Published on
May 23, 2003 in
Geek.
So I ran across this site (audioscrobbler.com) that seems kinda cool. The idea is you create an account, install a plugin for your favorite MP3 player software (be it Winamp, XMMS, SLIMP3, etc etc). This thing then aims to track your listening habits/preferences. In theory, after you’ve listened to enough (200 songs I think), it starts suggesting other artists based on your preferences and the preferences of other users who have similar interests. Figure I’ll play with it for a while and see what I think.
Unfortunately, they have no way to track what I listen to “on the go” as of yet, which is a bit of a problem seeing as I spend a lot of my listening time at work using my portable player. And this is of course due to the fact that the admins can’t seem to every get sound to work properly in Linux. Cause otherwise I’d be using my desktop machine for this purpose and tracking would work fine. Oh well, what the hell.
While this entry is not as entertaining as those concerning the David Ho experience, I still find it amusing. I saw an interesting bicycle while riding the bus today. It was one of those bicycles built for two. While those are unusual, I have never seen one quite like this. The front half of the bike was clearly designed for an adult rider, but the back half appeared to be intended for someone much shorter. I’m not sure if the back half is intended for a child or just someone of shorter than usual stature since it only had a full-sized rider up front when I saw it. Certainly haven’t seen anything like that before, although I guess it doesn’t surprise me too much considering the assortment of other bicycle-like contraptions I’ve seen in this town.
After I was still marvelling at my luck at having ridden on the same bus as the infamous David Ho, I had the good fortune to ride with him again later that same week. On this trip, I got a better look at the stuffed animal he had with him previously. This time, he had elected to bring it onboard along with his giant garbage bag with a heavy wire handle. It turns out that what I previously believed to be several stuffed animals was actually a single stuffed animal… He was actually carrying around the 3-headed dog, “Fluffy”, from the first Harry Potter book/movie. Suddenly things made a lot more sense.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Shortly after getting on the bus, I noticed that one of the dog’s heads had a big floppy tongue hanging out… which David was rubbing all over his face as if the dog were licking him. OK. Pretty weird. But it gets worse. As we neared campus, he started kissing this dog on the tongue/lips. He sat there for the bulk of the trip (a good 10 minutes at least) with his lips pressed against the dog’s. And then we got to his stop, he disembarked and disappeared as the bus turned the corner.
All too weird. I am wholeheartedly looking forward to my next David Ho experience.
So I was getting on the bus last week and noticed an odd bike strapped to the front. I guess it wasn’t that the bike itself was odd, more the fact that it looked like an adult bike, but had some stuffed animals in the basket. Seemed a little unusual until I got on the bus and discovered the owner… none other than the infamous David Ho.*
I was quite certain it was him, seeing as he was wearing his bike helmet, was carrying some sort of Harry Potter book (one of the Harry Potter journals or something like that, I don’t think it was one of the actual novels), had a giant garbage bag, and overall looked a little odd. I’m not exactly sure what he was carrying around in the garbage bag, but he had wrapped some heavy duty insulated wire around it that was serving as a handle.
Anyway, there isn’t much more to say since he simply got off at a stop on campus without any further excitement. But I can now say that I’ve seen the David Ho up close on my bus.
* For those of you who haven’t heard of David Ho, I’ll try to clue you in. I’ve heard an assortment of stories from Amanda and her sisters about him that paint a colorful picture. Apparently, David Ho used to attend Central High School in Champaign, IL. This poor fellow apparently also had a run-in with a bus, and has never been quite the same since. This isn’t to say he was exactly normal before, but getting hit by a bus tends to enhance a person’s previously unusual demeanor. He is still a HUGE Central fan and attends a large number of their games. He’s also a big fan of all things Harry Potter and has been known to dress-up like him on many occassions. He was even featured in some sort of local parade in his Harry Potter outfit (although I can’t remember whether he was supposed to be, or if he just jumped out there and started walking with the rest of the parade folk).
I’ve decided to add a new category to my blog… I call it “On the bus.” It’s essentially a collection of experiences that I’ve had riding the bus to campus. I’ve had a few experiences in the past week that seemed to warrant mention here, so I thought it seemed appropriate to add a new category for this type of rambling.
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