Wynona Rider finally looks hot. When she is half animated with that draw over technique or whatever they are using for A Scanner Darkly.

I do believe it is time for more horrible poetry. I commence with foulness.

My heart aches for you like a zit on a teen's nose,
soon I will burst forth with the love I can no longer contain.
My loins burn for you like a stridex pad across the geek's neck,
cleansing, fiery, alcoholic is the fire in my crotch.
Baby, without you, I am naught but an awkward, oily teen.

I was just watching my TiVo'd episode of Futurama and there was this bit at the beginning that I thought was pretty funny:

So I finally convinced the boss that we needed a new printer and also convinced him to pay for it. Yesterday, we went to worst buy to purchase the new machine. I am going to skip this part of the story and just say that everyone working in worst buy is a dumb moron except for the nice cashier girl who asked for my ID when I used a credit card.

This morning, not half an hour ago, my boss shows up and I haul out the printer and begin schlepping it upstairs. My boss asks me where I am taking it. I look at him in slight bewilderment and say, up to my office. (I have no printer at all and currently print everything on the photocopier which, while nice, is on the first floor of the office. My boss thought the printer would stay in his office. I have no idea how he got this idea, since I had repeatedly made it clear that if I had a printer, we could print color documents twice as fast by using two printers. My boss tells me that they wanted it installed somewhere on the first floor. I asked him where and he says they were thinking that we could attach it to the accounting computer. Which is 5 or more years old. It's a pentium for chrissakes! So I look at him with my usual combination of deer in headlights and hulk on a rampage stareglare when he makes an ignorant request involving tech. I slowly recollect my thoughts from the discombobulating effect this boss has on me and respond with, "That is a bad idea." Why? "Well, I understand why you want to switch out the old printer, but even if I could get the new one running here, we would lose 90% of its functionality." I was quite proud of two things: my answer and not ripping his head off and shitting down his throat for even suggesting this. (I have been after a new printer for months and they have been for years and this is their idea? I asked for a new copier and we got one in a week which is supposed to handle all our printing. Right now it handles only my printing.) Really? It won't work? Can't we install it somewhere else down here? "Not really, you already have two printers connected to your machine. If we install it upstairs, we will still be able to network print." Ok, but I should talk to the Editor in Chief first. "Ok." I carried the printer the rest of the way upstairs. Lo and behold, wonder of wonders, my statements proved to incontrovertible and I am now installing the printer on my desk. Chuck smash.

UPDATE!!1!!111!: My boss now claims not to understand how it would be beneficial to have two printers working on the same print job. He is quite the dumb moron when it comes to tech. As if that weren't apparent already.

So I've just started converting an old site of mine from a lame static HTML page to a WordPress driven site. So far it's gone surprisingly well.

I've never done anything with PHP before but it has been surprisingly easy to pick up. I do have to say that the WordPress Template tags are pretty useless if you're used to programming. They don't work on the same level you do, they're all designed for generating HTML not generating values used to generate HTML.

Still, I've found much of the process interesting and it's given me a reason to finally get back to work on mastering my CSS styles.

I have realized that this 30 day trial I have of Dreamweaver 8 won't be enough, so I'll most likely have to buy a copy of it. That then makes me wonder if I should spend the $200 to upgrade to the standard version or the $500 for the one that includes all the goodies like Macromedia Director and Fireworks. Right now I'm using Photoshop and creating rollover buttons and the like has been quite a pain.

Anyway, if anyone has experience with this stuff, I'd like to hear it.

Thanks.

You Are The Love Mummy


The Ultimate Aqua Teen Hunger Force Quiz
brought to you by Quizilla

I'd almost completely forgot that this movie was coming out but a post on CHUD reminded me about it. Although there have been a number of hilariously bad adapted Philip K. Dick stories (Total Recall, Paycheck, Impostor) there has been at least one good (if not slightly overrated) one.

Plus the newest film, A Scanner Darkly, is directed by Richard Linklater and is usingtechnology much like was used in Waking Life (and those lame commercials for some investment firm).

Anyway, you should give the trailer a look here. Robert Downey Jr. looks like he's giving a good performance as usual. Now I just need to find Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang somewhere.

It returns for the one and only gloriously vintage blog appearance. The title reflects the fact that 7 of the 10 bands come from the British Isles.

If only I could make my text sparkle the way this blog does. Until then, you can suffer through my over-adjectived reviews (no numbers)

Friday Random 10

1. Franz Ferdinand - Walk Away: This song is excellent. They step out of the inimitable dance aesthetic away from the New British Invasion and harken back to the original Britsh Invasion. It's not the best song and I like these guys when they are pushing things a little more than they do here but they manage not to leave this song high and dry. It's almost odd because this album it's really apparent that it is the 'B' side of the record I would be obsessing over.
2. The Thrills - Old Friends New Lovers: These guys generally get a little under my skin but here they have fallen back into one of those topics (love) that actually works well with country music. Plus, they have more of the bluesy guitar running through the song than usual and actually seem to be mixing up a little bit of the Irish roots back into the Nashville aesthetic.
3. The Black Heart Procession - A Cry For Love: This is one of those moments where randomness pays unexpected dividends. This song combines nicely with the previous song. It keeps things slow and actually adds a more funereal element to the whole affair. It has simple melodic structures and a fairly spare arrangement while managings to convey the emotional plaintiveness behind the song.
4. Imogen Heap - Loose Ends: This album was procured for others. This song is pretty bland dance-pop but with the esteemed vocals of Ms. Heap being the only thing that really makes this song worth possessing at all. Think of the new Madonna song with an alto.
5. The White Stripes - Blue Orchid: This song is a thing of singular beauty. It is good and clean and dirty all at the same time. The distortion on each of those keening guitar plucks is so dirty but the space between each of those rythmic, driving pulses is so clean.
6. Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee: This song shows the danger of a one man band. I like Of Montreal, even a lot of their new stuff. This song, however, has a minute too long of an intro. It doesn't quite build effectively and I'm really not sure what it adds. After that, it becomes a fun pop song with the signature electro-psychadelia that Of Montreal do so well.
7. The Sames - Heartpine: I really wish Yo' would go check out these guys for me. I only have two songs of theirs I stumbled onto but I like them. This one has more traditional indie/emo vocals over a borderline emo/garage sound. I know this isn't the best description but they are pretty cool. Anyway, they're based in Durham, NC so that means our "All Things Carolina" expert is appointed to investigate more fully.
8. Radiohead - Everything in Its Right Place: Another good song. A little abrupt of a changeover from The Sames but no one is really going to complain once they realize what is playing next. Radiohead! Finally, one band that we can all agree on...or else.
9. J Dilla - Love Junkee (featuring Cameo): Unfortunately, he just died from lupus. Some passable hip-hop. It is not overwhelmed with fancy samples, thankfully, but it goes on for too long with some vocals you can barely pick out of the mix before they hit the heart of the song. Some slight Eastern (Indian) influences seem to slip into the underbelly of the latter half of the song. I'm not an expert so I'll stop before I say something dumb(er).
10. Gorillaz - Last Living Souls: Another spare hip-hop song. It is really suprising that this is the song that is supposed to draw me into their album. It is kind of cold and lacking that bounce that draws me to most Gorillaz songs. So this song doesn't quite do it for me.

Take it to 11:

Blur - Far Out: A pretty random example of the joys of Britpop. So quirky you just wanna hug em and hug em and...well, maybe you ought to just hum along.

I am so sad,
I am so bad.

Why do you hurt so?
Why do you hurt me so?
Why? Why?

I am so glad,
I am so mad!

Why do you make me so angry and then make me hurt you?

Sorry, all. We here at the WRN crew are such crazy web ninjas(Chuckles the obvious exception) that we just blog along without ever bitching about how we blog or locking out our posters andcommenters or wasting two weeks to have an even uglier-ass blue border than we used to demonstrate our obvious visual acuity.

We're sorry for wasting your time like that and so, for today only, or until somebody fixes it, I have altered the colors. Consider it a small favor for the many joys that blogging has provided me.

note to 3B!: We wuv you!

note to those who may be confused: Only 1 in 3 of my jokes are deemed funny by the nerdiest of nerds, so just blame the patriarchy or something.

Ok, I know this is hits close to home for both Chuckles and Fulsome but today's Dinosaur Comics touches on a point that I've argued many times in the past.

The comic does it so well though, that I thought it deserved special attention.

Dinosaur Comics

Sigh ... I think it's going to be one of those days again. For me, it's those days where people come and ask you pointlessly trivial questions all day or just have some level of incompetency that frightens you to the point of chuckling ruefully.

The fun today actually started yesterday when my boss emailed this other guy (Grandpa from my previous post) with a list of stuff to do (and CC'd some of us other people on it). Somehow this guy misinterpreted downloading a set of data from one client as downloading a set of data from ALL of our clients. Luckily I managed to head that one off as he ran into my office frantically saying that it was going to take 4 of us coordinating all our efforts to get all this data transferred.

After I calmly explained that he only meant one client I thought that would be the end of it. Ha! The guy then sends out an email with some sample reports of the data that was on our client's system. He had run a report to incorporate all of the data for the month of January ... for which there was no data.

So I responded that we haven't had a reliable set of data for this client EVER until the past two weeks (which is clearly stated in the email) so that's all we need to look at.

Then at the end of the day yesterday, he comes in and is like, "I'm downloading data from the client site and it won't be done for a couple hours, can you check on it before you leave."

Wondering why it's taking so long, I ask, "How much data are you downloading?"

"Everything since 2004."

I sit in stunned silence for a moment and then give the most non-commital "Sure, I'll check it before I leave," I can muster.

Then we get to today, he comes into my office and is like, "I'm trying to transfer the data to the test computer but I can't get internet access on it."

"Yeah, we've got virtual server on there and that can cause problems with the network cards sometimes. Let me take a look."

So I come out and a web page is up on a browser.

"Is that the internet?" I ask.

"Yes, it works when I log in as my user but not when I log in as the test user."

So we log back in as the test user and he double clicks IE. "See," he says plaintively while indicating the blank white screen where a web page should have loaded. "The internet is not working."

Overcoming the urge to repeatedly smack myself in the head for having wasted more than 5 seconds of my precious life on this pointless exercise, I calmly respond "No, the internet works fine. It's just set to a blank home page."

UPDATE 1: Later that day ...

In he comes to my office, "The report isn't running, it keeps crashing."

Out I go to the test computer. Again he points to the screen and says, "See," as the application crashes while running the report.

"Do you have the latest version of the software?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"Well, let's make sure it has the latest version on it." I say.

"I can go download it," he responds, "and then we can remote desktop into the computer from my PC and get it that way."

"Or," I quickly reply, "we can get it off the share server in like 2 seconds right now. See. Done."

"Now," I continue, "did you delete the files I specifically told you that you need to make sure you delete before you run the program? Well, let's delete them again just to be safe."

Upon deleting the somehow still existing suspect files, we rerun the report. And surprise, it is success.
<[UPDATE: The excitement continues ... click for update]<-- DON'T REALLY CLICK HERE CHUCKLES!!!

The 3Bulls! Header Contest is going red hot, but I still need some votes if I am to pull this off. I need all of those anonymous people, ZZorro and even canuck, and the bloggers that haven't voted, giving you the evil eye teh l4m3, to go vote for my entries numbered 9, 10, and 11. Two are Battlestar Galactica themed and extra special and one is primatologically delicious. If only Trix and Lucky Charms were delicious in such a fashion.

The Tallies:
#1 45__________#8 18
#2 45__________#9 24 A little far behind, but still worthy
#3 29__________#10 69! Just a little more!
#4 82.90!______#11 46.66 Ah! The mark of the beast!
#5 74.41!______#12 13.3
#6 24__________#13 35
#7 52.125

UPDATE: VOTE! Come on, I need this.

Ok, I know a lot of my posts have been whiny and kind of lame lately. And for that, I apologize.

Still, yesterday in my Valentine's Day web surfing (I was looking for porn) I did come across what may be described as simultaneously the most amazing and also most frightening site ever conceived.

I don't know why these things exist but I can only thank the Internet (there is only one true Internet) for making them possible.

I also found other cool things like these sweet Law & Order: SVU valentines. Ahhh, good times.

In light of this past weekend's events, I'd like to encourage those who have been hiding other various injuries (perhaps an icepick in the neck or a cactus in the face) caused by the Vice President on their property. I understand that you couldn't come forward before, because that would have jeopardized the status of his "undisclosed location(s)."

Due to recent events though, it appears that some people are chastizing us for not coming out with this information earlier. "Boo hoo, it took us 20 hours to release information about the vice president shooting some dude in the face ...," cry those whiny liberals.

I think it's time we show them that Cheney shooting a dude is actually not that strange or noteworthy. This is why no one made a big deal out of it on Saturday. Then maybe for once they would stop their inane complaining.

Those who have helped Cheney hunt "the ultimate game" (like a hobo or something), we stand behind you--unless you're hunting quail ... then we stand behind some sort of bulletproof glass.

So I didn't notice this until today, but a new (and actually quite interesting) show, Love Monkey, got cancelled last week. Add to that the cancellation of Arrested Development (with its Series Finale last Friday) and it looks like we'll be short two interesting television shows.

Worse yet, they've also cancelled The War At Home and American Dad, both of which were phenomenally multifaceted comedies. What's that? They didn't cancel either one of those bastard shows?!?

I know it's too easy to blame "dumb people" for watching stupid shows (like why is COPS still on?) and getting sucked into hype machines. Does anyone have any idea what is going on in Lost or Desperate Housewives anymore ... I've watched like 2 episodes of each show and I'm completely bewildered as to whatever is going on in them.

Still, it's so frustrating when there is an enjoyable TV show that people won't watch because it's "too funny" or "not retarded enough." I'm convinced that CBS took Love Monkey off because they realized that it wasn't a police procedural. Perhaps if we told them that Tom Cavanagh's character was an undercover cop, looking to bust drug dealers in the NY music scene, they'd have left it on.

In its place we'll probably get another CSI ... wait, no, we're getting the Unit instead. It's like 24 but with different actors the same actors. Hmmm ... ok. Good for it.

What's the point of this? I guess it's that I got my new TiVo set up last night and as I was going through and rescheduling my Season Passes, I realized that some of my favorite new shows (like that dreamy Emily's Reason's Why Not .. that show was awesome!) are already gone. This made me think about shows getting canceled quickly (other examples include Firefly, the Tick: Live Action Edition, the original Family Guy, Upright Citizens Brigade, etc.)

So I sign off with this: to shows that are gone because they were not police procedurals, I salute you! To those that just sucked ... I'm sorry, better luck next time. And to those bags of crap still on the air ... I really can't think of anything clever to say about you.

So last Sunday, a week and a half after I received confirmation that my TiVo had arrived at the TiVo service center, I started getting annoyed that I had not yet received my new TiVo. Frustrated and wanting some confirmation on the status of my replacement TiVo, I called the customer service number.

After about 10 minutes on hold ... during which they played annoying hold music the entire time. An operator comes on the line and wants to know what I'm calling about. Never mind that I went through thes stupid phone prompts to give them all this information before I ever talked to a human, they are then asking me for it again.

After I give her all my information, she says she's going to put me on hold for a second and look it up. About 5 minutes later she comes back on the line and says, "Now this is the TiVo that we just received on January XX, right?" I confirm and she asks me some more unrelated questions and then says that she's going to need to put me on hold for 2-3 more minutes to check on the status.

About 5 minutes later, she comes back on the line and is like, "Ok, it says here we just got it on January XX."

Too which I can only think, "Right, you said that before you put me on hold 5 minutes ago."

Then she continues on and says, "Well, our system says to expect to wait 5-7 business days from when it was supposed to ship out before we can take any action."

Argghh, did it really have to take 25 minutes of my time just for you to tell me that you can't do anything? So I ask her, "Well, my TiVo broke over two weeks ago and I've now lost at least 14 days off my warranty period because of your faulty product and poor shipping choice, could you at least reset my warranty back a couple days because of this?" To which, she obviously answers no and further clarifies that there is exactly zero things she can do for me.

So I hang up the phone frustrated and annoyed.

The next day though, I get another email from TiVo telling me that my unit is going to ship in 1 -2 Business Days. That's strange, I think, because I thought my TiVo was supposed to arrive in 1-2 days. Was that nice useless lady on the phone lying to me? The answer I think, would be yes.

So Early Wednesday morning I get another email from TiVo, this one has a tracking number for FedEx ground and an item list. It shows a scheduled arrival date of Friday, February 10. Great, I think to myself, it's going to come while I'm out of town. But as I check it out further, it says that the item they are shipping to me is an 80 hour TiVo. The original unit I sent in was a 40 hour unit. So I think they just bumped me up to a better unit.

I won't be able to comment for sure until I inspect the unit that actually arrives but I'm cautiously optomistic. If I just had to spend $8 for shipping and 2 weeks of non-TiVo-ness for an extra 40 hours of storage space, I'll be quite happy with the deal.

Since about 85-90% of my waking hours are spent at either work or the YMCA, I will yet again post interesting observations about my time at the YMCA.

Holding Hands at the Gym
Are there laws preventing this? Should there be? If so, can I ask the cop I see at the gym (at least I assume he's a cop, he's got a cop mustache and haircut) to arrest the offenders. The latest instance that I've witnessed was a couple that were running on treadmills (not holding hands then) but then when they got off the treadmills and were walking around the track, they were holding hands.

For me, this raises several questions: First, why would you want to hold some other sweaty persons hand, even if you do find them attractive (cause sweaty hands are perhaps the grossest thing ever - EVAR!), secondly, why do you need to hold hands at all when you're 40ish and at the gym? What is the purpose of holding hands? Are they having trouble crossing the street? Do they forget which direction they're supposed to be going? I don't know ... it's just weird.

Thirdly, when I'm trying to run on the track and 2 of the 3 lanes are occupied by people holding hands, it makes it quite annoying. All it takes is one more person to join hands and it will turn into an impromptu game of Red Rover. Something I'm not sure they'll appreciate.

You Should Try Taking HGH
Excerpt of an actual conversation I heard in the locker room:

Person A: "I tried steroids once, they were not a good scene. I use HGH now, it's much better."
Person B: "Really? Isn't HGH illegal?"
Person A: "No, not at all. You can get it at GNC. It's great you should definitely try HGH!"

I don't know if you can get HGH at GNC (for some reason I suspect not) but I don't think you encourage people to take crazy things that will f' up their body. That's just me though.

I distinctly remember this one time a guy I work with came into the office I share with The Clipper and he was asking us if we had ever taken steroids. He was totally considering it and wanted to know if we had an opinion. This from the same guy who bought one of those get-fit-without-trying-because-the electrical-current-will-cause-your-muscles-to-involuntarily-spasm devices. Not only did he try it though, he started talking about having tried it during a little bit of downtime right before a meeting with like 10 people in the room? Choice quote from the whole incident, "You really have to use a lot of the gel on the conductors to feel anything and then it just hurt!"

Ok, I have a few more exciting observations but I don't have the time or inclination to relate them at the moment, you'll just have to wait I guess.

Let's work our way through the show in chronological order. Also, the pics are stolen from shymuse on flickr.

We got there in time to see The MGMT. They seem to be playing rather derivative 80's rock anthem music. They were wearing the headbands and everything. I think they were supposed to be ironic but the music was not high enough quality to get the pass. Instead it was just foolish.

After that it was the band "Grand Buffet." They are a white boy rap group out of Pittsburgh. They actually seemed to have a lot of potential because they weren't strictly limited to rap but had some interesting ideas floating around the edges of their music. The lead singer had an awesome red beard that would have impressed the mighty tehl4m3, although the drawn on abs and skinny boy look may have saved him from the "back alley treatment." Also, the fat man of the duo was a successful dancer. So they managed to avoid being bad but I was moderately surprised because there was a decent chunk (20%) of the crowd that seemed into them while I was unaware of their existence.

Of Montreal is fronted by Kevin Barnes who actually had me fairly convinced he is a queen. It turns out there is simply another adjective to precede that and it is drama, since he is married and his wife plays keyboards. I state this as something that actually enhanced the show because watching him go through at least five different outfits was mostly unexpected for an indie rock show. He came out in a wedding gown, switched to some gauzy shirt, then this one,


followed by this and then closing with some crazy orange raincoat.

The crowd-watching was rather enjoyable as well. I was in the balcony due to my compatriots preference for sitting so we had an eagle eye view of the situation. There was Andre the Giant, Jr. -- fatter and shorter but the same glorious hair and his two equally socially inept friends, a number of teeny-bop girls at the front, and, apparently no show in SF is now complete without the "girl who thinks she can dance." This time, it was a woman who was seated directly next to me. I kept thinking, "I don't really want to stare at your tits but if you keep gyrating around and end up in my lap it's not exactly my fault."

At any rate, the show was a success, the mango looked tasty, and they did indeed play "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games."

POSTCRIPT: Video killed the Radio Star
(effective subtitle: I'm a follower not a leader)



BONUS UPDATE: next planned show to attend is either The Botticellis @ Cafe du Nord or Eleventeen @ Bottom of the Hill. Recommendations gratefully accepted.

In an attempt to prevent Senor Chuckles from complaining again, I am putting together this post. It doesn't really have any point so I'll try and just briefly summarize the last few things I've done and, if any actually hold interest, do a post on them Wednesday.

1) Brush up on Mandarin. I was actually thinking of doing a small weekly post on this to help move teh towards his goal and make me think about it a little more.
2) Of Montreal show on Friday @ GAMH. They were good but this was the most "high school" feel of a show I've been to for some time.
3) Pre-emptive strike on Chuckles plan for high-falutin' ramblings with a review of some other Japanese author I just got conned into reading.
4) Document the Panda graffiti throughout SF
5) Beg dontEATnachos to outspiffy 3Bulls and provide us with a killer graphic header.

So there's the short list of options.

Until then, let's continue to watch quietly as the country gets back to its fascist roots.

These pictures come direct from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. AKA Congo-K, The Country Formerly Known as Zaire, The Congo, and, finally, The Country That Hosted the First Pan-African War and Everybody Showed Up.


Go ahead and give it your best shot.

So a week and a half ago, I come back from going to the gym on Sunday and try to watch the episode of Meet the Press that my TiVo was supposed to record. Instead, when I turn on the TV I just see the screen frozen on what looks to be an episode of the Power Puff girls. I try changing the channel with the remote but nothing works. Getting desperate, I unplug the TiVo and plug it back in.

After plugging it back in, everything seems to be working fine (well, except that it didn't record Meet the Press ... it had been stuck on Cartoon Network since sometime after it recorded an Episode of Big O). I was going about my day as usual when my roommate comes up to me and says, "Your speakers are making a buzzing noise."

The speakers are just a year old and are well taken care of so I didn't really believe him. I assumed that he had messed something up and that his Xbox was probably causing problems or vibrating or something. Still, when I went to go investigate I could definitely hear the buzzing. Then as I slowly unplugged components I was left with only one device ... the TiVo.

I could hear it buzzing and it stopped when I unplugged it so I thought maybe the fan is just rubbing against a cable. So I stick the eraser end of a pencil into the fan vent stop it from rotating. The buzzing continues though. The next step was to take the TiVo into my room and try plugging it into a different circuit (a solution that some people on the TiVo support bulletin boards suggested). Unfortunately that didn't work.

Still curious as to what exactly was making the buzzing noise, I popped the cover off the TiVo and took a look. It was pretty obvious that the noise was coming from the hard drive (which was only a 40GB drive ... I should totally replace that, or add a second hard drive or something). The weird thing was that if I turned the TiVo on its side, the buzzing stopped.

Anyway, I quickly called up TiVo support and explained the issue to them. They said it was most likely a hardware problem and that I needed to RMA it. Unfortunately for me, even though it was under warranty, they weren't willing to pay shipping to get it back to them (and since it was a gift, I didn't have the receipt to just take it back to the store).

So I FedEx Grounded the TiVo back to them and got an email on Thursday saying that they'd received it and that my new replacement TiVo would be sent out in 2 business days. Now I'm just trying to kill time until I get it (at which time I'll have to go through the whole initial setup thing again ... ouch).

Anyway, cross your fingers and hope that the new TiVo will be arriving in the not too distant future.

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