Home > Messages from the Ether > Random thoughts on this, the 27th of Feb 2009

Random thoughts on this, the 27th of Feb 2009

Listened to Songs of the Auvergne on the way in to work this morning. I need to get a collection of orchestral song cycles: Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder and PIerrot Lunaire, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Kindertotenlieder. I have a passing familiarity with these but have only seriously listened to Gurre-Lieder.

My new rule for the last month or so (minus this week of having a cold) has been to practice piano at the end of the evening no matter what. I would often skip practice because I didn't have an hour or more to give to it. The new rule forced me to work on pieces even if it's only for 10 or 15 minutes. Since the decision, I've finally tackled difficult passages that had been previously eluding me. 15 minutes 4 times a week > 1 hour once a week.

Got my new laptop Wednesday night: HP Pavilion dv9913cl Notebook, 64-bit Vista, 2.10GHz Dual-Core, 4096MB, 320GB HDD, 17.0" diagonal WXGA+ High-Def. $600 refurbished from Buy.com (full specs copied here). Still configuring/installing but so far no major snags. Reviews to come. Last night we connected it to the 42-inch Bravia and watched the pilot for Dollhouse via Hulu. I thought it looked great (after forcing the TV to full-screen it), but Lisa wasn't happy with the intermittent video caching. Next up: Netflix streaming. I had minor buyer's remorse yesterday when I sat down at the piano. Wondered whether I maybe should have shelled out twice the price (or more) for a tablet PC so that I could browse IMSLP's score library for sight-reading fun. I'm over it, but that's something I'll be looking for down the line, maybe with an e-reader that allows PDFs.

Stressing (mildly) over the other hardware items that need purchased. My web server has long needed to be upgraded, but I'm putting that off until after this next web project is published and beta-ed. Also need a 1TB external drive for local backups of media files. They're not expensive; I just need to take the time. Before that's done, I can burn to DVD put them in a (tobepurchased) fire box. The now-replaced laptop needs to have its harddrive wiped and tested, probably replaced, and then have Linux installed.