May 2003 Archives

Bertrand Russell: "The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it." [Quotes of the Day]

My friend Greg pointed me at this wonderfully translated page with outfits for cats. I just want to know how they got the cats to sit still with those things on.

1. You need to dress a cat. And you will say to a cat together with a family. "It has changed just for a moment". [ "it being very dear" or ] You will pass pleasant one time.

Courtesy of Cygnoir's Quill, the Friday Fuck-all:

1. Big Brother Is Watching You. Describe one event in your life you hope he missed because he was blinking. I only get one? There was that one time with that thing, and that other thing, and it all got tangled and it hurt.
2. In the future, people don't have names, merely letter-number combinations. Each male has have a single consonant, followed by three numbers, and each female has a single vowel, followed by three numbers. What will your designation be? g666, the number of the greg.
3. Where were you and what were you doing in 1984? I'd just gone away to boarding school at Northfield-Mt. Hermon.
4. Improve upon Shakespeare: "O brave new world, / That has such ______ in't!" CHEESE
5. They're burning all the books! Which one will you memorize to pass on to future generations? The Monster at the End of This Book

Men. Are you missing something in your life? Maybe it's the loving words of a women. LovingVoice.com is a service where you can get recordings of a woman saying whatever you want.

But I have a loving partner...   Well that's wonderful, you are fortunate. But, will your partner say with love and happiness, anything you want them to say? Will they enthusiastically say exactly what you want to hear? If not, LovingVoice can help even you. (And if you are not in a loving relationship, LovingVoice can help even more.)

Positive energy, positive feelings, a happy state of mind - are all powerful things - more powerful than any pill or drug - to make you feel better. People feel better when they are complimented, loved, and appreciated. The more positive feedback you get, the better frame of mind you will have, and the more you are likely to accomplish. Having a sweet human voice recorded in a computer format can help you become motivated - you can repeat it over and over to accomplish any goal. [LovingVoice.com]

Uh, okay. I don't know that I'm convinced. The site's FAQ gives even more details. I thought the script of the customer looking to lose weight was pretty entertaining at least. (Link thanks to Carinah again)

It's nothing new. Traditional news sources tend to suck at reporting technical news. But every once in a while I read an article that just seems to get things more wrong than others. This time it is the BBC reporting about iTunes. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but they seem to keep equating the Apple music store with the ability of iTunes to share out music to other computers. They're two separate things. They were just part of the same release and people seem to keep getting them confused with each other.

Robert Bloch: "I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar on my shelf." [Quotes of the Day]

Damn you Lyn, for getting me stuck on another Manga. Bleach rules. Hopefully someone will license it here (since I am not sure if it will ever show up in US Jump).

Following in the footsteps of the commentary on Fellowship of the Ring from a few weeks ago, McSweeney's now gives us an Unused Audio Commentary By Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter, Recorded Spring 2003, For Aliens Special Red-State Edition DVD, Part One. Truly amazing.

ANN COULTER: I agree. I think it's basically endemic of the hegemonic leftist control of all forms of media expression — burying conservative subtexts beneath a lot of lefty cuddling. Now, as the titles come up, perhaps we should talk a little bit about the first Alien movie. I see that film as evidencing the insidious effects of a creeping, dangerous worldview slowly infecting a small group of people, and then one by one destroying them. Not unlike, say, liberalism.

D'SOUZA: I see your point there, and I don't disagree. I think there's an interesting thing going on in Alien . I like to think of these movies as reflections of the presidents who were in office when they came out. As I'm sure you remember, Alien provides an impotent response to an unknown threat — that threat being, of course, the alien. A single alien, with the help of a quisling android, murders an entire crew.

COULTER: With the exception of Ripley, let's remember. She's independent, strong, and tall.

D'SOUZA: Extremely tall.

COULTER: A very Phyllis Schlafly-like figure. [McSweeney's]

I've posted on this subject before, but every once in a while something happens to make me think about it again. This time it was Tim Bray's recent post on Spirited Away got me thinking a bit about anime and how it is perceived here in the United States. I know a lot of people who have rented the movie and been very impressed by it. In many cases I've heard things like "I've never really 'got' anime, but I saw Spirited Away and it was breathtaking." As someone who has become more of a fan of anime in the past few years it's cool watching this happen. I'm glad that people are getting to see the other sides of anime (the side that isn't all Pokemon and Dragonball Z). And I'm hoping that it means good things for the anime import industry in America. And for those who are looking for some of the same magic that's in Spirited Away, two other of Miyazaki's movies have been released recently on DVD: Castle in the Sky (aka Laputa) and Kiki's Delivery Service. While the first isn't one of my favorites of Miyazaki's, it's quite a good movie. The second is the first movie by him I saw. It's the story of a young girl who is a witch. And she must spend a year on her own as part of becoming a witch. It's a wonderful little story that I've been able to watch many many times (and that I love recommending to people).

Mark Twain: "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." [Quotes of the Day]

Thanks as usual to Free Will Astrology:

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)

In 1991, hikers in the Italian Alps discovered the largely intact body of a man who died 5,000 years ago. He'd been preserved in a glacier that had recently begun to melt. Since then, many women have asked to be given some of the iceman's frozen sperm so that they might become pregnant by him. (The director of the museum where his body is kept has so far turned down all requests.) While I don't recommend that you become one more seeker of this prehistoric insemination, Scorpio, I do suggest you pursue a metaphorically analogous quest in the coming weeks: Try to fertilize yourself through an intimate encounter with the past.

Uh. Okay.

A neat site with other people's stories.

other people's stories
>>  "These stories have been overheard and misheard, told and re-told and sometimes refined over time."  [Coolstop Daily Pick 5/28/03 via pixelsurgeon< stereot] [jenett.radio]

Some of these are really great, and quite well told. I'm slowly working my way through them.

Apple released an update to iTunes 4 last night. The biggest (and most annoying) news is that they limited the playlist sharing to the local subnet. This doesn't surprise me in the least. I wish there was some way to handle sharing out to one or two remote systems though. Either through a password or something. I'd love to have access to my music wherever I am on the net. Though, I guess I can use my iPod for that.

Now for The Good. Applescript programs are now able to get access to the currently playing song if it is being played from a remote machine. In the past iTunes just wouldn't report it at all. This is one of the big features I'd been looking for. So, now I think you'll see what I'm listening to over on the left column more often.

P. J. O'Rourke: "A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat." [Quotes of the Day]

We've had way too many days without sunshine, and so I think it's time to party some to relieve the blues. So come on out tonight and have some drinks and dance away the cloudy blues.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*

The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of music styles in the lounge at Vertigo, with lots of mellow mixed in.
This week we bring some more Boston's up and coming talent:

Chris VanWart [Boston, MA]

The Analog Lounge with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
6/4 - Residents Night
6/11 - Paul Dailey [Boston, MA]
6/18 - Brynmore
6/25 - Qi

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge

This week at Anitya: VADIM (SubtleChaos) NYC

Are you a DJ in the Boston area? Are you interested in playing out some Wednesday night? If so, drop me a line at lounge@ezoons.com.

Eve Babitz: "By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up." [Quotes of the Day]

Kottke links to a site that covers just what your rights are as a photographer. Pretty interesting reading. There's also a PDF file to download and read, kinda like the ACLU's Bustcard.

Dunkin Donuts introduced scones here a year or so ago. I never really tried any of them because none of the flavors really interested me. Until the other week I noticed they had apple cinnamon scones. I just got one this morning. The verdict, YUM. These things are great. This makes up for them getting rid of apple cinnamon muffins ages ago.

Chris Pirillo asks, "What was the last piece of software that YOU bothered to register?" Good question! Recently I've registered Omni Outliner and NetNewsWire. The next app to get my money will be Kung-Log (which is donationware). Since I've switched to OS X I've become much more aware of the work of developers creating shareware. Some of it is probably because I think they really do drive a lot of the Mac software world. Looking at my dock I'd say almost 1/3rd of the apps there are shareware or freeware. When it comes down to it, these are the people who I want to see getting my money. They seem to be much more aware of my needs.

This actually brings up something else I'd like to say to some of the big graphics program makers (though it applies to a certain company and their suite of office programs too). Give us some consumer versions of stuff. It doesn't have to be the super deluxe model that a pro version would have. And price it under $50. I'm not going to use much more than 10-20% of the features of your current application. I just need something to play around with simple graphics. Kind of like one step above MacDraw/MacPaint (whatever happened to those anyways. I used MacDraw for so many projects in college and now you can't find really find anything like it). Or does anyone else have things to recommend for us OS X users? Is there an equivilant to Paint Shop Pro for Windows (Yikes, when did this jump in price too?).

Marquis de la Grange: "When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." [Quotes of the Day]

I think I'm going to do a combination of sleeping and watching movies today. I've got a few things from netflix that I've had for weeks, and some movies I haven't watched yet. Of course, now to figure out just what they will all be.

Hmm, just found out that Keiko Matsui is playing at Sculler's in a few weeks. Maybe I can scrape together some cash to go see her.

Though this is a slightly older series. I've been slowly making my way through Animeigo's release of You're Under Arrest. It's the story of two policewomen and their coworkers. While the TV series is mostly episodic in nature, it's quite a bit of fun. And there is a decent bit of continuity as time goes on. The series was created by Kousuke Fujishima, the individual repsonsible for Oh My Goddess!, so if you enjoyed that I'd recommend giving this a try.

I hate shaving. It's just a big hassle. But, I hate being scruffy more, so I deal with it. Someone online pointed at this page about how The Shaving Industry Lies. I like the action figure razor holder myself. I wonder if I can make something like that for my Norelco.

In following a cool link from Scripting News on the Anatomy of a Meme, I also found this cool utility for making little buttons for web pages. As a result, I now have my own little 15x80 button for this site:

Feel free to download it and link to my site.

Stanislaw J. Lec: "People find life entirely too time-consuming." [Quotes of the Day]

I can't remember if I've said much about this show. But, Last Exile is quickly becoming one of my favorites of this season. First off, it's a Gonzo show. For some reason I seem to like a good 90% of what they get involved with. This one started out a little slow though. The first two episodes were really kind of setup for everything else going on. As a result, not a lot was going on. But with the last few episodes things are getting a little more interesting. They are definitely not rushing the plot though, which is a good thing IMHO. Alvis also gets my vote for one of the cutest characters this season. They've done a really good job with the writing for her.

The other interesting thing with this show is that there is much noticeable computer animation in this show. For the most part though, it works. It isn't as jarring as I've seen it in other Gonzo shows. And this is another show with a great theme song. Very interesting sounds.

Some people collect stamps. Some people collect coins. This person has the Moist Towelette Online Museum [via Carinah].

Trying to sleep better is going slowly. After sleeping most of the night on Thursday night I did the typical sleep two hours, wake up for an hour thing tonight. Tonight some hot chocolate (despite the caffeine), an episode of anime, and a story in McSweeney's got me back to sleep. I'm up again though. Though this time I'm feeling a bit more sleepy. Though, this is the perfect time to take my Actonel, even though I know it'll give me heartburn (how come they come up with these medications that need to be taken first thing in the morning on an empty stomach? Oh yeah, and then they don't want you to eat for at least an hour afterward). I only have to take it once a week thankfully.

I also finished reading Permutation City last night before the first time I went to sleep. I liked the book, thought it had really cool ideas, but the ending felt like a bit of a letdown. Next up is Kitchen Confidential, which I've been wanting to read for a while.

Thank Jeff, the God of Biscuits for Tums. (Is there a god of Tums?)

Business 2.0 has an interesting article on the porn biz [via Lockergnome].

Bill Vaughan: "If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity." [Quotes of the Day]

Supposedly the next Miyazaki film to come out in the US will be Porco Rosso. [via ANN]

With much sadness, I found the following at brunching.com.

Well, it's the end of an era, or perhaps the beginning of a post-era. It's not so much that The Brunching Shuttlecocks are breaking up, but rather that we're reinventing ourselves as a dormant, non-producing comedy team. We're exploring the comedic potential of doing nothing. We're trailblazing the cutting-edge realm of non-comedy . It's an exciting time. [The Brunching Shuttlecocks]

On the positive side, they do have some other projects they are working on listed at the link above. I'll miss the site a lot. I got much entertainment from it while it was up. Hopefully the archives will stay up for a while.

Ben Edelman over at Harvard Law came out with an article on Gator that discusses how their ad targetting appears to work. Kinda interesting. News.com has an article on it also. [via Scripting News]

Last weekend I decided to catch up on all of buffy that I'd missed this season. Luckily I found tvtorrents.com. It's a cool page that provides links to bittorrent downloads of tv shows. It works well enough that I was able to get around 9 episodes in two days. Last night, someone pointed me at the Digital Archive Project, a site that provides links to people sharing out old TV shows. Things like MST3K, SCTV, and Invader Zim. But specificly, shows that aren't available any other way (ie on DVD). I discovered they have some episodes of The State (though they haven't added any in ages and ages). Now, they use a filesharing system called eDonkey and it's been one of the more difficult programs I've used. It runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X, but at least for OS X there is a command line client and that's about it. So far though, I can't see what makes it better than any other P2P software. I also have been spoiled by the whole 'just click here and download' aspect of bittorrent.

William G. McAdoo: "It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument." [Quotes of the Day]

Washington state has banned the sale of violent video games to minors.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – The state of Washington has become the first in the nation to regulate the sale of video games. Gov. Gary Locke on Monday signed into law a bill banning the sale of certain 'violent' games to anyone under 17.

Specifically, the law forbids selling minors any video or computer game depicting violence against law enforcement officials. Among the titles affected are industry best sellers "Grand Theft Auto 3" and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City", both published by Take Two Interactive (TTWO: Research, Estimates). Presumably, Atari's (ATAR: Research, Estimates) $30 million "Enter the Matrix", which hit store shelves last Thursday, would also be off limits to its core audience. That title earned only a "Teen" rating, since it is not graphically violent, though police officers are in-game enemies. [via cnn.com] [via Dispatches from Revland]

Heck, why stop at videogames. How about any movies that depict violence against law enforcement officials. TV too? Books? Come on, let's be consistent here.

Wow, I just realized that this weekend is Memorial Day Weekend, which means The Cutting Edge of Campfire at Club Passim. And they've got some interesting names this time. Along with lots of regulars I see names like John Wesley Harding and Peter Wolf, veeery interesting. Anyone else heading out to this over the weekend?

Since I've been watching the second DVD for FLCL I threw the soundtrack into my TiBook and have been listening to it all morning. It's done by this band called The Pillows, who just plain rock. It really doesn't sound like it would be music used for an animated show, but it works sooo well. mmmm.

OS X has a built in spell checker that lots of programs use. When you're typing in Mail.app it will put a red underline under words it doesn't know. For ages I'd been wondering if you could add words into the built in dictionary. I happened to right click (ctrl-click with a single button mouse) and you can choose 'Learn Spelling' or 'Ignore Spelling'. Very handy. Blogging wasn't in there, but it is now.

Dave writes,

Scoble, who works at Microsoft now,...
Scoble, who works at Microsoft now, says he likes using a desktop app to write his internal weblog. Right on. I've been using a desktop app to write Scripting News for years. The browser is not a great writing tool. Ironically, MS is the best company to solve that problem. They don't want to do it, clearly. [Scripting News]

I've got to agree that I like using a desktop app too. I've been using Kung-Log for the last month or so and I now hate going to the Movable Type entry page to make a post. Now, Kung-Log is a bit more for the person who knows some HTML, it has some support for putting in tags, but for me it's usually easier to just add them in while typing. The one exception is URLs, which it handles in a very cool way (you hilite the text for the link and when you choose the url option it creates the link puts what's in the clipboard as the destination for the link).

The thing is I'm still undecided as to the place of the browser in making entries. Having used the three big blogging systems, all of which have a web interface by default, I think it's fine for the basics. But it really bites for anything beyond that. Kung-Log gives me a lot of options. Like being able to save a draft of a post if I'm not ready to post it right away. The only thing I might want is some kind of WYSIWYG editing mode, but that really isn't a priority.

Oh yeah, and I'm on a Mac, so I'm not sure that MS is the company to solve the issue of the browser not being a great writing tool. Actually, Safari has one thing that did make the whole blog entry editing thing easier. In TEXTAREA fields you can use emacs navigation keys, even things like ctrl-k and ctrl-y. If you could combine that with something like htmlArea you might have something pretty cool. For now though, Kung-Log is where it is at for me.

Robert Orben: "There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all." [Quotes of the Day]

It's about that time folks. It's finally all nice and warm out, the sun's been shining, all the more reason to slip out at night and hear some funky tunes. This week we're going a bit more into the realm of downtempo stuff with Chris Barakat. So some on out and chill and have a nice raspberry chocolate martini. mmmmm. And if you feel like dancing, you can always slip downstairs for a few to take in a bit of Anitya. Oh, and first three people to drop me a line get guest listed this week.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*

The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of music styles in the lounge at Vertigo, with lots of mellow mixed in.
This week we bring you another one of Boston's up and coming DJs:

Chris Barakat [Boston, MA]

The Analog Lounge with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
May 28 - Chris VanWart [Boston, MA]

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge

This week at Anitya: KARAN (Third-eye Records, India)

Are you a DJ in the Boston area? Are you interested in playing out some Wednesday night? If so, drop me a line at lounge@ezoons.com.

For the most part, the idea of live action versions of anime leaves me a bit very uninspired. There have been some fun exceptions like You're Under Arrest TV show, but I really don't have much interest in seeing things like Dragonball Z with real people. The latest show due to make the translation to live action: Evangelion. Please, no. I really don't feel the need to be subjected to that as a live action movie.

Searching for "How Soon is Now?" on the iTunes music store only has one match. The cover of it done by t.A.T.u. This is so wrong. So very very wrong. Please, Apple, you must do something about this.

Dave came up with some new software for searching weblogs running on Manila (At least I'm assuming on Manila). The way he does it is pretty cool, and one that works well for how Manila is designed. It uses the Google API to send a query and then uses the results to pull entries from the blog database. I could actually see something similar being written for Movable Type, as I've found the searching they have built in tends to be a bit slow. That's the reason I replaced it with ht://dig. ht://dig isn't necessarily the solution for someone who isn't that much of a programmer, it takes a bit of effort to get it installed. But I could also see using something like Dave's software using ht://dig too (since you can format the output however you want). Does ht://dig give as good a set of results as Google? I'm not sure. But does it give search results that are good enough? I bet for most people it does. I've never had any real issues with it at least.

I really don't have any a bit problem with using Google for something like this. That's what's it's for. But I tend to think of how things work when third party services aren't around. What happens if someone goes to search and Google is down. With something like ht://dig, the site would be running it locally so would have a bit more control over it.

Oscar Wilde: "Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." [Quotes of the Day]

For some reason, Google has started to return my sitedata page as a hit for things like "bittorrent porn". The issue with this is that for almost 3 months that page has been listed in my robots.txt as one NOT to index. And this only started happening like 2 weeks ago. Time to look into removing the page by hand.

Move over Power Rangers, the France Five are here.

France Five are French sentai, dedicated to protecting France's people and culture against all odds.

Lucky we are to have them, as the evil Glou Man Chou intends to attack our blue planet, after his successful conquests in the rest of the universe. [France Five]

You too can watch the adventures of Red Fromage, Black Beaujolais, Blue Accordeon, Yellow Baguette, and Pink a la mode as they fight ninja mimes. Episodes are available to download in RealVideo format and have to be seen to believed. And even tough they aren't in english you can get the gist of them, or make up your own dialogue. Oh yeah, and Yellow Baguette's weapon is the best.

Thomas' English Muffins suck. I recently discovered Matthew's All-Natural English Muffins. I'm not sure if they are a local MA thing or what, but they are SO much better. First off, you get two equal halves. With Thomas' you end up with one half that looks nice like the picture on the package. And then you get this other half-assed half that ends up half burning in the toaster. I was just recently reminded of this because when I went to the store the other night they were out of Matthew's, so I got Thomas'. I'm most unthrilled. Oh yeah, and Trader Joe's also has their own brand of English Muffins that are pretty damn good.

Matthew's also makes a kickass Honey Oatmeal bread.

So I've been watching a lot of buffy this weekend and it got me thinking about how the show has progressed these past seven years. I've been trying to figure out what's been missing for me for the show. The reason I don't like it as much as I did. I'm just having a hard time putting my finger on what it is. I don't know that I'd go as far as to say that the show sucks now, but I just don't enjoy it as much. It just seems to be missing a certain subtleness that it had.

I think back to the third and fourth seasons, where you saw a lot of what was going on, but the overall story wasn't center stage the full season. You'd get a taste here, a taste there, slowly pulling you deeper in. The last two seasons of Buffy have just felt kind of abusive. I just saw episode 18 of this season and a new character has been introduced. The thing is, it sounds like he's been responsible for a number of things that happened (like blowing up the Watchers). I just feel like if it was earlier on in the show's life we would have seen this guy before. Or at least seen a hint of him.

So that's my early morning can't quite sleep bit of Buffy musing that will probably only make sense to me later on when I'm half asleep.

I missed most of this season so I've been downloading what I missed. Wow, this season has felt really mediocre, as if I should be surprised. It's definitely time for this show to be over. Only five more episodes to download and watch.

Joseph Heller: "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." [Quotes of the Day]

Last night I went out to the Milky Way in JP. I hadn't been there in years, back when my lung issues were just starting. It's a great space, especially when there are lots of people there. Last night there seemed to be a pretty good-sized crowd. It was weird because I couldn't really figure out the age range of the crowd. I felt older, but I wasn't sure if the people there were more younger or around the same age as I am. And the crowd definitely had a different feel than the EDM crowd. I enjoyed the bands a lot. The Anchormen were quite cool, and I picked up their CD (which, btw, is already in CDDB), which I plan to listen to a little bit later. I also finally got to meet Heath, so that was cool.

One interesting story from last night. I'm sitting there listening to the Anchormen play and this girl comes up and asks if she can ask me a question. She looks really familiar too, and as she asks her question I realize she works at Million Year Picnic, where I buy manga a lot these days. She asks, "I was wondering if I could ask you about your respirator?" I give my standard answer explaining I need oxygen because my lungs are broken. (Side note. I don't wear oxygen all the time. If I'm just sitting around not doing much I don't use it. It's only really with activity. So at that moment I wasn't wearing it.) She nods and says, "well, I sell you your comics (aha!) and noticed that you usually are wearing it but aren't right now". And I give the standard explanation about not needing it all the time. We talk/yell (it was loud) for a little bit and she thanks me much for letting her ask a personal question like that, and she went off for a cigarette. Second side note, the Milky Way is now non-smoking. Kickass!

The conversation got me wondering about what people think when they see someone walking around with an oxygen tank. And how many are curious or want to ask about it. At first I was a bit self conscious about carrying it around. I mean, you're walking around with a small bag slung over your shoulder with plastic tubing running out and up your nose. It is pretty hard to ignore. The thing is, I don't mind being asked about it. I think i must just like the attention. I'm not sure how other people in the same situation feel though. Anyways, it was an interesting conversation and got me thinking a bit, so I thought I'd share.

Oh yeah, there is one thing about the Milky Way that I remembered drives me nuts. They don't have a full liquor license, so they can't sell things like vodka. Bah.

There's nothing quite like late night chinese food delivery. I just got in and called on the way home, hoping they were still delivering, and now I'm enjoying some tasty chicken teriyaki strips and beef teriyaki strips. Tonight was fun. I'll post more about it later, including a interesting story.

Today I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done. But I really didn't sleep well last night (what else is new). So now I'm on a bit of a mad dash to get done at least 1/2 of the things I wanted to today. I think I'm pretty much on track with it, which is good. I need to get into Harvard Square quickly and see if someone has a copy of the Alien 9 manga that just came out.

Tonight, as I posted before I think I'm headed out to the Milky Way (Hey Bree, I just read you're without plans. If you still are that's where I'll be. I haven't really heard any of the bands before, but I'm being adventurous). I think it will be good for me to get out of the house and be a little social. Anyone else feel like meeting up there?

Okay, off to Harvard Square, must remember to get CD-Rs too.

The Shifted Librarian has a post about these cool new flat products. I actually saw a commercial for the phone and radio the other day. Pretty keen. They need a way for the battery to last a real long time so you could use this technology for other things. I'd love to have one that was kind of a remote control that I could stick onto a coffee table, just for the basic stuff like changing channels and volume.

Of course the speakerphone is fun too. Imagine someone's reaction the first time they hear the phone ring and you reach over to the wall and hit answer on the phone and start talking. Of course even the poster radio is good for stuff like that (even if it does probably sound horrible).

BoingBoing had a link to this earlier, but the site was down. Thankfully it now seems to be up. You too can now own your very own stuffed Sore Throat or Common Cold. There's four you can get currently. Get the complete set from Giantmicrobes.com (coming soon: Exotics and Maladies).

Halley was at the blogging thing tonight too. Her How to be an Alpha Male series is a fun read. Maybe I too can be an Alpha Male. Okay, you can stop laughing now, it wasn't that funny.

I'm writing this from Dave Winer's weekly Thursday blogging thing at Harvard Law. I was hoping to use bluetooth to hop online, but wasn't able to get it all set up before I came over so this will be posted later. We had a bit of a discussion about the whole iTunes sharing issue before everyone appeared since Derek Slater of A Copyfighter's Musings was there. Dave was going over macros in Manila, which was pretty interesting. I almost wish there was a kind of personal version of Manila. I think it would be pretty useful.

Then there was talk about BloggerCon. It sounds kind of interesting, but In a way I felt kinda out of my league as far as that side of the blogging world. I decided to blow off dinner since I was feeling a bit tired. I think these are nice to be going to, especially while I'm out of work. It gives me a chance to interact with people a little, and learn new things.

I fell asleep early this afternoon and had the most bizzare dream. It was like I was in a horror movie, but it all took place during the time before everything goes to hell. So things were getting stranger and stranger. Some guy got knocked out a window by some kind of flying creature. And then I woke up because the phone was ringing. I'm almost curious as to where the dream was going to head, because half the time I'll have a dream that gets like that and then I'll just step into another movie when things start to get a little too weird.

The Universal Church of Cosmic Uncertainty posted about my lunar eclipse post and I tells a wonderful story. I just had to do a bit of circular linking.

Doug Larson: "A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience." [Quotes of the Day]

Do you enjoy a good drink? Like to pound down a few after work at the local watering hole? What about those times when you overdid it. Did you ever ran from the room to let out a nice technicolor yawn? Or did you excuse yourself and casually stroll to the restroom? Thanks to The Etiquette of Vomiting you can know just what you should do in that situation.

Vomiting is one of those subjects people often try to graze over when discussing drinking.

They prefer to center on the glamorous aspects of drinking, the cerebral impairment, the fights and mishaps, the staggering around blindly and the cool hangover cures.

But let’s face up to reality: while many a boozer likes to brag he never or rarely reverses the flow of alcohol, truth be known, even the most accomplished drinker finds occasion to vomit. Even if it’s just to make room for more booze or to impress fellow imbibers with the distance he can launch the meat loaf he had for lunch. [Modern Drunkard Magazine]

Because if if you're going to hurl, you might as well do it right.

So, anyone feel like heading out the the Milky Way for the Handstand Command 3rd Anniversary Party on Friday? I want to go to see the Anchormen (it's a CD release party for them). Blogger Heath Row is part of the band, and I still haven't met him, and this sounds like a cool event.

I've been working on reading a bit more lately. I'd kind of fallen out of the habit. Right now I'm finally making it through Permutation City, which I'm enjoying but I found a bit difficult to get into at first. I'm also reading through McSweeney's #9. I'm sure I'd heard of McSweeney's before last week or so, but for the life of me I can't remember where and it has been driving me crazy.

It feels good to be reading regularly again though. It was so easy to just slip out of the habit of it. I blame TV and the computer mostly.

As is usual, every Wednesday night I invite all of you to come down and hear some tunes, hang out, and be social. This week I'm not going to just invite you. I'm going to insist that you come on down and say hi. Tonight, to celebrate the appearance of DJ Martini you should come on down and try one of Asia's fabulous limeade martinis, or her chocolate martini (it's like dessert in a glass).

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*

The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of music styles in the lounge at Vertigo, with lots of mellow mixed in.
This week we bring you one of Boston's up and coming DJs who is gaining recognition all over the world.

Mark Martini [Dubcoast Music, Source of Gravity UK; MA]

The Analog Lounge with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
May 21 - Chris Barakat [Boston, MA]
May 28 - Chris VanWart [Boston, MA]

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge

Are you a DJ in the Boston area? Are you interested in playing out some Wednesday night? If so, drop me a line at lounge@ezoons.com.

When I was at the store the other day I picked up some Old El Paso Taco Sauce with Seasoned Ground Beef because it was on sale (I also got the one with shredded chicken that I'd had before). It wasn't too bad. A tiny bit on the salty side, but not that bad. As long as you've got some lettuce and cheese they're just dandy. I like the chicken ones a bit better though.

There will be a lunar eclipse this Thursday that will be visible in all of the US.

Although a lunar eclipse may not have the "wow" factor of a solar eclipse, it is nonetheless a spectacular event that one should definitely not miss. The upcoming eclipse occurring during the night of May 15th and early on the 16th will be visible over all of North America except for the extreme northwest portions of the continent. Eclipse observers from Ontario eastward will see all phases of the eclipse while those to the west will see the Moon rising with the eclipse already underway, although totality will still be visible. [skynewsmagazine.com]

Pretty keen! I think I might have to try and drive to someplace out of the city to check this out!

I really can't think of much more to say about this. It is pretty disturbing. I still want to know what the sudents actually said though.

This is soooo wrong...
Secret Service Questions Students

Teacher Larry Felson says, "What we're concerned about is academic freedom and that students have the right to free expression in the classroom."

Even worse, they say, is the fact that the students were grilled by federal agents without legal counsel or their parents present, just the principal.

"When one of the students asked, 'do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?' they were told, 'we own you, you don't have any legal rights,'" Felson says.

[via Follow Me Here...] [ via jenett.radio]

Last night I was talking to my friend Ellen about the differences between Japanese animation and American animation. So finding this article on sfgate.com seemed fitting.

Cartoons To Ignite Your Id
Can animated gems like "Spirited Away" save the ravaged American imagination?

And then along comes one of those extraordinarily rare and shimmering hunks of gorgeous pop-culture art/entertainment to make you rethink everything you thought you believed and about which you were sort of comfortably sad and bitter and resigned.

.You know the ones. Those astonishing unexpected gems that somehow manage to break through your thick wall of bitter media-numbed ennui and slip right around your fine-meshed bullshit filter and hit you right in the solar plexus of hope and enchantment and maybe humankind isn't so utterly savagely doomed after all even though it probably is, but oh well.

Because this is when you finally catch the animated Japanese masterpiece "Spirited Away" on DVD. This is when you finally find a pop-culture art piece that speaks to multiple levels of human creativity and divine imaginative power, which you want to champion and cheer and exalt and bow humbly before and say to the jaded world hey, you know what? [sfgate.com]

While I think at times the author gushes a little bit too much about how good "Spirited Away" is, I think he does make some good points about how US animated films do tend to be a bit dumbed down (though I don't think things are as bleak as he makes it seem). I find that in general I think anime (both movies and tv shows) tends to have more complex plots. Oh there are definitely shows that are mindless entertainment, but most shows there are produced to tell a single story. Look at shows like Cowboy Bebop, which has been experiencing a growth in popularity over here. It's a single season show, there's a movie to accompany it, and that's it. The creator of it has no intentions to do anything else with it. This is much different from the US model where they hope to get at least a few seasons out of a show so they can pass it on into syndication.

The hope I have is that with the growing anime audience American animators will take notice and start producing more complex things. I'd love to see someone produce something like Voices of a Distant Star, which is due out on DVD here next month.

After being offline I'm back! It seems that my cable modem died a horrible death sometime yesterday. The Comcast guy came by this morning, plugged in a new one (even smaller than the last one), and everything was up and running in moments. I was a bit wary of that old cable modem anyways. It was a used one when they installed it and it died once before, though it came back to life that time. So, I'm back. I'll have more to post about later after I catch up on email.

Whatever it is I'm already feeling better. Which is good. I've got a bunch of stuff I need to get done this week. Now if I can just find some time to make an appointment to get my hair done. Things are looking a bit shaggy. I wonder what I should do with the color this time.

There have been a growing number of sites out there for networking. Joi Ito recently posted about the most recent one to show up: LinkedIn. I'm already on Ryze and Friendster, so I need another one? Friendster is a fun diversion, I don't really pay attention to it much unless someone sends me a friend request. I'm not using it as a dating service or anything, I actually think that aspect of it is kind of silly. On the other hand. I like what I've experienced with Ryze. There is a real sense of community there. It doesn't feel overdone. I'm waiting for the next get together of people from the Boston network on there.

I actually like the idea of things like Ryze and LinkedIn the best though. Friendster is a little bit too open. There's a fair amount of noise (even though I have found some cool linkage between people I know). The audience for the others is much more targeted, it isn't trying to attract the world. Which means you get people who are there specifically to network, as opposed to seeing how many friends they can get linked to.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
Scorpio actress Rachel Ticotin has appeared in many movies, including "Con Air," "Natural Born Killers," and "Full Disclosure," but my favorite is "Total Recall." Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's a science fiction thriller that largely takes place on a human colony on Mars. Ticotin plays a sleazy but demure hooker who is secretly a rebel freedom fighter plotting to overthrow the corrupt, oppressive government. Can you imagine any better role for a Scorpio? It's a perfect example of how your tribe's dark side can be expressed constructively. I suggest you find or create your own equivalent in the coming weeks. [Free Will Astrology]

Can you imagine the lines that a game like this would cause (quicktime movie. Here's a link to a Windows Media version)?[via www.ludology.org]

Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists." [Quotes of the Day]

Well, I didn't sleep much last night because my head and chest were all congested. I'm not sure if it is allergies or a cold though. I took a claritin yesterday and it really didn't seem to do too much. Bah.

BoingBoing got me pointed over to Death to the Extremist. It's a wonderfully minimalist comic about the life of two dots.

Here's some things I'm finding online this morning, along with thoughts from me.

• Just about the unsexiest thing ever said to a woman. [Davezilla.com - Excessive use of farce]
• I just passed 3000 posts to this blog. This is number 3002.

• Steve Zellers is discovering LambdaMOO. It feels kind of weird to see all this writing about MOO after all this time. I'm also a bit out of the know when it comes to MOO, but I know a lot of people who have done tons with it. Lambda doesn't seem like the best place to start though.
• Tim Bray chimes in on RSS and the S-word.
• Scriptygoddess has a post about jumpstarting your photoblog.

Finally feeling all caught up with the weblog thing. I was down in CT so wasn't able to do much blogging down there. Mom and Dad really need a high speed connection. I'm thinking of recommending DSL to them since they've already got the phoneline there. Plus, it would mean they could ditch the extra phone line.

Harry S Truman: "If you cannot convince them, confuse them." [Quotes of the Day]

Lots of interesting discussion has been going on in the realm of RSS. Dave kicked things off, they bounced over to Sam for a bit and ended up with Ben. In the end it looks like there's some decent discussion going on without too much BS. I'd like to add one thing as a general newbie to all this. Find something simple and document it well. One thing that has been the most frustrating to me is trying to find out about the pros and cons of 1.0 vs 2.0. From the little I've read about the idea of RSS for weblogs, it sounds like a step in the right direction. Maybe this means we can get past all the various wars that seem to go on about RSS. Or maybe they can at least become less frequent.

I like it when I see interaction between Dave and Evan and Ben and Mena. I've used all of their products and think they're all great, and they've all worked well for me at different stages in my blogging experience. Now, if we can fold in some of the other people involved in the blogging scene too.

This is it, the last of the CDs. I can't believe I made it through them all.

• John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
• Messages: Modern Synthpop Artists Cover OMD
• 10,000 Maniacs - The Wishing Chair
• 10,000 maniacs - In My Tribe
• ABC - How to be a Zillionaire
• ABC - Absolutely
• ABC - The Lexicon of Love
• Dot Allison - Afterglow
• Alpha Team - Speed (CD Single)
• The Art of Noise - (Who's Afraid of) The Art of Noise
• The B-52's - Wild Planet
• The Beat - Wha'ppen?
• The Beat - Special Beat Service
• Big Audio Dynamite - Planet BAD Greatest Hits

I can't believe I'm really done. I stalled a whole bunch of times and now I'm re-ripping a bunch of stuff. But everything is in there. Wow.

The process that mirrors my posts to LiveJournal runs on my laptop, which has been offline all weekend. I just realized a moment ago that when I brought it back up on my home network it would suddenly post everything I'd posted since late Thursday night. So, as a result, when I got back online just now all those messages got sent to LJ. Hope you enjoy!

Posted without comment, but lots of chuckling.

Monkeys-s-s Typing Is-s a Mess-s-s

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ONDON, May 9 (AP) — Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess.

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that monkeys left alone with a computer failed to produce a single word.

...

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," Mr. Phillips added. [New York Times]

I got some spam today that had something slightly new (at least to me). I've gotten spam before that was written like it was responding to something I'd sent. But this was the first time I'd seen one where they went to the effort of even including the email I supposedly sent.

Hi,
I just got a 30 year fixed mortgage at 5.5%! I found
this website where Lenders compete for your business.
I thought you may want to look at it.
here's the url
http://www.wuyi-best.com/3/index.asp?RefID=198478
Thanks,
Mike Finn

You wrote:
>hey man

> could you please give me that site where
> I can pay a whole bunch less, even on my
> mortgage repayments? my accountant
> said 6.1% was the way to go.

> thanks..

don't want anymore? then please go here.
http://gethelpu.com/Auto/index.htm

Damn, I must have requested that information the other night when I had too much cough syrup to drink.

Toshiba announced on Thursday they will be offering a combination DVD/TiVo device.

Las Vegas, NV, January 08, 2003 - Taking advantage of the recently announced licensing agreement between Toshiba, a primary developer and leader in DVD technology, and TiVo, the creator and leader of television services for digital video recording (DVR), Toshiba announced today that the company will be developing and launching the first product, a combination DVD/DVR product. This model will be the very first combination of DVD and TiVo technologies resulting from this partnership, with product scheduled for introduction in the second half of 2003. [Toshiba News vis Gizmodo]

It's a pretty keen idea combining the two. Of course now I want the next step, which is one with a DVD burner built in. That way you can not only record our favorite shows, but archive them too. Though, i could see the networks getting all bent out of shape about that (even though it already has a save to VCR feature.

Antipixel got a great Word a Day:

teknonym (TEK-nuh-nim) noun: A name derived from a child’s name that is used to address a parent. For example, Johnsdad (as opposed to Johnson).

Now, I first liked the word because it sounds cool. Plus it starts with tekno, which made me think it might have to do with music at first. ^_^. But, more interesting was reading about how it applied to him.

Teknonymy elegantly solves an interesting problem in Japanese: when the father of a child is “Aoki-san” and the mother of a child is also “Aoki-san,” how do you refer to each when in the presence of both of them (in a language where first names are rarely used at this level of intimacy)? Spouses can use each other’s first names (they’ll also use teknonyms for each other when speaking to others) but for anyone else to do so would most often be presumptuous. Teknonymy — and A Word a Day — to the rescue. [Antipixel | blog | Teknonymy]

How very cool. Learning how various languages is fascinating to me, even if I seem to have a hard time picking them up. One of these days though I will learn Japanese.

Heath posted about Wil Wheaton's new book titled Dancing Barefoot from Monolith Press. One thing I hadn't realized is that Wil founded Monolith himself. I definitely want to pick up this book to check it out. I've enjoyed his blog for a while and have loved the look into his life that he's provided.

Mom made this tongiht. I used to have a recipe for one that was very similar, but it used more butter (which was also supposed to be melted). This one came out a bit better, and there were no nuts in it because none of us like them in stuff. One thing that is a little annoying is all the chocolate chips sink to the bottom. I wonder if there is a way to keep them from doing that.

Nestle Toll House Coocolate Chip Pie

Makes 8 servings

1 nbaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep dish pie shell[1]
2 eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup (6 ounces) NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)
Sweetened whipped cream or ice cream (optional)

PREHEAT oven to 325 deg F.

BEAT eggs in large mixer bowl on high speed until foamy. Beat in flour, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in butter. Stir in morsels and nuts. Spoon into pie shell.

BAKE for 55 to 60 min or until knife inserted halfway between outside edge and center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Serve warm with whipped cream.

[1] If using frozen pie shell, use deep-dish style, thawed completely. Bake on baking sheet; increase baking time slightly.

Recipe taken from back of package of chocolate chips.

Tim Bray talks about the past year and his experiences with his TiBook and OS X. I have to say that overall I agree with him. And I've been a mac guy for right around two years now. Apple's biggest issue is price and speed. While I don't miss my Windows machine much at all, I do feel the slight slowdown. But the stability I've had more than makes up for it.

Here's the sauce Mom made with dinner tonight.

Merlot Sauce

Can be prepared in 45 min or less<

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 medium)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups Merlot or other dry red wine
2 cups rich veal stock[1] or demiglace[1]

[1]Available at specialty food shops and some supermarkets.

In a small heavy saucepan bring water with sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil syrup, without stirring, until a golden caramel. remove pan from heat and carefully add vinegar down the side of pan (caramel will steam and harden). Cook caramel over moderate heat, until dissolved, about 3 minutes, and remove pan from heat.

In a heavy saucepan cook onion in butter over moderate heat, stirring, until golden, about 5 minutes. Stir in wine and boil until mixture is reduced to about 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Stir in stock or demiglace and boil until mixture is reduced to about 2 cups, about 10 min. Remove pan from heat and stir in caramel. Pour sauce through a sieve into a bowl. Sauce may be made 2 days ahead, cooled completely, and chilled, covered. Reheat sauce before serving.

Gourmet - December 1996

This sauce was sooo yummy. Just putting a bit over the steak and Fennel Mashed Potatoes was really good.

John Horgan has a very interesting article in Slate.

Tripping De-Light Fantastic
Are psychedelic drugs good for you?

By John Horgan Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2003, at 8:44 AM PT

A year ago, hoping to dispel the postpartum gloom that had gripped me after I finished writing a book, I hiked into a forest near my home and pitched a tent under some pine trees. I spent that day and evening listening to the forest, scribbling in my journal, and thinking—all while under the influence of a psychedelic drug. The next morning I returned to my wife and children feeling better than I had in months.

What I did that day should not be illegal. Adults seeking solace or insight ought to be allowed to consume psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline. U.S. laws now classify them as Schedule 1 drugs, banned for all purposes because of their health risks. But recent studies have shown that psychedelics—which more than 20 million Americans have ingested—can be harmless and even beneficial when taken under appropriate circumstances.

Personally, I think people should be able to make choices about things like this on their own. But I also think it requires people to be better informed than most are. There's also at least one famous person, who was known to use LSD.

Yup, as usual a slow start to the day. Though this is mostly because I've been down at my parents. Making sure their mac is all up to date over a dialup connection is hellish. I just plugged in the firewire cable and did the IP over firewire to my laptop to move over some software though. i really should be doing that more often. I need to try and talk my mom into going high speed on the computer too. I'm actually thinking DSL might be a better fit for them. Then they could get rid of the 2nd phone line.

Just had an amazing dinner too. Hopefully I'll be typing in some recipes from it in a bit (I haven't added anything to that section in a while).

LiveJournal looks like they are doing some interesting things. The biggest of which is they are introducing a new page layout system (with some in the works documentation), At this point it's available for people to use, but I think it is mostly as a beta since they are still working on it some. So far it looks kind of interesting, but may be a bit too complex for my tastes. On the bonus side it looks like you can configure just about everything to do with your Journal. I'm considering a few things. The biggie is that entries on other people's friends page still have to show up correctly, and my own friends page has to still show up correctly.

So, what I think I'm going to do is have it so that if they view my primary page it will redirect them to my blog. But my friends page would be the same as it is now, and people would see my posts as normal on their friends page. Now, if I could just find a way to clean up RSS feeds in LJ. It would be cool if someone could 'own' a feed and provide a style for it.

Of course now it's morning and I'm reading over all this and wondering if it is worth the effort.

Scientists have found a new jellyfish.

MYSTERIES OF THE ANIMAL WORLD NEW JELLYFISH: Big Red has cluster of arms, not tentacles

In the cold, dark waters north of the Farallon Islands, nearly a mile beneath the surface, scientists have discovered a new species of huge jellyfish with a striking red bell that grows more than a yard wide and has a cluster of wrinkled, fleshy arms instead of streaming tentacles.

They call it Big Red, and its entire life is a mystery. The researchers don't know whether the ones they have observed are males or females, they don't know how they reproduce, and they don't know what they eat or what eats them.

They do know that the jellyfish has anywhere from four to seven thick arms and uses them for eating. It also carries wartlike clusters of stinging cells. They think -- but don't know -- that it may prey on smaller jellies for food. [SFGate.com]

Yikes! That is one scary looking jellyfish. Just keep it away from me!.

Dave reports that LiveJournal can now ping weblogs.com.

LiveJournal can now ping Weblogs.Com. This is cool because there are a lot of apps that watch the XML feed from Weblogs.Com. Now LiveJournal sites will show up there, if they opt-in. [Scripting News]

I'm very glad it was made opt-in, and only for paid LiveJournal users. Otherwise I think it would probably overload weblogs.com. The next thing LiveJournal needs to do is pay attention the comments tag in RSS 2.0. IMHO, their neglecting that is very lame.

Also, rumor has it they will be supporting trackback. Does this mean LJ is finally starting to play with others more?

/usr/bin/girl has a link to a cute web comic called FishTanked. I enjoyed it so figured I'd share.

Reading through my LiveJournal friend's page I came across a link to a story about Japanese love hotels.

Adonis specializes in S&M rooms and cute cartoon characters/ Maybe it was inevitable that the two would be combined to make the "HELLO KITTY SM ROOM". There's even a Kitty-chan plush doll wearing a ball gag, blind fold, and barbed wire garter belts that will give you nightmares for years. Adonis also has a room with glow in the dark jelly fish, a prison cell, a high school classroom and some really scary S&M rooms. [Lovehotels]

Personally the idea of the Hello Kitty S&M room just makes me a bit nervous and a little disturbed. Now, a Badtz Maru room, that would be more fitting.

Not around much today. In a cranky mood, will blog more about it later.

This article was posted to a mailing list I was on. I missed it the other week when it was posted, but thought I'd throw up a link to it in case others missed it.

A month ago I experienced a very small taste of what hundreds of South Asian immigrants and U.S. citizens of South Asian descent have gone through since 9/11, and what thousands of others have come to fear. I was held, against my will and without warrant or cause, under the USA PATRIOT Act. While I understand the need for some measure of security and precaution in times such as these, the manner in which this detention and interrogation took place raises serious questions about police tactics and the safeguarding of civil liberties in times of war. [AlterNet: Patriot Raid]

This story really unnerved me. I did try and find more information on it, unfortunately, there were just lots of blog posts like this about it. Anyone have pointers to more information on this?

Jeremy Zawodny writes about Mailing List Behavior.

Sometimes I worry that I'm becoming one of those grizzly old Unix geeks that gets sick of all the young kids who are invading what used to be great technical mailing lists. Some people just don't get it. There are fairly basic rules that, when followed, go a long way toward making mailing lists useful communities for everyone involved. [Jeremy Zawodny's blog]

I remember when I first got online, I was a bit intimidated by mailing lists and news groups. I watched numerous other newbies get ripped to shreds for posting without learning the rules. These days I don't see that much of that either and it kind of saddens me.

Aldous Huxley: "The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name." [Quotes of the Day]

Even if it is restless sleep where I'm worrying that I'll miss a call from my parents. I got a few hours at least. Now to get things done for the rest of the day and tonight. Primarily, vacuum (can someone please buy me a roomba?), find a monitor speaker for tonight (I have a decent lead on this I believe), shower, have an early dinner with parents and sis and nephew, and sneak in another hour or two of sleep. Ugs. And this is without the other important stuff I should be doing like job search things.

Update: Mom just called and said they'd be here soon. Augh.

Tommy Cooper: "Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone." [Quotes of the Day]

Bah, tossed and turned most of the night. Didn't sleep well at all. My sister is coming up today with my parents. Hopefully I can find a way to get a few hours sleep before tonight. Though the little sleep let me finish cleaning up more and I got to watch too much BBC America. I also bought my first CD from the iTunes music store. It was pretty cool. I got Pleasure Victim by Berlin. It also got me thinking about things they could do to make the store better. I'd love the option to get the actual CD when I buy something. There's a few reasons for this. First, AAC may be fairly good quality, but it still isn't actual CD quality. Second, Liner notes. I like having them. I like seeing who is involved with producing an album. Maybe if they had a way to download a PDF of it or something.

Seen over on Lockergnome: Indy is finally coming out on DVD. ROCK. I still remember seeing the first movie as a kid. I'm so psyched to finally see this coming out on DVD.

I've been really excited about a lot of the DJs we've had playing lately. When I was first asked to do The Analog Lounge I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to have a night where there would be all styles of music welcome. Last week and this week are just a taste of some of that. This week we've got Lenore of Elements at the Phoenix Landing on Thursday nights. I actually haven't been in ages since the Landing tends to be just about the smokiest place in Cambridge and it's murder for me to go there. But I do remember the first time I ever saw Lenore spin. It was at the first beach party Changmian threw. That was a special night for me since I was told to bring my records just in case there was time for me to spin. 10pm rolled around and the DJ set to spin there hadn't shown up yet. Dino pointed at me and said "you're on". I spun one of my very first sets in front of a crowd of people. Lenore was up right after me and I was really stunned by what she played. I hadn't heard much drum and bass at that point, and I certainly hadn't heard stuff like she was playing. I loved it. So I'm glad to finally be able to book her for the Analog Lounge.

Also this week we've got a few other special things going on. First, my little sister is due to be in town and I'm dragging her out to show her that Boston knows how to have a good time. It's also her birthday, so everyone should come out to wish her happy birthday. Next, as many of you know, Boston has gone no-smoking. I'm pretty damn psyched about this. The upstairs at Vertigo has never been that smoky, but there have been nights where it has been a bit too much for me. This week, in celebration of no smoking I'll be doing the closing set. I'm thinking something kinda housey, we'll see what comes out.

Changmian and Dubcoast present

*~The Analog Lounge~*

The relaxed side of things. Join us every Wednesday for a mix of music styles in the lounge at Vertigo, with lots of mellow mixed in.
In order to celebrate this very first week of a no-smoking Boston, and my little sister's birthday we're very happy to bring you one of the residents of Elements at the Phoenix Landing:

Lenore [ELEMENTS, Boston, MA]

Opening things up will be Special Pete, and Gregory Blake will be closing the night out.

The Analog Lounge with resident dj's
Gregory Blake (Changmian) Boston
Special Pete (dubcoast music) CA
Peter Ellis (ttb) Boston
Pete Yagmin (Changmian) Boston

Wednesdays
@ Vertigo (upstairs)
126 State St. Boston, MA
617-723-7277
10pm - 2am
21+ with ID
$5 cover (gets you into both the Lounge and Anitya)
No dress code
www.changmian.com
www.dubcoast.com
www.vertigoboston.com
www.mapquest.com (directions)

Upcoming Guests:
May 14 - Mark Martini [Dubcoast Music, Source of Gravity UK; MA]
May 21 - Chris Barakat [Boston, MA]
May 28 - Chris VanWart [Boston, MA]

To view our calendar online (with support for you iCal and Mozilla calendar folk):
http://ical.mac.com/gblake99/The32Analog32Lounge

Are you a DJ in the Boston area? Are you interested in playing out some Wednesday night? If so, drop me a line at lounge@ezoons.com.

Thanks to Lyn for showing me Boohbah. How very odd and entertaining.

So I was looking at some other blogs on Blogshares after reading this post on jenett.radio.

BlogShares Fares
Ouch!  I just lost over $22k on this one... [jenett.radio]

The first thing I noticed was that it looks like the blog in question has been reindexed numerous times in the past week or so. Yet the last update for my blog on there is back in April 25th. I think they really need to work on their indexing engine a bit more.

As I was typing this I did a bit of index and it seems you can ping blogshares like you do weblogs.com, so I'm going to give that a try. We'll see if things get updated more often now.

Dispatches from Revland points to a great alternative commentary for the Fellowship of the Ring DVD by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. I always suspected there was more to pipe-weed. Too Funny.

The previous post got me thinking of a conversation I was a part of last night online. We were talking about piracy and places people draw their own lines for what is 'okay' to download. One interesting area was downloading TV episodes. Is it okay to do? Is it any different than recording it to VCR. Nobody is charging to make episodes available. They are almost always at a poorer quality than TV. And in many cases there is no other way for a person to even see them (unless a friend taped it and lent them a tape). You might even make the argument that commercials should be left in so that there is some possibility of advertising revenue for the show. Though, once a show is out on DVD I definitely think it is wrong to download rips of that show, since it is now more of a product.

How about anime fansubs. Is it piracy to watch something that was only shown once in another country on TV that isn't available on video yet? Including the commercials doesn't really help, since people in other countries probably wouldn't understand them (or even be a target audience). There's a definite market for US and Japanese companies to co-produce shows and release them simultaneously (and it looks like this is close to happening). I know that my personal line is that I won't download anything that's out on DVD in the US. Given that sometimes it can take over a year between a show being licensed and actually being available on DVD in the US I don't see there as being as much of a problem. And once again, video quality suffers with downloads. Recent viewings of some shows I originally saw as downloads is major proof of this.

Another recent Conference that was mentioned by Heath. This one was at MIT this past weekend.

What is the role of television in specific societies or regions today? How is this role changing? What part are digital technologies and new systems of communication playing in this transition? What are the likely outcomes of present trends? What are the darkest possibilities? What does the history of television in diverse countries and regions tell us about its possible futures? The third Media in Transition conference centers on television's political and cultural role at the dawn of our new millennium. [Media in Transition 3: Television in Transition]

I thought quite a few of the abstracts listed looked pretty interesting. I'm still waiting for someone to write more about the growth of anime viewership in the US. Between places like Cartoon Network and TechTV and people downloading fansubs of shows I keep seeing more and more growth. With current technology and distribution methods it is possible to watch an episode of a show within days of it airing. I'd be curious to see how much of this occurs before someone realizes there may be a market for this.

George Bernard Shaw: "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules." [Quotes of the Day]

So the last post I made. Where I mention Good Experience Live. Within 10 minutes of it being posted someone was hitting my site from Technorati having searched for links to http://www.goodexperience.com/gel/. The weird thing is I can't find these links myself. I wonder if it's something you get for using Technorati as a pay service. Still, that's pretty damn fast.

Heath Row posted a whole buncha stuff from Good Experience Live. I wish I could have gone to this. I find a lot of this stuff really interesting. Hmm, how can I get involved with all this stuff? I was psyched to see that Ze Frank was there, I love his site (the Predate Confidence Builder is a favorite). Someday I'll get a job that lets me go to things like this.

I was looking at some comments on Boston Common on Boston's smoking ban that started today. I think it is going to be really interesting to see how this all works out. Now, I'm someone who doesn't smoke, but up until recently never really minded it unless it was really bad. But that all changed a few years ago when I started having lung problems. Now even a little bit of smoke can cause discomfort. For the most part I just avoided dealing with this by not going out. But it was difficult. Friends would be heading out to see DJs or bands that I'd want to see and i really couldn't go. Now I can, at least in Boston. I'm pretty psyched about it all. Time to rediscover Boston.

Now, we just need Cambridge to get the message too. Anyone else find it odd that Boston went no-smoking and Cambridge hasn't yet?

Russell Baker: "People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately." [Quotes of the Day]

From over on Scriptgoddess a link to a Movable Type Wiki. Pretty keen. I'm going to have to dig into this deeper tomorrow.

Weird. I just got the hiccups for the first time in around a decade (at least). How weird. Though, I think I just made them go away.

There's been a lot of heated discussion going around about CSS lately (or maybe there always is and I just noticed it). I keep reading up on all of it and some of it I can identify with and some of it not. And, in typical blog fashion, figure'd I'd write about it. For the record, I'm a fan of CSS. There are things it has issues with (and it frustrates the hell out of me), but there are lots of things it does well and it has definitely made my life easier. In my opinion, the big problem with CSS (and things like XHTML) is that it isn't easy. It requires a bit more effort to learn about it than it did to learn the basics of HTML enough to throw a page together.

I had a few good things helping me on the way. The biggest of which was a good book. Kynn Bartlett's Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours. I'm not real familiar with what other books are out there, but this one helped me a lot. It also did a good job of showing what things work in what browsers. I found that as long as I was careful with what parts of CSS I used things would be relatively cool. Though, I did choose to not support Netscape 4. I know some people don't have a choice, but I do think there's a point where you need to cut the lifeline. And it made my life much easier.

The point of this is that this stuff isn't simple. Should it be? I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer that. But I do know that now that I have all the plumbing in place on my site it's easy to change a lot of how it looks on the fly than it was before. I need to try some of the various editing tools out there to see how well they work. But I think that even without those there's a certain basic level of knowledge that goes with doing anything beyond very very simple markup. And it isn't always easy to find that knowledge amidst everything out there.

Laurie Anderson: "When love is gone, there's always justice./ And when justice is gone, there's always force./ And when force is gone, there's always Mom./ Hi, Mom!" [Quotes of the Day]

This is the 2nd to last batch of CDs to rip. I've got some other random stuff after these, but this is the bulk of it. Here goes:

• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
• Billy Bragg - Talking with the Taxman About Poetry
• Bronski Beat - Age of Consent
• Book of Love - Book of Love
• Bjork - Big Time Sensuality (CD Single)
• Bjork - Debut
• Bigod-20 - On the Run (CD Single)

The most notable thing out of this bunch is the Bigod-20 single, which has their version of Like a Prayer. I personally think it's the best version out there.

I feel broken today.

Friends of mine are throwing a house party tonight. I'm so happy. I really need to just cut loose and have some fun. Of course the hardest part is figuring out what records I want to play. I've been going through my records for the past few days so I've got all this music bouncing around in my head. It makes it very hard to go through and choose what I want to play exactly.

WIred has a pretty good article on the Apple Music Store. It also confirmed of mine about international customers.

However, the gaps aren't Apple's fault. The store offers all the songs available for download from the big-five record labels. The labels' Byzantine licensing process is preventing Apple from offering more songs from more artists, and from bringing the store to international users. Most tracks have to be cleared by a different licensing authority for each country. [Wired]

Anyone who is very familiar with the video/DVD world is well aware of things like this. I had a feeling that this could end up being a bit of a licensing nightmare for Apple.

Anyone want to buy my Audiotron and 20GB iPod? $525 for the both of them. I'm semi-seriously putting these up for sale to get a 30GB iPod.

Went to see X2 today. It was pretty damn cool. A really good followup to the first movie. Now the wait for the new Matrix movie.

life listed one of want to Well,
after thinking maybe some candy cigarettes for
me. a step in
their mouth. Changmian and I
was a song, is to
go through. toast.
Unlike Zannah, I live
without.

Created by Rob's Amazing Poem Generator, as seen on The Reverse Cowgirl's Blog

yipee!

Unlike Zannah, I like toast. I especially like cinnamon toast. YUM. But I've never really thought about pushing things through toast. Fortunately, someone else taken care of this for me.

I saw a post over on jenett.radio about Blogshares this morning.

huh?
I bought 1000 shares in a weblog this morning at $1.90 each and the price immediately went down to $1.70.  After thinking about it a while, I decided to purchase 250 shares more, hoping it would bring the price back up a bit.  It immediately went down to $1.50 per share.  &lt;singin'>I'm a loser baby, so why don't ya kill me</singin'>... ;~) [jenett.radio]

So, on a hunch, I decided to check out the page for my blog over there. Sure enough my blog has been losing value while he's have been buying shares. WTF???

One of these is probably classifiable as a bug, one is just a gripe of mine. Both are to do with shared playlists.

• When playing a song from a remote playlist programs that query iTunes for what song is playing don't get any information back. As far as I can tell this is just an outright bug. You can still see in the status window what song is playing, so iTunes has that information. You can even Get Info on a remote track. This one is a higher priority for me because it kind of breaks Kung-Tunes working for me.

• When playing songs off a remote machine it doesn't grab album artwork. Why not? If it's available it should grab it. It's not huge. I can't think of any reason not to.

While I like iTunes 4 overall and think the music store is pretty swanky, there are a number of places where iTunes 4 is missing some of the typical polish I've come to expect from Apple software. Did they just think people weren't going to be using some of these features that much? They don't seem to really have a good feel for what their customers are doing then.

Now as far as a wish list item. I want a remote control mode. I want to be able to pop up an iTunes window that links directly to an instance of iTunes running on a remote machine. I've got a G3 which is used as a file server, and now with iTunes 4 a music server. But one thing I'm thinking of doing is plugging my G3 into my stereo. This would let me play songs over my stereo (I've got the Audiotron too, but it won't play AAC and doesn't support smart playlists). And while I could use some applescript to write a remote control app it would be most cool to be able to control iTunes remotely with a full featured interface. Let me sign on, let me create new playlists on that machine, choose which one to play, the whole ball of wax.

Gizmodo has a post about the Radio YourWay from PoGo! Products and calls it TiVo for radio. It's closer to a VCR for radio than a TiVo. It's missing a lot of the things that make the TiVo special. The biggest of which are things like pause and rewind back a few minutes in while listening to 'live radio'. Still, it is a step in the right direction. Oh yeah, and it doesn't support seem to have Mac support.

What else would I put into this product if I was selling it. I'd bluetooth or WiFi enable it so that I could configure it from my computer easily without having to plug it in. I'd work on developing some kind of standard for radio stations to publish their schedules in so that I could browse what shows were on when and select ones to record (or does some kind of TV listing type thing exist for radio already?).

Ever walk by those vending machines as a kid and beg your mom for a quarter so you can get something? John Tynes points to Direct from Source. Everything from gumballs to superballs with aliens in them. I feel like a kid again.

I hope there aren't any duplicates in here from when I was ripping stuff before. Even though I am planning on re-ripping everything into AAC I'll start with what I haven't ripped at all.

• The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Further Out
• Kate Bush - The Whole Story
• Kate Bush - The Kick Inside
• bel canto - magic box
• Adam Ant - Antics in the Forbidden Zone
• China Crisis - Acoustically Yours
• Classic Acid
• Toni Childs - Union
• The Cardigans - first band on the moon
• The Cardigans - Life
• Edie Carey - Call me Home
• Camoflage - Voices & Images
• the Breeders - Last Splash
• Richard Blade's Flashback Favorites

I'm pretty sure I listed one or two here before, but I wasn't sure. Lots of nice stuff in this batch. The Cardigan's Life is one of my favorite drive home from a rave CDs. It had just enough energy to keep me driving and not falling asleep. Also, Camoflage, I remember it taking me forever to find out they were the ones who did The Great Commandment years and years ago. And Richard Blade's Flashback Favorites is one of my favorite 80s collections, this one has Heaven 17's Let me Go (and I'm having a hard enough time any Heaven 17 on CD these days).

So I posted a bit about how my ISP had been filtering spam right? I keep finding more and more messages that I think it was filtering. Like the ones from various mailing lists I'm on that go out monthly. I hadn't seen any of those in months, but I do now. Thanks again AT&T, you're doing a wonderful job. Let's see if Comcast gets it any better.

Galileo Galilei: "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." [Quotes of the Day]

It's the first of the month and I remembered. Did you?

Kasia rules. She just found a script that reports little script kiddies who are trying to find servers with copies of formmail.pl sitting on them. The script tries to email their ISP (which in most cases seems to be AOL) and report their actions. I get so many of these hits a day it isn't funny, so it's cool to find a script to fight back at these folks. After I get some coffee in me I'm going to sit down and drop this into place.