cygweb

I have a stable stream of WCYG online now - it's available here. I'm still tweaking it, but for now it's a stereo, 44.1kHz, Vorbis 1.0 Quality -1 stream. It averages about 45-50kbps most of the time. I'm using Winamp 2.81, SQRsoft's Crossfader and Compressor, and Oddsock's Oddcast to make it happen. Once Oddcast can resample the stream to 22khz without crashing Winamp, I'll probably implement that to save bandwidth.
I'm still narrowing down the playlist, and I'll be working on my own station ID's soon. I'm even toying with the idea of recording "live" shows with commentary and factoids about the music I'm playing. We'll see.

I've been tweaking WCYG occasionally lately - the computer hosting it was bluescreening occasionally (apparently Winamp was misbehaving) but it's stabilized since I began using AudioStocker as my Winamp compressor DSP plugin. I'd still like to get the stream down to 22kHz stereo and save some bandwidth, but I'm waiting on a new version of Oddcast that supports that without crashing.
I continue to create 1-CD OGM rips of DVD movies to exercise the various tools I use to do so; so many parts of the toolset are upgraded on a regular basis. The new version of Virtualdub is pretty cool, and I'm considering testing Avisynth 2.5 and its YV12 colorspace support to cut down on encoding time. The Avisynth forum on Doom9 is hopping with info about this; a lot of talented coders hang out there. Very impressive to a guy who codes the occasional Winbatch or Python script.
Well, we got about 8 inches of snow here in Harrisburg yesterday. It's about time! My son Ryan loves playing in it - this is the first year he's big enough to do so. He got a sneak preview in Buffalo last weekend.
And now it's Christmas season - time to start thinking about what to get everyone. My wife is a lot earlier and better at planning/executing this than I am. Well, I have a few weeks...

This is one of the funniest Slashdot comments I've read in a while. Check it out.

Well, my fantasy football team squeaked into my league's playoffs in fourth place. I am on a 3-game losing streak that knocked me down, but not out. Of course, our league's best team has the first crack at me, and he has Ricky Williams and Priest Holmes. I've had QB problems all season and am now trying to decide whether to play Jon Kitna or Tommy Maddox. I also have Jay Fiedler, but he doesn't typically pass as much as Kitna or Maddox. Maddox is prone to get benched if he doesn't start well against the Panthers this weekend, so Kitna is probably the safest bet. He's been posting impressive numbers lately, and the Jaguars defense hasn't been great against the pass. Pretty sad, but Kitna will probably get the nod. I was very disappointed by the Steelers loss to Houston last week; if Maddox and Plaxico "Greasy Hands" Burress had performed better, the Steelers would have had a better chance of winning. My receivers are all slumping, so I'm hoping for some big games. Clinton Portis is one hell of a rookie back, so he will get the start, along with Fred Taylor. Bubba Franks is one of the best fantasy tight ends, period. I'm starting Jay Feely at kicker over Jason Elam, due to Elam's current slump, and the fact that Feely's at home and the Falcons should romp the Seahawks BIG TIME. Miami is my team defense, and they've played quite well this season. Wish me luck!

WCYG has been stable and up for about a week now - I haven't had any listeners, but that's OK. I made it primarily for myself to listed to from work or upstairs at home. I've been editing the WCYG catalog a lot lately, tweaking the type of music that's played. I still need to record my own station ID's, and I'm considering putting together 74-minute "feature shows" where I'll prep a focused group of songs and give some commentary. I just need more time!

I've got to get out and start my Christmas shopping! I have a few things I'll be able to get today. It seems like it's coming so soon! I'll have two weeks off from work around Christmas and New Year's, so I should have lots of geek time for some of these projects.

Slashdot has really had some interesting stories lately. If you don't regularly visit it, consider it; I display the current Slashdot article headlines on this site.

It won't be official until after tonight's Patriots-Titans game, but I was lucky enough to make it to the championship of my fantasy football league. My final QB decision didn't come until I was doing analysis yesterday morning and found out that St. Louis QB Marc Bulger was starting at home against Arizona. Bulger was still available in our league (I had dropped him and Warner a few weeks ago due to poor performance by STL and inconsistency at that position) so I picked him up, as he was a much stronger start than Kitna, Maddox, or Fiedler. He turned out to be the best of the four QB's yesterday. My opponent, our league's best team, had average days at best at every position but QB; Aaron Brooks netted him 19 points. However, my final-round draft pick of RB Clinton Portis turned out to be my trump card, as he scored four touchdowns on the day and carried my team. Bulger and the Miami D helped out as well. I got lucky, but I will have a lot of fun trying to figure out who to play for the championship. Maddox is tempting, and I'm probably going to start Eagles RB Duce Staley, who is really hot right now. I need to watch the news to see how conservatively Andy Reid might be planning to play their final two regular season games.
Stay tuned!

No, I'm not referring to that "number two". I ended up coming in second in my fantasy league for the season. Two main things contributed to my loss: I started Marc Bulger as my QB since I feared Tommy Maddox would be smothered by Tampa Bay's defense. Unfortunately, Bulger went out very early in his game with an injury and didn't return; to make things worse for me, Maddox actually put up some decent numbers! After Sunday, I was 10 points ahead of my opponent, but he had Keyshawn Johnson yet to play. The Steelers ended up allowing a "gimme" touchdown near the end of the game, and Johnson scored it. My opponent received 12 points from Johnson's performance, enough to send me packing...

I had a lot of fun playing this year, and I have to commend Yahoo's FF site - it worked well and was easy to use. If it's still free next year, I plan on hosting a private fantasy league there; I have quite a few friends at work who are interested in playing. Don, you could join us!

In my fantasy hockey league, I'm actually in first place. I have really good goalies, but I haven't had the best luck predicting their performance. I'm trying to balance their minimum weekly start requirement (3 starts) with their resulting stats. Very hard!

I've got the next two weeks off for the holidays, and we're staying in town, so I'll probably be posting a bit more often. Don't forget to check out WCYG!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!