In case anyone has this problem, I thought I would do them a service and post the solution since it took me a very long time to figure this out… I had problems playing Audio CDs in my computer. The drive would spin at a very uneven speed and it would sound like it was a record skipping constantly… unbearable to listen to.

Here is the solution: Change the IDE Controller for that device to use DMA mode. To do this, go to your System control panel and open your device manager. Change the view so it displays items “by connection”… open the expanding items until you see “Master IDE Controller”, then look inside it to see which channel your drive is attached to and choose properties for that channel (not the drive). Inside there, you need to set the transfer mode for the CD-ROM device to “DMA if available” and then restart. Mine was set to “PIO Only” while this problem occurred, and now it works perfectly and it says “Ultra DMA”.

All the solutions I came across were always for “no sound” problems, not “skipping” problems, so hopefully this page might end up on Google and help out some people!

Dummy looked interesting from the trailers, and my roommate just happened to rent it, so I watched it. This is one of the few romantic comedies I’ve ever seen, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! It stars Adrian Brody as a socially-challenged guy from a crazy family who decides to become a ventriloquist. Milla Jovovich is his good friend (also crazy), and he finds a love interest at some point during the movie. Unfortunately, like a typical romance movie, the romance is kind of hard to believe. It also doesn’t help that her character barely gets any screen time and we never really see her develop or learn why she likes Brody’s character. Just try to overlook that if you can and you will enjoy this movie. It has some extremely funny moments and it is quirky and original a lot more than I expected. This is not a run-of-the-mill movie, it really has some character. Adrian Brody is excellent, and the supporting cast is pretty good, too. I wouldn’t put this at the top of your list, but as far as general-audience movies, this is one to consider. If I gave half stars, this would get a 3 and a half, but I am going to round this one down to 3/5 stars.

I picked out this book when I was browsing through “classics” on Amazon.com. It was very short! Barely over 100 pages. However, I found it to be extremely well-written. This is my first John Steinbeck book, and I found it to be very nice. The dialog is old-fashioned working-class style, so it reads a little slow, but I thought that was the proper pace for the story. It focuses on two men who are field-workers in the California farmland around the first part of the 20th century. They have an “unlikely” friendship, as the blurb on the back of the book says. The book features different examples of social relationships, and each one is worthy of some pondering. What is the value of a friend? This is what you should think about as you read it. The characters are colorful and so are Steinbeck’s descriptions of the settings for each scene. This is such a short book and yet it has lots for you to think about. I’m just going to give it 5/5 stars and hope that you read it!

Yesterday I had planned to go to Great Adventure with some friends, but the forecast called for thunderstorms and heavy rain all day into the evening. The night before we decided we should see if the forecast changed Saturday morning and then we’d decide to go or not… so tomorrow morning at 9:00, the forecast still called for rain in Great Adventure, and there was a massive rainstorm in New York with lightning and thunder… so we decided to wait until noon to make the final call! I couldn’t believe it. At noon, the rain had passed NYC and it looked from the map that if it hit NJ it would be very light, so my friend says they’re going! Even though I was reluctant, I decided to go. I figured the worst case scenario was that we have a fun roadtrip and don’t get to go on the rides. Best case scenario: it doesn’t rain at all and there is hardly anyone at the park. You’d have to be out of your mind to want to go there when the forecast calls for rain all day and temperature below 60 degrees. Well… I guess we were out of our minds, but the best case scenario was exactly what happened!!!

When we pulled up to the park at around 4:00, we could see the parking lot practically deserted… we went into the park and where there is normally a massive mob of people waiting to get inside, there were a few scattered people who were mostly leaving :-). We went over to the Superman ride, which is the newest coaster in the park, and we waited about 5-10 minutes to get into the first row of the first car! We rode on it and then when we got off, we hopped back onto the ride in one of the middle cars without waiting at all! We then went to the Scream Machine and again waited about 5 minutes to get into the first row of the first car. Then we went on the Nitro, which is the largest (and I think the best) coaster in the park. Normally the line for this ride is at least 2 hours. We waited 10-15 minutes to get into the front row! We were not allowed to “re-ride”, but we just ran around to the line again and walked right into the second row with no wait time! Next, we went over to Medusa and I rode it once in the front row and once in the second-to-last row! By this time it was about 7:30, and the park had decided it was going to close at 8:00, two hours earlier than usual. It was very dark outside and I had said Nitro is a whole different ride in the dark, so we ran over to Nitro and rode it four times in a row! The first time was in the front row, the next three were in the middle. The final two times, we did it eyes closed! I’ve got to say it was the most incredible ride I’ve ever experienced when I had my eyes closed.

So let’s see the numbers: 2 superman + 1 scream machine + 2 nitro + 2 medusa + 4 nitro = 11 rides in only four hours! I will never forget this day

This is kind of a geek classic book, and I remember reading it years ago. It is soon being made into a movie, so I thought I should re-read it. It is a fairly short book at 200 pages, and it is a very fast read.

I’m sad to say that I didn’t love this book! I went into it with a favorable bias and I was pretty much let down. There was very little holding the book together… I know it’s kind of the theme of it all, but it seems like the events in the story are almost randomly determined by chance, rather than by a clear direct cause. The characters are kind of like passive riders on the probability rollercoaster. They get into some crazy situation and then by pure luck they get saved… Weird things happen! That’s usually fine by me, but I think it took away too much from this story. It also doesn’t help that the characters are extremely superficial. There is no character development at all… maybe in the sequels? I am not planning on reading them.

Despite these shortcomings, the book is anything but a failure. It is jam packed with brilliantly clever comedy and interesting ideas, and it was a lot of fun to read. When I rate books and movies on this blog, I weigh enjoyment heavily, so this book recovers its weaknesses based on the enjoyment factor. I think this book is best suited for nerdy children I give it 3/5 stars.

American Splendor is about Harvey Pekar, the writer of an underground comic book series beginning in 1976 also called American Splendor. Harvey is a bitter, surly guy who lives an unfortunate lifestyle, and this served as the inspiration for his comic books. Life is quirky. Life can be funny and entertaining, even when things are not… larger than life. In this same way, the movie manages to succeed as a quirky funny restrospective of the adult life of Harvey Pekar.

The movie is narrated by the real-life Harvey, but his movie persona is brilliantly portrayed by Paul Giamatti. Giamatti was somehow not even nominated for an Oscar for this performance which, for me, is one of the most noteable acting performances in recent memory! The reason I say this is because it’s never the holywood cookie-cutter characters that are difficult to act, it’s the complex, gritty, real-life performances; and that’s what this is. Seeing the real Harvey, who not only narrates, but appears many times in this movie, you can appreciate Giamatti’s talents even more. The rest of the cast does not have any especially demanding roles, but they do a great job at supporting the main character.

In the end, I feel like I genuinely liked Harvey. I thought it was a very unique and interesting movie and it was never boring, despite its “ordinary” plot. I give it 4/5 stars!

I finally decided to add a much-needed section to this web site: the Stuff section. It will contain a collection of mini-sites, each covering something web-worthy. Right now the only thing there is the paintings page, but it will be expanded soon. The paintings page is completely up-to-date and has a page for each of my paintings! Comments welcome, as always.

Does anyone else watch this show? Nobody talks about it. It’s fantastic! I’ve seen a few episodes from the second season and they were all great. The third season has just begun! This time around they have Flavor Flav, Charo, Brigitte Nielson, Jordan Knight, Dave Coulier, and Ryan Starr! Would you ever guess that Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielson are flirting like crazy??? This season is going to be totally wild. Brigitte is a complete lunatic, Flavor is hilarious, Ryan is hot, Charo is slightly insane, and Jordan is paranoid and kind of a loser! Dave is the only normal person! Here is the official site: http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/the_surreal_life/series.jhtml

I heard great things about Adaptation all year, but I guess I didn’t want to see it in the theaters (no advantage to seeing it on the big screen), so I just watched it on DVD. I am really glad I saw it! I think another reason I didn’t want to see it is because I absolutely loathe Nicolas Cage. I saw him in The Rock, Face/Off, and Snake Eyes, and I saw ads for movies like Gone in 60 seconds and Con Air… he was being cast in all these roles where he is an arrogant, pretentious, overconfident asshole… plus it doesn’t help that in real life he seemed to fit that description as well. Anyway, I have to say that this is not that Nicolas Cage. From the very start, he is a self-effacing depressed guy with zero self-confidence and a very awkward demeanor: Charlie Kaufman. I thought he gave an Oscar-worthy performance! Seriously, I have much more respect for him now. He also plays the role of Charlie’s twin brother who is much the opposite, and he could have easily fallen into the trap of playing that role like the roles I hated, but he didn’t. He played it somewhere between that and Charlie’s, which was perfect.

Enough about Nicolas Cage… this movie was fantastic. Meryl Streep was excellent, Chris Cooper was excellent (he won the Oscar for best supporting actor), and the story was one of the most compelling original stories I’ve ever seen. It was very much reminiscent of certain aspects of 8 1/2 in that it has a kind of autobiographical quality, but unlike 8 1/2, we are constantly shifting between characters and its easy to forget what is “story” and what is “real”. Also like 8 1/2, this movie gets involved in the psychology of the main character and should make you reflect on your own life at least a little bit.

This is a must-see movie. Extremely original, very interesting, and the acting is fantastic. 5/5 stars!

Welcome to the Dollhouse was another coworker recommendation (I get some good recommendations from coworkers!), and I was very pleased with it! It is very “indie” if I can say that and not sound too pretentious. It is about a girl who is suffering through 7th grade hell during the early 90s (the film was released in 1995).

I thought the acting was great, and I thought the character development was top-notch. You observe the characters go through an eventful time and you can really see them learn and change. The main character is truly a loveable loser.

This was a fun movie, even though it isn’t the happiest story. It’s kind of a tragic comedy. I recommend it! 4/5 stars.