So i have been reading these short, sad, very violent books about society. It is pretty rough.

the first i read was A Personal Matter by Kenzoburo Oe which was about this lostish young man whose wife gives birth to a baby with a severe birth defect. The book is about his struggle to understand his life and the violence within it. it is very dark. reminded me a lot of the Rabbit books, but wasn’t as thorough. it was very stark and quite sad. it had these little bursts of ultra violence throughout the book that were surprising and made you wonder about the story. good though. japanese people are weird. hahaha.

the other book i read was obviously not as known and apparently hard to find. it was Blueschild Baby by George Cain. If you do come across this book, be sure and pick it up. it is quite powerful. it is a seemingly autobiographical account of a black man living with a herion addiction and being involved in a white world. It is set in the 70s and is pretty easy to imagine. i cringed a lot reading it. a lot of hard parts. a lot of emotions. a lot of sadness. the whole walkind dead that was his harlem was pretty hard to stomach. it is very real.

I am excited to build my fancy amps. I am thinking of making three enclosures: one to experiement, one that is perfect and one to sell. If anyone knows anything about preamps i need some info. specifically - what exactly should i be looking for. I would really like one that is remote controlled. i don’t really need an EQ or to control tone. i am planning on not having volume on the amps (although it might be a good idea) - so having plain volume, a selector switch and a phono preamp might be it. oh, and really good rca connectors. maybe i will place them all in nice little boxes like red wine audio’s stuff has.I am going to have to find a couple nice chassis. I really want three - nice black and about 1/3 of the width of a standard 1U slot and probably 2-3U high. one would be for the amp, one for the preamp and one for the ipod dock. this would really minimize my need for anything else. haha. i mean right now i am using this trashy technics receiver that i purchased in college. i think that the speakers are fine for now. but we shall see. the ipod dock idea is to create a nice little “slot” that will hold my ipod and push power to it and take the line out. something nice. and easy. that way i could plug the ipod into it and BAM. it may not be needed since i primarily use my airport express to listen to music. hah. maybe then i should use the airport express and a nice fancy DAC. hah. or not. this is getting complicated. so as i was saying - 2 chassis, one for the amp and one for the switch/volume pot. hah. word. this case would be the goal. but it is expensive. well not too expensive - but i don’t have the tools to machine the holes i need. i suppose i could buy two of those nice cases and have the holes cut. that would rule. i wonder if i could then get a powered analog pot to control the volume and have that be controlled by some remote. i really just want a remote that does volume up and volume down. something big and cheesey. hah. and it will click.

i played the socom beta today for the psp. it was good.

talking with my friend lakshmi - i am reminded that i should be reading more about software development and design patterns than about hifi equipment. hah.

i am now going to sleep. dreaming of hacking things and playing computers.