danbruno.net/blog

I’m only 45 seconds into the new podcast from John Gruber and Dan Benjamin and I’m already cracking up.

There’s a lot of boring Windows-only software you might need, but the real reason to run Windows on a Mac is to play computer games. This has always been a bit of a sticking point for Parallels Desktop; it didn’t support 3D graphics, making it little more than a novelty for the average OS X user. “Hey, I can run the original Microsoft Office now! The minimize button for iTunes is on the other side of the window! Look, spyware!”

At the end of last month, the Parallels team made this announcement about their upcoming release:

3D Graphics: You asked for it, and we delivered. Kick around your favorite Windows-only OpenGL and DirectX games and apps in a virtual machine on your Mac, without shutting down OS X!

A few days later, they uploaded a YouTube video showing Quake 4 running through Parallels. Impressed, I grabbed a copy at the discounted early upgrade rate.

Well, Parallels 3.0 dropped two weeks ago, and I’ve had some time to try it out. Here’s a screenshot of Oblivion running through Parallels:

Here’s Project64, a popular Nintendo 64 emulator:

Here’s the 2001 release Worms World Party (which is not even three-dimensional):

Wait! Here we go! Here’s Castle of the Winds, from back in 1989!

For the record, all four games run under Apple’s Boot Camp (and run well; Boot Camp also received an update two weeks ago). If you’re thinking of getting Parallels for gaming, don’t — at least not yet. Spend the extra minute or two to restart your computer.

My home recording experiments to date have met with limited success, but over the past few days I’ve been plowing through this great book on Logic. I’m about four hundred pages in right now. Just wait; one day my site will look like this.

I made a few changes to my cool Mac stuff list, far and away the most popular page on the site. (Number two on the Google search! Hot damn!)

Man, what are the chances of this?

Don’t you hate it when you have a song stuck in your head, but you don’t know what it is or how it got there?

That’s how I’ve felt for my entire life. There is a piano riff that has been bouncing around in my brain for literally as long as I can remember, and I had no idea what it was…until two days ago.

I found it when I stumbled upon the Piano Society, a non-profit classical piano organization which offers hundreds of free MP3 downloads on their website. I clicked from one piece to another, letting each play for a few seconds and then switching to a new one when I got bored with it. In one of life’s wonderfully improbable coincidences, I not only picked the correct piece but happened to be distracted long enough to let it play past the leisurely introduction and get to the blistering virtuosic refrain — my lifelong earworm.

The piece, if you’re curious, is Chopin’s Waltz in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2, and you can listen to it here. As it turns out, I got it in my head back in kindergarten; our music teacher would play it when she wanted us to quiet down and return to our seats. This is a discovery over fifteen years in the making!

I spent a good bit of this past semester playing Super Mario Kart, so being a music major I thought I would take a closer look at the game’s soundtrack. Last night I worked up a lead sheet for the Koopa Beach background music, which has a fun bossa nova feel. Watch for it in the next edition of the Real Book.

Koopa Beach lead sheet [24kb PDF]

Looks like we’re about to have another Cold War:

President Vladimir Putin yesterday declared that a new arms race and cold war with the west had begun and announced that Russia would retaliate against US missile defence plans in Europe by pointing its missiles at European cities.

[...]

Russia has not specifically aimed its missiles at Europe since the end of the cold war but, asked if it might do so again if the US missile shield went ahead, Mr Putin said: “Of course we are returning to those times. It is clear that if a part of the US nuclear capability turns up in Europe, and, in the opinion of our military specialists will threaten us, then we are forced to take corresponding steps in response.”

In other words: “Ah, Motherland!”