It's always a thrill to discover an album in the bargain bin that is a real gem, worth way more than the price paid. One example is my Camper Van Beethoven album, Telephone Free Landslide Victory which includes the hit, Take the Skinheads Bowling, among other things. I got a used copy in Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas. It had been out of print for years, and impossible to find. Definitely one of my favorite albums.

I got another gem recently from Django's. It's called London: 0, Hull: 4 by the Housemartins. It was released in 1986, I think, and the singer is Paul Heaton, who later was in The Beautiful South. Oddly, the bassist for the group was none other than Norman Cook a. k. a. Fatboy Slim. Here are the lyrics for one of the songs on this album, called Sheep:

Those guys are on to something. How else could we have so many people in this country (USA) who just follow the herd, do what they're told? And I don't claim to be immune to the tendency to become a sheep. We're up against the sheep inside us. Inertia. Because change is painful.

It's been awhile since I've written anything. Don't know really why that is. But sometimes it's better to say nothing if you have nothing to say. There's also the fact that I've been pretty busy. In fact, I haven't sat down to read the comics at work for over a week now. But they're my stories, just like some people have their soaps. So I snagged the comics section before it got recycled and then read a week's worth of comics in one sitting. I get all my real news from the internet (e. g. NY Times online) or the radio (e. g. NPR on the way home from work). The paper, to me, is just a source of comics (and maybe editorials, too). You can gain a lot of insight into the minds of crazy people by reading the letters to the editor. Especially here in Eugene. There are all sorts of crazy people here. Austin was the same way. (I wonder how Leslie is doing, and if he ran for mayor again?)

I recently purchased a piece of software. That's a pretty big deal, for me. I can usually find what I want for free, but in this case I thought it was worth the money. The program is called Audio Hijack Pro, and it lets you do basically what the name says: hijack the audio from another program and record it. Could be useful if you wanted to record the Hamster Dance song so you could play it at your next party. If you really wanted to do that. I've used it to record interviews from Fresh Air on NPR, by hijacking Real Audio Player. Now if only I had an iPod . . .

One of those interviews I listened to was with Barry Hannah, one of my all-time favorite authors. His characters are both deranged and believable at the same time. The characters' eccentricities are those we (and by that I mean "I") can identify with, or at least imagine. Anyway, go read Geronimo Rex, his first novel. But don't read it if you're one of those squeamish politically-correct folks, since he talks about niggers a lot. But it's set in 1960s Mississippi, so it would be unrealistic if he didn't use the word "nigger." By the same token, don't read any of last month's lyrics by the Ol' Dirty Bastard (R. I. P.) if you're easily offended. Life can be pretty offensive sometimes.

That's all I have to say for now. Hasta luego.

Been missing in action for awhile, but with good cause. I've learned some web design stuff that will come in handy-- further nerdy details will be on the "behind the scenes" page when I get around to updating it.

I had an awful, very gross experience last Friday or so. In the mornings, I get up very quietly so to not wake my roommate, and I feel around in the closet for socks and underwear (the only clothes actually in the bedroom), then go lay them in the living room and take a shower. Well, on Friday, after I had laid down my socks and underwear and was headed for the shower, I noticed a funny smell coming from the pantry area where we keep some fruits and vegetables. I looked closer, and noticed a big bag of potatoes on the top shelf, almost completely unused. I pulled the bag off the shelf, to see if it was the culprit behind the smell, and in the process a stream of black, liquid, putrified potato juice rained down on me. I was lucky to only get some of this horrid shit on my naked body, but I immediately cleaned up the mess, wiped up any potato juice, and threw the garbage bag on the porch before taking my shower.

The worst part is the smell. It lingered. Out of nowhere, the smell memory came back the other day and about turned my stomach.

Non-Sequitur Warning: Just because the Christian Right managed to mobilize the Jesus Force and reelect the least competent president this country has seen does NOT mean those bastards have a "mandate." It does NOT mean this country is any more religious than it was four years ago, but that liberal people are lazy. That's right, I said it. I bet the Young Christian Republicans all filled out their absentee ballots at church while most liberals sat around complaining about how Europe has more vacation time than the US. See, you can't forget that in spite of many asinine ideas, the Protestant work ethic helped make this country such an economic force. What liberals should be doing is to try to steer all that Protestant energy into something more constructive than bombing abortion clinics or waving signs of aborted fetuses (feti?). Someone needs to fabricate a Crisis of Faith in this country that seems more devastating than Homosexual Marriage to the Far Right. I know, I know--what could be a bigger deal than gay marriage? I mean, a war is small potatoes compared with the disaster that is legal lesbo matrimony or tax breaks for gay partners. That was sarcasm. I know it doesn't come across well in print.

I need to start heading to work. I'll really, really try to be better about writing. And I know that the "Go to latest post" link is broken. I'll try to fix that soon, also.

Testing, testing
One-two, one-two

If this works like I hope, I'll be writing a lot more frequently.

I can't believe it finally works.

After so much tinkering, and a crash course in web design, I finally have my web site working (almost) as I want it to. People can submit comments, which are timestamped. I can add an entry via a web form, meaning I can hammer out a thought on a whim, meaning I will probably be writing a lot more crap. I think that's why so many people write about nothing--the barrier is too low. You can just publish everything about your life with a mouse, so why stop and censor yourself? Well, some censoring is good. It's called editing.

Today I read the Sunday comics. One of those was my new favorite "Get Fuzzy," and it contained a poem in the style of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." I don't know what you would call it. It's not making fun of Frost, even though it emulates his poem. So is it satire? Parody? I wonder if I'll ever know the difference. I thought I knew the difference between flagrant and blatant, but apparently I was wrong. I thought one was audible and one was visible, but the difference is more subtle than that. Regardless, it was amusing. I actually paid attention to the rhyme scheme (all about frogs and toads) because it was weird:
AABA
BBCB
CCDC
DDDD

English majors know what kind of verse that would be? Is it something Frost made up?

So the timestamping appears to be fixed on the "Comments" page, and hopefully on this page too. I won't find out until I post this entry.

Yesterday on Fresh Air, there was a "top albums of 2004" feature with rock critic Ken Tucker. I liked a lot of the picks, but one in particular stuck in my mind: Tegan and Sara's "So Jealous" was number 8 on the list.
(WARNING: Tegan and Sara recently fucked up their site by requiring Flash. Enter at your own peril.)
The first thing that struck me was "why the hell don't I know about this album?" since I have two of their other albums. One of them I bought very recently, too. When did this new album come out?
The second thing was that the reviewer mentioned Tegan and Sara were identical twins (which I knew, since I went to see them last year), that they were lesbians (which I did not know), and that they were marketed as such. At the show there were wall-to-wall lesbos. I wondered if Tegan and Sara were also gay or if they just had many lesbian fans (as Sarah McLachlan does). I even tried to find that out when I got home. No luck. Either I did a bad job searching, or they weren't as vocal about being gay last year.

Why should it matter if they're gay? Well, the main reason is that I think most gay music sucks. I can't stand Melissa Etheridge, k. d. lang, and the Indigo Girls. I can't stand Erasure or the Pet Shop Boys. It is newsworthy to come across a homosexual musician that I do like. Here are a few:

Gay Bands That Aren't Gay in the Derogatory Sense

Tegan and Sara: I really like the album "If It Was You" in spite of the grammar mistake.
Imperial Teen: I only have the album "Seasick", but I got to see them at SXSW in Austin a couple of years ago, back before they tore down Liberty Lunch. Roddy Bottom, the former keyboardist from Faith No More, sings and writes songs. But it's much more mellow than Faith No More. Their second album has a witty title: "What Is Not To Love" (a statement rather than question).
Belle and Sebastian: If singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch isn't gay, he's fooled me.
Elton John: Despite eccentricities and several unbearably sappy songs ("Candle in the Wind", both versions), he's brilliant.
Luscious Jackson: Kate Schellenbach, the lesbian drummer, was a member of the Beastie Boys before they did rap (1982). I've actually met her. Many years ago they played at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, and I got to see them in a very cozy setting (and for only $5).
L7: Is singer Donita Sparks gay? It's so hard to tell with these riot grrrrrrrrls. Sparks is the one who pulled out her tampon and threw it in the audience at the 1992 Reading Festival.
Little Richard: How could I forget Little Richard? So gay that his family kicked him out of the house at a very young age, like 12.
Michael Stipe: Long suspected, recently verified. But I have another prediction that has not been verified: I think he has HIV. There was one awards show where he had what looked like Kaposi's sarcoma on his hand. Coincidence? Lucky for him we now have protease inhibitors.

And that is all I can think of. Submit a comment if I've left anyone out who doesn't suck.

The Word "Diva" Has Lost All Meaning

Merriam Webster Online:
diva: Etymology: Italian, literally, goddess, from Latin, feminine of divus divine, god -- more at DEITY : PRIMA DONNA
prima donna: Etymology: Italian, literally, first lady; a principal female singer in an opera or concert organization

Now, I know that definitions change over time, and that a prima donna can also mean a "an extremely sensitive, vain, or undisciplined person," but I really think "diva" is misused.

I've heard Britney Spears called a diva.
I've head Beyoncé referred to as a diva.
And Christina (now "Xtina" I believe, just like X-mas), and many other singers that really don't have the experience to be called a diva. But at least all of them are singers. In today's paper, however, I read the following blurb:

Emphasis Mine.
So, if I read that correctly, now not only do you not have to be a singer to be a diva, but you don't even have to be female! What the fuck?

I need to make myself a preview function when I'm submitting entries. I just spent way too much time hunting down a malformed html tag after I fucked up the main.html page. That can't happen for the comments page, because all html is escaped to safe, clean text.

I think it would be cool to let people create a user name and password to use when posting comments. And for everyone else, it would post as "Anonymous" or something. What does my one reader think about that?

I just saw another anti-milk crusade's website today. I can certainly agree that many people have milk allergies or are lactose intolerant and should not drink milk, but Jesus Christ! If you don't want to drink milk, fine. If you want milk cows to be treated better, fine. If you think it's better for the environment, fine. And milk from mistreated cows (ones pumped full of antibiotics and hormones) will certainly have health effects. But don't give me shit about milk being "pus" or "mucous" or "blood" as in the following quote from the Milk Sucks website:

Much of the food we eat has no fiber or complex carbohydrates. Pulpless orange juice would be a healthy example. Soft drinks would be an unhealthy example. Meat has saturated fat and cholesterol. So do coconut oil and palm oil. Meat is chock full of cow's blood, and probably a fair amount of "pus" (macrophage cells) by mass. Many conventional (not organically farmed) vegetables are contaminated with pesticides. Lack of exercise is linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Correlation is not causation.

I will never give up my cheese or my ice cream. But I did recently buy some "organic" milk, free of hormones or antibiotics and ultra-pasteurized. The expiration date is about a month later than for regular milk.

Lactard, if you're reading this and would like to give a rebuttal, I'll print it.

All links should now be clickable--at least, they are on my browser.

I've been trying to do a little tidying up on the site, including making some of the images smaller such as the "Welcome" banner at the top. What do you think of the inverted dragonfly wing? Upgrade or downgrade?

The other day I was reading Fox Trot in the comics, and the father was hallucinating because he'd had some expired egg nog. I thought that sounded like one of the most awful things you might accidentally drink. On Fear Factor they made people drink 100-year-old-egg nog, but that was no accident.

I've been traumatized by close encounters with rotten food. Rotten food is one of the awfulest things. That incident with the rotten potatoes still bothers me. Any time I smell sulfurous odors, I think about the potatoes. I don't envy people who lack a sense of smell, but man, sometimes it sucks to be able to smell. Like on a bus full of unwashed homeless people. Or at a pig farm. Or biking past Rexius here in Eugene.

Tsunami!

I'm glad I don't live in Indonesia right now. Or Sri Lanka. Or Thailand. Or the Maldives, wherever they are.

Recently I read about how there is an unstable rock in the Canary Islands that could cause an awesome tsunami to smash into the eastern coast of the US. There's more info at this site:

There's another cool page I stumbled upon that details the horrific 1755 tsunami in Lisbon. Lots of nifty illustrations of the city being washed away. Check it out. Here's the introduction:

Still, that's nothing compared to Krakatoa in terms of the amount of energy produced. The entire island disappeared after the explosion, which was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT according to wikipedia. Let me convert that into more scientific units . . .

One ton of TNT is equivalent to 4.184 x 10^9 Joules. Multiply that by 200 million . . . gives 8.37 x 10^17 Joules. For comparison, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki released the equivalent of 15,000 and 20,000 tons of TNT, respectively. The largest bomb detonated by the US, on the Bikini atoll in 1954, was equivalent to ~15 megatons of TNT. So Krakatoa's explosion was equivalent to 10,000 Nagasaki bombs. Might as well be infinite, since numbers that large are outside of my brain's grasp.

Nothing new, really, but for a more diverse view on the possible mega-tsunami that would result if the Canary Island volcano fell into the sea, check out the BBC article on the subject.

On an unrelated note, today my Powerbook G4 goes to the shop. Warranty (Applecare Protection Plan) runs out at the end of January, so I was anxious to have it fixed before I'm totally fucked and have no recourse. I will be computerless (at home) until it gets back. I'm sad to say that makes me feel a bit naked. Or at least unprepared. It's amazing how much computers (especially the internet) have become completely intergrated into our lives. I remember by first email account, back in 1994. How the world has changed.

Changing the Menu

If you've ever been a regular customer at a restaurant, you've probably experienced the trauma of a menu change. Suddenly, the combo lunch special you always ordered is gone. If you want the same meal, it'll cost extra. Because that's usually what menu changes are: price increases.

Well, it's no different with cable companies. When I was living in Austin, Time Warner Cable decided they would "make things easier" by "simplifying the channel lineup," meaning that the channels were to be divided into categories and all channels of a particular category were grouped. All sports channels were in the 500s. News channels in the 200s. Music channels in the 600s. And so on. But guess what? In the process of changing channels, Time Warner eliminated IFC and Sundance, I think. They were both channels I consider essential (in the context of cable packages, but of course no normal person would think having cable is essential). Anyway, we ended up paying another $4 a month just to get those two fucking channels, although we never changed our plan.

So why is any of this relevant? Well, for starters, because my household is about to switch from cable to dish, unless Comcast makes an offer we can't refuse. But I doubt they will. With the dish network, you can get 60 channels (including local broadcasts), plus a PVR (a. k. a. Personal Video Recorder a. k. a. DVR a. k. a. generic Tivo) for $35 a month. With Comcast, the monthly cost is ~$45 a month for the basic package, NOT including the PVR. There are about 5 channels on the Comcast basic lineup that are not included in the dish lineup, such as BET (don't care), Animal Planet (sorta care), FX (no more King of the Hill marathons), and others.

The other reason I think this discussion is relevant is because of my employer. Our time off is a channel lineup or a menu. Before the merger (over a year ago), time off was indiscriminate. A day off was a day off, whether a sick day, or vacation, or a just-fucking-around day. Now our time off has been divided into several arbitrary categories. We have 5 sick days a year, but those roll over to the next year, so aren't such a nuisance. I mean, I can always call in sick if I'm not. Then there are regular vacation days. Then there are a strange beast called "Floating Holidays," which is the subject of my complaint. We have up to five "Floating Holidays," but sometimes less. The company may choose to un-float (or fix) one of the holidays on, say, President's Day. That means that the company is closed on President's Day, and then we have one fewer "Floating Holiday" to use. The catch is that the "Floating Holidays" expire at the end of the year, and DO NOT roll over to the next. Even if a fraction of employees forget to take all of their "Floating Holidays," that's one extra day of vacation that the company never pays for. Well, they pay for it, but no vacation is taken. I'm sure some accountant got a big bonus for contriving that particular system. I wonder how many extra man-hours the company gets from this scam . . . though technically it's more of a trap than a scam, just like certain credit cards: no problem if you are smart and pay attention, but miss one payment and you are fucked. Interest rate skyrockets.

Have a nice New Year, everyone. I'll be back in January.