found_drama

the real F_D

2005-11-16T17:19:00.000-05:00

Have moved from Blogger to WordPress for the found_drama blog. Keeping F_D's web-presence here on Blog*Spot for legacy purposes and to make commenting easier. If you're here, come see me here.

And if you're reading this in your aggregator, you might want to update the feed to pull from http://blog.founddrama.net/feed/

potential downtime

2005-11-14T22:49:00.000-05:00

We here at F_D are thinking of flipping the switch and giving WordPress a shot. Our growing(?) needs seem to insist upon it.

So if we're blank or otherwise ambiguous in the next 24-72 hours, please excuse the mess.

currently playing: Tears For Fears "Head Over Heels"

forward compatibility

2005-11-14T21:16:00.000-05:00

This post is one of those gems that simply needs reiteration:

Not that beer and the future are incompatible, heaven help us if they were, but it's not just cell phones. Clothes, music, a whole generation of young people who, like people who think nothing of heading off to another country for a weekend techno festival and will in the future, no doubt, think nothing of heading to that same country to close a deal in fifteen years.

Screw "east meets west" let's jam on "today is yesterday's tomorrow".

currently playing: Acumen Nation "Dreamheart/Crush'd"

programming serendipity

2005-11-14T19:35:00.000-05:00

A comment made by False45th's Flatlander, in addition to some other recent ruminations had me thinking lately about the coming(?) era of programmatic serendipity in our socially aware apps. This is something I keep hearing about in the context of Web 2.0 esp. w/r/t/ apps like Flickr, del.icio.us, and even /shudder/ things like Friendster and MySpace.

What's cool here is the way that the participating community marks things up, creating these powerful opportunities for other participants to explore and discover exciting new content and perhaps even make some connections while they're at it. The possibilities are only a hair shy of limitless in all directions of intriguing, electrifying, and terrifying. Now, mesh this in with commerce (that ol' familiar dialogue) and we enter into some new facets of this gem, many of which are unexplored.

Taking Amazon as an example, there's certainly one place to start. Amazon has no tagging system per se but they've got some robust customer data with which to make some calculated inferences. If you've ever browsed through their recommendations though, it can be pretty hit-or-miss. (On my visit just now, I noted 5 of 30 that I'd be reluctant to examine and another 6 that I'd previously flagged as "I own this" or "not interested.) On the other hand, each item is peppered with user reviews (with varying degrees of coherence), links to (usually) relevant lists of like items, and "In Addition To..." and "Instead of..." recommendations. All of that is useful but unfortunately feels like it lacks the simple elegance of a tagging system a la Flickr.

How do you make it all fit together and work?

How do you draw on a large body of customer data for your calculations and still allow for the kind of elegant serendipity that you see in Flickr-like apps?

Let's take iTunes as the prototype app:

iTunes itself is already gathering tons of data about your music library. As it stands though, it's a relatively closed system. You've got your playcounts and your ratings and all that other find meta-data but it's not doing much for anyone else.
Create a feedback loop. By default of course, feedback is turned off; you'd have to opt in to the system. But why not...? They're gathering consumer data on you already if you're purchasing music downloads. Instead of requiring you to log in, write your review, rate the album (the album!?!?), and/or post some weak iMix, their system does the work. But we don't stop there.
Cross reference the crap out of everything. With all that library data, you can build out better relationships between tracks. Who's rating what tracks on which album what way? What else are they listening to? How have they changed the genre meta-data? How did they group it? What playlists have they dropped it in (and what else is in thay playlist)? Do all that with math.
Then enter the human element of the equation. Face it, browsing the iTMS right now is tedious and frustrating. Browse by album or artist or whatever, it's hard to get a bead on how it fits with what you already like. Why not tag them? With the math done (above) the system ought to be able to make it's pointed recommendations but the serendipity factor doesn't enter in without the human intervention. Without clicking through in what are otherwise seemingly random ways.

The idea is half-baked, I'll be the first to admit that. And it also involves the willingness to surrender some of this information that you might otherwise think of as "yours" or "private". And it would also involve some serious computing power and narsty statwerks. But hell, it sounded good at the time.

currently playing: Underworld "Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream Of Love"

Sunday music

2005-11-13T23:34:00.000-05:00

The "That Was So Last Week" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is greater than 10, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by least recently played.)

Odessi "Moments Of Space"
Binary Finary "1998 (Original Mix)
The Crystal Method "Keep Hope Alive
Meat Beat Manifesto "Son Of Sam"
Meat Beat Manifesto "Edge Of No Control, Pt. 1"
Avalanche "Acid Attack
Saints & Sinners "Pushin' Too Hard
Chris Connelly "Stowaway"
Mortal "Autobahnana"
Ween "Voodoo Lady"

Something tells me I'd be wise to trim the trance and house from my diet for a little while...

currently playing: Golden Boy "Autpilot"

Clutch!

2005-11-11T23:38:00.000-05:00

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't know until tonight that Clutch had a new-ish album out. Can I get a "hells-mutha-fuckin-yeah" for this band? Maybe you have to be from MD/DC-area to really get it. Maybe not. Clutch r0xx0rs my b0xx0rs. And I'm pissed that my vacation in September missed their Portland appearance by about a week. (And more pissed that I didn't find out until now.)

currently playing: Clutch "Big News II"

dream.20051111: hometown

2005-11-11T07:25:00.000-05:00

I'm back in my hometown of Gaithersburg, Maryland. It seems as though A & I have moved into my parents' old Tulip Drive house. (Oddly enough, it's even furnished exactly the same as I remember it.) We're hanging out with Adam and Sue, having a fun old time as the evening starts to settle in and the street lamps pop on one at a time. My brother shows up around the same time that we all start to comment about how hungry we are. He could go for a bite to eat as well. No one really wants anything particularly fancy. We'll just grab some pizza and while we're out, we'll grab a movie, too. Since my brother Joe is blocking us in, he'll need to drive and A & Sue elect for "the boys" to grab the food and the flick. Seems a fair trade since we'll get to pick out the movie. I remark that I know a good place just a couple blocks up 355 where we can grab the pizza from and it's only like another two blocks to the video store from there.

So "the boys" leave and we pile into Joe's vehicle. It's a HUMMER H3 and Adam and I start making fun of him (since this is just the most preposterous thing a person can possibly drive). His defense is that it's just for the tax write-off - - he's got a landscaping company now and this is the company car. (Didn't we see the logo magnetized to the side?) And with that, off we go... (Man does this thing put you up high over traffic or what?)

But things start to get a little weird pretty quick. We can't find the pizza joint. Maybe it moved? It bugs me because I was sure that I remembered where this place was but nothing is really familiar. The signs are going by too fast for me to really get my bearings and before I know it, I'm urging Joe to turn around. I'm not sure of exactly where we are but I know we've gone too far down 355. He pulls a U-turn and we get turned around. Maybe heading back the other way things will be more familiar? Maybe if we spot the video store we'll get a good sense of where we really are?

But we don't find a familiar video store. Nor do we find the pizza joint. We found a video store though and decided to call that "good enough". We ducked in and Adam and Joe started to look around for something. I got out my cell to call A and ask her where this pizza place is. Can she look it up in the phone book? The connection must have been bad because all she said was: "Just get something with artichokes and red peppers, OK!" I flipped the phone shut to find Adam and my brother just shaking their heads. This place doesn't have anything good, it's all weird, really obscure films.

Out the window I spot what I think is the pizza place. Maybe we are in the right place after all. We duck out and peak through the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows. Not really spying anything like an "OPEN" sign. But Adam apparently knows a trick to jimmy open this kind of door. So he does and we walk into what is clearly a cubicle farm business. No pizza to be had here. The alarm starts to wail after about two or three minutes in there and the next thing I know, the three of us are rapelling down the far side of the building which is suddenly a whole lot taller than it was when we jimmied the lock.

linked!

2005-11-10T19:21:00.000-05:00

Linkage reciprocation (see sidebar): 802 Online - - the Seven Days blog.

best costume ever?

2005-11-10T18:42:00.000-05:00

The pierced one cuts my hair:

50 Greatest Indy Films

2005-11-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Via Boing^2 (via MeFi): Empire's 50 Greatest Independent Films.

It seemed to me like there was an awful lot of blood, horror, and schlock - - but maybe those are some of the hallmarks of great indy cinema? I was surprised to see Slacker in there (well... sort of surprised) and surprised that Primer was not. (Too new, perhaps?) The little blurbs are great, too (from the Buffalo '66 bit):

Get it straight - Vincent Gallo doesn't give a fuck what you think about his movie. It's brilliant, and if you can't see that then it's your own tough luck. He's so fiercely independent he uses Yes on the soundtrack. And you know what? He's absolutely right. This film is a mini masterpiece. Using only a small but highly talented crew and cast, he bombards us with belligerent, unlikeable characters for 100-odd minutes, and manages to make the most saccharine of endings - about the power of love, of all things - appetising. A beautifully balanced debut from a precocious talent - surely what indie is all about?

You think he'll fall for that!? He's SMART!!

(If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about...)

dream.20051110: 42 lb. cheesecake

2005-11-10T07:28:00.000-05:00

I'm at this cocktail party. It's OK as far as cocktail parties go. This isn't where I want to be but for whatever reason I'm compelled to be here and am sucking it up for the sake of that motivation. Plus there's an open bar, which helps. Maybe I'm made most uncomfortable by the fact that this is a pretty formal affair. For the most part I'm trying not to make eye contact with anyone. I just don't want to. But this guy won't leave me alone. He just won't let the lack of eye contact ruin his evening. So I look up. And it's Mr. Burns -- owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Translated from cartoon form to flesh exactly - - right down to the nose and the liver spots. He's looking sharp though, with just the finest tuxedo I've seen. He's really excited about the coming dessert. It's a cheesecake. A 42-pound cheesecake. Just as sweet as can be. It's going to be so good. With a graham cracker crust. And the most delightful strawberry compote topping. Forty-two pounds of it! Mr. Burns just won't shut up about it. And he's annoying the shit out of me.

OS X quirks (volume #20051109)

2005-11-09T20:07:00.000-05:00

In OS X.3 "Panther" they (re?)introduced the sidebar. Neat. Easy way of getting around. What they didn't mention is that these sidebar items are aliases with relative paths. Say you have two volumes, "Main" and "Remote". Main is where you do most of your work, store most of your files. Remote is for archiving, back-ups, deep storage, etc. Example case here assumes that Remote has elements of its directory structure that are clones of what's on Main (e.g., directories backed-up via rsync). Open two Finder windows, one with root of Main and one with root of Remote. Click the (example) "Work" alias/item in the sidebar of those Finder windows (where "Work" is a directory within your ~/Documents directory). It does not go to the same place. The one in the Main-based Finder window will go to /Main/Users/you/Documents/Work ... and the one in the Remote-based Finder window will go to /Volumes/Remote/Users/you/Documents/Work. Annoying when you're not expecting that.
Anyone else finding weird filesystem indexing issues under OS X.4? I use an AppleScript + rsync to keep certain directories in sync across my iBook (running X.3) and the iMac (running X.4). Sometimes files disappear from the Finder. They're still in the filesystem. Running an ls in the Terminal will show it just fine. But it's invisible to the Finder. The hack solution under X.3 was to reindex the folder. However, X.4 does not seem to have this option. The only thing that seems to save me here (besides the Terminal) is to find the item with Spotlight and then "Reveal in Finder"... But let's face it, it's very annoying to have book chapters just "disappear" from the Finder.

currently playing: Photek "Glamourama"

what i really want for xmas

2005-11-09T14:58:00.000-05:00

If I had a million bucks (or relatives w/ 10s of millions of bucks) I would totally ask for Brian Eno's studio gear. Instead, I'll settle for dreaming about it.

children suck at drawing

2005-11-09T10:37:00.000-05:00

No, really. They do. Even the best artist under 10 is a source of infinite comedic value.

Via Boing^2: children suck at drawing (warning: it's a Flash piece) - - amusing and vaguely reminiscent of that Maddox Mission Crappy Artwork stuff from a while back.

See also: Children's artwork as Lush Paintings (also via Boing^2).

Risk via Google Maps

2005-11-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

Via MeFi: This Google Maps Risk game may be the coolest use of their API yet. No, really!

currently playing: Frankie O "Acid Man"

Vatican: Don't Knock Science

2005-11-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

This makes me so happy. Via Wired News:

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of ... Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

How The Death Star Works

2005-11-05T09:12:00.000-05:00

Fun follow up to this earlier post: HowStuffWorks.com on how the Death Star works...

late Fri nite ramble

2005-11-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

A has update her site a little. Burned it down, started fresh. Can't say that I hold it entirely against her. The Google panopticon scares the living shit out of me too some days. I'll save my admiration for that irony for another time.

This weekend I'll turn 26 and am kind of flat about it. Last year I was all jazzed to turn a quarter of a century old. This year I'm just exicted that 05-Nov will mark five years without a speeding ticket. Shouldn't downplay it too much though. We've got a fun weekend planned (w/ a couple of kids that I just know when to SMCM in their former lives or something...) and all that goes along with that.

I want to say that I'm turning over some kind of serious leaf. I'm becoming more disciplined that I've ever been. At least it feels that way. I'm sticking to an exercise plan, I write almost every single night -- and I'm managing to fit all of these things in without it necessarily detracting from the other sectors of my life. Or perhaps the more appropriate way of looking at it is that I'm (for the first time?) disallowing those sectors to interfere with those things that I find important. I still feel like I can finish my first draft before the end of the year. (NaNoWriMo folks -- back me up here?) That's a good feeling. Stupid as it may sound, it was easier to make excuses not to write. It was easier to blow it off. Easier to be afraid. And the only reason that I agree that it sounds stupid is because of the two novel-length projects I did at SMCM. Why would I be afraid to finish one off now?

Fuck fear, let's publish.

writing

2005-11-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

Via Boing^2: a neat little site dedicated to sci-fi writers. Feels very "right on time" as I get nearer to wrapping up that first draft of my project...

currently playing: Science Dept. "Repercussion"

Revenge of the PNG

2005-11-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

The recent re-tooling here at F_D left us with some pleasing results which (unfortunately?) illuminated Internet Explorer's PNG-display bug. My troubleshooting searches led me to the Lovitt Methods re: dealing with PNGs and IE. Tonight, I finally got it working. Well, more/less working. It always looked good in Safari and Firefox & Mozilla -- now it at least doesn't look like crap in IE.

Now to fix the tiny text in the footer as it shows in Firefox...

(There's just no pleasing some people...)

waxing creative

2005-11-02T16:05:00.000-05:00

Creative Commons bit on a new record label called Unlocked Groove that's apparently releasing vinyl under a CC license. Bad ass!

"the greatest postmodern art film ever"

2005-11-02T13:59:00.000-05:00

Neat article on Slate: "Star Wars: Episodes I-VI - The greatest postmodern art film ever" (by Aidan Wasley)...

...Lucas takes this self-consciousness about narrative artifice a step further: He makes explicit his theoretical interest in the mechanics of plot. [...] characters come to understand that there is another agent, external to themselves, that is dictating the action. Within the films' fiction, that force is called … er, "the Force." It's the Force that makes Anakin win the pod race so that he can get off Tatooine and become a Jedi and set all the other events in all of the other films in motion. We learn that Anakin's birth, fall, redemption, and death are required to "bring balance to the Force" and, not coincidentally, to give the story its dramatic shape. The Force is, in other words, a metaphor for, or figuration of, the demands of narrative. The Force is the power of plot.

Interesting take on it. Interesting read.

currently playing: Boards of Canada "Pete Standing Alone"

Golden Gate Suicides

2005-11-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

An intriguing chart of suicides of the Golden Gate Bridge. Seems pole #69 is really leading the pack there...

currently playing: Spylab "Music Box"

dream.20051101: Cindy Sherman

2005-11-01T07:14:00.000-05:00

Work is now for some reason situated in a high school classroom. Computers have all been replaced with spiral notebooks and walls with chalkboards. I'm surrounded by all the same people though, each detail otherwise exactly the same except slightly scaled down perhaps to fit into those beige desk/chair things. I don't like it here for obvious reasons. Through the course of the regular conversation (work having been replaced with rhetoric), someone makes a sly reference to Cindy Sherman. A guy whom I would have figured (don't ask why) would know who she was and what she did looked around the room with one eyebrow raised. "Who?" I open mouth to give the brief bio as I understand it but before I can, someone else (a woman whom I would not have expect to know about CS) launches into this elaborate and thorough description of Sherman's life, influences, philosophies, artworks, etc. Then for some reason SMCM professor Sue Johnson enters the classroom to make a few corrections and critical additions. But that's all she had time for.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2005-10-31T19:50:00.000-05:00

Меня завут Чорнобиль!

currently playing: Lush "De-Luxe"

Monday Mix

2005-10-31T19:36:00.000-05:00

The "Your Son Is An Underachiever" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is less than 15, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by most often played)

Bert Dunk - "Groove Y'all"
Chemlab - "Filament"
The Clash - "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)"
Faith No More - "Star A.D."
Soul Mekanik - "I'll Call U (Thin Red Man Mix)"
Swayzak - "State of Grace"
Meeker - "Save Me"
Swayzak - "Betek"
Tori Amos - "God"
Herbert - "Back to the Start"

currently playing: Helmet "Biscuits For Smut"

meme-watch 2005: Google wants/needs

2005-10-31T15:31:00.000-05:00

Via esperanza: Google says: "Rob wants..." and "Rob needs..."

Google search: "Rob wants"
1. Rob wants to meet Shannon
2. Rob wants the ball
3. Rob wants to allow single people to bring guests
4. Rob wants you to experience
5. Rob wants a fun and funky family room
Google search: "Rob needs"
1. Rob needs a job
2. Rob needs it
3. The place to get all your Rob needs
4. Rob needs your support and donations
5. Rob needs a replacement

Funny.

currently playing: Blu Mar Ten "Numbers"

Support the Creative Commons

2005-10-31T10:57:00.000-05:00

Via Boing^2:

currently playing: A:xus "When I Fall In Love (Stryker's Acid dub)"

theory slut!

2005-10-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the
postmodernists, you collect avant-garde
Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal
articles for breakfast. You positively live
for theory. It really doesn't matter what
kind, as long as the words are big and the
paragraph breaks few and far between.

What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Damn you Sampo!)

currently playing: Psykosonik "Object Disorient"

Mt. Philo (part 4)

2005-10-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

Mt. Hunger didn't pan out on account of there was apparently knee-deep snow about a third of the way up the trail. We couldn't verify this first hand (weren't prepared for this) but the woman who came down as we arrived assured us. "Not such a good idea. Not today." So we bailed on that and took off for a quick cruise up Mt. Philo.

(see more!)

That was a bit more sane (given the circumstances) and much easier to find. (Mt. Hunger's trailhead is only allegedly well-marked.) This still made for a good day out and about. Some nice foliage was observed, many pictures were taken. Then later we learned to play a fun but truly maddening game called "Briscola" while chicken was braised. Much wine consumed. Late-night viewing of Rushmore.

Well played.

weekend begins

2005-10-29T07:39:00.000-04:00

Hopefully we'll focus on important things this weekend. Like recovering and feeling like a human being. I kind of feel like this pic (taken on the ride home last night) says it all:

Agenda for today? Climb Mt. Hunger. And bring the camera this time goddammit.

Popular Science's Worst Jobs in Science -

2005-10-28T16:12:00.000-04:00

3rd annual The Worst Jobs in Science list via Popular Science magazine.

sidebar update

2005-10-26T20:35:00.000-04:00

Added...:

BrainsMaps.org (via BoingBoing)
Seed mag (also via BoingBoing)

currently playing: Delerium "Orbit of Me"

blogworthy

2005-10-26T20:08:00.000-04:00

My blog is worth $3,951.78.
How much is your blog worth?

currently playing: Leftfield "A Final Hit"

dream.20051026: basement apartment

2005-10-26T07:06:00.000-04:00

I'm crashing at Brian and Debbie's house due to one hell of a snow storm. (This makes enough sense.) What surprises me though is that they've finished their basement and it's now an efficiency apartment. And I have a co-worker living there... (Apparently she's their daughter. Who knew?) For some reason, they call her "the raven red-head".

stuck!

2005-10-25T23:03:00.000-04:00

Dinner w/ a friend has turned into a sleep-over... With snow falling in central Vermont, I made a judgment call -- keep the dinner plans. How bad could it be? Well, by 9pm (when I decided to leave for home) it turned out to be quite slick. Slick enough that I couldn't make it up the hill that is the road they live on. Came back with my tail between my legs. "Ya'll said I could crash here, right?"

kuro5hin.org article on verson control

2005-10-25T16:52:00.000-04:00

Via Kuro5hin.org: "Toward Saner Version Control" - neat little version control redux w/ a pro-Subversion slant:

Realistically speaking, it's probably going to be twenty to fifty years before we have a software development process that doesn't totally suck. Until then, your best bet is probably to use Subversion, write unit tests competently, and regularly chew the fat with your fellow developers. Also, for the love of God, use an editor that doesn't suck. If you're not using Emacs, then I hope that you're using vi, and if you're not using one of the two, then please kill yourself.

public service announcement

2005-10-24T21:09:00.000-04:00

My environmental message for the day: Melanie McGrath reports on Madagascar's threatened lemurs:

Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries, and is hugely dependent on rice. In the past century, the island has lost 90% of its forest to slash-and-burn agriculture, or tavy. The once thickly covered central highlands are now a wasteland, scarred by soil erosion. [...] The impact of forest clearance has been compounded by hunting: a good-sized lemur will fetch up to $3 as bushmeat. Local taboos protect some lemurs, notably the white sifaka, which is believed by the Sakalava people to be an ancestor spirit, and the indri, which the people of Betsimisaraka say once raised an orphan boy as their own. But other taboos are less forgiving. The devilish-looking aye-aye is condemned to death on sight. It is said to creep up on sleeping people, insert its long, ball-and-socket-joined middle finger into an ear and pull out their brains. (In fact it does nothing more sinister with this remarkable digit than pluck insect larvae out of trees.) It is now highly endangered; only its wide distribution and nocturnal nature have kept it from disappearing altogether.

this day in history

2005-10-24T10:47:00.000-04:00

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY: "Um... Excuse me, your car fell on my house." Read more!

This post dedicated to Nyaz. You cheap bastard. Where's my last $50!?

currently playing: Lard "Bozo Skeleton"

Sunday evening round-up

2005-10-23T20:53:00.000-04:00

First snow of teh season:

October 23, 2005

see also:

Fortunately, my dad and I (plus a couple friends) snuck in a quick(!?) hike up Camel's Hump yesterday. (Pics to follow once I get the copies emailed to me; was sans camera unfortunately...) Note to self: avoid the Forest City Trail up the mountain next time.

We rewarded ourselves with some nice homemade shrimp satay though. I enjoyed 100 grams of the smoothest Ukrainian vodka otherwise unavailable in the States. Flavored with honey and pepper, it's got a sweetness and a spicy kick that play off each other in a way that is just smooth and with only the tiniest bite. And yet not the alcoholic bite that seems to follow basically any other vodka I've ever had. Now to find out how to get it 'round here...

(As a brief aside, my dad brought back a bottle of "Russian Standard" for his neighbor across the street whom is considered quite the vodka connoisseur. Upon tasting the gift, this neighbor apparently phoned my father to inform him: "After sampling the Russian Standard, I have concluded that Stolichnaya is the Gallo of Russian vodkas.")

The weekend was then rounded out Sunday with a few errands and another viewing of Donnie Darko (now added to the library). I stand by my original assessments.

(Fun ironic/creepy tangent: While brandishing our Circuit City gift card and pondering which DVD to bring home, A & I basically flipped a mental coin over Donnie Darko vs. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - - then the mental coin flip echoed as I tried to decide whether to use the IMDB link above or the Amazon.com equivalent. Creepy Amazon thinks the two should be paired...) (Also creepy: that late in the car, I slipped and said the Jim Cunningham character was played not by Patrick Swayze but by Tom Cruise - - who happens to appear on the cover of Entertainment Weekly in a sidebar of Amazon.com as I glance at it now...)

Now to enjoy some tea and Tom Robbins and wrap myself in blankets and try to forget that the first snow of the season came quite a bit before my birthday this year...

currently playing: Underworld "Juanita / Kiteless / To Dream Of Love"

dream.20051023: teh pr0n murders

2005-10-23T08:21:00.000-04:00

There's a serial killer on the loose. (Why is everywhere I go always dark and cloudy grey misty dark and staticky skyward?) Buildings packed in close and crowded. Slums but too nice but not comfortable. Bricks and mortar and glass and edges. Not as much graffiti as you'd expect. (Isn't this the same city as where I stole the mummified head of Rod Stewart?) The killer preys on actresses from adult films. Porn starlets, to call a spade a spade. There's fear in the town. He's not taking trophies. Not that anyone knows. I'm involved in the investigation not because I work with the constables but because I happened to notice a pattern in the data (a la Gibson's Laney) and how each murder was precipitated by a flurry of rentals featuring that particular Her. (The constables only ever call a given actress "Her".) Somehow in the course of all of this I become a suspect as well. I'm taken for questioning. Held over night. Another murder. They let me out. Now it's personal. I'm checking data streams looking for rental patterns. The evidence leads me to one particular Her. We invite a few of her closest friends and associates over for the night. (Strictly in the interest of safety, despite the many jokes: "How many of my films have started like THIS!?!?") Her front parlor is a sitting room (a la Stephenson's Diamond Age) but more so a storefront complete with cash register and product displays. (The impulse items leave something to be desired but whatever.) This is where I wait, setting up my trap for the killer. As the night wears on, the walls seem to grow decorations. Portraits spawn other portraits. Landscapes expand and distend. Still lifes reproduce and multiply. It's very Haunted Mansion meets Russian Orthodox church. Until the lights snap out. At first I think it's just the power getting cut. But my ears ring too. I've been knocked out. And when I awaken, it's in the arms of some blonde, petting the knot on my head and assuring me it's all going to be fine. They caught him though it was a bit too late for Her.

late night post

2005-10-22T00:11:00.000-04:00

Week's over... Dad made it to VT safe and sound and perfectly timed what with me having just finished watching π. And brought with him some very appealing-looking Ukrainian vodka. Very nice. Report to follow...

More tweaking here at the F_D site. Farting around more tonight with nested divs and the layout. Alas, no solution on the rabbit PNG "problem" yet...

the "That Was So Last Week" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is greater than 10, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by least recently played)

"Heroes (Kruder's Long Loose Bossa)" - Roni Size
"From Out Of Nowhere" - Faith No More
"Elektrobank" - The Chemical Brothers
"Head Over Heels" - Tears for Fears
"Inandu" - Alternative 3
"Torture" - KMFDM
"Temperamental" - Everything But The Girl
"Black Milk" - Massive Attack
"Speechless" - Helmet
"Clockwork" - Roots Manuva

(not) png problems

2005-10-20T21:48:00.000-04:00

More on this problem with how IE has decided to (not) support PNG images... Spent a while this evening farting around with the Lovitt method and in particular with the "Browser Detect Lite" aspect of it... All my script output though was the fail-over: [rabbit]

/sigh

Resisting the temptation to replace it with a GIF.

currently playing: Paul Grogan "Haleakala Sunrise" (Amy's special auto-DJ feature)

dream.20051020: wok

2005-10-20T07:32:00.000-04:00

For whatever reason, I'm charged with creating woks for some town. The town itself is vaguely post-apocalyptic; entirely underground in the way that subways are but fashioned out of buried, converted double-wides and other modular structures. It's lit up by fluorescent bulbs which give everything a grey-green mid-80s schoolhouse pallor. Everything seems to be made of reused or recycled goods. There are pictures of Ralph Nader that conjure up images of the Ayhatolla Khomenhi. The mood is downtrodden in the way that only a disappointing post-nuclear-fall-out sort of utopia can be. My werks are manufactured from any scrap metal I can find. This particular wok is frustrating me. It took far too long to scrape the red paint from the STOP sign. I can't seem to get the fire hot enough to adequately soften the metal and my good hammer is broken. I'm having to beat this one with a rubber mallet. I can't get the bend of the bowl quite right and though the octagonal shape usually makes it easy to get it round, this one doesn't sit straight every time I put it down.

Nevertheless, my prowess with the mallet is admired by many. It even attracts the romantic admiration of some of the women-folk of this underground town. They try to ply me with drink but I admit to them that I'm married. One of them is particularly persistent and calls me that night.

The wok takes two days to get it right. Normally I can do two or three in a day.

i h8 IE

2005-10-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

Internet Explorer. Bane of many a web professional's existence. And now, flexing its evil talons all over founddrama.net. If the above rabbit graphic looks "good" -- then you're using a good browser. If it looks bad (grey fields hanging off into space) then you're using IE. Sorry about that; I'd heard that IE had trouble with PNGs but I'd thought that it was a <v5.5 thing. /sigh

OPTION 1: Convert the rabbit graphic to a GIF. (No thanks?)

OPTION 2: Follow through on an implementation of Michael Lovitt's PNG-for-IE solution.

re-tooling...

2005-10-19T00:37:00.000-04:00

hashing out some new site design ideas... switching up some of the css. brushing up on some old tricks. minor and all that. this will be on the test.

currently playing: Amon Tobin "Bridge"

TIME Magazine's Top 100 Novels

2005-10-18T19:19:00.000-04:00

TIME Magazine lists their top 100 novels of all time. Well, top 100 English-language novels of all time. From 1923 to the present.

I'm pleased to report that several of my all-time favorites made the list. What surprised me were the authors that made duplicates to the list. For example, Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog both made the list while Vonnegut only made it on for Slaughterhouse-Five (shocking because if anything it should have been Breakfast of Champions!)

Aside from Breakfast of Champions though, no glaring omissions come to mind. Some Camus and Kafka dangled momentarily in my peripheral vision but then I remembered that whole "English-language" caveat to their list. On second thought, Grendel - - how could they have excluded this seminal work?

As with any list of this nature, there's bound to be some disagreement, I'm sure. (E.g., I think Beloved is Toni Morrison's most overrated novel...) But overall, not bad. I just can't believe I haven't gotten to all these yet...

currently playing: Underworld "Dark and Long"

Neuromancer

2005-10-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

Reflecting on John's recent post (one of the comments, to be specific), it dawned on me that I'd never cast my perfect true-to-point cinematic version of Neuromancer. How sloppy of me.

Armitage/Corto - John Turturro (though Gary Oldman and Christopher Walken are close runners up for this role...)
Case - Jason Lee (think about it, he's perfect! in a twisted sort of way)
Hideo - Collin Chou
Julius Deane - (having trouble coming up with a name but he played the owner of the Triple-K Marine boat dealership in Corndog Man)
Lady 3Jane - Kiera Knightley
Molly - Julie Delpy
Peter Riviera - Jeremy Sisto
The Finn - Moritz Bleibtrau

Now for my director... Since Chris Cunningham apparently won't do other people's stories... David Fincher. The vote comes mostly for Fight Club but also the Cunningham connection through Alien3 which I feel comfortable blaming on the screenwriters.

[insert wishing star here]

currently playing: BT "Beta (3AM Mix)"

incoming! nanowrimo!

2005-10-16T09:08:00.000-04:00

Hat's off to dystopianethic for signing up for NaNoWriMo.

I'd do it myself but at about 180 pages, I think I should finish what I've started. (Since apparently, I can't use my existing work for the November fun...) Which I guess is OK. In the spirit of the season though, I'll vow to write every night throughout the month of November. And hopefully finish up my draft...

on "one more thing"

2005-10-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

Tried to resist the temptation but it just didn't work... The whole "One More Thing" Apple special event round-up (almost all of it more/less via TUAW):

iPod now featuring video capabilities. Is anyone really surprised? I still think it's silly. Are folks going to watch copies of Lost and Desperate Housewives on the subway? Maybe (maybe!) if there was TV-quality screen output it would work as a device to haul around your home movies on. I don't know, it's all very underwhelming. "The Apology" might have made more sense.
And of course with new features on the iPod, comes the new iTunes 6. (So... Why was the 5 upgrade for then...?) No surprise that jHymn got broke by it nor that Apple (finally?) introduced recommendations into the iTMS. (However, if you ask me, it's buggy. It recommended Ottmar Liebert because we'd purchased Delerium's "Incantation" - - random!)
Oh yes... And new iMacs with a remote for something called Front Row that essentially turns it into a media center device for your living room. Except that who wants to watch movies and stuff on an iMac in their living room? Thus do we get a hint that Front Row seems custom made for the mini -- spawning a petition already. (SIDE NOTE: Don't count on it as an add-on unless they make a Bluetooth version of the remote. That IR business came out of nowhere if you ask me.) But Front Row may just be an early version -- to test the waters -- something quickly replaced with a more universal version that broadcasts over AirPort a la AirTunes...?
eMac removed from the online store. (The CRT is dead. Long live the CRT.)
And tangentially related (old news?): NewsGator acquires Ranchero & NetNewsWire in what could be a brilliant move for them. And as Gruber points out, it could easily be a win-win situation.

currently playing: Danzig "Blood and Tears" (stuck in my head, damn you A!!!)

adding to wishlist...

2005-10-12T12:50:00.000-04:00

Even without Cory's story, I think I would still say "I have to have this!" about the Future Washington anthology. Short stories about a future District of Columbia? Hells yeah!

search term haiku vol. 20051011

2005-10-11T21:58:00.000-04:00

haiku poetry made from real search terms that have led to this site...

boogie nights outfits
speak n spell emulator
tampon picture porn

one point o spoiler
urban slang vessel of burn
geeks and religion

previously:

currently playing: Underworld "Tongue"

Serenity

2005-10-11T20:14:00.000-04:00

Recently I posted about the short-lived Fox series Firefly and its ~~upcoming~~ related film Serenity. This past weekend, A & I saw Serenity at the theater. Overall? 3/5 stars if you're unfamiliar with the series. 4/5 stars if you are. As I mentioned re: Firefly, it's a pretty refreshing take on the sci-fi genre and worth watching if for no other reason than the novelty of a good Western/Space Opera mash-up. But I also happen to strongly favor the premise and think that there was a lot of unrealized potential there. (Cancelled after 11 episodes? That's barely a warm up!) They fit the story nicely into the two-hour block and it works OK on its own but definitely lacks and/or takes you by surprise if you don't know the setting and characters too well.

spoiler warning!

Mal and crew are back. We pick up in Serenity where we left off in Firefly, though the arc of the entry into the story could give you half a suspicious start if you are familiar. But it works because if you don't already know, if gives you some limited context. There's some missing pieces though -- some of the final episode of the series isn't tied up. And we arc quickly into this new-ish scenario where Mal isn't so suspicious of River that he'll bring her along on a job. Something happened in the month or so of unscreened time. Inara is noticeably absent at first (though we can also assume that that took place in our missing month-or-so) and Book is gone (though it feels right for him to have peaced out).

The good? Characters are nice and consistently portrayed. No "amp this up" or "tone this down" re: the switch from the small to big screen. The story makes sense and shares the suspenseful hooks that made the series good. We get a decent villain out of the Alliance (for a change) and we also get lots of Reavers. (NOTE: the idea of the Reavers always freaked me out a little but they were downright CHILLING in the film.)

The not-so-good? Inara's entry totally lacks context -- and with the way it's written, you wouldn't get her connection to the crew unless you knew the back-story. (Didn't Stephenson write some stuff about that sort of thing re: Star Wars?) Mr. Universe is OK but comes out of freakin' nowhere. Too much deep space action -- the series got its flair from the cowboy overtones -- which felt more like an undercurrent here.

82!?

2005-10-11T12:35:00.000-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut hits 82. One of the great ~~authors~~ artists of our time.

This one's for you Kurt: *

Monday p.m. round-up

2005-10-10T16:37:00.000-04:00

Neat new fiction on Futurismic: "Changing The Tune"
Neat article on Kuro5hin: "Which is the Better Classroom?" - - re: the home-school debate
Fun National Geographic News article: "The World in a Glass: Six Drinks That Changed History"

currently playing: white noise in my skull

sick and stuff

2005-10-10T11:37:00.000-04:00

/ugh

Been sick for almost a week straight at this point. In/out, up/down sick. Mostly congestion but some fun body aches and sinus-y headaches as well. All around, a beautiful picture of health.

That being said, didn't let that stop me from (finally) re-painting the home office this past weekend. Finally got rid of the awful white-on-blue-on-white sponge paint job that the previous owners did. Or let their kid(s) do. Too bad we didn't have the presence of mind to paint over the electrical outlets like the previous owners.

/shudder

dream.20051009: PT Porno

2005-10-09T07:57:00.000-04:00

A porn theater as a community's cultural center. There's nothing taboo about this. It isn't some counter-culture or bohemia or anything like that. The theater just happens to sit at the heart of town and the townspeople flock there as if it were the local tabernacle or tavern. Truth be told, there aren't too many that venture inside. Most folks just gather in the parking lot for tailgating parties and other boisterousness.

I've not been in town long but I know most everyone here.

Many of them I know from elsewhere. But I don't know if I've moved here or if I've lived here all along and have perhaps moved back.

I spend a lot of time in the parking lot. Folks will block off whole lanes for dancing and bonfires.

A knows the woman at the ticket booth well. They go back a long ways. They joke around about how the admission is only ever $3 for any given show but how no one ever checks the ticket stubs because all the ticket stubs are the same generic "ADMIT ONE" stubs. The owner was worried about the town's take on his establishment. But everyone kept congregating in the parking lot. And he was making a killing at the concession stand.

Trouble arose when my brother came in to town. He fit in well. Well enough anyway, at first. Folks in town liked him. He got along with everyone. He seemed to like them. He and I spent a bunch of time together. We did a lot of grilling in that parking lot. And then at one point he indicated that he would be off for a spell. He had to jam down the block for more hot dogs or something. Sure. No problem. Except that he wasn't gone for more than 15 minutes before I was overwhelmed with some deep anxiety. A was nowhere to be found. I remembered her and the friend from the ticket booth taking off for a while. They'd told me as much. But I had to get out of here. Quite suddenly, things weren't right. And now that son of a bitch had taken my car. And A had her car (which made enough sense) but I was stuck here. Stuck? Here? I grabbed my cell -- batteries low. Very low. My brother wasn't picking up. He should have been back by now. I had only one chance. Quick call to A: I was taking her friend's PT Cruiser. The bright yellow one in the bottom right of the parking lot. I know she wouldn't like it but I had to get out of here.

dream.20051008: gamers, weddings

2005-10-08T08:42:00.000-04:00

My youngest brother and his girlfriend. A and I have them over to our place. We're living down the street from my folks for some reason. There's a big wedding shindig going down at their place. Very multi-day. Very heavy shit. My brother and his girlfriend are staying with A and I during the first day or so of festivities. Where none of us are required to be present nor do we wish to be present.

My brother's girlfriend is cute in a nerdy late-teens sort of way. She's as-if-not-more into console games than my brother is. She whoops his ass at Wipeout XL twelve rounds in a row. I show them both this sci-fi/fantasy MMORPG that I'd gotten hooked on and where (approximately) I'm at in the campaign. They're both embarrassed for me.

Next day comes and we're due at my parents' house for this wedding. It's not the marriage of a family member. Someone close to my folks though. A long time co-worker perhaps? Someone I know by name but have never met. There are many Puerto Rican women at the house dressed in white satin dresses drinking rum out of silver flasks. They're associated with the bride. (The bride is missing, interestingly enough.) A lot of them are hitting on me and I can't help but feel flattered. I spend more time with them that I'm supposed to. My dad scolds me not because I'm easily swayed by their charms but because I have duties to the ceremony and the party the ensues around it.

The house is theirs but far bigger in its proportions.

Things are getting heated and intense. There's a lot of discussion about this missing bride. Night is quickly falling and the ceremony hasn't taken place. Not as planned anyway. There was no aisle walking or public exchange of rings. Apparently a great deal of things took place rather closed-doored, more so than expect at least. The party is going full swing now whether folks want it to or not. I'm sent around back and down the deck stairs to the hot tub for some reason. (There's a hot tub?) My own wedding ring catches somehow on a splinter at the beginning of the railing. The splinter splits the railing and the whole run down the stairs, the wood splits more and more, etching deep scratches into the silver.

At the bottom of the stairs, I'm crushed.

evolution^3

2005-10-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

Via SkepticReport.com: Bob Riggins' Things Creationists Hate

My favorite part (so far):

[The Founding Fathers] make creationists appear, shall we say, less than intellectually competent when they toss out a howler like, "George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were creationists!" It makes one want to knock on their heads and call out derisively, "Helllooo! Anybody home in there? In what year did Washington die? When was Origin of Species published?" Old George didn't know about germs, either; and Tom famously stated that he could never believe that stones ever fell from the sky.

ha!

currently playing: Everything But The Girl "Tempermental"

farewell, Neon!

2005-10-07T12:57:00.000-04:00

Autoblog presents: Looking Back - Dodge Neon. Farewell, faithful chum...

dream.20051002: invaders

2005-10-02T09:08:00.000-04:00

Top floor of an old Victorian house rented out by A & I. A typical Vermont living arrangement in many respects. Things have been strange lately. Rumors abound re: some kind of imminent plague or attack. It's all fairly vague but everyone we know is at least a little freaked out. We have tried not to pay much attention to what folks have been saying though. It's never a good idea to let yourself get wrapped up in all this unsubstantiated hype over... Well, it's all unsubstantiated anyway, so why even invest that much effort in to paying attention.

quick cut

A few days later. The town's been emptying out. A lot of shops are empty or otherwise closed and boarded up. It's as though a hurricane were making its way through. We're still trying not to pay too much attention. It's all very weird and unsubstantiated. Who wants to worry? There's too much on our plates as it is. Besides, it's been kind of fun having the town (mostly) to ourselves. Too bad our landlord was among those who decided to stick things out. Would have tried to take over his part of the house while we're at it.

quick cut

Things have gotten almost panicky now. Had we been paying attention, we would have known that all the rumors circulated around these NASA reports of some inbound object. There were the fears that it was some Earth-shattering asteroid but the more reliable evidence suggested an alien invasion. How were we supposed to believe that anyway? But apparently there's no not believing it now. Now that their spaceship is visible in the nightsky - - still a ways off apparently but visible. Utilities are starting to fizzle out. Our ISP has already flaked out but we've been able to piggy-back off a Wi-Fi signal still running in the area. I read through an email thread that my mom had started several days ago about the whole thing. I'd thought this was some sort of elaborate practical joke of hers. Too late now to go saying I guess not... The last new message I get is from Tim who urges A & I to get ourselves down to Antarctica post haste and for me to bring my mixer. (Apparently, it's low-power enough that it won't drain the generator too much.) Right around then we lose the signal and we're cut off. Cell service and electric power seem to be the only things still running in town. A is trying frantically to get a bag packed. Why are we wearing our jumpsuits? I storm the closet trying to find the bag that's big enough and sturdy enough to carry and yet not so big that it'll be awkward to carry. Everything I seem to pull out seems to be just a big trash bag. Frustration is setting in. And panic. How the hell are we going to get to Antarctica?

more SyncTunes

2005-10-01T18:21:00.000-04:00

Recent experimenting with launchd led us to today's (failed) experiment in the on-going "SyncTunes" project. (See previous references here and here.)

Short version: have tunesync-in.sh activate via launchd when a user logged in, copying a master $ituneslib file over to $userlib. Then, while the user was logged in and playing songs through iTunes, tunesync-out.sh would run in the background (again, via launchd) copying each updated version of $userlib to the master $ituneslib.

So why/how did it fail?

For one thing, I could not verify the ...-in script was running at all. It did not appear to be running because each time we logged in, iTunes seemed to reflect the same $userlib as the previous login without any updates. (No, I didn't try logging but...)
Running launchctl list indicated that ...-out was getting loaded into the list of active launchd jobs but there was no evidence that it was actually copying the updated file(s) (see previous above).
Considering that $ituneslib was approx 8Mb, we can make the whiney excuse that this would have been a little more memory and disk i/o intensive of an operation than we really want to perform with that kind of frequency.

Then again, maybe I've done something wrong here... See for yourself: tunesync-via-launchd-1.zip

currently playing: David Holmes "Gritty Shaker"

Firefly

2005-10-01T08:57:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'd never heard of Firefly before because its short stint on TV happened to coincide with when A & I didn't have one and watched even less of it. Maybe it's Serenity's upcoming release that brought it on to our radar screen. Or maybe it was just chance.

In short, it's a Steampunk/Western & Space Opera mash-up that seems to gel pretty well and isn't totally insufferable. If you can make it through the pilot episode. It's hard to do quality sci-fi. Especially for screen. Especially for TV. More so for network TV. It's pulled off fairly well and in the five episodes that A and I have screened on DVD, it seems to be very well done. The story has gotten pretty interesting and the actors have brought some life to characters that on the surface could easily be cliched. Granted, we haven't finished up the complete series ... so maybe it all falls apart? Or maybe (just maybe) like so many other sci-fi programs from TV-land, it just fell victim to the curse that follows genre shows. Or maybe it's the curse that follows every good show ever premiered on Fox. (See also: Profit; counter example: X-Files)

dream.20051001: mushrooms

2005-10-01T07:53:00.000-04:00

"Super Mario Brothers" meets Another Roadside Attraction meets Dawn of the Dead. Late afternoon mushroom picking. They only grow on dead bodies. But they instill one with supernatural strengths. It's also all there is to eat except perhaps the dead bodies. But the fact that there are mushrooms growing on them is enough to suggest that we shouldn't. We're being hunted. But no one knows for sure by what.

dream.20050930: shopping

2005-09-30T07:07:00.000-04:00

Twilight grey Victorian take on a grocery store. The aisles a little too narrow. Shopping for magazines. The building seems to get narrower and narrower the whole time. The lights dimmer. The magazine covers less glossy.

milestones

2005-09-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

Last night I topped 150 pages in the draft of my novel-writing project.
Last night the heat kicked on, signalling the mental start of the Vermont winter.
This morning I topped 100,000 miles in my little Neon. w00t!

currently playing: hold music

good news/bad news

2005-09-27T13:35:00.000-04:00

Good news: A will get more work done. Bad news: A will be in Hanover Monday thru Friday.

:-(

currently playing: Fatboy Slim "Santa Cruz"

three

2005-09-24T23:17:00.000-04:00

From a postcard sent by a friend: It was cloudy for our trip so we couldn't see these islands. it was so cloudy it looked like we were in our own little world or like there wasn't enough memory in the Acadia Park system to show anything father than 50 feet.
Irony defined: Drive in to Montpelier. Can't find a place to park... Drive by a gathering parade of protestors. Note sign "No Blood for Oil". Still can't find a place to park. Ponder why protestors are showing up one or two to a car.
Essay question: What defines "existing in nature" - - what does it take for something to be synthetic? If you use two rocks to chip out an arrowhead, is that synthetic? What about polyethylene? (Isn't it sort of made through products that do (pre-)exist in nature?)

dream.20050924: flair

2005-09-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

Back-drop is essentially a mid-to-late-80s live action children's television show. Something very closely linked to Reagan's D.A.R.E. program. Cheesy set that's supposed to be an urban youth center but has obviously too much land out back to be urban and is obviously too well funded to be real. The youth center counselors are clean cut go-getters -- the kind that would appear in a late-80's government-funded public service announcement or a late-30's Berlin poster. I'm not actually here. It's more like I'm watching this on TV. But I'm clearly supposed to empathize with the adolescent protagonist -- brown hair, an 18 year old playing a 12-to-14 year old (you know the type). He's naive to the world around him and slightly confused. He's been riding his scooter (motorcycle?) over from his mom's apartment to this place and is a little disheveled. All he really wants to do is take it out back to do a little motocross. But there's the whole forced routine with the stunningly-blonde counselor. Then it gets really TV. Really end of a G.I. Joe episode. WWF wrestler Rick Flair shows up out of a puff of smoke. He's not wearing his usual gear though. He's got on some sort of spandex super-hero outfit. But the outfit isn't very late-80s. It's more like late-60s cartoonish. Maroon, with sweeping rings that seem to float around the shoulders, a neckling that plunges to the navel, and a big gold belt. He almost looks like a carton of McDonald's fries with his own platinum blonde hair. I don't even really know who Rick Flair is but this is him. And for just a moment, you're supposed to believe that he's one of the good guys. Because the celebrity guest always is. But as soon as the very mundane but very pretty boy counselor has turned his back, Rick Flair is all up in the kid's face. Calling him Joey (even though his name totally isn't Joey) and telling him to try some "Peppers". He's got this brownish light-fast medicine bottle out and is shoving it in "Joey's" face. TRY SOME PEPPERS! Except that they can't all be the same drug. The pills are all white. But they're all different sizes. TRY SOME PEPPERS. "Joey" takes some, just to get Rick Flair off his back. And then Rick gives him the whole bottle and disappears in a puff of smoke. But Joey can't handled the Peppers and spills the bottle all over the place. Revealing the mushroom-shaped pills with little red dots on them. Then Joey starts to lose it...

up early with launchd

2005-09-23T07:21:00.000-04:00

Trouble sleeping last night. Dreams that aren't worth posting here because all they really seem to be are chilling previews of some stuff scheduled for Friday.

So instead I jumped out of bed and decided to try and cross off one of the things on my to do list. AFP548 had a great article that introduces launchd (much better than Apple's own kb article) so I decided this morning I'd read it and follow along. And test it out.

So far so good. Put together a single stupid shell script that echos a "test" string and the date to a log file. The tricky part is making the .plist file and then "getting it" that you need to use launchctl to add the job in. That being said, two small adjustments later and I had it going. Not too shabby.

Once again, I'd like to announce that I don't particularly care for .plist files. Once again, I'd like to announce that their documentation behind their meta-DTDs sucks.

Luckily, there's a Launchd Editor over at CodePoetry. (Shareware!)

With this first test/learning experience out of the way, I'm a little less intimidated moving forward with getting my automated jobs into launchd and all that. The first misconception that this cleared up was that I'd have to redo all my scripts etc. to bew compatible w/ launchd. Fortunately (and this should have been the most obvious part) launchd is (as the name implies) the launcher - - the same ol' shell scripts work as always. The other misconception that I had was that there was a single flat plist file controlling everything in launchd. Nope -- if I'm not mistaken, there's a plist for each item that launchd loads up. This makes sense except for the fact that this creates 1+n places to look for instantiating files and plists/configurations -- n being the number of users in the system.

More to follow...

toward week's end

2005-09-22T22:16:00.000-04:00

After the other night I kind of wanted to give up... But the Malkovich restoration continues. I've managed to neglect DHL'ing the bunk hard drive back but soon enough. I guess I was holding out for the remote possibility I'd get stuff off of it. Not so much. Anyways...:

...that was successful. But then I managed to embarrass myself by leaving off the "z" in "tar -xvzf $BACKUPS/iTunesLib.tar" - - wow. That was about 24 hours and a heart attack wasted. I'm in some sort of technological Cthulhu campaign, I'm convinced. Especially now that I spent half the night callings banks and stuff to get passwords on accounts reset only to find that those reset passwords don't work an hour later or at all.

How much more fun could this be?

If I'd known then what was in store for me, I might have skipped the oysters - - or slurped down the last one and then impaled my eyeball on mother of pearl.

No really... Let's get things back to normal, shall we?

currently playing: Sister Machine Gun "Nothing"

dream.20050922: boogie burns

2005-09-22T07:19:00.000-04:00

Boogie Nights as a Ken Burns documentary. Lots of panning over an oversized indoor pool. Lots of porn playing in the background. Or being made. Voice overs left and right from film makers, stars, starlets, and hangers on. Weird outfits.

for A

2005-09-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

Via Boing Boing: a Giant Pink Bunny!

totally crapping out

2005-09-20T23:51:00.000-04:00

Boy oh boy...

Malkovich is slowly returning to its former self. The big items on the restoration/recovery list are basically done. The iTunes Library back-up will untar overnight... There's still lots to be done but we at least appear to be functional again. The next week will see some major attn devoted to some kind of new/improved back-up plans. Rsync'ing to DMG's perhaps? A few other things cross the mind. Must... be... some... happy... medium...

But it's too late to think about that tonight.

In other news... T & B have wedding pics up on Flickr. Exciting! S had a birfday. And I've been writing like crazy.

Time for bed...

current music: the hiss of "Craig" untar'ing those mp3s...

poor Malkovich

2005-09-20T19:07:00.000-04:00

KetelOne's Revenge continues... Picking up where we left off...

replacement hard drive arrived today
removed the bad drive (once again, watch out for that "HD HEAT" cable on the side - - delicate little wire!)
installed the new drive
booted to the blinking "?" folder (as expected, since there's no OS on the drive yet)
insert install DVD and reboot + C
Installer doesn't seem to see the hard drive that I just put in there (um... not OK?)
reboot + "Option"; this doesn't seem to see the hard drive either (now I'm getting worried)
run "Apple Hardware Test"... (Extended Test)
- AirtPort: Passed
- Logic Board: Passed
- Mass Storage: Passed
- Memory: ...
...after 32 minutes, I decided to skip that...
reboot + C
Disk Utility sees it OK but the Installer still doesn't... (!?!?)
http://www.apple.com/support/ -- hit their little chat service...
"...try putting a file system on it..." (e.g., Disk Utility > Erase Volume)
/doh!
we now return you to your installation, already in progress...

Gunner Palace

2005-09-19T21:45:00.000-04:00

file under: essential viewing

More like "required viewing", Gunner Palace is a documentary about the U.S. Army in Baghdad during 2003-2004 - - following the invasion ("bomb it") and during the occupation ("build it"). What you get is the perspective of those U.S. Army soldiers during this period. Interesting the way that morale flakes and flies all over the place. Worth viewing - - and toned down enough that you don't need a strong stomach. (That lurks just off-screen.)

Interesting scene:

Soldier inspecting retrofit armor attached to a Humvee. "This is what our $87 trillion budget gets us. Light Humvees that we get to slap this armor onto made out of--" slaps the hull "--metal? Made in Iraq. And will slow down the IED's explosion just enough so the shrapnel gets lodged in your body instead of passing straight through."

bummed (part two)

2005-09-19T19:56:00.000-04:00

So to follow up on today's earlier post, there was no reviving Malkovich. It did not boot up on its own after 24 hours of cooling off. So I thought/hoped that maybe if I re-seated the SATA drive connectors that we would at least get one final access on this drive. Wrong again. Got inside (with a little help) and unplugged/replugged but the same failure to boot was the result. So no success there. But I guess we could call it "good practice" for when I'll replace the drive in a couple of days...

Interesting observations:

the screws along the bottom of the iMac don't come all the way out (so you can't lose them)
the screws holding the hard drive in place are not the ones you think they are (which is a relief b/c I don't have an Allen wrench handy)
yes, it is a good idea to pull the memory out first
I don't know what's up with that "HD heat" sensor cable but it is a pain in the ass to pull out (and unnecessarily adds about 10 minutes to the procedure)

Now to rid myself of my "computer killing electro-magnetic field"...

bummed

2005-09-19T13:23:00.000-04:00

Last night's hard drive failure really has me bummed out. Way to kick in the post-vacation blues... It could definitely "be worse" - - I could have nothing backed up. I could have deleted the gargantuan .tar back-up of the iTunes library. KetelOne could have gone down at the same time. But as it stands, I'm just thinking about the pain in the ass that it's going to be to go through the reinstallation of the OS and then all my apps and restoring ~ folders from back-ups and then the slow and painful process of discovering what items did not get backed up. I have this sneaking suspicion (for example) that the Quicken file did not saved to the "Craig" external drive.

It's enough to make me want to gouge out my eyeballs.

Right now I'm clinging to this pathetic hope that after 24 hours of "cooling off" I'll be able to get Malkovich to come back online one last time with that drive and make a mad dash to grab items from ~rob...

It also all has me thinking about how great AppleCare Tech Support is - - and asking (A's question: "Could it be that it's so good because it breaks all the time?" Their "out" here is that if it really is a bad hard drive then we can fall back on: "Well, we sub-contract the drives out to..." But the fact of the matter remains that I haven't had these weird problems on KetelOne under Panther.

truth is stranger than fiction

2005-09-19T11:03:00.000-04:00

kuro5hin.org points out that a story from The Onion actually became a reality. re: "Fuck everything, we're going to five blades" - - at the time I thought it was the funniest article ever to appear on The Onion. I hope they're not this prophetic all the time.

Sunday night post-vaca round-up

2005-09-18T21:40:00.000-04:00

Well none of my secret vacation wishes came true. The hot stone massage was awesome but I've been able to form new memories since then... /sigh Overall it was a good trip. Got lots of writing in (but didn't finish the novel) and finished reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Bloodsucking Fiends both of which were excellent reads. Did not get the kayaks into the water (lots of misting and rain and overcast-ness) but did get some kick-ass eats. Then Saturday was the annual pig roast at the 'rents' house - - another successful one.

Pics to come shortly...

...right after we get Malkovich back in action.

KetelOne's Revenge

2005-09-18T21:31:00.000-04:00

Return from vacation to find that Malkovich decides to tank again. So soon.

AppleCare's diagnosis? BAD HARD DRIVE.

So, like last time...:

Had Malkovich shut down for the days we were on vacation. Get home, fire it up. Log in. Let everything come up. Plug in the camera to start downloading the pics from our trip. Fire up mail. Mailboxes sync up. Go to click a message from my mom and - - EVERYTHING FREEZES. (My best guess is her email had a heavy attachment - - I think it was the video she'd showed me Saturday night.) Cmd+Option+Esc can't Force Quit any of the apps. I can move windows around but can't quite. Nothing responds. Refer back to last time's troubleshooting steps...

...hangs on the grey Apple screen...
won't Cmd+S into Single User
unplug all peripherals, go down to the snow-white keyboard and mouse
still won't Cmd+S (just hangs on the grey screen)
drop in the X.4 installer DVD; "C" reboot
Disk Utility doesn't even see the hard drive; "C" reboot
System Profiler doesn't even see the hard drive; "C" reboot
the X.4 Installer doesn't see the hard drive as a volume to install onto...
1-800-APL-CARE
walk through what we did already...
Zap PRAM? No. Do it now - - make any difference? No.
Reboot w/ "Option" held down. What do you see? The hard drive, the installer DVD, and some utility to check the system. Click the hard drive and the arrow.
Grey screen. No "spinning wheel". (At least we saw the hard drive, right?)
"C" reboot
Try Disk Utility. Nothing.
~~"C" reboot.~~
"Option" reboot again.
This time run the hardware check utility. Here's your case number. Call us back w/ your findings...
ERROR CODE 2STF/8/3: S-ATA Bus 0 - Master
Call back; give case number; review. Need the error code? No, that's OK.
Diagnosis: bad hard drive, we'll send out a new one post-haste.

Hooray for prompt service and sharp technical support. Boo for a bad hard drive. Fortunately I have (most) everything backed up to an external drive. So most data are not lost. Most. Hopefully not as catastrophic in the "loss" department as the last time I had to "start fresh" with that computer. But all of the sudden the litany of items that might not have gotten back up are singing their dirges in the back of my mind.

dream.20050917: learning experience

2005-09-18T21:22:00.000-04:00

High School classroom but it looks more like one from a TV sitcom and not an actually really real H.S. classroom. It's test day - - or at least some kind of pop quiz. The fierce tension in the room suggests an exam though. Something folks know about, have been studying for, and still don't feel ready for. I get there late (don't know why) and take a seat up front, taking my copy of the test. I won't be penalized for being late but I don't get additional time to complete the exam. I dive in but the instructions are poorly written. I can't make anything out for the hand writing and the questions full of misspelled words and sentence fragments crammed in worse than Beat literature. I can't even start the test. None of it makes sense. PENCILS DOWN! - - the teacher shouts. He looks Indian and the first thing I think on seeing him is "Vish" but he's too nerdy and reminds me of this stat prof I had. "You didn't even start?" I've crumpled it up but resisted the urge to throw it. I look him dead in the eye and explain that Why would - - no - - How could I even start? Teacher points out that everyone else has finished. No one else appears to have had any problems. I throw my doubts into the ring. I point out the flaws. The errors. The omissions. How was I supposed to know to circle the answer and then write in a few sentences of explanation? The instructions don't even read left-to-right. I get resistance from him. Like this is obviously a failing on my part. No one else had problems making out the instructions. How could he possibly be wrong?

dream.20050916(b): road blockage

2005-09-18T21:13:00.000-04:00

Fast moving cars. A rally race up a mountain road. Childish tension and cliched suspense. Everything is vaguely cartoonish and very G.I. Joe. The mountain looks like every comic book rendition of the Matterhorn. Of course, I'm behind the wheel of my '96 Plymouth Neon and (of all things) I'm out-performing my league ranking and even the Vegas odds against me. Holy shit! Go me! But the roads are getting steeper and steeper as the race wears on. Some of the inclines get so steep that the racers have to jump out of their cars and push them the rest of the way like little kids pushing their bikes up the remainder of an equally steep hill. Something about the Neon however is very nimble and I don't need to do this. Until that last hill. The one that goes straight up. As in ninety degrees. As in vertical. Straight up to the top. I take a pit stop for fuel (which I need anyway) and check out that incline to determine my strategy. Rock hand-holds for scambling. Pulleys to help with lifting the cars. All very freakish and hard core. G.I. Joe's Roadblock (of all characters) tells me that I'd be wise to cut my losses here. I don't trust him, mostly because he's clearly plastic and a little too shiny. He tells me that Even if I get the Neon up to the top there'd be no getting it back down. I go for it anyway. Fuck him and the pulleys. I take the Neon under my arm and start scrambling up those hand-holds, all the while the snow starting to come down.

dream.20050916(a): no pets

2005-09-18T21:04:00.000-04:00

We're in a town to meet up with Adam and Sue. (The details of this trip are not apparent and probably no relevant.) The town is reminiscent of the ones that run up and down the highways of central Pennsylvania - - the towns for which terms like "rest stop" and "gas station" and "diner" are equivalent to "local economic backbone". These are the towns known for lunch pit stops on long trips. A & I meet up with Adam & Sue in an otherwise deserted parking lot. The sky is gray - - not twilight but not quite overcast - - like the sky had gone to some atmospheric necropsy. We're all hungry and we all agree to get eats. It's lunchtime, right? Maybe early dinner. Sue suggests a place that is supposed to be a good local diner - - something other than a chainganged franchise. She doesn't mention how she knows this place or where the tip came from. She didn't grow up around here and it's obvious that she has no known logical reason to make this suggestion. But we all take it on faith anyway, pile back into the cars, and go looking for this diner. Unfortunately, when we arrive, the address turns out to hold a motel - - there's no diner in sight. Adam makes a remark about how now (all of the sudden) he remembers that the diner got shut down last year after a series of mass murders. (Or were they mass suicides?) And now a motel stands there? We check in. I help Sue with their bags and Adam does to bring in the dog (Sheena?) but notices a "No Pets" sign complete with dog silhouette red-encircled with the prohibitive slash. "Don't you hate that?" he laughs. "Actually... No, I don't."

dream.20050915: other people's affairs

2005-09-18T20:58:00.000-04:00

I am cheating on A. We're somewhere in the U.S. but we're definitely not home. We're out on a business trip but it's not clear whose business trip. (Am I the guest on hers? Or is she the guest on mine?) The affair is with someone familiar but I can't place who - - the name and face are not an exact match and there's little (if any) other qualifying context(s). And every night on this trip, it's me committing the adultery. Every illicit detail is mine to savor. Every night of this trip. And A is suspicious. I can't figure out how or why she is suspicious. I've taken every precaution. There's no way she could know, right? And then it hits me - - she knows that I'm unfaithful because I've been using her body to do it.

and we out

2005-09-14T08:58:00.000-04:00

Beach vacation time!

Secret Vacation Wishes:

I finish my novel
I meet Stephen King, sucker punch him (after one too many margaritas)
We randomly meet some Suicide Girl that A has had a secret crush on
Win the lottery, stay in Maine permanently
Hot stone massage puts me into a state of relaxation so deep that it invokes retrograde amnesia

Back Sunday!

dream.20050914: exotic lands

2005-09-14T07:56:00.000-04:00

My dad went back to Madagascar and I went with him. We got in contact with Jean La Rasta and he volunteered himself to be our guide for the entire trip. We were doing as much of the trip on foot as possible. While marching a stretch of coast we came across what looked like a big silver Tylenol. Jean explained that it was an old fall-out shelter that someone had converted into a roadside liquor store but that at some point during that local town's history, "that sort of thing" fell out of favor and they chased away the owners. The structure was never again regularly occupied or owned but the locals used it for all manner of things. Kids would break in to drink or have sex. Adults would break in for secret meetings of romantic or political natures. Jean also pointed out that behind it was a nice cliff that gave a great view of the Indian Ocean. So we broke in and snuck through to the back so that we could sit on the cliff face and watch the sun set. (In the east?) Jean La Rasta lit up a spliff and passed it first to my dad. He took a puff, passed it to me and I took one as well. (My dad made a smart ass remark about how he didn't think I smoked ever since "that one time.") Right around then we noticed a man and a woman down on a cluster of rocks in the water. My dad asked who they were (as if Jean was supposed to know) and sure enough Jean nodded that he did know. He said the man's name and indicated that he was the "Maréchal National Commandant" and that this was a military rank above general. He was a national hero, apparently. We noticed he was wearing a bathing suit and t-shirt that held the design of the Texas state flag.

jam out

2005-09-13T18:35:00.000-04:00

~~Just a few more hours until vacation. Headed to OOB again to stay at Nautilus and generally large it for a few days. Getting our dinner, packing, a quick nap, and then we go offline until Sunday!~~

dream.20050913: magneto's apprentice

2005-09-13T07:23:00.000-04:00

It's my old neighborhood. The one I spent my childhood in. Not the slightly-secluded-in-the-middle-of-the-city East Deer Park - - but the 80s townhouses. (I forget what they were called. My street was "Whispering Wind Court".) Except that there's a near-future-right-now pall over everything. Very Marvel. Very X-Men. I have the feeling that at any moment I'll turn the corner and encounter Jubilee. (Little bitch keeps stealing my lunch money.) But I'm coming in to my own now. I've felt the tingle in my blood. Mutations are on but I don't know what to do with myself. It's just a feeling. I'm strolling around the neighborhood, sixteenish and ready to breathe fire or shoot lasers from my eyes. Something. I'm headed south (don't remember the real orientation) down the hill from the Villa Ridge apartments into the center of the neighborhood. Past the junior high. Past the tennis courts. Toward the bottom end of the neighborhood where my crush lives. Past there used to be a row of commercial properties. There was a Papa Johns there. (Maybe it was a Domino's?) And a pet store that specialized in fish. But instead there's this huge white dome. With spires on it. Again, very Marvel. But at the same time, very Star Wars. Something is drawing me to it. I venture inside via some air duct and discover this central chamber. It's more impressive inside than it is outside. And dark. Very dark.

Magneto greets me. His suit seems different somehow. (Halfway between Singer's and the "real" one?) His words to me are gentle and encouraging. It's the usual Magneto Homo superior rant but personalized and in my favor. He will teach me. The ideology sounds right to me. Especially when he reveals two figures I know - - tormentors from this time and place.

Magneto springs into the air. I can't fly. My power is over gravity and has little if anything to do with magnetics. But it's like he speaks through me. Up into the air I can cast them. And I do. Around and around the inside of this massive dome. I feel the threat they pose. They'll strike at me. I know that they will. It's all I can do to keep them bound and suspended. I don't know how I'll kill them. I know that's the only escape from this.

midnight allegory

2005-09-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

Our old condo had a coin-op laundry. $1/wash, $1/dry. Where "$1/dry" was a misnomer because all your four quarters really bought you was a thousand rotations of the cylinder -- maybe an hour's worth of lukewarm electric heat over your clothes. Or so it would seem. After a couple of weeks (maybe months) we figured out that all coin-op dryers were not in fact created equal. Washers, sure. But one of the two dryers definitely worked better than the other. At first we thought maybe it was a timing thing, like maybe one of them was just calibrated too short and ripped you off.

But on a lucky night (egads, a Friday, we're such l0s3rz) when we scored them both at once, we loaded up both machines with clothes, loaded them both up with Washington heads, and jammed the levers in sync. Not that we were going to sit there and watch but there was a certain element of empiricism that must be satisfied here. We watched a Sopranos and checked out the dryers afterward, waiting out the last couple minutes. Sure enough, they both hummed their closing remarks at the same time. Or within seconds, "near enough" the same time. Certainly not disparate enough for us to pull one set our warm and dry while the other set was limp and damp. Oddly enough, it was the load of darks, the jeans and sweatshirts that were cozy.

Other factors were clearly at work here.

In the months that followed, we did everything we could to secure the "important" dryer. We'd run loads late at night. We'd yank other folks' dry-but-untended garments from its gaping maw and litter them on the counters or (if the counters were already full) the floor. It wasn't superstition. It couldn't be. We'd seen it with our own eyes. When forced to use that other machine we reluctantly got out the wooden dryer rack, refusing -- positively refusing -- to spend the extra dollar for dry pants. At first it was the dollar but then it also became about the inconvenience in getting four quarters and how rude other folks could be in just leaving their clothes untended for any length of time.

Occupying the building's most valuable asset. How dare they!

We couldn't have been the only ones with these thoughts.

Could we?

Everyone else paid the same $1 but for whatever reason, we were convinced that they swam in Eagle-backed, copper-cored nickel. Their pockets jingled at all times. What else were we to do?

Sunday tunes

2005-09-11T16:58:00.000-04:00

The Fuck Off Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days; Limit to 10 songs selected by random)

OutKast "Church"
Empirion "Ciao (Advent Remix)"
Science Department "Persuasion (Funk Function Future Mix)"
Delerium "Incantation (Extended Mix)"
Noise Unit "Carnage"
Camisra "Let Me Show You"
Roots Manuva "Wisdom Fall"
Prefuse 73 "It's Crowded"
Jon Vesta "Substance"
Mogwai "Radar Maker"

The "That Was So Last Week" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is greater than 10, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by least recently played)

Nightmares On Wax "Capumcap"
The Hidden "Krystal"
Zero 7 "In the Waiting Line"
Portishead "Humming"
Little Brother "Whatever You Say"
Björk "Hunter"
Bedrock "Heaven Scent"
Cass "Genesis"
Thievery Corporation "Un Simple Histoire (A Simple History)"
Underworld "Two Months Off"

The "Your Son Is An Underachiever" Method
(Match all: Last Played is in the last 7 days, Play Count is less than 15, Genre does not contain Mix; Limit to 10 songs selected by most often played)

a.nov "Pyramide Orange"
Amon Tobin "Bridge"
The Beloved "Timeslip (Instrumental)"
Bob Mould "Sunspots"
Clifford Gilberto "Restless"
Delerium "Underwater"
DJ Dan "Put That Record Back On"
KMFDM "Vogue 2000"
Kosmas Epsilon "Sorry for Being Rude"
Lexicon Avenue "Move It"

Also... re: this earlier post - - I'd been toying with the idea of using cron to once a month back up my music library to a compressed tar. But 19+ hours to create a 42.57 GB tar seems a little extreme when the uncompressed library is 43.4 GB. Time to consider rsync and back up once a week instead.

currently playing: Photek "The Hidden Camera"

19 hours later

2005-09-11T13:13:00.000-04:00

[18:34:40 ~]
rob@Malkovich $ tar -czf $BACKUPS/iTunesLib.tar $SHARED/Music
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
[13:11:50 ~]
rob@Malkovich $ du $BACKUPS/iTunesLib.tar
89272296        iTunesLib.tar

dream.20050911: concourse

2005-09-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

Airport concourses are infinity. The hallways that extend forever. Friendly and generic but unfamiliar and uncomfortable terrain. There are no colors so that they don't offend. Any color is tastefully discrete - - a hidden accent. The accents here are orange on a greyish beige. They favor wide ramps with slim inclines instead of stairs. Probably to avoid having to designate certain paths as handicapped accessible. The carpet has been designed with a three-column zig-zag pattern that implies lanes for pedestrians and wheeled traffic (i.e., wheelchairs, strollers, and those damned luggage carts for those too good to walk like the rest of the proles) - - the zig-zags imply directionality. In on the left, out on the right. The lighting as all overhead and indirect. You'd expect there to be a lot more windows but this concourse is half-underground and they've been eliminated all together just to keep the building plans as simple as possible. You only see them in the terminals and even then they're up high to keep the kid faceprints off the glass. No one smiles.

You're running through all this. Sweaty and unarmed. The suitcase with all your clothes is long misplaced. Checked? This isn't even on your mind. The more important bag is slung over your shoulder. One hand grips it vice-like. Precious cargo within. You're running against the zig-zag grain. Your other hand keeps reaching up to steady your hat. The people around you aren't faceless but are straight out of Picasso paintings. Not mangled but eyes on the wrong side in the wrong order, mouths offset, and one nostril far too big and the other far too small. If you run faster, they'll blur and you won't have to see them. Faster. Your footfalls make a muffled thud on the carpet like dry flour sacks dropped. Intermittent tile sings like snapped toothpicks. Only the faces are Picasso - - the limbs are barely exaggerated and that part only filled in by your mind. Faster.

This is the director's cut of some would-be cerebral action movie. The alternate ending special feature. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade meets Primer. There's no skip ahead. The concourse goes on forever.

Fortune is smashing through the security check. Fortune is escaping. Misfortune is finding your stunt double uniformed in Nazi brown and riding crop revealed as elevator doors slide open and a slow dissolve to the next scene where you're bound with hemp rope and gagged with a rag, choking on someone else's sweat.

No. 13 Baby

2005-09-10T08:25:00.000-04:00

Did the 13th Art Hop last night w/ some friends. (See also: last night's post.) It was a good time for sure and I'm extra grateful that I live near enough a city with an organization like SEABA.

I will say this though: Can we go easy on photography please? As a culture, really. Seriously. More than half of the photos that we saw could be summed up as "technique for technique's sake." Congrats -- you've learned that the shutter can be open for four seconds -OR- Align the grain to the paper on the enlarger and ENLARGE! That sort of thing. Not to say that there weren't some excellent photos. We saw many that had neat subject matter or even *gasp!* neat subject matter with compelling techniques.

But when you really break it down, I'm afraid the the romance with the lens is really kind of tawdry and facile. Not to say that photo work is necessarily a cheap slut but when you go to the meat market looking for your soul mate be prepared for some disappointments along the way.

THAT being said, there were some awesome sculptures, paintings, and pastels that we saw. Really neat stuff.

ouch

2005-09-09T23:16:00.000-04:00

"Is this a band?

"I'm not sure."

"Are they playing 'Pocket Full of Kryptonite'?"

"Oh my god, I think they are."

"It's not a band. They're LARPing as a band."

"Well if that's the case then that's a Cursed Guitar of Wailing -3."

"You are so fired."

file for later (a po-evo post)

2005-09-09T14:20:00.000-04:00

Via Boing Boing:: human brain continues to evolve - - well, that's what the evidence suggests.

currently playing: Chemlab "Chemical Halo"

failure

2005-09-08T13:19:00.000-04:00

Via Boing Boing:

12:29 Evacuee Irvin Skinner: We have a curfew. We're being kept inside after 11pm. Forced to stay inside. They threw guns on everyone. Said 'come inside or your out of here'. Shoved guns, pointed them at adults. I'm a grown man, I have rights. This is an instituion to us, it's like a jail. I'm a middle class man with a home being trated like a criminal because I'm black. If we were white, we wouldn't have this problem."

Just: wow. So many levels to this. So many.

Death in '08!

2005-09-07T16:31:00.000-04:00

So apparently, the Bush administration does not acknowledge the existence of death. Were Bush himself to fall victim to a broccoli choking, I'm sure there'd be no cameras allowed at the State Funeral. Maybe not even a State Funeral. They'd just prop up the corpse in the Oval Office and start the campaign for a three-peat. (via Boing Boing)

Carnets de digestion

2005-09-07T13:58:00.000-04:00

Via MeFi.... This This artist apparently works entirely in black ballpoint pen and notepaper. Really neat stuff, too.....

currently playing: Jah Division "Dub Will Tear Us Apart"

/. gamer round-up

2005-09-06T19:22:00.000-04:00

WoW Helping or Hurting the Industry? - - simple answer: let it run its course. The difference between WoW and (their example) Need for Speed is partially immersion and partially replayability. Make a MMORPG Need for Speed and capture the motorhead speedfreaks. The time-investment/subscription model may be a real revolution for the game industry. May be.
Neat article on style vs. realism by way of Zelda...