so, i was looking at all the cool space pictures that nasa has up via traverler’s diagram and just got all riled up about the fact that all the government ever does is bomb other nations and go to the moon only because we were racing the russkies there. i want fucking flying cars and mars terraforming, space stations and flying asteroids (remember how mr. wagner was all dead set on using asteroids as spaceship bodies? that shit was dope.) sci-nonfi now!

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sci-nonfi, but keep the samurai action far from me. scary. i’d be running for my life down the aisles throwing cereal boxes and apple juice. we passed through orange county this weekend on our way down to the zoo, i’m glad we didn’t stop.

and the zoo was awesome, best zoo i’ve ever seen. we went down there at around 5, stayed until 10, when it closed and got to see the tasmanian devil running around, langurs swinging from tree to tree. those apes looked bored as hell, though, and annoyed with the kids and parents acting like they’re the kings of the jungle. who is the king of the jungle anyway? bears, right?

no, but really, the panda’s butts were all dirty since they’d been sitting around in mud all day long. they need to do some washing up. we saw goats jumping all over the place running around hitting this big piece of wood suspended by some chains. it was pretty cool, but the kids were loud and annoying, which is why you go at night, there’s less of them there because they’re all crying because it’s past their bed time.

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i don’t know about you, but i don’t tend to watch anything in my emails, though i know they’ve probably glanced a dozen bad words and some off-color humor up in there, and if they ever requistioned emails for evidence to convict me of being a potty mouth, i’d be screwed. hell, they can use this stupid weblog for evidence.

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travis morrison’s not impressed with reloaded. one of these days, i’d like to say a little something about it, but if anything requires me to think about it for more than 20 minutes, my mind tends to lock up and shut down, like these weak-ass computers at work. i just blink and reboot.

i got a little curious when i read about pitchfork’s move to offices, and ended up finding this: a course guide to a class in rochester that uses brent dicrescenzo’s reaming of sonic youth’s nyc ghosts and flowers as reading material for discussion. hmm. interesting.

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the daily feature at the smoking gun today is something about david carradine’s divorce and his taboo love triangle in an incestuous relationship. totally grosses me out, but interesting to find that he got paid 300K for kill bill, and i still hate him for his shitty as kung fu.

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more riaa stuff, shaviro weighs in on the riaa lawsuits, giving a fascinating perspective on our moral obligation to share files. more riaa stuff via instapundit. the really bothersome thing is not only the hypocrisy of record execs, but the attitude at which they’ve approached the situation in which they’re painting themselves as saviours of these artists– as if they’re the ones that will benefit from this.

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there’s a big article on lomos over at shift right now. they make some nice pictures sometimes, but again, in the hands of the non-camera shy, make for a crapload of pictures of people taking pictures of themselves in a mirror. snooze.

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if i were at home, i’d upload remember little satan but i’m not. download remember little satan dog art show by the revolutionary hydra rat cat hogan. (mis-labeled mp3’s will be my demise). maybe going to san diego zoo this weekend. should be fun. have a nice time.

an interesting addendum to yesterday’s post about the riaa’s litigious-happy ways, for those curious and afraid they’re going to get sued, there’s a few precautions listed here, as well as a phone number to complain, and also a few notes on how the p2p’s work. i heard someone from the riaa on npr yesterday (because that’s all i ever listen to anymore) comparing file sharers to looters in baghdad. i involuntarily exclaimed and clapped and shouted in the driver’s seat when i heard it, because i love being compared to a looter in baghdad, and i love that pop music is being compared to national treasures.

you know, if we could just put enough dummy files in circulation, and have the riaa try to sue everyone with these dummy files, i’m sure they’d eventually go bankrupt. it’s a longshot, i know, but for fuck’s sake, they suck balls.

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i don’t know how long this interview’s been up, but it’s hilarious: the revolutionary hydra interviewed by half time mag. i heard from robbie yesterday about his new project, slomo rabbit kick, which was a side project of jay hydra, turned into a more full time thing. chris from indiepages is the drummer, robbie plays bass, brian on guitar and jay sings. i had uploaded remember little satan the other day, but never got around to re-doing it in binary, but man, that song rules. maybe tomorrow.

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24 is jumping a few years ahead via allergic 2 love. neither haysbert nor sutherland have been signed for next year’s season, there’s more information on that here, but beware spoilers. if the producers are smart, they need to bring back at least one or the other if not both. i’m guessing that because it’s a few years later, one or the other will be dead, most likely haysbert. well, there it is, that’s my guess. ask me in a month, i promise i’ll have a different answer.

in other tv rumor news– word is cartoon network may pick up the rights to futurama and hopefully have them continue making the show. we can only hope, meanwhile, there looks to be a possible futurama panel at the san diego comic con this year, as well as an appearance by verrone, a writer for futurama is speaking on a panel for writing animated shows: Futurama writer Patric Verrone will be on a Saturday, July 19th, 10:30 AM panel in room 9 sponsored by the Writers Guild of America’s Animation Writers Caucus. The topic will be needed skills and properties for animation writers and editors in today’s animation business.
i’m still debating on whether or not to go. and if you haven’t seen it yet, check out this futurama fansite.

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nerdy as it is, the screenshots to this look pretty dope: star wars galaxies. preliminary reviews from a hard core gamer (anarchy online, anyone?) say that the game’s been oversimplified, which, if sony’s going for massive appeal (doesn’t it always?), is the way to move on star wars. there have been, however, alternate viewpoints.

the political compass is really cool, especially if you haven’t joined a party yet. as expected, i’m a green– middle of the road on both left and liberal, check the site for more than adequate explanation.

well, according to boingboing, the riaa is going to start filing hundreds of lawsuits in the next 8-10 weeks, probably fueled by the win they got from previous suits, and in turn, will alienate their consumers even further away from the industry (which sucked in the first place because of the shitty music they’ve been putting out).

the great thing about this is that the big companies that make their money by fooling unsuspecting music buyers into buying a cd that has one good track on it, places like tower and the warehouse, are going down the drains because they’re not making any money. people just download the track and move on. all this, while independent music stores, places where people actually go to buy music, not manufactured crap, are thriving. a few mornings ago npr did a story on the itunes store and said the same thing. sonic boom moved from one store to three in the seattle area, while the warehouse closed down and cellphane square lost significant business.

anyways, the riaa is getting crazier and crazier, and p2p won’t go away. i know you’ve heard it all before, and i’m only saying the same thing over and over again, but whatever. here’s to hoping i won’t get sued.

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i spent a lot of time yesterday trying to work in vocals on a new song, and for the first 15 minutes or so i couldn’t remember how to use the 8-track, and it sounded all shitty so i thought it was broken. i figured out i didn’t even thread the tape right, which goes to show that i’m idiot and don’t even know how to use my equipment. i’m going to continue working on it until i get some decent tracks down, i’ve got four different takes on tape right now, none of which are complete or decent. i’ll post the results when i’m done. you can still hear the first crack at recording on the tascam here if you’re so inclined. they’ll find a permanent home sometime soon.

i’m almost comforted by the story at the guardian, but then feel like maybe they’re just being overly-optimistic. anyways, i think we’ve all established that polls are shite.

i went home and found that the internet was out again, i constantly have to reboot the router and reset the settings, and then reboot my computer in order to be able to access the router because IE likes to do something with the cache or add .org or .com to whatever ip i type in and it’s a huge pain but i’m sure you want to hear more about that…

i did, however, find out that my upload settings were set to ascii and not binary! and that was the problem with the mp3’s i uploaded– i got most of them back up and in and also have installed the netflix plug-in that i wanted to install. i wish i was more consistent about watching these movies though.

and now that most of the files are up, i’ll just tell ya: i’ve uploaded the entirety (okay, not the entirety, the first two tracks, “shepherd of the hills” and “dog art show” are missing, though i’ll try and get them up later today) of the second disc of our apologies to walla by rat cat hogan. the tracks are all listed without names, since the professorborg website seems to be defunct and i’m not at home to write out all the track names. here’s a numbered list:

3| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | stream

make sure you get a hard copy if you like it from ratcathogan_at_hotmail, there’s a ton of stuff they’ve released, and there’s a whole other cd to this record, which is also all handcopy release and cd-r’d.

long live rch!

cryptome.org. check out the raytheon stuff, there’s some huge offices by my house, and a friend of a friend works for them. super-secret-spy stuff there.

well, after spending an inordinate amount of time uploading 20 songs to my server over the weekend, and spending even more here at work trying to figure out why none of them work, i’ve given up on trying to get them up for today; i’ll have to re-upload them sometime soon. my internet’s been on the fritz since i’ve gotten the new modem, and it died an unexpected death which sent me reeling into a frenzy on friday afternoon (was that friday? i don’t even remember), only to reappear unscathed and working later that day. i don’t know about you, but i’m pissed off at cnet for recommending that crap for crap belkin router that’s been nothing but a pain in the ass for me as of late.

speaking of crap for crap, there’s an interview with the homestar runner people over at wired that’s interesting, if you’re into that kind of thing.

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the phatnoise system for vw’s is the logical next step for mp3’s, fuck all that satellite radio noise, having 20 gigs in your trunk is better than that. via gizmodo, of course.

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i caught both bruce almighty and catch me if you can this weekend. bruce almighty had some very funny parts with steve carell, but also had some very cheesy parts as well, with a run-of-the-mill performance from jim carrey, who i’m sure had a hell of a time trying to inject some comedy into some really bad one-liners.

catch me if you can was along the same lines, some parts were terribly boring, but ali and i agree that the story was interesting as all get up, but spielberg’s direction was lackluster, confusing, and just plain ersatz, as with anything of his as of late.

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my mom came to visit for the weekend, and we made quite a few trips across the vast expanse of los angeles, up to pasadena and down to my digs in hermosa. i bought her a bookcase from eddy’s antiques, but only because it was her birthday and she pretty much bought me a crapload of stuff while she was here, too. good times. oh, and ali got a few dresses, all of which are very cool. we’re going to a wedding in july– which reminds me, if you’re in seattle for july 4th, i’ll be there so we should hang out. but boo because the mariners won’t, so i won’t get to see a game, but yay because it’s been a while since i’ve come back.

also, we’re looking on the market for a fender rhodes.

all right suckers, listen up. mo rocca’s getting a new show on court tv, which is none other than an adaptation of the smoking gun. dude’s a harvard grad; what’s the correlation between harvard and funny people? please, conan, let me know. look for the smoking gun show on court tv in august.

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i got a beef with things, but i’m not the slaughterhouse. she’s the slaughterhouse, but what do i care, really? irreverent turns to stupid, eventually, but it got a few laughs out of me.

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shit, how many links do i steal from catchdubs everyday? not that many, unless you count all that shit i get to from going to shit he links to, but again, my attention span is to short to make this actually make sense– the point? here’s the point, mecha + legos. robotech, evangelion, and other nerd-like stuff, doubled-up nerd with the whole lego thing, kinda like the nebuchadnezzar lego ship that jonas showed me. site’s not as slick, but the ship’s still sick.

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now, i get confused about the whole media bias thing these days– righties say it’s liberal, lefties say it’s conservative, but here’s my beef: what’s the deal with the lack of coverage on the WMD deal? isn’t it the media’s job to grill that shit? come on, man, toast the motherfucker.

as long as we’re on politics, why doesn’t al gore run for president instead of trying to start a TV station? anyway, like a good little sucker, i’m jumping on the wagon of unconfirmed rumors of a liberal news station gore wants to jumpstart. i mean, i know he’s smart and he invented the internet and all, but doesn’t he realize this time around (knowing many lefties will abandon the now established craziness of ralph nader) he actually has a better chance to get elected? i know, i know, blah, blah, blah, he really won the election anyway, whatever, i’m not gonna get into that bizness. fuck it, read the shift article on why politics matter now more than ever.

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james left yesterday morning, and we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary– we watched a lot of futurama, including the commentaries and laughed it up every time john di maggio guffawed, because that’s the best laugh ever. we drank a lot of pabst, failed miserably on a crossword, and ate out a lot. good times, good times. the italian job sucked, no direction, bad script, bad acting (theron and walberg, green and mos def were funny enough, though).

in any case, i got my new dsl modem in the mail yesterday, sorry for the extended absence. my mom comes in to town tonight, but i will find time to post thursday and friday. back to normally scheduled programming…

which should include some music at some point in time, and seeing as i’m not going to work thurs. or friday, i really have no excuse not to. i’ve just about abandoned the idea of using seperate sidebars and am very close to doing so once i decide upon a new design, but all in good time. i really want to install that netflix plugin for mt, but it’s not like i’ve gotten around to finishing the design for textwar, have i? big sigh, all in good time.

mariners lookin’ to put the angels to sleep again. the world champs 13 games behind? and it’s practically the same team? can you say fluke?

i’ve never really had to deal with regulard commuter traffic in seattle, nor would i have the money to burn on something like this, but it may be cool. TrafficGauge Mobile Traffic Map

here’s a run down of news:

blix calls the pentagon peeps bastards, which probably won’t help the cause much, though there’s probably more truth to it than anyone will admit.

yeah, yeah, sizzler waiter gets pissed the woman is traumatized for life because she can’t get her frickin’ steak on up at the sizzler. i predict: this will cause a whole new epidemic of vandalism and violence amongst waiters who have to wait on assholes and idiots 40 hours a week. it’ll be up there with SARS and monkeypox, fo sho.

you say poet, i say idiot: rumsfeld’s inarticulate rambling is framed as “existential poetry.” what a fuckin’ insult to existentialists.

people huck cork at sosa in his first game back, for good reason, i mean, come on, a corked bat for batting practice? why would sosa need that? it’s no coincidence his return from the dl was accompanied by 9 strikeouts, and then he gets caught with a corked bat. homeboy just wanted something to get his hit parade started up again. maybe i should give him a little more credit and it was an accident, but whatever, my attention span has moved on to….

patriot powers remain unchecked (old stuff, but a new find):

the ACLU notes that trap-and-trace powers have not been limited to terrorism investigations, and have been applied to track Internet use in drug- and fraud-related cases

“What the Patriot Act allows us to do is to go to the FISA court and seek a warrant from a judge to monitor the Internet usage of the target of an investigation,” he said. “It doesn’t authorize the FBI to just go to the Internet and look at who’s looking at what.”

via prison planet.

jets to brazil are going to be a couple blocks away from here on thursday, i’ve been listening to the latest album for a week now, just as a refresher. the heart of the album, tracks 5-8 are the kicker on this, “autumn walker” is a seething eighth time pounder. whatever that means. vanderslice is going to be with jtb on thurs., and daly is going to do rock-drummer point and swing his sticks at cymbals way above his head. i think.

in an ironic choice of words, bush is mad at suicide bombers: “…isolate those who hate so much that they are willing to kill to stop peace.”
from the washpost.

you know, this sounds an awful lot like eric judy and jeremiah green doin’ their thing on the new vvrssnn record, and though i don’t have anything to confirm it (except for the fact that they DO indeed play on the record), i’d put money that it’s them, spreading it out whilst adam (?) adds the sounds. nice stuff, by any means: COEM Out K Hole

a ton of other goodies at the k site, too.

so yeah, an extra long post, because i didn’t post yesterday with no good excuse of why not, i simply ran out of time in the day. that’s not bad though, keeping the new year’s resolution until now. in any case, we sat next to paul verhoeven (of robocop, starship troopers, basic instinct and oh yes, showgirls fame) and phil tippet at the kettle last night and listened to him complain about the set for starship troopers 2 and order a very meticulous dinner (no carbs for v).

james was supposed to come in yesterday, but will be flying in today instead, and boy i bet his arms are gonna be tired.

crap and a half i’m tired.

the cats are going fucking insane. they started out in the closet and elephant just totally lifted his paw high up in the air and just smacked monkey on the back of the head like he was a basketball. yeah, whatever. they’re insane.

so, in spite of my promising new music both friday and today, i have none, because as you can see i’m already up too late to do any uploading, or encoding, or whatever it is you do to get mp3s up on this damn site. i spent my day working on stupid tom and jerry cartoons and then learning me some new flash tricks. jonas and i finished the first draft of the script, which is to go through a massive overhaul soon enough.

the cats are insane.

check out the cex site over at tigerbeat6.com; there’s two live shows from seattle up there, as well as a ton of other stuff that is web exclusive random shite. there’s also a bunch of other neat things over at that site.

i’m going to sleep. apologies for the lack of content today.

don’t ever question my dedication to indie rock. ali and i went and saw the dismemberment plan last night, despite my having to be at work at 6 and my treading the thin line between health and lack-of-sleep induced sickness this week. it was an amazing thing, though, and i felt a little hint of sadness at the fact that this would be the last time i experienced the dismemberment plan in all it’s gyrating goodness.

the thing about the dismemberment plan is their uncanny ability to make a hyper-conscious crowd aware of their own posturing and shedding it. morrison embarrassed the kids slam-dancing (who were really only embarassing themselves), and pleaded them to do their own weird thing, but “just don’t slam-dance, ’cause we’re pussy music. like the postal service.” paraphrased, of course. i give cex the same amount of credit.

and cex. oh, man, cex. to be honest, his freak-out rap floored me for the first few songs, and when i finally got a hold of what he was doing, it just made me smile. really, enon was entirely out of place at this show, not mention goddamn boring, ’cause they did none of the good things cex and the plan did, though i imagine some of the mod-helmet-cut kids were appeased. cex on the other hand is a hell of a showman with a fascinating obsession with the cremaster movies (something about him not being even able to talk about them because it’s like having his head opened up and brain painted on) who does it all (i think) with tongue planted firmly in cheek and smile on his face. enjoying it, as it should be.

and did i mention (as if you didn’t know) that joe easley is a fucking machine on the skins?

anyway, i’m glad i went, even though i feel gross and look like crap today. i haven’t shaved in like two weeks or something, which for most normal people means a beard, but in my case just looks stupid. so feel free to leave a comment about my shaving deficiency. and for god’s sake, do yourself a favor and catch the plan on their way out. tour dates are still coming, check it at dismembermentplan.com.

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ebert loved 2 fast 2 furious. shouldn’t you? the best part is how he sticks it to vin about how badly a man apart sucked by saying this movie is better. ha!

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i’ve got no new music until later today, but expect some for monday fo sho. back to the grind for me.

the new prius will be bluetooth compatible along with a whole slew of other new things.

there’s a ton of eric anderson’s artwork from both rushmore and royal tenenbaums over at wesanderson.org, the navigation is a little confused, but you’ll figure it out eventually. hopefully. if you poke around a little more, you’ll find out that anderson’s new film is titled the life aquatic with steve zissou.

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there’s a new double cd coming out soon from superchunk, here’s the release i got from the superchunk site:

2-CD MARATHON OF SUPERCHUNK EPHEMERA HAS NAME, AND A TRACK-LISTING!

The new compilation of b-sides, singles, comp tracks, and other ephemera (including at least 4 previously unreleased numbers!) is called Cup of Sand, and here’s the track-list for your perusing. Let the second-guessing begin!

Disc One
1 The Majestic
2 Reg
3 Her Royal Fisticuffs
4 The Mine Has Been Returned To Its Original Owner
5 A Small Definition
6 Dance Lessons
7 Basement Life
8 Still Feed Myself
9 Fader Rules
10 Never Too Young To Smoke
11 Detroit Has A Skyline (acoustic)
12 Does Your Hometown Care

Disc Two
13 Beat My Guest
14 With Bells On
15 Clover
16 Sexy Ankles
17 White Noise
18 Thin Air
19 Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
20 1,000 Pounds (duck kee style)
21 The Length of Las Ramblas
22 Becoming A Speck
23 The Hot Break
24 A Collection of Accounts

After delays, last-minute discoveries, and much hemming and hawing, the release date for Cup of Sand is most definitely August 19th.

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there’s more information up on building your on personal video recorder on a linux box. i thought about it for a second, then realized there’s no way my linux box was going to be able to handle video without more memory and a faster processor. with that much work, i’d rather just throw down the cash for a new tivo. anyway, the hot software to run it is mythtv.org.

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that new lucksmiths is really, really good, though i’d have thought even more of it if it were released in fall or winter, and i actually lived some place that experienced the seasons.