by Steve Martin

Christmas music

Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:03:17 -0600

Every year I pick a new Christmas Album or so. Here are my choices for the last few years...

2004
Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Ringo Starr: I Wanna Be Santa Claus

2005
Elvis Presley: If Every Day Was Like Christmas
Barnaked Ladies: Barenaked for the Holidays

2006
(I guess I took the year off)

2007... drum roll...
Christmas with the Rat Pack

State of the union

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 09:44:59 -0600

What is the state of the Union?

Here is what it has been over the last several years...

Bush 1992: the strongest nation on earth

Clinton 1994: It is growing stronger, but it must be stronger still
Clinton 1995: stronger than it was 2 years ago
Clinton 1996: strong
Clinton 1997: strong
Clinton 1998: strong
Clinton 1999: strong
Clinton 2000: the strongest it has ever been

Bush 2002: has never been stronger
Bush 2003: strong
Bush 2004: confident and strong
Bush 2005: confident and strong
Bush 2006: strong -- and together we will make it stronger

Cheezmo

Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:52:56 -0600

I'm often asked where the word "Cheezmo" comes from.

Mr. Hartman.

OK, perhaps a bit more explanation. In high school, a group of us were sitting around in the back of chemistry class discussing some things from spanish class earlier in the day. Specifically, the "machismo" male image in Mexico as it related to aggressive driving and who knows what else. The teacher, Mr. Harman overheard us and in an attempt at humor said "Are you guys talking about me back there?", having picked up on the word "machismo" being tossed around. Put on the spot by our bewildered looks ("No, we said MACHISMO"), he said "Oh, all I heard was Cheezmo". The word was born. The word was used for science fiction creative writing in english, etc.

A year passes.

I'm at college and one of my old high school friends sends me a poster he found on a phone pole in New Orleans. It has a picture of a parrot and says "Cheezmo" across the top, and "Schmaltz" across the bottom. There may have been a date/time or something too as it was probably advertising a party, but who knows. The poster was cool, so I put it on my fraternity room door. It didn't take long for "Cheezmo" to become a nickname.

4 years pass.

The internet is becoming popular, I want my own domain name. Need a word/name that no one else could possibly have taken yet. www.cheezmo.com is born.

Every once in a while I search for Cheezmo on Google, and turn up references to cheese loving diners calling their bellies "El Cheezmo" or a european satanic punk rock music style called "cheezmo".

I had a friend in college nicknamed "Fnord". Need to ask him about that one...

Computing HD bitrates based on recording file size

Tue, 2 Nov 2004 20:27:32 -0600

Here is the math I use to convert a recorded HDTV program into mb/s (millions of bits per second). The stated maximum for OTA broadcast HDTV is 19.4mb/s if you have a hacked HD Tivo or another DVR with the ability to somehow figure out the file size of a recorded program (as is done with a SA Explorer 8000HD here ) you can figure out the actual bitrate that the HD is being delivered to your home.

The top number thrown around alot for OTA HD is 19.4mb/s. In that terminology mb/s actually means millions of bits per second, not megabits/second.

Here is what I came up with for converting Megabytes and minutes into the corresponding millions of bits per second.

(Mb / minutes) / 7.15

Here is how that is derived.

Mb / minutes = Megabytes / minute
* 1024 * 1024 / 1,000,000 = millions of bytes per minute
* 8 = millions of bits per minute
/ 60 = millions of bits per second.

1024*1024*8
------------------
1,000,000 * 60

is

1
----
7.15

So, if you determine that a 60 minute recording has taken up 7712Mb. Simply divide 7712 by 60 then divide that by 7.15 to get the bitrate of 18.0mb/s.