It's rainin' down in Texas
Stevie Ray Vaughan, "Texas Flood" (live at Montreaux Jazz Festival, 1982)
[via MeFi]
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Please do not bang your head on the display case
You see, folks, Aldomania (which for those of you not in the know, involves a very rare Mary Worth in which she advises a friendstalker to commit suicide) will never die. It'll just move to the Playstation. C'mon, Sony and Konami, make it happen. You know you wanna.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Can't you hear me yell-a? STELLA!
Fill your pockets full of quarters, grab your two-litre bottle of Shasta and your all-Rush mixtape and beepbloopbeep on over to WFMU's all-Atari mp3 roundup. You won't be sorry you did.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Ye cannae' change the laws o' physics, Captain!
There's a term in German, which translates roughly as earworm (I believe the original term is something like achtungeinzweivolkswagenleibensraumlengthendeustchenwordmitdercreepyfandomdasderdavidhasselhoff)[*] At any rate, it means "unwelcome song stuck in your head", but the word always reminds me of that scene in Star Trek II where Khan sticks that space slug in Chekhov's ear to try to discover the secret of the fine Corinthian leather the Federation used to upholster the luxurious USS Plymouth Reliant. Which kinda makes this video... apropriate, somehow.
[via the artist formerly known as ambush bugPhasor Burn]
[*] This, clearly, is a joke upon the Germans and their habit of forming ridiculously long compound words to describe every single situation, or as they would have it, gesundheitdasistcompletelytruethatanyphraseingermansoundenderscarylikeeinerammsteinlyric. [**]
[**] This, clearly, is an unnecessary footnote to explain a joke that probably wasn't all that funny to begin with, or as the Germans would call it, blinkenlightsistnichtfuhrgerfingerpokenuntnomatterhowmanyfootnotesyouuseyouarestillnotdavidfosterwallacejackassenschnitzelbratwurst.
Big Daddy is our leader!
"Tales of the Rat Fink" is the forthcoming docutoon about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's chrome-plated, fuel-injected and steppin-out-over-the-line influence on nearly everything that is awesome in America. Here's the trailer for y'all [via The H.A.M.B.]
Expect the ride to the theatre to look kinda like this:
(Aaron von Mindin's blown Model A coupe as filmed by the Mad Fabricators Society)
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Rock around the Communist Bloc
This has to be the ultimate excersize in "Odd Rod" absurdity: The BBC's Top Gear hand a six-year-old Lada Niva over to Lotus for 1000 man-hours' worth of high performance mods--tweaked suspension, new brakes, wheels and tires, a 180hp Fiat twincam to replace the original boat anchor and a sinister black-and-silver paint job. This has to be the ultimate borscht rocket. (Thanks, Melvin!)
Friday, September 15, 2006
LEONARD BERNSTEIN!
Celebrate the early years of the definitive '80s college rock band (R.E.M., naturally) with an all-star jam on "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" at Athens, Georgia's 40 Watt club (where the boys had their earliest gigs.) Note that, while it is great, it does not start with birds, snakes or aeroplanes. Lenny Bruce, however, is not afraid.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Once more onto the penguin, dear fellows
I've been playing with Ubuntu Linux a little bit of late. I've grown tired of the slow bloat factor my Windows install has acquired of late, and decided that a few pennies for a blank CD-R beats the hell outta a few hundred for a new computer. Some observations:
- The install was very nearly a breeze--the only hitch was it choked on trying to resize the NTFS partition on my drive. It wound up not being a problem as I just clobbered an old Linux partition instead. Other than that, though, it was not only the easier Linux install I've ever done, it was considerably easier than any Windows install ever. Just pick a timezone, language and keyboard, and all your hardware should be detected and set up automagically.
- I did need to futz around a bit with xorg.conf to get my Wacom tablet working properly. Hopefully this'll work a little better in the next release.
- EasyUbuntu was a godsend as far as installing and configuring software that, for legal reasons, couldn't be included with the basic live-CD. Flash, video players and codecs, that kind of thing. Still haven't got embedded video of the non-flash variety working in Firefox, but YouTube works, and that's 90% of what I care about these days, web video-wise.
- General ease of use: Ubuntu ships with the Gnome desktop, which I've never really played with before, but it works pretty much like you'd think it should. About the only major adjustment I've had to deal with is having an application menu on top of the screen instead of a "Start" menu at the bottom. The live-CD contains one app for everything, rather than a lot of Linux distros that ship with 5 different web browsers, 8 mp3 players, 22 terminal emulators and 166 versions of Solitaire. This must add a whole lot of clarity to a Linux newbie's experience, and for power users any other apps you need are a few clicks away in the Synaptic package manager. Win/win.
Saturday, September 9, 2006
Turn around. Turn around, bright eyes.
PARIS, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Passengers on a flight from France to Mauritius have filed suit against Air France after musician Bonnie Tyler performed a song at the request of the co-pilot.
The passengers, believed to be Belgian, complained to the airline after the Welsh singer performed part of her 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart" at the request of the co-pilot, who retired after the flight, The Mail on Sunday reported.
"I was asleep in First Class. The stewardess came and said the co-pilot was retiring. And they asked me would I sing to him. They were having a bit of a party," Tyler said.
The complaining passengers reportedly claimed they were traumatized by the experience and had feared for their safety during the celebration. The complaint eventually escalated into a legal dispute.
An Air France official said: "The claim against Air France, which it completely rejects, is that the celebrations got more and more unruly and came to a climax when Bonnie sang.
"Air France is saying that any suggestion there was anything more than a few slaps on the back for the co-pilot is nonsense, and it completely rejects the claims that the passengers were at any sort of risk."
Any possible punchline I could add here would be like a moustache on the Mona Lisa, folks. [via Bedazzled]
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
The Well-Tempered Teenybopper
Danny Pi's "How to Write a Fugue" applies Bach's methods to Britney's material, with amusing results. Somewhere in Heaven, Glenn Gould is laughing his ass off.
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