I checked the station and noticed 15-20 listeners enjoying the stream. I broadcast a couple of text messages to warn them, but I wasn’t sure whether they saw it or not. So to begin with, my apologies to the listeners who got interrupted late Saturday night, especially the ones on the west coast whose local times I completely forgot about. Sorry!

I performed the update. It was a downtime of about 30-45 minutes with very minor issues.  So… I ask… Did you feel it?

A few tracks sound different just because they are actually different mixes/remakes that I chose. For the rest, I tried hard to make sure the volume levels are consistent from track to track. I also tried to ensure zero crackles or pops or anything like that in the audio. So if you happen to encounter issues with one or more tracks, please let me know. I will check it locally and do my best to update the track in question.

Along with the update, I threw in the following tracks which I hope you like:

• This Is Berk (How To Train Your Dragon)
• Forbidden Friendship (How To Train Your Dragon)
• Coming Back Around (How To Train Your Dragon)
• War (Avatar)
• Humility And Love (Creation)
• What Happened? (Brothers)

Finally, my gigantic mini-project is over.

It’s been almost two years since I announced that I would probably maybe perhaps rip the station’s tracks from their highest quality sources and switch to using mp3PRO 96 Kbps. Actually, there was the Great Debate (again with the  self-absorption) and I was convinced by a lone (actually, the only) commenter to stick with the more balanced and space-saving 96 Kbps even if it caused people somewhere to DIE.

Well, I’m here to announce that I’m ready for the update, which will also include exciting new tracks from Avatar, How To Train Your Dragon and other films, so here’s a somewhat useless FAQ:

On which day are you going to do the update?

Since I’m a busy guy and can’t estimate time or deadlines for crap I think I’d like to go with the more conservative answer of: I have no idea.

Are you going to provide some sort of notice before performing the update?

I probably will, but it will be such a short notice that you will want to kill yourself… after you kill me.

What time of day are you planning on doing the update?

It will be late in the night—around midnight, with a giant cup of tea and some Porcupine Tree in the background. So sorry in advance for interrupting the nocturnal types.

Is it really going to be a Big Bang?

No. It’s going to be an incremental update. The station will definitely be stopped for several hours. I will upload ~50 tracks and then start it up again. I will continue uploading by increments of ~50 tracks, update and restart the play-list, and repeat.

• Nate’s Theme 2.0
• Cornered

Drooling and staring into nothing are the most fitting reactions to the sweeping orchestra in “Nate’s Theme 2.0″ and the James Bond-esque “Cornered”, which starts slow but eventually presents a magnificant feeling of agitation and intensity. It is no surprise that this soundtrack was nominated for the 2009 Best Game Soundtrack award by none other than G4TV… one of the worst TV channels in this part of our galaxy.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lawrence Buontempo for the Live365 gift card. Lawrence, your generous gift went towards the funding of Permanent Waves. Thanks a lot! For other listeners, this is a hint that you should reconsider what you do with your life savings and kids’ college funds.

My wife and I recently finished watching the entire series of Battlestar Galactica. While I’m not an avid television fan (there is just no time with 24-hour days), this series is one of the best I have ever seen on TV. It is a reimagining of the 1978 science fiction series splashed with elements of romance, betrayal, and some of the other stuff which makes it girl-friendly. This doesn’t mean that your watching it will make you look cool in front of the ladies. It means there will be fewer of the female species around, greatly reducing your chances of establishing even a thread of a connection with the other sex. To summarize, you might as well kill yourself right now.

But before you do that, let me say that composer Bear McCreary left his mark with the score, making several tracks in season 2 stand out catching my and other people’s attention. I thought I would share this:

• Colonial Anthem (Theme from Battlestar Galactica)
• Prelude to War
• Roslin and Adama
• One Year Later

I have recently had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with British composer Andrew Pearce on Facebook. He stumbled upon Permanent Waves and made me realize it was missing some of his great compositions.

His latest work, Cinema Symphony, contains beautifully powerful and powerfully beautiful pieces. Conducted by José Serebrier, I was greatly pleased with what I heard—so much that I included the following tracks into the Permanent Waves stream:

• Elegy for Violin and Orchestra
• Celtic Warrior: Prelude for Orchestra

Thank you, Andrew, for your great work and talent.

If you’re on Facebook, then you have the opportunity to join the newly-created Permanent Waves group, based on non other than the Live365 Internet Radio station.

I remember Facebook when it was in its infancy. It was a cool and quiet place. Everything was free there. There were no crowds. People met other people from times of old, talked a little, or caught up on things. Now, Facebook is a 24-hour 7-days-a-week rave party. There is so much crap in it that people lost sight of what’s important. Dude, I want to see whatever my whoever from wherever is up to whenever. I don’t want to take a quiz on how old my brain is! Unfortunately, I got caught up in that whole chaos for a while until several months ago when I uninstalled all the non-standard applications and restricted my usage to several hou… err, minutes a day. It’s once again nice to see an opinionated video here or a friend’s baby picture there.

I thought it would be nice to put some faces on those Permanent Waves listeners and fans, so feel free to join and share your thoughts about the latest soundtracks, what’s playing on Permanent Waves or even request something! And if you’re one of those anti-social networking types, then it’s okay too. I can feel the pain of the sometimes-overwhelming Internet social life sometimes.

By the way, I added two more tracks:

• Hanging from “Plunkett & Macleane” by Craig Armstrong.
• The main theme from “Practical Magic” by Alan Silvestri.

Hope you like them!

Dish Network was attractive for 2 reasons: price and programming.

The important feature to investigate was the picture quality, so I ordered the TurboHD Silver package along with the ViP722 receiver, which supports two completely separate outputs for two rooms; one HD and one Standard Definition (SD). I didn’t care at all for the SD output, but I did care about the extra hard drive storage, which would allow me to record up to 55 hours of HD programming. Any extra processing power, if any, was a bonus.

Prior to the installation day, I was instructed by Dish Network to get permission from my landlord to have a dish installed on the premises. Permission granted, as long as the handy-man was supervising the whole thing. No problem.

So on that glorious Saturday, the installers came and assessed the site and the room. Since I live in an apartment, I can’t have them bring in a wrecking ball (or a drill) to pave their way, so:

“Hey buddy, you gotta purchase a flat coaxial cable for ~$16 to be able to slide it under the window.”

“Okay.”

As for the dish itself, they told me they have no idea what’s under the concrete of my entrance/ patio area so:

“Hey buddy… You would either have to wait until we check what’s under there, which would take several days, or install the dish on this heavy, foam-like two-layer slab thing.

“Can it withstand harsh winds, etc.?”

“It sure can, buddy.”

“Okay, let’s do it then.” (And I’m not your buddy!)

Installation took no more than an hour. They fired up the receiver and started going through all the diagnostic tests and configurations. Once the picture of a football game appeared, I knew I wasn’t going back to U-Verse for a good while. The picture was clear and crisp. Much better than what U-Verse had to offer and perhaps as good as what Time Warner Cable (TWC) offered, if not better.

It was time for the installers to leave and the main guy charged me on the spot for the flat cable, so I gave him a $20 bill. He turns to me and says:

“Sorry, buddy… I don’t have any change. I bought my friend here lunch and I’m all out.”

“Err… okay. Just keep the change I guess.”

“Thanks for the tip, buddy!”

It’s not a tip, BUDDY. You left me no choice. Although I should have been more of an ass and slapped my checkbook in your face. This same guy asked me to give them a rating of 8 or higher when the I got the survey phone call. They were lucky I missed that call…. Just don’t call me buddy.

Anyway, to summarize, after I’ve been watching TV for several months, here is what I like about Dish Network:

• Very good picture quality from a reasonable distance, sans a couple of crappy ones (CBS’19 Action News in the morning is pixel heaven);
• Responsive receiver and menu system with tons of options. TWC’s menu system was slow as hell. Honestly, U-Verse’s menu system was the best—it was fast, stylish and previewed every channel you browsed through the guide;
• Flexible scheduling options. With TWC, if I set it to record only new episodes of The Daily Show, I get 5 recordings of the same exact episode on the weekends. With Dish Network,  I have more flexibility to set a specific time and day;
• Tons of storage space—55 hours of HD recording no longer has me thinking twice about what to record and what not to;
• Faster fast-forward than TWC;
• The ability to jump ahead 30 seconds and jump back 7 seconds.

Here is what I don’t like:

• It rained a bunch of times during the summer, and I’ve had signal blackouts for 1 or more minutes when there were heavy clouds and storms. It’s the nature of the beast and it should be expected I think;
• Menu system, while configurable, is a little on the bland side;
• Some international channels’ programs don’t match what’s in the program guide, making recording hellish.

With that said, I thought of giving a little back via the usual currency; several new tracks. Three tracks come from Firefly, which is one of the most enjoyable television shows I’ve ever seen. My wife, who was new to the show, fell in love with it and demanded writing the channel to bring it back. I told her that it had been done… and it had failed. These tracks are “The Funeral”, “River Understands Simon” and “Inside The Tam House”.

Thanks to sf209 (which is a real name, I’m sure) for suggesting the soundtrack of The Mists of Avalon. I gave it a listen during the past week and it was beautiful, making it harder to select one or two tracks from it. Eventually, I did settle with “Running Up The Hill/ Guinevere” and “Finding Excalibur”.

Finally, another track comes from Lost as we all sadly await the 6th and last season and it is: “Landing Party”.

I hope you guys enjoy those and thanks again for listening!

In the case of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I actually dozed off a number of times. I never thought I would doze off watching a movie, at a movie theater nevertheless, but this marks the first for me, thanks to Michael Bay.

I’d like to read the pitch for the movie one sometime and look at the way it was sugar-coated—”well, the Decepticons… They come back!” Sold! Wait. How long would this movie last? “Err, two hours and… thirty minutes?” Sold! However, based on my waking moments, I still would like to give credit to the people behind the special effects and continuous action, including Mr. Bay himself. In this day and age though, mesmerizing the minds with pictorials and visuals isn’t enough. It always goes back to some captivating storyline.

Here is handkerchief , Michael. Now stop the stupid music video mentality and go watch The Rock again.

We follow this man’s journey from his adventurous childhood into his wrinkly, old age, as he falls in love with a wild, airplane-loving young girl. The first half hour is a quick strip of their lives passing by as they join each other in love and then sadly separate in her illness and death. They have promised themselves to fulfill their lifelong dream of visiting the exotic sites of South America, but apparently missed their chance. After a lot of grievance, and at 78 years of age, the old man decides to do so in celebration of his wife’s memory. With thousands of balloons tied to his home, and accompanied by a little chubby boy scout, he flies away.

I become a little reserved whenever I unintentionally hype up a movie, but when has Pixar gone wrong in the past? We had three girls in our group—my wife, her sister and my sister-in-law. The unexpected result was: All three were crying and tearing toward the end of the movie. The whole system came crashing down. What the hell happened? Even my brother felt nostalgic. What’s wrong with you, dude? “The old guy reminded me of my uncle.” Those brilliant filmmakers have always managed to inject some emotional serum into their animated comedies to appeal to adults, but this time the garden hose was left hooked to the vena cava far too long.

To me, the movie was as good as it was sad, but I didn’t care much for the talking dogs. I felt they were distracting and intrusive. Unfortunately, that part constituted a good portion of the movie, so what am I saying here? It’s good, but not that good. In other words, if you missed it at the theaters, don’t fret.