHymn. Click your DRM troubles away. It even includes a built in MP3 converter. It doesn't get much easier than this.

Edit: I wanted to add this link to an interview with the author of JHymn, published 2005-01-27.

I was fiddling around on my guitar last week, just pushing on strings trying to find some chords. (I'm still on the two-string lesson in the book, but I was just fiddling for fun.) I hit this chord:

E-o
B-1
G-o
D-o
A-x
E-x

which is D, G-C-E, which is a C/D. So I play this chord and I think to myself, Man, that chord reminds me of this part of Worlds Apart from Big River. You see, my friends, when I was in high school, I was a choir boy and I took voice lessons. I sung a lot of these kinds of songs. I made a note of this chord and how it reminded me of this song. It would be played when "one" would be sung, as in, "two worlds together are better than one." Anyway, I was at my parent's house this weekend (today was Mom's birthday) and I brought back The Ultimate Broadway Fake Book from my voice lesson days. Today, I looked up that part of the song. Mind you, I haven't sung this song outside of the shower in at least five years, and even when I sang it with accompaniment, it was only with a piano. And you know what? It was the exact chord; the tab notated in the book was identical to what I had played. I was amazed at my sheer awesomeness. I figured I would be off by a few steps or something, but to nail that chord exactly, man, who knew I was that amazing :)

I've been practicing my new guitar. I guess it's an entry-level model, the Fender DG-7. I bought a teach yourself guitar book, which came with a CD. I've gotten pretty good at the first lesson (E-F-G on the high E string), so I decided it was time to play along with the CD. It was awesome. There's whole band on the CD backing you up. This one song (I'm using the word "song" generously here) was pretty repetitive and I didn't really get the point. But with a band behind me, it made sense. I'm excited to keep going!