drobilla

Just got back from the co-op, where I was for 3 hours and still didn’t get my bike completely assembled (close though). Also managed to wreck a lot of the paint in the process :( Spray painting a bike definitely makes for a fragile paint job.. oh well. I guess if anything gets bad I can just touch up spots. Perfectly smooth paint is overrated anyway.

I did score nicer pedals and a saddle though, looking pretty pimpin’ if I do say so myself; but I’ll have to wait ’till thursday to go on the maiden voyage…

Well.. finally fully moved; I guess it’s time to stop screwing around and get back into hacking. Specifically Ardour, since I’m being payed to do so and all.

Looks like we don’t have a fancy new cairo canvas to play with. Maybe it will be worth my time to do that first, but I’m going to do some fiddling with displaying MIDI data with gnomecanvas first to get a grasp on things. Wouldn’t hurt to have some visually obvious clue that I am, in fact, actually doing something. This summer’s project should be more rewarding than last in that sense; most of what I need to do is visual stuff which tends to be more fun since you have something nice and tangible at the end of the day.

Of course, displaying data is one thing. One relatively easy thing. Actually editing it on the other hand………. that’s where the “fun” (ie hard) part comes in.

I think a top-down (GUI->implementation) strategy is best here. The Grand Battle Plan(TM) goes something like this:

• Get MIDI data displayed in regions, notes visible as one canvas item (rect) per note
• Attach event signals from note canvas items (move, click, etc) to a set of stub methods that encompass all the editing operations
• Now there’s a nice centralized area where all the editing operations need to be implemented
• Figure out how the hell to implement them (ie ???????????)
• Implement them (ie Profit!)

So I forgot to take a before picture of this bike, meaning it will never make a decent little blog-photo-roll-ongoing-project-thingie (which could probably use a coined word, for the record). Damn.

… is one of those products that works just a little bit too well to not be weird.

So, I bought a bike. I’ve been on a mission to find a decent road frame to convert to fixed gear, but havn’t found anything yet (late in the spring to find bikes, and this city sucks). I did stumble across a shitty old ‘64 CCM cruiser at re-cycles though, so that’s going to be my painting project in the mean time.

Spent a few hours last night with some steel wool getting the rust off the exposed metal parts (and then a few hours cleaning black crap off my hands..), looking way better now. This thing needs new wheels and tires (whitewalls, natch), but they’d probably be worth way more than the bike itself (payed $75).. we’ll see. Fixed gear project (if I ever find a frame) is going to need some money, so probably not very smart to dump money into this thing.

More important, performance-oriented serious cyclist things need to be figured out first, like colour, cool lookin’ handlebar grips, and finding whitewalls. Black and army green is the winner so far.. this thing is one of those frames that begs to be painted in some 50’s pastel teal sort of colour, but I’m not exactly the kind of guy who rocks a teal bike.

I should probably be getting my computer situation sorted out and start dealing with SoC stuff, but oh well. I need a hobby that doesn’t involve staring at this *#@&% screen 16 hours a day anyway.

The time when everyone finds their freedom, and finally leaves Ottawa for the great beyond (i.e. Montreal or Toronto)

… everyone except me. Damnit.

Woo, it’s May Day.

Revolution?

Nope.

Damn. Same time next year?

It’s a date, Comrade.

In related news, gnats completely ruined my day today. They will be first against the wall.