2007-02-05

Hobo

Eddy Joe Cotton’s Hobo is the fast paced adventure of a young runaway turned train rider. The rapid growth and maturity of the author tricks one into assuming a large lapse of time, when in fact the book spans only a few weeks of his life. I didn’t enjoy the whole book, nor did I find it to be one of the better books penned by a Hobo. I think his love for the state of Nevada played a role in this. He focuses on many of the things which disgust me about the state. That said, Cotton’s short journey on the road is peppered with many insights into the America of the early 90’s and plays host to many an interesting character.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2007-02-03

FLVconvert

I have need to convert a bunch of AVI files to FLV. FFmpeg does the job, but I wanted to do whole directories at a time – plus different directories have different video dimensions and different fps. So, last night I hacked flvconvert.pl, a quick and dirty perl script to convert specified avi files to flv.

Usage: perl flvconvert.pl [OPTIONS] [FILES] Options: --size Specify video size. Defaults to 320x240 if none specified. --fps Specify frames per second. Defaults to 15 if none specified. --thumb Create a jpeg from the first frame Example: perl flvconvert.pl file1.avi file2.avi video/* perl flvconvert.pl --size 640x480 --fps 30 file.avi

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2007-01-25

review, books

Transient Ways

Jessica Han’s Transient Ways concerns itself with stories of travel, trains, and squats. Unlike Off the Map, this book’s writing is amateur, the stories have no cohesion, and the author presents herself as mildly egotistical. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it. The tales are entertaining – enticing in their simplicity. Jessica shows promise as a writer, but is no Kerouac.

Jessica is also featured in the excellent hobo documentary Catching Out.

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2007-01-24

Itinerate

And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam, Carrying his own house still, still is at home, Follow (for he is easy pac'd) this snail, Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.

– John Donne

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2007-01-23

RAW

Robert Anton Wilson died on the 11th. Why am I only hearing of this now? It should have been much bigger news.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2007-01-22

Light

UPS delivered my so-called “Moroccan” glass candle lanterns today. Two for $9, straight from the Bay of E.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2007-01-21

Magnatune

I just purchased my first album from Magnatune: Falling You’s Human. It’s a pretty cool idea. You can pay whatever you want. All they ask for is a credit card, name, and email – no addresses, phone numbers, or any of that. They give me a username and password, and I can download the album in whatever format I want. Now I can give the album away to 3 people.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2007-01-20

One Burnt Noodle Set Off the Smoke Detector

But not the fire alarm.

They better not expect me to evacuate during my dinner.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.