So the X5L mentioned previously arrived last week. So far I like it a lot. I had to do some renaming initially as I copied stuff over, but I had to do an equivalent with the old thing anyways since ogg doesn't have track numbers but the metadata did. Anyways, I have a decent amount of stuff transfered over, and the rest has to wait until I boot up other machines (I didn't have much on the powerbook since I always had that with). Anyways, for starters the sound quality is awesome. The response curve is better than the old one, which I thought was better than a lot of other things. With a well encoded file it actually starts sounding rather similar to the original. The noise floor is awesome too. I initially didn't here it, but then I realized the background noise from the room through my earphones was just louder. There's nothing from the screen or drive though, just a very quiet hiss and a pop with the power switch. The UI takes a few seconds to get used to (a coworker said it made sense after about 30 seconds), and seems workable. The screen is bright and crisp, and easily readable from a decent distance or any angle. It doesn't take thinking and it's instant to turn the backlight on or off without affecting other things, which is nice. My only complaint is in audio mode it only updates a few times a second so the audio level graphs are kinda pointless. The thing feels slightly heavy for its size (but still reasonable), but I think that's probably due to the battery. I can pretty much unplug it in the morning when I go to work, use it all day (drive to work, work, drive home, evening at home), and not bother turning it off at all (like when I leave the office or go to lunch), and still have it barely drop off the top of the battery gauge. That is such a nice feature that way too many things lack. Stupid battery technology... Anyways, I have nothing but good things to say about it, so if you're in the market for a digital audio player, you should at least consider it.

As for the week at work, it was busy. I got power distribution for a rack moved to new circuits in one server room, and in the other one added 2 (sorta 3) new circuits. Should allow us to get everything up and running before school starts. Stuff also sorta blew up, but luckily none of it was my fault and I can't really do anything but sit back and wait for it to be fixed. I almost got another new server up, but I'm waiting for it to be able to reach stuff so it can be used. I think I finally got all the new student stuff figured out, and the system assigned permissions this morning. I still sent the list of changes it made to the student supervisors for verification in the morning since I don't know if they got me everything. I also got permissions for student workers for the rest of the school tied to contracts, which should hopefully save time for everyone (they say the access when requesting the job, don't have to think about having it added/revoked since everything's tied to contract dates and signing/termination). It'll be interesting to see how well that works after what's happened though - apparently they couldn't get contracts printed and signed in May, but had to wait until August to request them, so people may have a couple days waiting to get access after getting back and signing them. Such is life I guess, and maybe can be resolved next year.

The weekend was good, with sitting around and relaxing. First movie was Elektra which was better than expected (I had low expectations going in). Other than the intro when I put in the DVD that is. I have something funny if people want to see it. Anyways, the plot wasn't all that great, but it had fighting and martial arts and some interesting effects. Second movie was Wild Things 2. It was one of those where when I heard of it I was wondering how they could possibly do a sequel, so I had to see it. It's basically the same plot as the first one. Yes, same plot, although some of the characters have different relationship roles and some minor details are different. So yea, not such a great movie, unless you want to laugh at the movie. Third movie was Swimfan, which was better than expected. The plot was interesting, although nothing special. The soundtrack was interesting and well done technically, and they used some really interesting editing techniques. Like rather than draw out the scenes to simulate the normal emotion like most movies, there's multiple angles cut together with overlap sorta like a replay. That description actually doesn't do it justice, and it works way better than it'd seem at first. It's sorta combines a this is important with the character replaying what happened in their head to sorta make you look at it from their perspective. Yea, I'll stop before I totally mangle it. You should see if you haven't though.