Apartment Living (update)

Why do I feel that we are the only ones that are even remotely considerate when it comes to noise and apartment living?

I'm currently being graced with the repetitive bass line of the Hispanic music being distorted from the apartment below. With its accompanying accordion and timpani drums, it's hardly bearable. I mean, I can't hear myself think—let alone hear my own music. I'm sure the neighbors above us can hear it so clearly that they think we're the one's putting on the circus show.

I am SO tempted to sit the subwoofer directly on the hardwood floor and turn my bass up to high, but something tell me that would be less effective.

*UPDATE*
A few minutes after finishing this post, the music got even louder. It had begun making our floor vibrate, and the sound was emanating from one of the living room walls as if the entire wall was a speaker itself.

At that point I had had enough. Remembering the awkward situation** the first time I attempted to go down and ask them to turn their music down, I decided to instead knock on the floor in the hopes that perhaps our noisy neighbors would get the hint from my rudimentary Morse Code.

I knocked on the floor several times, but the music blared on. My knocking had no effect. I put on my sandals and made my way down the stairs to the floor below us only to realize that the closer I came to the offending apartment, the quieter the music became. I felt a little foolish as I turned around and headed up to the floor above us, muttering a bashful apology to myself for my falsely accused neighbors.

Once on the correct floor, the source from which the bane of my auditory system had been issuing was readily apparent. I knocked at the door several times, but the music was so loud, it wasn't until a break between songs that my knocks were finally able to bring someone to the door. After a brief conversation, I was able to walk back down the stairs to the apartment and enjoy the rest of my morning in relative silence.


**the first time: I was forced to have a conversation with the old woman downstairs through her apt door because she wouldn't open it for some random man she didn't know (i.e., me). We could barely hear each other through the door over the music and the fact that English wasn't her first language didn't help the situation.

so close it hurts...

For once, I'm thinking I should have splurged and spent the extra 2¢ for the faster delivery on my newest purchase.

But then again, how was I suppose to know there was such a high chance for rain the weekend I'd be in DC, and that my new fabulously waterproof jacket would arrive just in time for me NOT to take it with me?

Quote of the Day

"Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting."

- Larry Page, University of Michigan Commencement Address, May 2009


Watch the video or read the transcript >>here<<

Quote of the day

"What is this, turtle day?!"

- yelled by some random guy on our 4/5 train this morning when it proceeded down the track at a less than acceptable speed

In case you missed it

Some of you may have remembered last April when I blogged about Google's "Gmail Custom Time" feature that allowed you to pre/post-date your email messages to people. :)

Well, in case you missed this year's April 1st launch...Google has now given us the ability to let Gmail auto-reply and manage our email messages with "Gmail Autopilot."

You can read more about the amazingness that is Gmail Autopilot >>here<<
I wonder what other kind of cool new awesomeness Google will unveil next year. :)

As a related sidenote:
Woot had this little card you could print out and give to an officemate yesterday. Kinda fun.

open ipod surgery

Some of you may remember a year and a half ago when I posted about seeing this screen on my computer:


NOT a pretty site for anyone to see...EVER.

Yeah, that was NOT fun. If you want to refresh your memory, you can read about it here but the main point to remember was that yes, my ipod had somehow died.

I made a number of attempts to revive the trusted friend back to health, but nothing I could do seemed to fix the problem. At one point, I was able to get it to start and connect to my computer correctly, but it would freeze after adding perhaps a dozen or so songs. Then when I tried to play any of the songs on it, it would either lag horribly, start to stall out, or freeze altogether. And the whole time I could hear the hard drive spinning like a car engine about to explode.

I came to the conclusion that my little buddy needed more than a software fix; the root of his problem was definitely hardware-driven.

Thinking that I would, at some later time, attempt to open him up and see what was going on inside, I decided not to throw him away. After all, we had been through a lot together; I couldn't just discard him like some common piece of trash. I just knew that somehow I could either fix him, or find some other cool use for him.

In fact, I had been told that a common problem with aging ipods is that there's a thin "cushion" inside that has a tendency to become compressed over time and lose its spring. If you opened up the ipod and placed a folded business card or card-stock inside, it would provide just the right amount of spring to fix the problem. I couldn't just throw my friend to the curb without at least trying this procedure.

At some point shortly after that fateful day in August, I remember making a crude attempt to open him to see if this wouldn't fix our problem, but not having any clue how the ipod was actually sealed, I never got him open. All I really did was scrap up the seam between the metal backing and the white plastic front a little. :(

It wasn't until recently (yes, after a year and a half, a marriage, and a move to Queens I'm still carrying around a broken ipod that's got to be atleast 5 years old) that I decided it was time to try again. And not just try...I was determined that this would work. I told one of my coworkers before I left work on Friday that my goal for the weekend was to return to work on Monday owning not one, but two working ipods:
my 3rd generation ipod nano (courtesy of Christmas 2007)
and my resurrected 4th generation ipod "click wheel".

Well, I'm happy to say that (with a little help from the following two instructions) I reached my goal Friday night:

Simple Explanation of the fix:
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY---Fix-Broken-iPod!/

Fairly detailed instructions on how to open the ipod:
http://www.portatronics.com/guide/iPod-4th-Gen-Repair/


I tried to take a couple pictures of the process, but most turned out really blurry. Here are a few that turned out ok.

Here we can see the operating table with a couple small flat head screwdrivers and old guitar picks of different stiffness (I ended up only really needing one of the smallest screwdrivers and the Village Voice guitar pick—it was the stiffest one I had.) The yellow thing is a strip I cut from a rubber glove. I used it to help protect my ipod when using the screwdriver.

Almost there.

You can see the hard drive there on the left (the blue layer underneath it is the foam cushion that had lost some of its spring), and the empty metal half of the case on the right. If you want to see good pictures of what the rest of the insides of an ipod look like, I suggest checking out that second link of instructions I included above.

My next goal for my newly working ipod is this. :)

I can't wait until I have a free evening. Hopefully it won't take another year and a half.

peanut butter elbows

My friend Adrienne, she conducts experiments.
She also posts cool videos on the internet.

Click here to see a video she posted on the Food Network for a recent PBJ contest. If you go there and watch her video, give it a vote. It's based on a true story from her family....an ongoing joke of sorts that involves peanut butter and human elbows. :)