Archive for Techy
Handbrake Glee
I’m busy these days, but I have to sing my praises for Handbrake. It’s a free software for converting video files.
Last year, I bought some Korean animation series on DVD. I wanted to convert the DVD to MKV files, so that I could watch them more conveniently on my computer at anytime. Well, I tried Hand brake last night. It converted the video and audio files AND the Korean and English subtitles all together. Amazing!
Before, I had to convert each of the subtitles, audio, and video files one by one. And then merge them into one file.
Awesome! Handbrake!
Mers, Can you order pizza?
Finished the 3rd graduate course on Sunday. Many of the teachers were like “We’re 30% finished.” I honestly don’t like to think about the program in this way. Learning is a gradual thing. The courses can be hard, but what we are doing is for our own self improvement as teachers. I wont be “done”.
I have many stories from this weekend. It wasn’t as boring as last week. I gained some useful information, and the new coordinator has been asking for my opinion of things. I consider one of my strengths to be my listening and reasoning skills. We are dealing with some lazy and incompetent English teachers, here.
The coordinator has a strong disdain for one of the teachers. She accused him of being an alcoholic and driving drunk. I thought that was a serious accusation, and I held my reservations. Then, the Thursday night before Friday’s class, I went out to eat dinner with him. He was drinking the hard Korean alcohol without any regard of going to classes the next day. When, others at the table wanted their cup refilled, he would rudely order another bottle. What a loser. Somehow he has managed to keep a wife and hold a job.
During the dinner, he said that he skipped 2 grades of middle school. He graduated high school at 16. I thought, “Dude, you’re either lying your pants off or you might want to keep that to yourself, because these days you look like a total ignoramus.”
At one time this weekend, a small group of us were getting briefed from a teacher from the previous 2007-09 program. We were standing around a whiteboard. This ogre like girl saddles next to me. Unconsciously, she starts edging her way in front of me, and I was like “WTF? You show up late to the briefing and then obstruct my view.” I carefully touched her shoulders and guided her back to the side of me. She said, “Oh, I didn’t see you there.” I was like, “F*ing, ogre.”
Last week, I was pretty adamant about buying the Motorola Roi. It’s like the Motorola Droid, and it runs the Android OS. Then, this weekend I found myself overhearing this conversation about jail breaking the iphone. I know that people can jail break the iphone and ipod touch, but I haven’t looked into it deeply. The benefits sounded convincing, and I went back to thinking that I should buy the iphone as my next phone.
Even though I’m studying Korean, I dont have that many opportunities to “use” my Korean. Living in Korea; that sounds pretty unlikely and stupid, but it’s true. (I’m trying to change that.) I’ve studied how to order food in books, but I never do it just because … I never order food. This weekend, I was asked to order pizza and call taxis. I thought it would be a burden, but I approached it as a Korean speaking test. Can Mers pass the test and have pizzas delivered for the starving foreigners? Let’s find out. The verdict was in, and I passed. Twice!
At the end of the course, we had to do course evaluations. And I gave my 2 cents in the comment section. I said that some of the videos and discussions were irrelevant to the course topic. The teacher appeared very passionate about these discussion, but they still had nothing to do with the course. I wrote how the course should be improved for next time and having all the teachers together should have been used more effectively. The class didn’t meet my expectations.
So You Wanna Play Rough
At the end of last week, I went to a couple of my usual dorrent sites. (You know how it goes. I need my weekly download of “So you think You Can Dance”.) However, I was greeted by an error message. It was a lot of undecipherable garble. I thought the website might be down. So, I thought nothing of it. Websites go down, but they come back up.
Well, today. I go back to the website and it’s the same mess. I went to another website, and it was the same message. NOO. I tried a dorrent site that I never use. Gahhhhh! I went to the blog “dorrentfreak”. RAAAGGGEEEE! I see what you did there.
These websites didn’t go down, but these websites have been blocked from the network. And whose network would I be using? The School. You cheeky bastards.
I guess someone has noticed my bandwidth usage. I’m using a static IP, so they must know its coming from me. But rather than talking to me about it or asking me to lower bandwidth usage, they blocked me from visiting the websites. You think you’re *sooooo* smart.
My dorrent client will keep working. They can’t block that or keep it from connecting to peers. (unless they cut off my internet) But they think they’ve stopped me from downloading dorrent files from visiting the websites. lol
I WILL reduce the bandwidth I’m using. But, if I can’t use the school network to connect to these websites. I’ll just visit these sites through someone else’s network. You haven’t won.
Pentax K-7
Interesting. The camera won’t be released until July. That will give me some time to think about it, and wait for more hands on reviews.
Yeah, it’s a commitment to have one of these cameras, Melissa. They’re big and bulky, but I’m sure you’ve noticed the quality of lighting and focus are better than point-and-shoots. Camera phones are now a gimmick.
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