Everybody?

Meet Becca*. Becca, this is everybody. I'm sure you'll be great friends!

Incidentally, they're right. Now, anybody want to buy a GBA? Comes with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance! Anyone?
------------------------
*Every PSP gets a nickname. Mine's named Becca. Piss off if you think that's silly.   ¶ 10:37 p.m. 0 comments

  Sin... CITY!!!!
Insert wailing guitars here. I am so unbelievably stoked for this movie, and my stokedness just shot several more holes through the ceiling since my package arrived today.

First three novels of the comic, bay-bee! Now, can I devour them all before I see the film on Friday? 'Twill truly be a challenge for the ages!

GAME ON!

(Or at least, as soon as I drudge through this hellish co-op paper I need to write for tonight. Grumble-sigh...)  ¶ 6:17 p.m. 0 comments

  Radio a la Crowe
Yep, it's more or less official now. The Pop Culture Victim Podcast is up and at 'em, live (or at least undead) from http://popculturevictim.libsyn.com/. So yeah, go check it out and lemme know what you think. It probably won't change my mind about anything, but it's fun to try, right? Right?  ¶ 5:26 p.m. 0 comments

  Latigo Flint
Well damn if'n this ain't one o' the funniest things to hit the web in these here parts since the Hanigan brothers went on their rampage back in '96.

Ok, that was lame. Still, Latigo Flint, Quickest Quickdraw Ever is entirely funny in the best of ways.

Amputees sometimes feel phantom pain - sensation in limbs that are no longer there. Latigo Flint can empathize; Latigo Flint feels the pain of a lost way of life, that glorious era of squinty-eyed gunslingers, the Old American West.

Whenever the pain becomes too much to bear, Latigo Flint downs a bottle of cedar barrel whiskey, a handful of barbiturates and heads over to the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, located on the eastern edge of Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

I don't see what the big problem was today. What, like 4th graders have never seen a hysterical, bleeding man trying to climb into paintings before? Aren't field trips supposed to expose students to things they can't experience in a classroom?

It only gets better (or worse, from Latigo's point of view) from there. Trust me, this is comedy gold. Highly recommended.  ¶ 9:10 a.m. 0 comments

  Where's a video camera when you need one?

Sure, there's a still picture of this guy with an engine strapped to his ass, but watching this? That would be pretty sweet. Check it: it's called "the RollerCycle—a 1.5 hp engine that ups your max speed, on blades, to 25 mph." Now who WOULDN'T want one of those? Using your own legs to power your rollerblades is SO last millenium.

Then again, I also think pogo boots would be hella fun.  ¶ 11:11 a.m. 0 comments

  Last you'll hear from me today.
Really. I swear. Just minor little updates here and there. I moved the comics to above the archives because it's all about priorities, and what those folks make is better than what I make. I freely admit this, and have gone to the effort of firmly pronouncing this by emboldening the links of the creme-de-la-creme of webcomics that I read. If nothing else, if you don't look at any more of the links that I post here, if the very act of MOVING YOUR EYES FROM SIDE TO SIDE as you soak in this here website physically PAINS YOU LIKE NEEDLES TO THE FACE: at least give the bold comics a quick click and a half a second. That is all.

P.S. The :'( next to Queen of Wands simply means that I wish it were continuing. Yes, I know that Aerie had the strip's end planned from the get go, and yes, I know that it's in reruns now. I still wish it were still going. Harrumph.  ¶ 10:04 p.m. 0 comments

  I have a new project!
Warren Ellis is a wonderful person. I've started listening to his Superburst Mixtapes, and not only do they contain some pretty good songs (particularly the first one), but they clicked me onto libsyn.com and how I can be a broadcaster.

Ayep, I'ma start a podcast. Watch this space, as I have some time this weekend and not much to do.  ¶ 9:57 p.m. 0 comments

  NASA World Wind
Have I ever lied to you? I didn't think so. Therefore, you MUST believe me when I say that this program is the coolest thing to hit your computer. If you've ever read Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, you will recognize this. In the novel, there is a program called Earth, which provides a real-time, fully-zoomable rendering of the Earth's surface down to a resolution of a few meters.

Re-read that sentence, and omit the word real-time (we don't have the satellite bandwidth yet) and maybe slack the res off a bit, and you have NASA World Wind. Straight from the horse's mouth:

World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara.

They speak truth. If you have any allusions of having any sort of geek cred, go download this and at least play for a minute. Just find the place where you live. That's it. If it doesn't sell you, nothing will.  ¶ 6:58 p.m. 0 comments

  Yay Manitoba!
From Digital Copyright Canada, Manitoba has declared Open-Source software to be something good:

It is reported by the Prairie Linux User Group (PLUG) that resolution 05-JE-04 Free and Open Source Software passed at the 41st Constitutional Convention of the Manitoba New Democratic Party. The NDP are the governing party in the province of Manitoba.
...

Whereas the NDP and the Manitoba Government should be an example in using free and Open Source software because this type of software is available to anyone with a computer independent of their income.

Therefore be it resolved that the Manitoba New Democratic Party give equal consideration to using free and Open Source software for its internal information; and

Be it further resolved that the Manitoba government ensure that equal consideration be given to using free and Open Source software in all of its departments.

So while Manitoba may have a population density of around 3.2 people per square kilometer, and have killer polar bears as a fact of life, I certainly think they're ahead of the game on this one.  ¶ 11:59 a.m. 0 comments

  Criminy jeebus!
Ever have one of those nights where you wake up and just moving your head hurts? As if rather than sleeping, you spent your time in bed having a gorilla punch you on the side of the neck over and over again for eight hours? Yeah, there's last night from my perspective for you.

The following, however, is what I really want to mention here: I want this. From the Make Blog:

This is the one of the most incredible projects you absolutely need to see. The Pixel Roller "rolls" out a picture in any direction on any surface using phosophescent ink which will eventually fade away.

It is as totally cool as it sounds. Go watch the video--you will want one of these things too.  ¶ 8:16 a.m. 0 comments

  Officially, I am bored
Maybe it's having to deal with the University registration system today. I really don't want to have to deal with those people any more than I already have. Lord knows they've frittered away enough of the precious monies I've already given them. The struggle boils down to the same themes: I want to enroll in classes, and they insist on not letting me do so. This year, the big reasons are the same. One, the steadfast "scheduling conflict": in which They hold every class I need in the same bloc of time, effectively forcing me to choose between taking courses I neither want nor need, or re-inventing the laws of physics to say that I can be in several places at once. Two, the newer "prohibitive enrollment criteria": in which They flat out say, "No, you may not take this course you desire. Because the students in the Computer Science facuty are our top priority, we are not allowing Computer Engineering students to enlist until May 1st." Great -- May 1st, the date so ridiculously far down the road that !

(Stop the presses! I have just learned that Canada Post is not entirely useless! In fact, a package I mailed last Wednesday, for reasons to be detailed "Sekret Projekt Code Green", has indeed arrived at its destination. I was worried for while, since before today my package did not exist according to them. I have a lot of... things invested in this package, and it's reassuring to me that it arrived safely in it's destination. So please: use Canada Post for your shipping concerns.)

Ahem. I apologize for that, but it's one of the few good things that's happened to me since I got off work. See, the bussing system was being it's usual self today, allowing me to stand around in the blowing snow (in March! MARCH! Calgary weather for you, eh?) whilst they tell me that no, the No. 20 bus marked for Heritage St. South, doesn't go to the other, similar destination Heritage. Now, where was I before I got lost on these tangents?

Yes, May 1st is too far down the line to be considered for registration ordeals. The Keener crowd will have long gotten their greasy little paws on any courses I would need. My issue becomes more pronounced the more I consider how possible it is that I become hopelessly fucked for my classes. I have 14 courses left to take, 5 of which are scheduled in the fall with 4 more in the winter. I would like to take more in January, to flesh out those 4 into a more respectable 5 or 6 (it wouldn't do for me to appear that I am slacking*) however due to those pesking irritants I mentioned earlier -- well, we won't go there again.

Instead, I propose launching off like a rocket into topics unknown to mankind. An attempt to rekindle that explorer spirit, lost since the invention of satellite imagery, or perhaps even earlier since we discovered just about every damn thing on the face of the earth. I think that was in the late '50s, perhaps, not that it really matters. My love affair with World of Warcraft is somewhat on the rocks lately, ever since I hit the late 20s and 30s. Call it a mid-game crisis, or something. My questing has become more and more limited, and since I'm really not a multiplayer person, my tendency to solo most of the time has no doubt encouraged this. In City of Heroes, it was relatively easy to just pick up a group of people to play with; not so much in WoW. Blizzard has said they're implementing some changes in the upcoming patch to help this, but for now the pick-up grouping is restricted to:

[Looking for Group][Juche]: LFG to do A Grim Task or Thandol Span
((inane General chatter))
[Looking for Group][Juche]: Anyone doing A Grim Task or Thandol Span?
((more inane chatter, this time about snozzberries))
[Looking for Group][Juche]: Anyone doing any sort of quests at all? PST!
((chatter so incredibly stupid, you wish you could join in, as ignorance really is bliss))
[Looking for Group][Juche]: I hate you all.

While I do have guild-mates to quest with, the ones around my level never seem to be on when I do. All my friends from Edmonton are now either some levels too high (from 4 to 11) or half my level on alternate characters. Truly, I am so alone on that game. Then again, for one, WoW is still good enough, even as a single-player game to keep me coming back, and I have a feeling that our passions will be rekindled soon enough. The lull is really only enough to get me to be writing this rather than playing.

And such writing it is! Being bored, this obviously means I had no set topic when I started, and I think it's showed marvelously. Gonzo journalism degree, here I come! Or at least, I would, if it weren't for the little matter of already being within 16 months of finishing the one I've already started. One component of the co-op report I have due next week is to project my life as it pertains to engineering. While my first thought about this is that it's completely pointless, I shan't be putting that in the report, since it's frowned upon by the wonderfully short-sighted, closed minded co-op office. Something more important that a paying engineering job? Never! Thou art damned for thinking so! Sometimes, it's enough to make me WANT to buy into that poppycock -- thinking simple-minded enough thoughts such as having nothing more to life than:

• graduating,
  
• getting a job,
  
• meeting someone (those last three may happen in any order),
  
• settling down and
  
• watching your rugrats go through the whole miserable process

might even be rewarding in some perverse, twisted sense. If that's what you love, do it. Me? I don't know what I love yet, so I'm understandably loathe to put these predictions into writing, even a silly assignment that will be (maybe) looked at by eyes other than my own. It's not the act or the words, but the principle!

Aside from the life predictions, the rest of the assignment is dominated by interviews with fellow engineers. Once again, I really couldn't bring myself to care, since I am quite certain my future will be as different from theirs as my father's was from mine, but I don't really have much of a choice. Write the bloody thing, or not get credit for the work term, resulting in dismissal from the co-op program, resulting in effective career suicide -- I have strong suspicions that the co-op office would blackball me from the industry in their vindictiveness.

Don't get me wrong. I like my job well enough; it's arguably the best I've had, but it's still a job. Anything short of self-employment is to be treated with a certain amount of disdain, and even the self-employment is still open to negotiation, pending my trying it first-hand. Of all the complaints I could have, I suppose the kettle problems would be the worst of them, and there isn't much you can do about a job when your chief grievance amounts to "People can't operate the kettle." What does that say about you then? Me, I ask "What does that say about THEM?" instead, but once you get someone into a viewpoint like that, they're loathe to change their minds. Upsets the stomach or something -- if you listen, sometimes you can even hear the sound of a paradigm shifting without a clutch.

The kettle problem is a pretty simple one, provided you follow the rules I made up just now:

1. If you empty the kettle, refill it and set it to boil.
   
2. When you fill the kettle, fill it with hot water rather than cold, as it boils faster.

You would be surprised at how many people get these wrong. For lack of a better excuse, I blame the In-Sink-erator. Yes, that's what it's called: the In-Sink-erator. A glorified faucet shooting forth water pre-heated to 190 degrees Farenheit, this thing just throws a giant monkey wrench into the works. As such, I have amended the above two rules to the following:

1. If you empty the kettle, refill it and set it to boil.
   
2. When you fill the kettle, fill it with In-Sink-erated water rather than ANYTHING ELSE, as it boils faster.

Really, there's no reason not to -- the water is no different, and it's basically already boiling. Again, I can't see the problem in all of this, but it happens. Some have even resorted to microwaving their tea because the kettle takes too long, which strikes me as a monumentally obtuse move on their part. Not only does microwaved tea pale (and by pale, I mean, come across as glowing white) in comparison to honest-to-goodness boiled tea, but there are only TWO rules here! These are the same folks that can not only CREATE passwords worthy of passing the IT muster (recently amended to force you to use Cyrillic characters in additions to uppercase, lowercase, numeric and symbolic) but REMEMBER said passwords! They are working at one of the best companies in Canada (so sayeth Maclean's) and yet... and yet... words fail me at this point. I can only shake my head in bewilderment and wonder. For all I know, they all have these "secure" passwords blatantly posted on a Post-it attached to their monitor.

I think, on that note, I can wrap things up. I've managed to fully express my disappointment with my co-workers, as well as laid down enough words to keep the more ravenous of you internet folks satiated for at least a good five minutes. Maybe even six. If I weren't struggling with it already, I may just turn back to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, the corollary effects of which have no doubt filtered through my brain and into this post. More likely, I'll futz around on the internet a bit and then go back to World of Warcrack. Because I can't stay mad at you, Azeroth. It's not you. It's me. We can work things out.

-------------------------
* The joke here is that even if I take 8 courses, a feat not possible according to the Office of the Registrar, I would still take every effort with every muscle in my body to Slack. Hail Bob.  ¶ 8:30 p.m. 0 comments

  Well this is interesting

You scored as Satanism. Your beliefs most closely resemble those of Satanism! Before you scream, do a bit of research on it. To be a Satanist, you don't actually have to believe in Satan. Satanism generally focuses upon the spiritual advancement of the self, rather than upon submission to a deity or a set of moral codes. Do some research if you immediately think of the satanic cult stereotype. Your beliefs may also resemble those of earth-based religions such as paganism. Satanism 71% agnosticism 63% Paganism 63% Buddhism 58% atheism 58% Islam 38% Hinduism 29% Judaism 21% Christianity 17% Which religion is the right one for you? (new version) created with QuizFarm.com

... Oooookay, I can't say this is entirely unexpected. I'm certainly not Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Atheistic or Islamic, and I don't know enough about Paganism to tell on that one. I think a lot can be open to interpretation in this quiz, since it's one of those "everything is measured in degrees, even the black and white, yes or no questions" things that I particularily hate.

For the record, I can definitely state that I do not hail Satan or have a pentagram under my bed or anything. I'll try to do better on the chicked sacrifice angle from now on though.  ¶ 3:10 p.m. 0 comments

  Why is it that nobody ever chides me for important things?
I'm making my morning coffee at work this morning, and one of the other people in the building drops by to microwave her tea. I held my tongue, since who in their right mind would ever microwave tea when there's a perfectly good KETTLE right there? (Which there was, since I had just boiled it to make my bitterly sweet caffeine-juice.) Still, she remarked on my shirt. Some of you may know this shirt, some may not. Let me simply state that it is Lime Green, and those capitalizations are definitely necessary. Personally, I like the texture of the fabric it's made of, and the green is simply a fringe benefit, but that's beside the point, which is that there is a St. Paddy's Protocol that needs to be followed.

Seriously, I was told that my Lime Green Shirt is the WRONG GREEN. Wrong! Green! Seems that the proper St. Paddy's Green is more of a dark, musky green reminiscent of moss or hideously dyed beer. Now, I'm not Irish, (or at least not directly, as I have relatives there, but nobody close that I've y'know, met) so I doubt that I will be assaulted by leprechauns or anything. I tried to explain that the only properly green shirt I have has ninjas and tacos on it, but she just laughed and said that I could have worn that one and she would have mentioned the ninjas. (But not the tacos? Strange...) Finally, almost as a final smack with the shovel that has been dumping on me, one of the guys I work with, who was wearing BLUE no less, managed to get the final verbal crack in. Sigh...

Why isn't anyone around when I do more genuinely silly things, like order Stikfas? Split Reason sent me their March newsletter yesterday, with a mention that there are new Stickfas in stock, namely a samurai, a spaceman and a female barbarian that comes with a dragon! Instantly, those familiar words flooded into my brain like a pack of kindergardeners who just heard that Kraft Dinner was being served after a week of brussel sprouts: IT MUST BE MINE. No less than 5 minutes later, my credit card was debited with the purchase, and I wish I could say that that was the end of the story. Somehow, no doubt through powers insidiously not my own, my shopping cart had held not just the dragon + rider set, but also a ninja and a pirate that came with a skeleton companion. If it had been in stock, there would have been a legionnaire in there as well.

So beat me for it: I'm weak. The promise of instant gratification, plus the total lack of effort needed for the expenditure makes buying stuff over the internet a total black pit of potential doom for those with poor impulse control. Well, specifically those with poor consumer impulse control; I doubt that many of those guys that start bar fights on the drop of a hat are lamenting in this manner.

If it were as simple as having the devil and angel show up on my shoulders and argue into my ears as to the merits of these buying binges, this would be a non-issue now wouldn't it?* Because seriously, if you were to ask me why I spontaneously buy things like this, I would have no answer. Torture would probably reveal a hidden truth like "I like to have Stuff" or something equally silly.

In the last few weeks, I've purchased a 1337 hoodie, an I (Pirate) Hollywood tee, said stickfas, forty dollars of Allofmp3.com goodness and three comic books. Now that I write it, it doesn't seem like a lot, but going through it in my brain, it flat out screams YOU ARE SPENDING TOO MUCH. It's like being in a fistfight with a falling anvil. Er, scratch that; it has nothing to do with a falling anvil, but I like the analogy so I'm leaving it in.

I think the final analysis will have to be done when I see my credit card bill. It probably won't have any affect on my habits, but it'll be at least informative to be able to quantify how much a lack of self-control can cost someone. I flip-flop between whether said quantity will be large or small, especially considering the fact that I'm living at home again. No rent, food, power, internet or laundry expenses frees up a hell of a lot of Stuff funds, and the spectre of returning to school and having to face these figures has continually had the same threat value as a rubber monster from a bad Doctor Who episode. Sure, I can tally up the numbers, and looking at them say "Wow, that's a lot of money!" but it's just so hollow. My budget might be written in Swahili, and I would give it the same blank stare, nod and say "Uh huh". Then again, my budget has such items as "Beer supply", "Casino cash" and "Recreational opiates" on it, so maybe my thoughts have somehow gotten from the subconcious depths of my brain onto the paper without covering any territory in between.

It's rather clear at this point that I have no way to get to some form of a conclusion with which to stop writing this post. This time, I refuse to say "I got nothing" and just stop. Like a slave propelled by the points of spears, I have no choice but to keep writing and hope that something comes up.

...

UP.

-----------------------------
* Alas, those two left me for dead a long time ago and haven't shown their faces around here since. I wonder where they got to, but I'm torn between the "sunning on a private island in the Caribbean" and "dead and on fire in a ditch somewhere off the Jersey turnpike".  ¶ 9:57 a.m. 0 comments

  It lives!
A friend of mine and I were joking about Will Wright's upcoming game Spore as being "SimEverything". In a sense, that's accurate, since the game supposedly goes from a single-cellular lifeform to an animal one to tribal and ultimately to the city and civilization level. That many levels in a game is about as ambitious as trying to compress the entirety of history into a game, but as the link there shows, that sort of thing can work.

When I saw the following on Evil Avatar, however, I immediately became curious. I haven't read Gamespy's article yet, but I certainly intend to.

Now, suddenly, his creature could walk. And he did so -- he walked right out of the sea and onto the land. This incredible moment in the history of evolution was made even more remarkable by the technology behind it: the game had figured out, procedurally, how a creature would walk if it had three legs (it was a kind of lopsided gait, if you're curious, with three steps: left, right, then middle.) No 3D modeler created the creature, and no 3D animator was required to make it move around -- it was all created out of a gamer's whim and a computer program smart enough to make it work.

It's exciting that there are games coming out that are just too awesome to ignore, and the knowledge that I may have to leave Azeroth for a while makes me a sad panda.

Update: Oh. My. God. No, scratch that. Holy shit. I said the Sim Everything remark up there was a joke. I now must say, having read the Gamespy article, it is anything but. This game really takes you from the single-cell level, out to INTERSTELLAR COLONIZATION. All of it done using player-made and procedural technology. Seriously, if you have any love of any game in which you control, make or otherwise have influence on something, go read the article. I am now fully stoked for Spore, and it will not come quickly enough. World of Warcraft can be booted aside with ease if need be, as Donald Trump punts aside an aging tropy wife for a new one.  ¶ 7:36 p.m. 0 comments

  From the guy who wrote the first draft of Catwoman
John Rogers has a pretty good blog. Don't take the fact that he had a hand in that movie to be representative of his ability, as his words weren't the ones to show up on screen. Hell, he didn't even go see the movie!

That's neither here nor there, though. Today, he's written a great little rant about gay marriage that I strongly urge everyone to read:

The main argument against gay marriage, as I understand it, is that it's some sort of attack on Christian living, or Christian beliefs. That Christians will lose ...um ... damn, I thought I understood it for a second, let me look it up again ...

Back. The right to worship Christ? No. Umm, the right to educate their children as Christians? No ... hold on ... their own marriages, performed in a Church, will be invalidated ... no, that's not true ... they'll be forced to accept homosexuals in their churches and perform gay marriages ... no, also not true, individual churches are immune to enforced acceptance (thanks to separation of Church and State -- hey, sometimes it is good for both goose and gander!) ...

Here's the problem -- and I really do believe that misunderstanding this is the root of many issue in America today:

Your beliefs are not your rights. The government is in the job of enforcing your rights, not your beliefs.

  ¶ 7:45 p.m. 0 comments

  But didn't he- HUH?
I remember a program that came out on the internet when I was in high school. It had a kitty for a mascot and a silly name, and it let me download just about any song I could possibly want. Then a well known metal band stepped in and spearheaded (well, threw the spear, really) the effort to shut them down. If I recall, the issue was over who gets to distribute music and how artists get re-imbursed, etc etc etc. Now, Lars Ulrich has stopped Sony Music from clobbering Beatallica off the 'net:

The band known for tunes such as "I Want to Choke Your Band" and "Leper Madonna" reached out to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. Thanks to his efforts, Beatallica will soon be back online, and the legal debacle over. Ulrich volunteered to provide assistance with legal negotiations for Beatallica, and asked Metallica's longtime attorney Peter Paterno to try and defuse the situation with Sony on behalf of the dudes from Milwaukee. And now, Sony has agreed to drop the case.

Let me see if I get this straight: downloading Metallica songs, bad, but downloading Metallica songs that have been mixed up with the Beatles, good.

That didn't quite make sense when I first read it and struck me as rather two-faced, but I can see the distinction now. The "copyright infringement" of Napster consisted of sending out Metallica tracks as they would be gotten straight off the CD, whereas Beatallica are really no different than any other cover/parody band. (The singer even does a decent James Hetfield impression.) It's encouraging to see that major label artists don't have their heads totally up their asses when it comes to culture and copyright. I just wish they would go the extra step and see that online music sharing doesn't have to be a problem.  ¶ 3:43 p.m. 0 comments

  On Canadian copyright
Great article by Michael Geist (proclaimed by myself as the Lessig of Canada) on Crown Copyright. Seems that up here in the GWN*, our government holds copyright on anything it produces. You could argue that makes sense, but as Geist points out, it can cause far more trouble than it's worth.

Dating back to the 1700s, crown copyright reflects a centuries-old perspective that the government ought to control the public's ability to use official documents. Today crown copyright extends for fifty years from creation and it requires anyone who wants to use or republish a government report, parliamentary hearing, or other work to first seek permission. While permission is often granted, it is not automatic. The Canadian approach stands in sharp contrast to the situation in the U.S. where the federal government does not hold copyright over work created by an officer or employee as part of that person's official duties. Accordingly, government reports, court cases, and Congressional transcripts can be freely used and published.

(via BoingBoing)
---------------------
* That would be Great White North, for the non-hosers out there  ¶ 12:39 p.m. 0 comments

  Consider my last post as a foreward
Or something. I can't really think of how to build on that little stroke of genius myself. Still, it brings me to the topic for today, being cross-genrefication. Columbia House, in one of the rare moments during which they aren't trying to drown me in junk mail, shipped me my (I can only hope to be) last CDs from them. I don't think I'm free, at least not in the classical sense in "being unrelated of and having no connection to" but I think I might be able to ward off their weirding ways for a little while longer.

The CD in question, since although Wilco is pretty good it has no place in this little ditty, is The Symphonic Pink Floyd. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, in what I assume to be one of their more Out There performances, recorded an album of what could be considered the greatest songs of the Waters/Gilmour era of the Pee-to-tha-Eff. Another Brick, Comfortably Numb, Time, Money, Great Gig, all the least weird, yet still stand-out tracks from Dark Side and The Wall. (I'm disappointed they didn't include Pigs, being the best Pink Floyd song EVAR, but at 15 minutes, I can understand why not.)

I'll jump straight to the point: it works. The LPO has accomplished the archeological task of carefully studying and unearthing the music in these songs, dusting off the Rock and carrying it in padded crates over to the orchestra pit. Symphonic Floyd sounds epic, like the soundtrack to an opera, but at the same time it never really loses the melancholy that made it what it was. You could argue that some tracks sound better than others, and to an extent that's somewhat true. Yes, the swinging gait of Money is diminished somewhat by orchestral posture and timing, and Another Brick In The Wall is nigh-unrecognizable, aside from the recurring chorus theme that drifts in and out of the foreground. Still, one can't really say that the tone or overall mood of ABitW is that different from the original. On the whole, I think that Us and Them, The Symphonic Pink Floyd is a paragon of bringing Rock the city mouse out to the homestead where Classical the country mouse lives.

Let's say that taking what is essentially a popular modern genre and dressing it up as a classical work of art isn't your bag. What about going the other way? What if you take classical cellists and get them to play some Metallica and other heavy metal? How about taking inspiration from the works of Bach or Beethoven and writing your own Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in E Flat Minor (Op. 1)? I suspect that if you were to dismiss the LPO playing Breathe In The Air, you would probably simply sniffle and wave away those. Fine! Be a snob. I don't care. Nyah.

What I'm getting at, is that I think one can do a lot more in covering a song than simply recording it with your voice instead of the original singer's. I for one would like to see a cover album consisting of songs done in a way I would never have expected. Bluegrass done as post-grunge. Thrash metal done as acid jazz. What could that possibly sound like? I have no idea, but I'd like to hear it.  ¶ 9:03 p.m. 0 comments

  Indecisive Jones
I have changed my mind about life's goals again. Now I desire to start a death metal band that sings songs in the same vein as the Polyphonic Spree. Songs about kittens and sunshine and being glad that you're you. Accompanied by thrash guitars and long haired scary people screaming in a growly monster voice. And guitar solos; if those aren't there it's all for naught.

It would be awesome. I'd call it post-metal irony-core.

Also, there would be a squid fighting a shark in the live shows. A giant shark. The grand finale would be the lead guitarist, which may even be me, take his guitar in one hand and a broadsword in the other and finish them both off.

The band's mascot would be a marshmallow.

I need sleep now.  ¶ 10:14 p.m. 0 comments

  The Shadow kn- I mean, the Spector knows... (or, In hindsight, I'm all OVER the links in this one)
The KF-to-tha-Monkizzy got me punted across the internet and into the lap of Wonderland, where I saw a very (VERY) long transcript of one of the panels at GDC. It's about what's wrong with the gaming industry today, and holy crap is Warren Spector on the money. Not only can he make games like Deus Ex, System Shock and Ultima Underworld, all of which are very fine, but he knows what's going on and how to fix it:

We’re the only medium that lacks an alternate distribution system. All we have is boxed games sold at retail. This is changing a little. But think about our competition for your entertainment dollar. First run, broadcast, reruns, DVDs.. you name it. hardback, paperback, e-book. Theatre release, pay-per-view, video, DVD. We put our thing on the shelf at Wal-Mart, it sells or it doesn’t, and OMG you just blew 10m dollars. The publishers not respecting developers, this is not the problem. We have a flawed distribution model.

I've said it before: say what you will about Valve and their draconian rule of their games, but Steam changes everything. Mr. Spector and I aren't the only ones that think things should change. Safety Monkey just exploded off a little rant on this too, in response to Microsoft's announcement of the assine Tray and Play:

... there's always some sort of stupid improperly-functioning piracy protection program that's doing its damnedest to keep me from playing the game I paid for in a timely manner. I am constantly downloading CD cracks for games I legally own in a desperate attempt to get at the game within. When a game like Half Life 2 or GalCiv comes out that is available via download instead of retail purchase, I leap at it with all the vigor available to me. What I am getting at here, in case you had not picked it up, is that not only do I not want to stream games off a disc on my PC, I want PC game publishers to get rid of the goddamn disc altogether. Despite what any [Tray and Play] cronies might be saying, my optical drive is absolutely the weak point in my system, and to suggest that the way of the future is to rely on these and not things like SATA or RAID arrays smacks of delusion to me. In my perfect world, games would be available for purchase online, I would be able to download the content I need in a relatively speedy manner using some form of BitTorrent-esque technology, and I would never have to touch one of those filthy discs again.

Yet again, we have the incumbent monolith of the publishing industry, lumbering along still thinking it's the Paleolithic, when the asteroid has already hit the ground. Am I a bad person for sitting here waiting for them to fall over of asphyxiation? (Not that I care, of course. It's fun.)  ¶ 9:13 p.m. 0 comments

  Power of the Go-BOTS!
This is an opportunity to shout out to Shortpacked!, and specifically to this strip here involving Rock Lords.

Rock Lords were Go-bots. Go-bots are like Transformers, only lame. Immensely lame. Optimus Prime was, is and probably always will be a total badass, since he could turn into a giant truck robot that can single-handedly demolish the Decepticons. (That he dies in his OWN GOD DAMNED MOVIE! is an unfortunate marketing decision, but doesn't diminish his badassness.) The Go-bots have some chump named Leader-1. Yeah, he turns into a jet or something, but it doesn't matter, since he's lame and can't transform worth a damn.

Transformers transformed cool. You needed nearly a PhD to get some of the harder ones to go, and even then you risked breaking the robot or dislocating a finger. I still can't figure some of them out. Go-bots, on the other hand, were pathetic. They usually transformed in one or two steps, most of which involved turning their waist around 180 degrees or something equally stupid. The only Go-bot I gave a damn about was a Rock Lord.

Rock Lords are unlike Go-bots in that they aren't nearly as lame. Yeah, you could make the argument that turning into a rock is about as cool as The Kid In The Helmet, and I suppose there are a great many things one could turn into that would be better than a rock. In fact, I could probably name three right off the top of my head: a set of speakers, a turtle or a hat come to mind, and that's just the first three things I see when I look away from the monitor. The fact is though, that even these lamez0rz who turned into freaking ROCKS were better than the regular Go-bots. Terra-Rock was the one that I had, not that I either remembered the name (had to click through just about every pic to find that one) or that it's a good name (Terra-Rock? C'mon! A drunk monkey could fart out a better name on his armpit!) but that was the Rock Lord I had and he kicked ass. Mostly because he doubled as a projectile.  ¶ 8:01 p.m. 0 comments

  Stuff...


Heh. Heheheh. (snicker).  ¶ 7:24 p.m. 0 comments

  It's a book of LIES!
Jerry Seinfeld said at some point, perhaps on Seinfeld, perhaps in stand-up, that he found the distinction between fiction and non-fiction interesting. "These people over here are lying, and these people are telling the truth."

Encyclopedias are based on the premise of documenting all human knowledge. This is precisely the reason I find the Uncyclopedia so entertaining.

Take the page on kitten huffing as an example. Or the one on whether a bear is Catholic or not.

Gold, I tells ya. Gold.  ¶ 7:05 p.m. 0 comments

  I. Must. See. Sin City.
If I don't, I'm quite certain my head will implode. I think it's clear to anybody who wants to watch that that's the subtext in the new trailer.

Screw Tarantino. I'm pumped because Frank Miller's hand is in the direction of this. That man makes good stuff.  ¶ 9:25 p.m. 0 comments

  My tongue conspires
Don't ask me how, but I believe I have managed to chomp a chunk out of the most powerful muscle in my body. For the past day or so there was a rogue bump on the side of my tongue that nearly drove me right up the wall and onto the ceiling. It felt like a cold sore, but I'm pretty sure it was the result of my tongue straying into the path of my mighty molars. Regardless of how it got there, I decided it wasn't going to heal anytime soon, since I was continually gnawing on it or otherwise messing about. You know the whole "don't pick at your scabs" concept? Call it a hunch, but I'm pretty sure that that applies to the inside of your mouth as well. Of course, all this is in the past tense because the point is moot; I took a pair of nail clippers to it and the crazy-annoying taste bud tumour thing is no more. My tongue is still annoying me, but not to the same extent.

There, now don't you feel better for knowing that? I betcha do and you just won't admit it!  ¶ 8:23 a.m. 0 comments

  Deep Thought
Bellybuttons smell really bad. Why is that?  ¶ 7:14 p.m. 0 comments

  Everybody dance to the music!
I blogged before about Allofmp3.com and the stealing of Christmas and so on. Since I happen to like the site, I'm very happy to forward on the news that they seem to be off the hook for now.

Russian online music site Allofmp3.com will continue to operate, after Russian prosecutors concluded they cannot take legal action against the music store. Finally prodded into motion by continuous lobbying by the RIAA, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, and other copyright holders, Russian law enforcement officials began an investigtation of the service two weeks ago. Allofmp3.com argued that it had the right to sell the tracks through an agreement with the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. That claim looks very questionable at face value, especially since the Russian site offers selections from groups which have not released their catalogs online yet, such as The Beatles. However, the Moscow Southwest regional prosecutor's office has apparently decided that a loophole in Russian copyright law (it only covers infringement via physical media, e.g., CDs and DVDs) allows Allofmp3.com to continue operations. In addition, Russia employs the concept of compulsory copyrights, where the copyrights belong to the artist or music label, but copyright owners are required to license it to anyone who making a request.

Awwww, yeeeeeah. Excuse me will I go do a little victory dance. Alas, the dance shall be short-lived, since I'm very much aware that this is not the end of the story. First, this is only significant from a criminal law point of view. From what I've read, they are still liable for civil lawsuits. (RIAA file civil lawsuits? Such a thing could never be! Insert your sarcasm-marker of choice here, since that last bit was just gushing with it like a severed artery gushes blood.) In the second, RIAA has never let little things like this stop their efforts, so I'm sure that they will simply try another avenue to get their way. Aside from the civil lawsuits I just mentioned, they'll probably also try to influence Russian lawmakers to seal up the loophole in their copyright law. I hope that cooler heads prevail; this could be a big opportunity to set a world precedent in the way that digital music is legally handled, in the same way that the Netherlands and Portugal have been doing for drug law, provided that this is done right. (Unfortunately, these leads have yet to be followed, but I'm still hoping on that front too.)  ¶ 1:43 p.m. 0 comments

  I don't know who A.C. Newman is
This guy is apparantly some kind of Indie rock god - can't say that, I've called too many people rock gods. Let's go with idol - of some sort, and perhaps has been involved in other bands. I really have no idea.

The Slow Wonder, one of his albums which I got not-so-surprisingly from the QC Recommended Listening page, is quite amazing. I'm not sure how to describe it, other than some kind of soothing, catchy, pop-rock thing that when applied aurally is like one of those candy-flavoured drugs you got when you were a kid. It makes you feel better, but tastes not too badly going down either. (Compare this to something like Blueberry Boat, which also makes you feel better, but is a lot rougher going down and has a bunch of getting used to, like Buckley's cough syrup or something.)

My personal favorite track on the whole album is The Town Halo. It's the second-last track, and it starts out with what could only be cellos. Cellos! In a pop song! (To include a happy little inside joke that all of perhaps three people will get: the song fully qualifies as an "mmmmmm, so good!") From the cellos forward, it pretty much goes forward from there, with some nice piano accompanyment, and almost as an effort to try and catch you off-guard after the cellos, tosses in some kettle drums. I know! Is it not awesome? I'm so glad we agree. Isn't one-sided semi-imaginary dialogue fun?

So... yeah. Insert more irreverent witticisms here. Witty banter, obscure trivia, rambling metaphor... and we're done with this shoddy attempt at a conclusion. Hurrah!  ¶ 8:40 a.m. 1 comments

  The internet says so, that's why!
According to the Discordian Test, I am officially a High Priest of Discordianism. You may address me as such from now on.

You have passed three degrees of 23, the magick number 69, Discordian. As Pope I initiate you into the Fourth Degree of the PARATHEO-ANAMETAMYSTIKHOOD OF ERIS ESOTERIC, or POEE. Henceforth, you shall be addressed as a High Priest, until such time as you get your Shit Together and graduate to the Next Degree."

  ¶ 8:54 p.m. 0 comments

  You have a bubble
I must, therefore, burst it. I assume, that like all rational people, you believe that you cannot apply the principles of household applicances on living things. Put a cat in a refridgerator or a washing machine, and at best, you have an EXTREMELY pissed off ball of fang and claw ready to de-glove your face. (At worst, you have a useful thing.) Following this logic, one would assume that the vacuum cleaner works best on inanimate, non-living objects, as those tend to react less to the sheer shock value of being pulled through a giant tube into a storage bin.

You are wrong.

There is a machine, currently in use, that uses wire brushes to literally vacuum up chickens and... let's say displace, them into cages. You can even see it in action here.

Thank you, Bright Coop, you have given me new nightmare fodder for months to come. After all, if it works for chickens, why couldn't it work for people?  ¶ 11:39 p.m. 0 comments

  Canada rules, part deuce
Lloyd Axeworthy 1, United States 0

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

  ¶ 12:01 p.m. 0 comments

  Doug Rushkoff is a guy with some good ideas
Amazing article by Rushkoff over on his blog and in the free magazine Arthur about the current revolutionrenaissance we are going through:

I've never liked revolutions. They just go in circles, after all. The downside of getting to "win" is that someone else loses, and invariably the cycle begins again. That's why I've begun to think about our current shift less as a revolution than a renaissance. It's not a whole new order coming into power, but rather, as the word "renaissance" implies, the rebirth of old ideas in a new context. Renaissances are not events we work towards, but processes occurring in the present. Revolutions require faith, because movements generally involve killing and other nastiness that people won't generally commit without some spirited motivation. Revolutions happen in the future; Renaissances happen now.

The more I study the original Renaissance, the more I see our own era as having at least as much renaissance character and potential. Where the Renaissance brought us perspective painting, the current one brings virtual reality and holography. The Renaissance saw humanity circumnavigating the globe; in our own era we've learned to orbit it from space. Calculus emerged in the 15th Century, while systems theory and chaos math emerged in the 20th. Our analog to the printing press is the Internet, our equivalent of the sonnet and extended metaphor is hypertext.

  ¶ 8:50 p.m. 0 comments

  Do game makers have a moral responsibility?
Gamasutra ran that question recently, and got a whole bunch of answer. I figure, for the sake of having something to write about, I'll toss my change in as well.

Short answer? Ye- N- There isn't one. The first step, however, is to recognize that games are inherently amoral. The dressing that surrounds them is not. To say that the Grand Theft Auto games are all about crime does a gross disservice to the game, and completely fails to recognize why the series sells millions. Yes, some people buy it just because you get to run hookers over, and they're somewhat twisted. Most people buy it because it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. Because it gives you activity hooks scattered throughout a vast environment. The fact that it does all that in style is what pushes it from solid game to runaway success.

Nobody ever raises moral questions about Chess. Neither do they contest the message Tetris is sending to our kids. Those games have been reduced down to the barest elements of their existence - pure formal systems. They are abstract to the point where those systems have become the context in which they are viewed. The fact that Doom is viewed as a murder simulator simply illustrates those that are missing the forests for the trees. Would it be better if Doom or Counter-Strike were based on something other than space demons or terrorism? Yes. Would they sell? No. Ask anyone if "edutainment" sells. Ask how big the industry is for those saccharine Christian games. We as a global culture are obsessed with sex and violence. It's what makes the news and it's what sells the movies and the games. It's not the be-all and end-all of expression, but it certainly forms a cornerstone.

So now that we've clarified, do game dressers (being, the ones that decide the context in which one plays with the formal underlying mechanics) have a moral responsibility to make wholesome games that teach the right thing? No more than anyone else does. Yes, they should be sending the "right message", but so should everyone else. Sure, they have a wider audience, but individuals have more impact. On the flip side however, there is no reason whatsoever that game makers should limit their freedom to make whatever games they want to. You can't get a sense of perspective of what's right and what's wrong if you can't see both sides of the argument and get into both headspaces, and games can help out there admirably.

So again, short answer? There isn't one. If I were forced to pigeonhole myself into one of those equally precarious, claustrophobic answers, however, I say no. Given the choice of being a very moral, well brought up person in a cage vs. anarchy, I choose freedom. You can have the latter with the former, but not the other way around.  ¶ 8:24 p.m. 0 comments

  Must it be mine? (or, One of these days I'll learn what "chronological order" means, and scroll down for more out of order posts)
From Wired, regarding the search for a premium loo:

The popularity - and cost - of premium personal sanitation systems has primed the market. The lid is off. In 2002, Toto launched the Neorest 600, its $5,000 high tech flagship. With a 16-bit processor and 512 Kbytes of RAM under the hood, the Neorest's seat can be raised by wireless remote. And when the seat is up, the toilet assumes it can save water with a smaller flush. The Neorest is tankless, using clever valves and the pressure of the main household line to clear the bowl. If you're doing your business while seated, it morphs Transformer-style into an advanced bidet, offering a gentle front-and-back aerated warm water spray, catalytic deodorizer, and a hot air dryer. According to Toto, A-list royalty sits upon this throne: Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Charlie Sheen, Will Smith. "They're toilet paper-free," Smith gushed to Access Hollywood. "You sit on the toilet and there's a spray that's so deadly accurate - wherever you sit on the toilet, somehow it always hits the bull's-eye perfectly."

On the one hand, that much attention being paid to a crapper is somewhat odd. On the other, you do spend a lot of time on those things, and why not go for luxury? It's like buying a quality mattress,* only squeamish.

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* Contrary to most mattress commercials, (Damn you, Sleep Country Canada!**) you don't need to buy a new mattress every six months.
** If you listen to the radio in Canada, you know what I'm talking about.  ¶ 4:16 p.m. 0 comments

  Have I mentioned that Jeff Rowland is a mad genius?
Well, he is.  ¶ 3:08 p.m. 0 comments

  Great googly moogly!
J'accuse! The King Country Bar Association has officially robbed me of words with their proposal to completely revamp drug policy in the US.

The King County Bar Association (KCBA), Seattle Washington, has approved a sweeping, comprehensive, and (frankly) amazing Drug Policy Resolution that will be released tomorrow. They are calling upon the State of Washington to take over the regulation and dispensation of drugs currently under federal prohibition, and have prepared states' rights constitutional arguments in preparation for the inevitable show-down with the feds. This comprehensive work includes a full detailed history of drug prohibition, an analysis of models in other countries and a section called "States' Rights: Toward a Federalist Drug Policy."

Pete goes on to cite the opening vision statement:

[The KCBA] is calling on the Washington State Legislature to authorize a special consultative body of experts in pharmacology, medicine, public health, education, law and law enforcement, as well as public officials and civic leaders, to provide specific recommendations for legislative action to establish such a state-level system of regulatory control. The politically-charged term "legalization" is insufficient to describe how the state might control those psychoactive substances that are now exclusively produced and distributed through illegal markets. The concept of strict regulation and control of psychoactive drugs is a more accurate and useful description of this proposal and must be carefully distinguished from the idea of commercialization of such drugs.

Wow. Just... wow.

Wow. I wish these guys the most luck one can possibly muster. If I could squirt horseshoes adorned with rabbits feet out my ears, I would, because they're going to need it going up against one of the most closed-minded institutions in any government. Keep your eyes on this one, folks. It could be big.  ¶ 10:45 p.m. 0 comments

  An idea!
Having just seen this story on Techdirt about ads, I have decided to run with the idea, much like one would with a big pair of scissors. What about a new sitcom with any given episode devoted to a product? You could have an iPod episode, a Blackberry episode, a Microsoft episode, and so on! It would be grand! Grand, that is, but not easy. Not only would you still have to be able to craft an entertaining sitcom, but it would have to have the product be central to the story. This would be, in a word, really really hard. You can't exactly stop the story about Dad getting stuck on the roof to explain why the thumbpad on a Motorola phone is so awesome, or why your American Express can save the day. Also, if you don't get the balance between advertising and content right, the show would tank and it would tank hard. As in "frozen pop can dropped from the twelveth story onto concrete" hard. People barely watch infomercials - ones with attempts at plot and character could be so much worse. Still, the idea is worth a shot, or will be eventually once everyone has TiVo and nobody is forced to watch commercials at all. At worst, it'll happen anyways, but without the fanfare, as product placement gets more fashionable.  ¶ 4:40 p.m. 0 comments

  Still waiting for a conclusion (or, On jazz, and the reason I dislike techno)*
The music I was downloading the night my computer nearly died was among other things, an album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. These guys do a sort of fusion jazz thing, which I am understanding to be a sort of bizarre lovechild between jazz and rock. In English, that translates to "just barely to the lee of recognizable". The album is on average not bad - it starts out somewhat inaccessible, but I like the later tracks. The reason I was downloading this album, essentially because of Sam Logan.

Seems that the creator of Sam and Fuzzy has a pretty good taste in music, which I first picked up in hearing The Futureheads. They were recommended by Allmusic.com as being similar to Franz Ferdinand, lauded by QC's Jeph as being pretty awesome, and Sam agreed. That many positive reviews made it a cinch to pick up, and lo, it was good. Sam also recommended The Pillows and a few other bands that I also like, so I thought I could probably get a few other successes by following his advice, which led me to Medeski, Martin and Wood. These guys also do a fusion/post-bop/jazz-funk/jam band thing, and the reason you shouldn't worry about what all those mean is that a) I probably don't know either (aside from the previously-mentioned fusion, of course) and b) it doesn't matter. Regardless, their album End Of The World Party (Just In Case) is simply great. In an effort to get more greatness, I consulted the Oracle of Allmusic for more similar artists, and that led me to Mahavishnu and jazz, and that in turn has a little to do with oceans.

I posit that music has a lot in common with the ocean. Everybody knows the basics of it, even if they've never seen it; it spans the whole world; there are lots of different things within it; it has a wide range of emotional responses; the list goes on. Like the ocean, some bits of music are much deeper than others. For example, pop and country are pretty shallow - I dare you to find much meaning in "Sk8ter Boi" or "That's What I Like About Sunday". Rap, as another example, is deceptively shallow - it seems trite until you start to understand some of the dynamics of it and how tricky it is just to talk that way and sound good. Rock is both deep and wide, bleeding into just about everything from pop to blues to strange, obscure microcosmic inventions operating independently of and drawing inspiration from yet other parts internal to the beast (like Goth Metal or Emo). There are deep parts (progressive) and shallow (punk), and it's pretty accessible to all. Contrasting this, in my mind, two types of music really stand out as being deeper than the rest, and yet remain squirreled away down in the unreachable depths of the Marianas Trench.

Compared to some of the rest, jazz and techno are fish of different colors. First, when I say techno, I mean most electronic music. The distinction is important, and not just because it takes more effort to type the latter than the former. Techno is just one type of electro-tune, and is but one of a myriad of genres, each fractally expansive in and of themselves, and covering every conceivable way that music can be generated digitally. You can get an idea of just how ridiculous the genres of techno get by checking this app out. It's not 100% correct, and subject to debate, but it's not a bad primer. (I am speaking, of course, right out of my ass. As will soon be evident, I am not really into electronic music.) If you do check out what Ishkar has to offer, you may immediately pick up on my beef with techno, which is that it mostly sounds the same. I want to be clear here: I am not saying that goa-trance sounds the same as tribal, although I wouldn't be able to pick them out of a line up if my life depended on it. I am sure all those genres, sub-genres and sub-sub-genres have been divided thus for a reason, just as I am equally sure I have not the experience with the field to be able to hear those distinctions. When I say it mostly sounds the same, I mean that the same quality pervades it: dead sterility.

Techno music obviously comes from a computer. Well duh, that's the point, says you. Exactly, says I. When you play an instrument, and you hit a snare or plink an E-string, it sounds just like you hit/plinked it. Hit it with angry rage, and an angerful, raging chord is let out. Stroke it like you would a kitten, and a soft, playful mewling might emerge. Contrast this to techno: a click is a click, a keypress is a keypress. When making techno music, there is less a "communicate through the instrument" vibe, and more of a "communicate with the instrument" vibe, since the computer you're using is filling he same role as the drums, or piano, or guitar (and sometimes all three at once). The difference between a piano and computer is that the piano is a rather thin membrane between you and the sound, whereas a computer needs to interpret what you say though software, and devise a way to reproduce it aurally. The fundamental analog to digital translation necessary to create the music in the first place is why it sounds dead. The divide between musician and music is enough to remove the soul from the music, to use a nicely trite cliche. This is precisely why I tend not to listen to techno, and also likely why people who do, do.

Call it a fundamental lack of understanding. This sort of wall can be found just about everywhere if you look at interpersonal dynamics - the very qualities causing displeasure in one cause pleasure in another and vice versa. Maybe I just lack the right gene to let me drop into a sort of trance filled with the right "doof-doof-doof" of the bass to enjoy it. Maybe I don't have the appreciation of hearing the subtle interplay in the remixing of a dozen of your favorite songs into something new. Maybe it has to do with the whole "scene" thing. I don't know. I'm just saying what I think. I said mostly up there, since can stand some techno, in limited quantities. I like a fair bit of what Orbital does, and I like synth-pop (which could arguably be considered borderline techno), and there are scattered tracks that I quite like. I can even tune into Digitally Imported for twenty minutes or so, but I can't listen to it for hours on end. Whatever I lack, I don't have any real personal attachment to the art form. I'm not above trying new things however, although I attempted techno and didn't get anywhere. To this end, and to get back to where I started from, I have now got my sights on jazz. Jazz is also kind of like techno, as wide as it is deep and having a similar fractal genrefication. Jazz doesn't have the same lack of feeling that techno has, however, and I'm facing a much bigger obstacle in getting into it than I did with techno.

Rock is 4:4 time. Three chords and the Truth are about all you need to make rock, and it is very rare that you find something in a different measure - the only example I can think of off the top of my head is In The Flesh by Pink Floyd (3:4 time, which could classify it as a waltz) although I am sure there are others. Techno, while not exactly 4:4, at least has the same regular beat patterns. That "doof-doof-doof" that creates that hypnotic zoned out feeling has more in common with 4:4 time than with others. This is important, because a lot of what we like is based on pattern recognition. By being able to break the time of the music based on other stuff we like, our brains "figure out" the song and that's a good thing because everyone likes figuring things out. Jazz is an entirely different animal. It's not uncommon for jazz songs to change time several times in the middle of a song, and as far as I can tell, the musical style itself was based on the concept of artists just going off and playing stuff off the top of their heads. This is what makes it good listening, or at least so I'm told.

I have yet to figure it out, but I'm trying. I have some Herbie Hancock coming down the pipe, and possibly some Miles Davis. Allmusic has them pegged as being more proponents of fusion jazz, and it's not usually wrong. I am hoping that by going with a rock-jazz mix like fusion, I can ease into some of the more foreign sounds that some of the more "true" jazz has, if there is such a genre. Still, regardless of how it ends up, I'll end up at least listening to some new music, and that's never a bad thing.

----------------------------------
* Are all my entries going to start this way? Eight-ball says it's probably just a phase, basically just like the rest of this site. I'm normal, really.  ¶ 11:10 a.m. 0 comments

  I'ma just start talking and see what happens (or, Yes my life is this dramatic)
I blew up my computer last night. It wasn't dramatic or anything, and ended up conclusively proving that my computer is indeed Jesus, but I blew up my PC nonetheless. I was downloading some new music from Allofmp3.com, because it is that good, and at the same time, really wanted to sleep (it was about 11:30 at this point, and I need to go to bed early due to this accursed job-thing I have during the day). I gave Winamp specific orders to play some Pink Floyd, and then shut down the computer when it was done. One rendition of Pigs later, and the song started over, since according to Winamp, shuffle play with but one song to shuffle is equivalent to repeat. Somewhat miffed at this disobedience, I hauled my tired ass out of bed and leaned over to assert my authority again. This time, Winamp, you will play Echoes and then SHUT DOWN. 23 minutes and 12 seconds later, the song (which ended up being mostly inaudible due to a resurgence of street noise through the jar, which had it been closed could have been called a window) finishes and... nothing. Winamp is clearly displeased with something, or perhaps Windows is acting up again, as it is sometimes wont to do. This is the final straw, says I, and once again I accomplish the Herculean task of leaving the cozy bed to turn off the computer the old fashioned way. This would be so much easier if it would just do what it's told. Things being dark (monitors are especially harsh when your eyes are adjusted for low light), I bypass the "soft" method of shutting down and aim straight for the cyclopean power button on the face of the box.

Fst.
Pkk.
Shit.

The "fst" came from my finger. Duvets, it seems, are rather staticky, and computers don't like that. My computer in particular expressed it's disapproval by emitting a familiar popping noise from the speakers as it totally crashes, expressed here as "pkk". My system, intimately violated by this miniature ball lightning and committing ritual seppuku, caused me to mutter the "shit" over and over again, knowing I have managed to inadvertently fuck things up royally. In a last-ditch attempt at digital CPR, I tried powering my PC back up, only to be greeted with the always-welcome fan + lights combination. Nothing on the monitor, no hard drive activity, just the fan and a few lights glowing uninterrupted from various points within and without my computer. This is the equivalent of a brain dead computer, and any techie will tell you it is a bad thing. A very bad thing indeed.

If you're not a techie, I'll try to fill you in a bit. A computer is just a collection of circuits - it can't think for itself, and therefore when you turn it on, something needs to tell it how to get going until you can take over. The motherboard, which holds the processor, has a built-in mini-operating system that does just that, called the Basic Input/Output System, or BIOS*. The BIOS gets things moving, and eventually looks to the hard drive for a new program to take the reins, which in most cases is Windows. The instructions for the BIOS are stored in memory on the motherboard but live there rather tentatively - with the right touch, one can evict them. Rustling around under a big fabric bag filled with goose feathers tends to give one that touch, which when you think about it, is kind of like superpowers. (The difference is that superpowers tend to stick around after their first use and they tend to be a lot more showy and dramatic.)

Needless to say, I spent the night feeling a little like I had killed Old Yeller. The best I could do was form a mental model of my computer all charged up with power, and to turn off my power bar in the hopes that it would calm down in the morning. If, like I mentioned above, I had managed to erase my computer's brain, who knows what else would have happened? I came up with many rationalizations as to why the hard drives were OK, because believe me, the hard drives were OKAY. There is NO WAY that my music is going to get harmed because of a little static. My music and my pictures are quite possibly the only things on my computer that I am the slightest bit concerned about**, and of those two, the music is by far the more critical of the two. Pictures are just memories, and I keep those in my brain, but music! If my music were to vanish, I think I would just start with the destruction. Things would get smashed and destroyed, in no particular pattern, until I felt better, and I couldn't say when that would be. There was but one thing that gave me hope, and that was a solitary green LED on the inside of my computer that didn't turn off when everything else died, and only yielded to the darkness when I turned off all power from the bar switch. I don't know what you're there for, Little Green LED, but you gave me hope when there wasn't very much going around.

This morning, in an effort of sheer desperation and hope, I tried to get my computer to talk to me. Powering on the power bar had its expected anti-climatic no effect, aside from the monitor and speakers coming on. Thanks monitor, you are totally not the one I'm worried about. You're built like a tank, and you could probably kill me if I took you apart. No worries from you. It was with some trepidation, therefore that I pressed the Big Ol' Power Button (Of Doom!***) and promptly felt my heart skip a beat. Not only did the lights turn on, and not only did the fan turn on, but they did other things! The lights blinked! The hard drive chittered! The internal PC speaker went beep! Magically, by some arcane process that I don't/need to/want to understand, my computer came back from the dead, just like Jesus, (maybe Spider-man even pulled back the rock) and is just as hardy as she ever was. Nothing needs to get broken, nobody needs to be hurt, all is well.

To be continued in part two.

------------------------------
* In his novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson referenced BIOS as standing for Built-In Operating System. I, like he, think that is a much better acronym, but alas, history says otherwise.

** Seriously, there really isn't anything else that I couldn't stand losing. My email address book and internet bookmarks are nice, but they aren't anything I couldn't summon from my head if need be. All the programs I have can be gotten from the internet, since with possibly the exception of three or four, they're all available over the internet for free. (Of those that aren't, two are games for which I have the CD and all my game data is stored server-side.)

*** If anything needs to have the Of Doom! label now, it's this button. After the scare it gave me, it deserves it.  ¶ 9:09 a.m. 1 comments

  Hooray for Canada, eh?
I can think of a few reasons why Canada rules, but one of them is certain to be that we don't have an FCC. We have analogous organizations, of course, but last time I checked, they don't want to censor everything everywhere.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters. "There has to be some standard of decency," he said. Stevens told reporters afterward that he would push legislation to apply the standards to cable and satellite radio and television.

Seriously, you have to be kidding me. These are opt-in services, meaning you don't get them unless you specifically ask for them and hand over your hard earned dollars. It's not like radio or broadcast TV, folks - you can't just get yourself a coat hanger and a Pringles can and tune in. Unless you are in the company of someone who has performed the above-mentioned monetary transaction with a provider, you will not be able to view anything on cable, or satellite, etc etc. If you don't like they're showing, DON'T BUY IT. Makes me want to go get the Clue stick and start up the beatings. Fortunately, I can't see this guy getting too far; I think the cable and satellite channels (read: the Big Five Media conglomerates) have enough other senators in their pockets to stop themselves from being vulnerable to FCC fine after FCC fine for showing late-nite softcore porn.

Ahem. Back to Canada, yes, we have just as silly broadcasting standards. We even have to force our networks to show a certain percentage of Canadian programming, and that isn't very good stuff to watch! However, I'm a lot more down with that than what the FCC is doing lately. Yes, we do what could be considered censoring of our own, but here the intent is to a) help protect our culture from being drowned in reality TV and bad sitcoms, and b) to promote diversity on the air. Removing one program to put a different one up ranks much lower on my piss-off list than censoring a program because you don't like what's being said. There's no mention of "indecent content" or "moral values", but simply that the peeps making one show are from Moose Jaw, while the other program's being made in Oklahoma City. Yes, we have our share of indecency regulation - we allow Stern in Toronto, so there's got to be a few people with nothing better to do than complain about how they can't change the channel and have to be shocked by his jokes - but here, I believe we have a "self-regulation" policy, which amounts to the networks getting together and agreeing what they will and won't show on TV. Novel concept, huh?  ¶ 7:16 p.m. 0 comments

  Now this is awesome
Consumer's Union video about drugs.

Consumers Union -- the advocacy group that publishes the excellent Consumer Reports magazine -- has produced a funny, raunchy Schoolhouse Rock-style animation to call attention to the fact that current FDA rules don't require drug companies to release their clinical trial results even if they show that the pill you're about to take could really screw you up.

Not only is it funny, but I think it's a totally worthwhile cause.  ¶ 4:15 p.m. 0 comments