I just bought a 1TB external hard drive from SimpleTech / Fabrik, and it is the worst piece of garbage imaginable.

Firstly, the drive comes pre-formatted for PC, which ordinarily wouldn’t be a problem, but it’s formatted read-only, so to use it for ANYTHING I have to completely erase the drive.

Secondly, when attempting to erase the drive with Disk Utility, something about the drive makes the erase operation fail. I tried MS-DOS FAT, which seemed to work, before giving me an error upon trying to use it. Formatting to Mac Extended gives an error immediately.

I’m just considering myself fortunate that I don’t need this in the next few hours.

UPDATE: oddly, someone from SimpleTech saw my posting and sent me a personal email. She apologized for my experience and I sent her some notes. Apparently there is a separate product line that the same company makes which is meant for Mac called G-Technology.

I ended up getting something on special from Fry’s mail order, a 1TB “FreeAgent Pro” from Seagate. The funny thing about this one is it has a glowing bar on it that serves absolutely no purpose other than looking like a prop from a 1980′s sci-fi movie. It does not have a Firewire 800 interface (the SimpleTech one did), which is a bummer, but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

My files are copying now; it’s around 400GB which will take something like 6 hours to duplicate.

I saw “Z Channel – A Magnificent Obsession,” which was pretty cool. I wonder if there are copies of the magazine Z Channel used to put out, floating around on ebay?

Here’s a list of movies mentioned in “Z Channel” that sounded interesting.

• A Safe Place (Jack Nicholson)
• Images (Altman)
• Welcome to LA (1976)
• Madchen in Uniform (1931)
• 400 Blows
• Dance of the Vampires
• Overlord (1975) – Stuart Cooper
• Fingers (Harvey Keitel)
• (Andrei Rublev)
• Heaven’s Gate (1980)
• Decline of Western Civilization
• Bad Timing (1980)
• The Important Thing Is to Love (Main thing?)
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• Le Magnefique
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (it’s 12 hours!)
• 1900 (5 1/2 hours!)
• (director Sam Peckinpah)
• (director Claude Chabrol)
• Once Upon A Time In America
• Wife Mistress
• Lady on the Bus
• Turkish Delight (Verhoven)
• The 4th Man (Verhoven)
• Soldier of Orange (Verhoven)
• Flesh & Blood (Verhoven)
• Spetters (Verhoven)
• Katie Tippel (Verhoven – Kaetje?)
• Salvadore (James Woods)
• Something of Value (1957)

UPDATE: Looks like Wikipedia has a page with a more complete list

BRIAN: Today’s word is
BRIAN: Agnatic primogeniture
BEN: Obligate Siblicide

(Another Obligate Siblicide link)

This 8-track tape belonged to my grandparents.
It’s Enka; I can’t really read it.
I ripped it to mp3, and transcribed the titles and artists for future analysis.

It’s titled
“トップスターによる心にこる大演歌”

It was released by Nippon-Columbia – 8WY-1021

TRACK 1

• 北の宿から by 都 はるみ
• 目ン無い千鳥　by 大川栄策
• 柔 by 美空ひばり
• 涙の連絡船 by 都 はるみ
• 王将 by 村田英雄

TRACK 2

• 心のこり by 細川たかし
• 悲しい酒 by 美空ひばり
• さすらい by 小林旭
• からたち日記 by 島倉千代子
• おんなの宿 by 大下八郎

TRACK 3

• 津軽海峡・冬景色　by 石川さゆり
• 無法松の一生 by 村田英雄
• アンコ椿は恋の花 by 都 はるみ
• 女のねがいby ぴんから兄弟
• 出世街道 by 畠山みどり

TRACK 4

• 女のみちby ぴんから兄弟
• ソーラン渡り鳥 by こまどり姉妹
• 人生劇場 by 村田英雄
• この世の花 by 島倉千代子
• なみだ船　by 北島三郎

BRIAN: This olive has been sitting in a glass on your desk for several days.  Is it special?
DIANE: Yes.  His name is Marvin.
BRIAN: … okay I’m going to set Marvin loose.
DIANE: Marvin!  You’re FREE!!!