the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker

Vogue: Crack Smoker Edition

2012-01-07T16:24:00.006-06:00

dearest crack smokers,

i am aware that you are generally more focused on your crack smoking than you are on your fashion choices. however, you must at times exercise a bit of discretion when choosing your outfit for the day. for example, let us consider this jacket:

this jacket lays out, in friendly pictorial form, how to make your beloved crack. as such, it has probably made its way onto the fashion plates at all of the local crack houses. you probably either have one already, or envy some fellow crack smoker who has this hot, new winter style. it is a lot of fun to wear when you are smoking crack in the privacy of your own home, or possibly even the privacy of your friend's crack den, depending on how much you actually trust them.

however, when you have been haled into court for drug trafficking, we may suggest a slightly more conservative fashion choice. a suit is best, although if you do not own a suit, try wearing to court any kind of clothing that does not reference crack. keep in mind that even though you are guaranteed a jury of your peers, the law defines "peers" as a group with slightly broader scope than "fellow crack smokers". there is a high chance that most (if not all) members of a jury will frown upon a jacket that demonstrates how to cook crack, especially because your fellow crack smokers are likely to be too busy smoking crack to show up for jury duty.

for this fashion faux pas, our as-yet-anonymous drug trafficking defendant must join the roster of crack smokers too stupid to take refuge at the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker. please, dear readers, if you must ever go to court, please put your crackpipe down long enough to choose an outfit that does not immediately single you out as a crack aficionado. this will increase your chances of going home afterwards to smoke your crack in peace.

love,
the persecuted crack smoker

join Dreamwidth...

2011-12-30T21:13:00.003-06:00

apparently, you can join Dreamwidth this week, without an invite code. the week runs through tomorrow, but i just found out about it today, so i'm passing it along.

i've got a copy of this blog on there, at username faceless_wonder. if you're on there, or end up joining, let me know. the best way for me to describe DW is that it's like Livejournal without the spam. i'm an old luddite who loves her Livejournal...but it's really nice to not get spammed incessantly. sadly, LJ has become a cesspool of spam comments in the past year, so much so that i cancelled my paid account there.

my one complaint about Dreamwidth is that the communities aren't as numerous or active as they are on LJ, but having more people migrate there should fix that, right? ;-)

...on occupy

2011-11-15T13:31:00.003-06:00

over the last two months or so, since they started, i've been doing a lot of thinking about the Occupy protests, but very little talking about the phenomenon. i still can't say i have a coherent or fully fleshed-out opinion or narrative about them, but these are the ideas that keep reoccurring in my mind most often.

i'm annoyed about income and wealth inequality, but i know it's a fact of life. yeah, it sucks that there are a few people with absurd amounts of money, whereas i'm going to have a subzero net worth for the rest of my life. it's a warm and fuzzy fantasy to imagine a world without a huge gulf in wealth, but i don't think there's anything that can actually be done about it. i blame human nature. people are greedy bastards at heart, and the vast majority of people can't meaningfully fight that. this is the crux of why i don't think Occupy, or any similar phenomenon, is going to change a thing. if "everyone else" wrestled the wealth away from Joe, Bob, and Jen...it would eventually fall into the hands of Rick, Sue, and Ann: the people with the best combination of acumen for gaming whatever system has been put into place, and pure dumb luck. it's something we're stuck with, and something i have to live with while trying to carve out whatever little corner i can in which to live.

i get really emotional and angry whenever anyone tries to talk to me about Occupy, because the protests rub a really sore spot about my own past. it reminds me of the time that i was naive and misguided enough to think that such things would make any improvement in society. my first year of college, i would have been right out there, waving a sign and screaming at the corner of Jackson and LaSalle. i was a protestor, a college activist, a sign-waver. i saw things in society that pissed me off, was naive in thinking that hanging out in public and trying to notify passers-by about all these outrageous things going on would get them to care, and even more naive in thinking that there could be some kind of fix. not that i was actually doing anything about a fix...even though i believed in some abstract sense that problems of insufficient wages or insufficient health care or terrible working conditions or an insufficient social safety net could actually be fixed. i had no idea how to implement anything i wanted to see, and as best as i can tell eleven jaded years later, i can only imagine that i envisioned a day when enough people's eyes would be opened to what was going on, some switch would flip, and government would start passing laws that gave anyone a chance to live comfortably no matter their current socioeconomic status. that's the same outlook i get the feeling most of the Occupiers have...that they are part of a movement, and their movement will eventually garner enough support that Society Will Improve.

i'm pretty sure the reasons why Occupy really frustrates me are very similar to the reasons why anything political really frustrates me. maybe i'm the problem, and it's wrong that i've completely given up on the idea of meaningful economic change. as much as i wish we could, though, i don't see any kind of way to meaningfully legislate around or structure a government to circumvent the fact that we inevitably want to grab whatever we can for ourselves. we're screwed, in this way, and it's a far better use of my time and energy to try and build whatever little life i can for myself in the midst of this than it is to focus on my anger over a suboptimal situation that i cannot change.

i'm an idiot.

2011-10-07T07:34:00.001-05:00

so, i looked in the mirror a few minutes ago, around 7:30am.

there were Security Justice stickers on my shirt, right over my boobs.

i turned around, and sure enough, there was a Secure State sticker on the bottom of my shirt, right across my bum, that said "When was the last time you were penetrated?"

i put this shirt on at 4:30am.

i got to work at 5:45am.

i had looked in a mirror at least three times before 7:30am -- and this was the first time i had noticed that various salacious locations on my body were covered in stickers.

this is why i am not designed to get up at four o'clock in the morning.

what a drag.

2011-09-05T16:16:00.003-05:00

over the last week or so, i've been watching absurd amounts of RuPaul's Drag Race. *ABSURD* amounts of it. i've already blown through Season 3, and i've started watching Season 1. if you haven't watched it...go over to logotv.com and watch it, since all three season stream for free in their entirety. it's compelling, it's entertaining...

...but it's not really what this blog entry is about. this blog entry is more about the gender-related thoughts that have popped into my head while watching it.

i've never actually done real drag performance before. the extent of my drag experience is going to a few drag dances over the years. every time i've gone to any kind of drag dance, i've dressed as a drag king: bound my boobs down with an ace bandage (or ten), used some makeup to put a five o'clock shadow on my face, and gone out that way. problem is, except for the makeup and the boob-binding, there really wasn't any difference at all between nicky (who i am day to day) and larry (the drag king persona i was trying to be). i didn't feel like i was playing a character. i felt like myself, albeit with a few cosmetic additions to accentuate the masculine. i wore the same kinds of clothes day in and day out, and didn't feel the need to change much of anything about how i presented myself, since i tend to present myself in a rather butch fashion as a matter of course. that's just who i am.

compare that to how i feel if i'm going to a formal dance. i'm not explicitly trying to create a character, but i feel like something different than what i am day in and day out. the protocol of the event demands that i be something formal and feminine, so i'm costuming myself in a manner that's nothing like my usual, daily wear. i'm wearing a dress, heels, makeup. such trappings worm their way into my brain, and i subconsciously start to act in a way that's far more prim, proper, and feminine than the way i act day in and day out. i'm not myself--and that's fun, for a night here and there.

this is the kind of thing that watching RuPaul's Drag Race makes me want to do. it makes me want to bend my gender. it makes me want to put on a long-haired wig, makeup, a dress, and maybe even some heels -- go out, and be something that is nothing like who i am every day. it makes me want to do a supercharged version of what i do if i'm preparing for a formal dance or event. it makes me want to play around with formulating and portraying a character with a completely different gender expression than the person i am day in and day out.

and, yet, i feel a little weird about the fact that this makes me want to try being a drag *queen*. it isn't all that logical, since drag is supposed to be about finding a way to creatively portray a gender you aren't day in and day out -- and being a drag queen would do that for me in a way that being a drag king never could. even though, to me, being a feminine "queen" is a lot more of a transformation from my day-to-day existence than being a masculine "king", i still have this little voice in my head that tells me that it would be somehow belittling to male-bodied drag queens to go out as a female-bodied drag queen.

do i have any resolution to this? not really. these are just ideas that have been bouncing in my head for a long time, and have been bouncing closer to the forefront now that i've been watching many hours of Drag Race on TV. maybe i'll make a bit more sense of them in the future, maybe not. but, this is where my brain has been hanging out lately.

...on livejournal

2011-08-24T21:37:00.004-05:00

my paid livejournal account runs out on Friday, and i'm not renewing it this year.

i've had a paid account for the last three years...i know, i know, i was late to the paid livejournal account party. the fact that i wanted to be far more of a usericon whore got the best of me, and i upgraded. it was cool, but i don't think i want to keep paying them for that privilege -- especially when it's getting DoSed as often as it is, and when i'm getting as many spam comments as i've gotten over the last four to six months. i'm not paying for that kind of experience anymore.

...and, if i want to keep being a usericon whore, i'll upgrade to a paid membership to dreamwidth.

i've been copying all my entries there for about a year, and i like it. the communities there aren't as vibrant as certain ones (most specifically, the gaming communities and

the world is not your flock

2011-08-11T19:09:00.003-05:00

sometimes i know i'm going to get angry if i click the link to a news article...then i click the link, and then i get angry.

a large local church, Willow Creek, has been getting some publicity lately after the CEO of Starbucks cancelled an appearance there, due to pressure. people were pressuring him not to show up there because of what they said was the church's anti-gay stance. he finally decided not to show up. the article quoted the head pastor, Rev. Bill Hybels, as saying the following as part of his argument that the church is not anti-gay, or "not anti-anybody":

"We challenge homosexuals and heterosexuals to live out the sexual ethics taught in Scriptures, which encourage sexual expression between a man and a woman in the context of marriage,” said Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek. He added that the Bible prescribes “sexual abstinence and purity for everyone else."

thanks for undermining your own argument. that's an anti-gay outlook...not to mention, an anti-several-other-kinds-of-anybodies outlook.

in saying that your church only encourages sexual expression between a man and a woman in the context of marriage, you are saying that consenting adults of the same sex should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose not to marry for whatever reason should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose not to be in a committed relationship should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose to be in a committed relationship that involves more than just one man and one woman should not sexually express themselves.

is that illegal? no. the members of your church have a right to believe, and live out, your chosen sexual ethics. there's nothing i can do to stop you from believing that your way is the right way to live out your sex life.

however, there is also nothing you can do to convince me, or many others who disagree with part or all of your outlook on sexual ethics, that your way is the right way to go. do you have a right to speak publicly about it, or to try and convince others that it's the right way to live? of course! but, freedom to speak does not mean freedom from any consequences of your speech. after your church so publicly casts aspersions upon the legitimacy of how queer people, unmarried people, and nonmonogamous people choose to conduct their sex lives...don't expect sympathy when your church loses publicity, or gains bad publicity, as a result.

music squee

2011-07-10T10:28:00.002-05:00

"Diminish Me" by Imperative Reaction recently started popping up on my Pandora station.

given that the song is nine years old, i am wondering why Pandora (OR ANY OTHER RADIO STATION ANYWHERE, EVER) didn't play it for me sooner. it's gorgeous.

i just wish there were a youtube video of it that didn't have talking at the beginning. i'm probably going to end up buying it off of Amazon, so i can put it on my iPod. seriously, it's the best new-to-me song i've heard in a while.

yet another Casey Anthony trial rant

2011-07-07T00:36:00.005-05:00

the next time i see anyone on the internet whining about where the justice is for Caylee Anthony, i'm going to scream.

we have a procedure in place for meting out justice.

it involves the defendant being considered, under the law, as innocent until proven guilty.

it involves the state having an attorney to fight zealously for it.

it involves the accused having an attorney to fight zealously for him or her.

it involves twelve members of the community deciding whether the state proved its case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.

nothing in the law says that this is any different because the victim was a toddler, or any of a million other generally sympathetic things. nothing in the law says that this is any different if the accused is a party girl, or a million other generally frowned-upon stereotypes.

Casey Anthony was innocent until proven guilty. the prosecutor busted his ass for the state. her lawyer busted her ass for her.

and, in the end, twelve of her peers found that the state did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

it's awful that such a young kid lost her life, before she really got the chance to live it. however, if the jury didn't believe that the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, it would not have been justice for anyone for them to lie and say the case was proven to such a standard, just to give the public what it wanted to see, or just to give some measure of explanation for a tragedy.

but, justice doesn't mean finding expedient closure in the wake of a premature death or other unfortunate event. justice means making sure that both the accused and the state have their day in court, and letting the jury thoughtfully weigh the facts against the burden of proof.

justice isn't a question of whether we could bring Caylee Anthony back from the dead, or make the people who loved her or felt sympathy for her feel better in the wake of her death. the question wasn't justice for Caylee Anthony at all. the question centered around justice for Casey Anthony...whether the case against her was strong enough in the eyes of her peers to support conviction. the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt -- and, in that case, justice was done by not convicting her.

DEFCON!

2011-06-24T20:14:00.002-05:00

just over a month until Defcon...and i finally booked my travel!

i get in really late on Tuesday night, and leave late on Sunday night. this is awesome, since i can hit all of B-Sides and all of Defcon.

(i'm also flying out late enough to be able to make it to musical theatre class on Tuesday night before i leave...yay!)

i'm not staying at the Rio, because quite frankly, it's REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE. i can't justify staying at the con hotel if the one right next door is, on average, almost $100 less PER NIGHT than the Rio is...especially since it's not like i spend much time in my hotel room anyway when i go to cons.

anyway, i just feel a huge weight off my shoulders now that i've gotten all my Defcon ducks in a row.

now...T minus 39 days until i'm on my way! <3 <3 <3

"we were never alive, and we won't be born again"

2011-06-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

...if i were to compile a mix tape to tell the story of my past, i'm pretty sure this would be on there.

i haz a bukkit

2011-06-11T10:05:00.003-05:00

i've been awful...i've not only been posting infrequently, but i've really not even been reading anyone's blogs lately.

my personal computer time has been cut way short over the last two months or so. in mid-April, i was caught in the middle of a rainstorm, and my computer (six years old, poor guy), got wet through my bag. it still booted, but the hard drive was fried. so, i've been booting it from a liveCD since then. it was getting to the point, however, that it wasn't even doing that properly...it would take three times to even boot right from that anymore, and then just sometimes decide to freeze. basically, my poor little guy had become unusable.

it did have a good run. i bought it in August of 2005, and it had been doing its duty ever since, despite the fact that i had been beating the stuffing out of it. the spacebar had been superglued on since 2007, the V key was only working one out of every two or three times you hit it, and the case was getting all cracked, but i love that thing. it's also covered with excellent stickers.

however, it was not doing its job very well anymore. as a result, my only time on a reliable computer was while i was at work...and i've been doing almost no personal internet stuff from work, especially since my new responsibilities and my new (happy shiny nine-to-five) hours have been keeping me so busy from the time i show up to the office to the time that i leave.

however, this has been fixed. i now haz a bukkit...a new bukkit. and, yes, i did name the new lappy "bukkit", same as the old one. as weird as it is to call my new laptop the same as the old one, it would have felt even weirder for my primary laptop not to be called bukkit, especially since the old one is pretty well nonfunctional.

...and i really need some awesome hacker stickers for this new bukkit. stat.

Augustus Scavvie

2011-05-10T13:28:00.002-05:00

i spent this past weekend doing the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt. it's one of my favourite times of the year...four days of madness, insanity, and abject absurdity. i come back to campus every year to compete with GASH, the Graduate/Alumni Scav Hunt team, and i always love seeing old scavvies again, meeting new ones, and doing ridiculous items together.

this year i did mostly writing and song-writing items. i did a lot of items i thought were fun (many of which i may post here over the next few days or weeks, since i wrote some pretty cool stuff...), but my favourite by far was item #21:

Augustus Scavvie was a little boy
Who thought that everything was a toy:
Glue guns, glitter, hammers, and nails,
Dry ice sitting in big white pails.

When Scav Hunt came, he saw the List
And after reading, got the gist
Of items involving dare and spunk,
Of items made of nought but junk.

He decided he should try his hand
And join one of the merry bands,
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which you'll now relate...

Today it is your job, my friend
To spin a yarn from start to end.
Now, Belloc's poems were cruel and torrid--
Weave a Scav poem just as horrid. [4 points]

that's right...the item on the list was written in verse. the key was in the last two lines: this item alluded to Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, a book of verses about children who either die horrible deaths because they disobeyed their parents and caretakers, or led their friends or family to horrible deaths because they disobeyed such authority.

of course, this is a perfect suggestion for an absurd scav-related poem. this is what i wrote:

*****

Augustus Scavvie, who attempted Scav Hunt at a too-tender age, and unfortunately lost his head while working on a showcase item alone.

Augustus Scavvie seemed quite alright.
He knew he had a future bright.
In his name lied his destiny:
To hunt the Scav at U of C.
His first decade he obeyed rules:
He kept his play to plastic tools
And wooden blocks that he would use
To craft the most elaborate views
Of anything he thought would build
His nascent Larger Projects skills.

But when li'l Scavvie got to ten,
He thought that he could run with men.
He begged his mom and dad to please
Let him attend the List Release.
They turned him down, but he did fight
Then disappeared in dead of night
By waiting 'til his mom dropped guard
Then borrowing her transit card.
By midnight's hour the naughty boy
Had found his way to Ida Noyes.

He tried to find a team who'd roll
Such a young boy into their fold.
They all told him to head on home.
He would not go. He must still roam.
Augustus had not reached his dream,
For he had not yet found a team.
The stubborn boy did keep his spark,
He kept on wandering Hyde Park
Until he spotted as he walked:
A team with its HQ unlocked.

The only scavvies in his sight
Were sleeping, so the time was right.
Augustus tiptoed in to find
A wooden frame seven feet high.
A metal sheet with sharpened edge
Hung from the top, upon a ledge,
And to the blade a rope was tied,
Then pulled around, and down the side.

Augustus planned his scav debut
But knew not what the thing could do.
He walked around to take a look
And still its purpose hadn't took.
Too excited to desist,
But too impatient to read a list:
He thought to leave mark with his name
By hammering nails into the frame.
He missed a nail by just a shade
And bumped the rope that hung the blade.

There was an issue unforeseen:
The project was a guillotine.
Soon as young Scavvie touched the rope
The blade fell down; there was no hope.

The other scavvies in the room
Awoke to a scene of extant gloom.
The showcase zone now had a flood
Of Augustus Scavvie's drying blood.
His head gazed out with plaintive eyes
Too late to stop his sad demise.

The funeral fell on a sunny day
During the second week of May.
His mother and his father came,
His aunts and uncles cried his name.
The pastor's eulogy began
With happy tales of the poor young man.
But slowly it became a screed,
A warning dire for all to heed:
Wait 'til eighteen years you have
Before you Hunt the Mighty Scav.

who's your mama?

2011-05-06T11:38:00.004-05:00

Mama Shaq, Mama Shaq, Shaq's your mom, that's a fact.

need i say more?

BEST. OS. NAME. EVER.

2011-04-28T22:31:00.002-05:00

...in honour of the new ubuntu release today:

my, what natty narwhals.

...yet again, having one of those Bullet For My Valentine kind of months.

2011-04-28T01:55:00.004-05:00

"all these things i hate (revolve around me)"
by bullet for my valentine

once more i'll say goodbye to you
things happen but we don't really know why
if it's supposed to be like this
why do most of us ignore the chance to miss
oh yeah

torn apart at the seams of my dreams turn to tears
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

once more you tell those lies to me
why can't you just be straight up with honesty
when you say those things in my ear
why do you always tell me what you wanna hear
oh yeah

wear your heart on your sleeve make things hard to believe
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap and you'll see
me...me...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

torn apart at the seams of my dreams turn to tears
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like me
it's the best place to be when you're

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap and you'll see me
me...me...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

...because i totally buy all my nukes from spammers.

2011-04-08T04:32:00.003-05:00

i have seen the pinnacle of email spam. nothing i can say can make this spam more perfect, so just keep reading:

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We offer the nuclear weapon, uranium, rocket installations.
Quality, guarantee.
Call now and you receive 2 tanks at the price for 1.
Our clients, it and Osama bin Laden, Abu Musa Azzakrakui, Halifa bin Zaed
And many other dear people.

Welcome to our site: http://www.ua-today.com/modules/myarticles/article_storyid_32685.html

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11714
70794
44808

and, the links? they go to some Ukrainian news site.

very punny.

2011-04-07T22:33:00.002-05:00

it's the return of the sea anemone enemy!

i <33333 Pearls before Swine.

rant

2011-04-02T01:38:00.003-05:00

oh, internet misogyny, how i love you.

and by love you, i mean i think you're pretty obnoxious.

but, i'm resigned to it, since calling misogynists on the internet out on it usually ends up being interpreted as troll bait.

two years, already?

2011-04-01T00:40:00.005-05:00

yesterday marks two years since my last day ever working as an attorney.

i knew then that it was the best possible thing that could have happened...i was not happy there, i was already secretly laying the foundation for making my exit, and getting laid off (as opposed to leaving on my own) gave me the one thing for which i was planning to stay in that job for a few more months: enough money to confidently face the near-certainty of a prolonged period of unemployment.

when i was laid off, i hadn't decided for sure whether i would be working as an attorney again. i knew i wouldn't be returning to the large law firm environment...it works for some, but it had become painfully obvious that it wasn't my thing. my heart was already leaning toward forsaking law entirely and figuring out some computer-related career path; a few weeks before i was laid off, i remember spending an entire day on the couch, on the verge of tears, cursing my job and looking up computer science graduate programs as a way out. however, my head wasn't quite so sure yet...some of it was fear of the unknown, some of it was was some lingering sense of obligation to follow through with my degrees, and some of it was not wanting to admit to the world that my career path up until then had been a long, stressful, and expensive path to a depressing dead end.

all i knew was...when it happened, i felt free. i wasn't sure what was next, but at that point, it didn't matter. i'd be able to figure out on my own time where "next" was, without the stress of spending forty or more hours a week in a place where i never quite fit.

two years later, things are much better. i get to play with servers for a living, and i'm learning a lot. as much as i did to shore up my computer skills in the fourteen months between when i was laid off from the law firm and when i started my current job, i've learned so much more--and gained far more real-world context for my computer knowledge--in my job. i like my co-workers, and feel like i belong at my company in a way that i don't think i've ever felt with any job i've had up to date. i've been there for ten months now, which is longer than i spent practicing law.

my life isn't perfect by any means. i still have my freak-outs. i frequently stress out about how little i feel like i know about computers compared to how much i want to know, and compared to how much my friends know. i even more often get bent out of shape about what a terrible decision going to law school was; i regret it every day, and can't believe how naive i was, thinking i'd be happy as an attorney. given my amazing talent for seeing the worst in myself, i doubt either of these stresses will ever subside, no matter how far i make it in my new career.

still, the fact remains that i'm in a much more satisfying place than i was when i woke up on March 31, 2009.

bring me...a shrubbery!

2011-03-31T02:21:00.004-05:00

if News Crack Smokers Can Use has a mantra, it's this: Hide Your Crack! if you keep your crack in a place where other people can easily find it, someone is going to find it. and, when someone finds it, at least one of two things will happen: they will steal it, or they will trace it to you and have you busted for being a crack smoker. therefore, it is key that you keep your crack in a place where you -- and only you -- have access to it.

secondly, if you are a crack smoker, it is a bad idea to also be a crack dealer. first of all, both selling and smoking crack would make it far too tempting to break Biggie's infinitely wise Fourth Crack Commandment: never get high on your own supply. furthermore, running a successful business is difficult, and doubly so if you not only have to worry about the difficulties of the market, but also about continuously staying one step ahead of Officer Friendly.

what is the moral of this story? basically, it's a terrible idea to stash tens of thousands of dollars worth of crack and cash in the communal shrubbery at your flat.

although, this may explain why The Knights Who Say Ni are so insistent that people bring them shrubberies.

lamentations on the lack of women in information technology

2011-03-30T23:51:00.002-05:00

whenever a ticket comes into our support queue in the middle of the night, and the sender's name is a female name that i don't recognize as belonging to a customer who often sends tickets at such an hour, i always end up muttering to myself, "ugh, this is probably another spam email in our queue."

and, every single time, i'm right.

i don't know which of these two things is worse.

"crack prosecutor" doesn't mean what you think it means.

2011-03-25T00:03:00.004-05:00

here at News Crack Smokers Can Use, we've suggested several times that it might not be a good idea for lawyers to smoke crack. competent legal work requires critical thinking, a sharp intellect, and an ability to put your job first in your life. all of these are capacities that crack smoking tends to hinder. if you enjoy law-talking, awesome. if you enjoy crack smoking, awesome. but, your life will be far less complicated if you choose at most one of those two pursuits.

imagine you're a prosecutor. if you aren't a crack smoker, you'd probably notice a pattern in the cases you've worked on, and the evidence you've used. you'd have picked up by now that the local departments of law and order are quite enamoured with finding and prosecuting local crackheads. when someone is identified as a crack dealer, the police like to keep tabs on them in the future, because it can not only lead them to further evidence against the dealer, but also in the general direction of crack smokers they can arrest.

what i'm trying to say is...if you prosecute high-profile drug cases, you should really know better than to smoke crack. and, even if you insist on smoking a little crack once in a while, it may be a good idea not to take your crack dealer for a ride in your Beemer.

otherwise, you may become the laughingstock of crack smokers and prosecutors alike. and, that's never a good thing.

say no to crack

2011-03-18T03:03:00.004-05:00

dear crack smokers,

i love you, and am trying to be patient and cordial with you, but sometimes continuously providing the same common-sense piece of advice and seeing it go unheeded gets a little frustrating. i've made this particular point several times in here already.

this is the last time i will say this, so please pay attention:

just because it's called your crack does not make it a good place to hide your crack.

it's not as sneaky as your crack-addled brain has convinced you that it is. if you give the nice person in blue permission to search your person, he's going to look. if Officer Friendly sees you walking a little funny because you're a little uncomfortable around the cheeks, he's going to look. if you get booked into jail, you're going to get strip-searched, and the corrections officers are going to look.

i know they call it "where the sun don't shine", and that it's not a particularly appealing place for anyone to search, but unfortunately so many of your fellow crack smokers have been caught with their goods in or around their butts that the cops will always look. seriously, crack smokers, it's cliche.

please, for the sake of your own happy crack-smoking future, stop hiding your crack in your butt crack. it's best not to take your crack out of your residence at all, but if you do, it would behoove you to find a more clever place to stash it.

love,
the persecuted crack smoker

***

(hat tip to Rob T Firefly for the news article!)

whose cuisine reigns supreme?

2011-03-10T00:19:00.003-06:00

part of the reason that Iron Chef is such a fun show to watch is to see what kinds of interesting things the chefs do with the secret ingredients. sometimes the secret ingredient is something fairly common, such as egg, crab, cucumber, or curry powder. sometimes it's a little more esoteric: they've used things like oatmeal, coffee beans, eggnog, and ice sculptures. however, the there are two things that all Iron Chef secret ingredients have had in common: they're all edible, and they're all legal.

i'm sure you all know where this is going.

never has the secret ingredient in iron chef been cocaine powder, and never has an intrepid chef served the judging panel a steaming plate of crack rocks on national television.

some Cleveland-area entrepreneurs should have taken a hint from the show, and stuck to concocting creations based on a secret ingredient other than cocaine. seriously...if they're that gung-ho about cooking something and then selling their wares on the street, they could have devised some interesting food, set up a food truck business, and gotten into a whole lot less trouble than they did for their crack operation.

SCOTUS gets it right, for once

2011-03-03T04:19:00.003-06:00

i'm glad the Supreme Court ruled the way they did in the Westboro Baptist Church case.

there, i said it.

does that mean i approve of Westboro's message? no. i disagree entirely with their message of pure homophobia cloaked in religious garb.

does that mean i approve of Westboro's tactics? no. their tactics are obnoxious, and thoroughly inconsiderate to the decedents, and all of their families and friends who have come to mourn their deaths and celebrate their lives.

but, i can't get behind the people that say that the Supreme Court should have ruled against Westboro because it's disgusting that they're waving their "thank God for dead soldiers" signs at military funeral. those are two completely different issues.

am i saying that there shouldn't be any limits whatsoever to freedom of speech? no. there are fringe cases, like yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, that are likely enough to lead directly to bodily harm that they shouldn't be constitutionally protected. but, i'm saying there really shouldn't be much more limit than that. as much as we don't like to face that fact, freedom of speech exists to protect our right to say things that people--even the vast majority of people--find incorrect, or even appalling.

this applies even more strongly when people are making commentary on issues of public concern. even though most of us think they are total wingnuts for celebrating the deaths of soldiers as a part of God's revenge for the country being too tolerant of homosexuality...the Supreme Court is right in assessing that this is a commentary on a matter of public concern. look at it this way...if it were anyone else talking about how tolerant or intolerant this country is of a particular group of its citizens is something that concerns the public. the fact that it's Westboro Baptist doesn't make them special: it neither gives them extra protection, nor gives them lowered protection to speak about issues of public concern.

the fact that they organize protests at funerals? that makes them asshats, to be sure. but, it doesn't make them immune from Constitutional protection for speaking their message in public. just as the Constitution protects you and the people you like, it also protects your worst enemy, and protects the people you can't stand.

right on, Rep. Moore.

2011-02-19T04:21:00.002-06:00

thank you, Rep. Moore, for speaking truth to the patronising, bullshit "argument" that Planned Parenthood is racist because they kill so many black babies.

dammit, pandora...

2011-02-16T23:18:00.001-06:00

"this world may have failed you
it doesn't give you reason why
you could have chosen a different path in life"
"Angels"
by Within Temptation

...of course this song had to come on Pandora just after i recoiled at the thought of writing a poem about something i still don't quite feel up to writing about yet.

squee

2011-02-15T08:13:00.003-06:00

this has been a pretty good couple of days.

yesterday, i found out that i got one of the solos for my choir concert in March, and that i will also be in a small-ensemble piece! we have concerts on Saturday March 19 at 5pm and 8pm at Mayne Stage Theatre, by the Morse Red Line stop. i will be doing my solo at the 5pm show. the concert material is the same at 5pm and 8pm; only the soloists differ.

this morning, i found out that both the talk i proposed and the event i proposed for Notacon 8 were accepted!

my talk will be called "The Free Software Studio: Open-Source Tools for Musical Exploration and Composition". it will cover a wide range of free software music creation tools: what they are, how they work, and how to get them working together to realize your musical projects. whether you're just curious about how to get started in computer music, or you've been doing it for a while but want to add some things to your bag of tricks, it will be an interesting and helpful talk. it's about free software, but it's not Linux-specific at all--i will discuss tools that run on Linux, Mac, or Windows, so everyone can join in on the fun!

my event will be familiar if you came to Notacon last year: i'm hosting Whose Slide Is It Anyway again this year. :D if you're not familiar with it, it's a very silly game where i prepare twenty decks of five slides each. the slides, as a general rule, make very little sense. participants sign up to get in front of the crowd and give a short talk, with a Q and A at the end, based on one of the decks of slides. of course, they haven't seen these slides in their life. hilarity inevitably ensues.

i've got a busy and exciting few months ahead of me.

a popping good time

2011-02-12T00:46:00.003-06:00

we got some stuff at work that was packaged in some bubble wrap.

the angel on my shoulder says i should put the bubble wrap with all our other bubble wrap.

the devil on my shoulder wants me to pop, pop, pop every bubble on that sheet.

why is bubble wrap so awesome?

welcome to chicago, motherfucker.

2011-02-11T04:36:00.002-06:00

...i don't think i've listened to this song since my second or third year of college. looking back on it, the lyrics are even stupider than i remember, but it's still a catchy song, and a lot of fun to listen to.

a corpse is not a box!

2011-02-05T04:51:00.001-06:00

this is by the same folks who brought you Llamas with Hats...and it's almost as deranged. i get the feeling Mittens and Carl would be good friends. ♥

staying warm

2011-02-03T08:11:00.003-06:00

a quick and easy guide to staying warm in Chicago:

read a bunch of articles and news reports that say the temperature is going to be -17 in the morning, and the wind chill -35.
remember that the last time you were outside, and the wind chill was in the -30s, it felt like your entire face was going to freeze off within seconds--even under a scarf.
spend the entire evening bracing to face that kind of cold again.
step outside.
wait a minute.
notice that your face is not freezing off.
bask in the tropical glow.

i love the internet.

2011-02-03T00:52:00.002-06:00

a few weeks ago, i made a post with the lyrics to "Texas Hold 'Em" by No Particular Night...or Mourning, a song that i've known since 2003 or so, but haven't heard since 2006, when my last backup of the song died in a little accident involving my purse, my minidiscs, and a container of tasty, delicious (and unfortunately melted) Ted Drewes.

jenius08 saw this post on Livejournal and, unbeknownst to me, tossed out a question to see if anyone on Reddit had heard of the band or the song. a little while later, Alan, one of the members of the band, responded to the post! she got the two of us in touch, and he sent me not only that song, but all the music the band ever recorded.

:D :D :D

in short, i just wanted to say a big thanks to both of you. <3 you're awesome, and have both given me the chance to hear music i thought i'd never, ever hear again in any medium except for my own recollections.

no, "i want a hooker" is NOT an emergency.

2011-01-20T01:36:00.003-06:00

dumb: calling 911 once to ask for an escort.

dumber: calling 911 twice to ask for an escort.

even dumber: calling 911 three times to ask for an escort.

of course, "drugs or alcohol" were involved. the record is incomplete about which drugs...although if it wasn't crack, i'd be frightened to see the depths of stupid to which this guy would plunge if he were on crack.

Christmas Cantata

2011-01-20T01:06:00.002-06:00

...in case you weren't able to make the CBA Chorus's performance of Daniel Pinkham's Christmas Cantata last month, it's on youtube. :) you can't really see me in the video because i'm in the back left corner, hidden behind certain architectural features of the church in which we were performing. however...it sounds good -- and wow, was this a fun piece to sing!

epistles for crackheads

2011-01-18T02:57:00.006-06:00

the persecuted crack smoker,

to all citizens of McCracken County who consume or do commerce in crack cocaine, or are considering the same,

may i take the liberty of advising you that just because you reside in a land called McCracken County, it still may not be legal to sell crack out of the home you share with your family? it is rather unclear what you did to suggest to the constabulary that there may have been crack rocks in your humble abode, but it remains clear that your life's vocation should have been a somewhat less statutorily offensive endeavour if you desired to continue deriving pleasure from setting crack rocks aflame and inhaling their heady smoke.

*****

the persecuted crack smoker,

to all people considering a career in entertainment, which may run either consecutively to or concurrently with a career in crack cocaine peddling,

your most successful option is to cease all pursuits of your ambitions along the crack-dealing front. performing music onstage, be it mellifluous or cacophonous, will be far less likely to land you behind iron bars than anything requiring you to apprach near a crack rock. however, if you insist on acting as not only a performer but also a high-level operative in a crack cocaine commerce cabal, let me advise you that choosing a stage name such as Gambino may not be the wisest among decisions. performing under the moniker of a renowned syndicate of scofflaws will not deflect the attention of the authorities, but rather encourage them to investigate why you admire these "Gambino" racketeers so much as to adopt their name.

take a Peep at this fail.

2011-01-15T02:40:00.002-06:00

earlier this month, some sketchy start-up showed up at CES. their website is full of all kinds of vagueness and puffery. i'm doubtful their magical voice and data mesh will ever pan out, and the fact that Scott Redmond (the mastermind behind plenty of other tech-related epic fail) is behind this does not do anything to help the case.

however, one of the pictures in Rafe Needleman's CNet article is enough to make me want to travel back in time and laugh these fools right out of CES.

take a look at this picture:

according to Peep, the depicted object is the "Peep Pod walkie talkie", a $20 gadget that will allegedly sync with a bluetooth headset and transmit voice up to thirty-six miles. however, if you've ever logged into any somewhat sensitive computer systems, you're probably already thinking what i'm thinking. if you haven't, take a look at this:

this is not a Peep Wireless device. this is an RSA SecurID fob, a hardware token used in two-factor authentication.

compare it to the "Peep Pod" above. the shapes are identical. the recessed areas where it looks like something was removed are identical to the locations of the stickers on the RSA SecurID fob -- up to and including the little dent in the circle on the left. the layout of the number on the screen, as well as the dots down the side, are identical to an RSA SecurID fob.

from the looks of this, there's no such thing as a "Peep Pod" at all. it's a defaced SecurID, being used to try and dupe people at CES into thinking that they actually have prototyped hardware.

a lack of religious tolerance

2011-01-14T04:55:00.003-06:00

this is just...disrespectful and disgusting.

the video doesn't show who was screaming: if it was senators, spectators, staffers, or whoever. i don't care. anyone present for that session should know better than to disrupt the session: be it the beginning prayer, senate debate, or anything else. furthermore, it's not going to speak well of the religion that you're screaming about to interrupt or insult a blessing by a cleric of another faith. even if you don't see religion the same way as the cleric who is speaking, it's no reason to be disrespectful of him.

besides, there's nothing saying that the Senate is a Christian organization...we've still got this little thing called the Establishment Clause, and there's no set state religion. it's perfectly appropriate for anyone of any belief system -- monotheist, polytheist, pantheist, atheist -- to be able to give an invocation before a lawmaking session in this country. allowing a cleric to say an invocation before session isn't tantamount to framing theirs as the one true faith; rather, it's tantamount to saying "we are a nation of religious freedom, and people of your faith are welcome here, just like everyone else."

he deserved basic human respect, and i'm embarrassed that not everyone in that Senate session showed it.

i'll keep on dying a little each day...which should suit you just fine...'cause you can't stand to see me alive

2011-01-11T00:56:00.005-06:00

this song is still one of my favourites ever, and has been stuck in my head for weeks. all i want to do is listen to it...but unfortunately, i lost my only copies of this song (which i downloaded off the band's website back when it still existed...circa my fourth year of college) in a hard drive death and a minidisc death, respectively.

it would make my life to hear this song again.

texas hold 'em
by no particular night...or mourning

with one false step you could cut me in two
and i'm breathing backwards just to make do
but your sinister stare has caught me off guard
so i'll throw up my hands and ask why

and i'm waiting for whatever you're giving
forevermore
a sacrifice now for my sorrows
and i'll stuff it in sacks
and rain down on you like july

you say i'm no good at lying
but i never acquired your taste for the trade
so i'll keep on dying a little each day
which should suit you just fine
'cause you can't stand to see me alive

and i'm waiting for whatever you're giving
forevermore
a sacrifice now for my sorrows
and i'll stuff it in sacks
and rain down on you like july

you've got just one more chance
to make me feel better
you're building the fence
to ride out the weather
in that self-pity cellar you built there for me
forget it
it's over
goodbye

and i'm waiting
for whatever you're needing
i can't stop the pain
if you can't stop the bleeding
with your shit-eating grin
you're pissing apologies
but i'll sit and smile while you cry
i'll sit and smile while you cry
i'll sit and smile while you cry
forget it
it's over
goodbye

...

2011-01-07T22:37:00.003-06:00

deaf dumb and thirty
starting to deserve this
leaning on my conscience wall
blood is like wine
unconscious all the time
if i had it all again
i'd change it all

(...the second verse of "machinehead" by bush. it was good when i was a teenager. it only becomes more applicable as i get older.)

fast forward?

2011-01-03T08:34:00.001-06:00

is it January 27th yet?

no?

darn. i could seriously go for some Shmoocon goodness right about now.

blatant memery.

2011-01-03T00:32:00.003-06:00

...and now, for an end-of-year meme (a couple days late, ha.) stolen from windofderange.

[1.] What did you do in 2010 that you have never done before?
convinced a company to pay me to play with computers. ring in the new year in another country.

[2.] Did you keep all of last year's resolutions?
i gave up on making new year's resolutions long ago. they're a total joke, and i find it so contrived to decide to change anything because it's a new year. the only good reason i see for deciding to change anything is if something is making you deeply, bitterly unhappy or unfulfilled.

[3.] Have you any resolutions for next year?
of course not.

[4.] What countries did you visit?
Germany (well, that trip started in 2009, but carried into 2010...i spent the first six days of 2010 in Berlin) and Canada (for B-Sides Ottawa).

[5.] What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn't have in 2010?
unrealistically? a big lottery windfall, so i don't have to worry about the fact that i'm going to be paying off that stupid decision to go to law school for the rest of my stupid life. realistically? maybe a new computer, because the one i have isn't working all that well, and will turn six years old in August of 2011.

[6.] What date in 2010 will remain etched in your memory?
June 2, the day i started my job.

[7.] What was your biggest achievement of the year?
i'm really proud of the talks i gave at Notacon, Penguicon, and HOPE.

[8.] What was your biggest failure?
i got so little done...i still have that stupid, academic tendency to bury my nose in a book instead of just going out, writing code, and breaking stuff. my biggest failure is still the fact that i'm absolutely petrified of failing, and want to somehow get perfect information before ever actually trying anything.

[9.] Did you suffer any illness or injury?
nothing bigger than a couple of sprained ankles (which i always get, because my left ankle has been terribly weak since a roller skating fall when i was eleven) and a couple of colds.

[10.] What was the best thing you bought?
bus tickets to Detroit. lots of them. :)

[11.] Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
my own, as usual. i keep doing stupid things that i can't undo, then i keep beating myself up about doing stupid things that i can't undo, and i focus far more on that than on doing anything new.

[12.] Where did most of your money go?
law school. always, always, law school. fuck my life.

[13.] What did you get really really really excited about?
spending time with Mark. attending and speaking at hacker cons. finally understanding the point of assembly language well enough to start coding in it.

[14.] What songs will always remind you of 2010?
"Better Sorry Than Safe" by Halestorm. "What A Shame" by Shinedown. "I Don't Care" by Apocalyptica featuring Adam Gontier. "Reclusion" by Anberlin. "What Have You Done" by Within Temptation.

[15.] Compared to this time last year are you:
[A] Fatter or thinner? about the same...i was definitely fatter come midyear, but with my new job (and starting to lug stuff around the data centre) came having to buy new jeans because my fat jeans were literally falling off of me as i walked.
[B] Happier or sadder? neither, really.
[C] Richer or poorer? poorer, definitely.

[16.] What do you wish you'd done more of?
writing code.

[17.] What do you wish you'd done less of?
sleeping. my god, did i spend a lot of 2010 asleep.

[18.] How will you be spending Christmas?
christmas 2011? no idea...hopefully similarly to how i spent it in 2009, either on a flight to Berlin, preparing for a flight to Berlin, or hanging out in Berlin. missing the Congress in 2010 tore me apart, and i can't miss it in 2011.

[19.] Which LJ users did you meet for the first time?
IRL? i'm pretty sure i met all my LJ readers who know me IRL before this year.

[20.] Did you fall in love in 2010?
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation is an amazing, amazing book.

[21.] How many one night stands?
oh, i know better than to answer that question honestly on a public forum such as this one. :)

[22] What was your favourite TV show?
new shows? i got so hooked on 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom this year. stuff i've watched before but still watched more than anything else this year? Beavis and Butt-Head, of course.

[23.] Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
no...i really only reserve true hatred for one person at this point, same as last year.

[24.] What was/were the best books you read?
Hacking: The Art of Exploitation. Snow Crash.

[25.] What was your greatest musical discovery?
i don't think i discovered a lot of new music this year...there were some random songs that popped up on my Pandora that i had never heard before, but no particular artist or album that changed my life. i think the two songs that grabbed me hardest the first time i heard them this year were "Reclusion" by Anberlin and "Hobo's Lullaby" by Arlo Guthrie.

[26.] What did you want and get?
a job playing with computers. an apartment with Christina. to go to Shmoocon, Notacon, HOPE, and B-Sides Ottawa.

[27.] What did you want and not get?
to be able to go to Defcon or 27c3. to forget that i ever went to law school.

[28.] What was your favourite film this year?
the only movie i actually went to go see this year was Hubble 3D, and that was really cool. the visuals were awesome. the narration, however, was rubbish...Leonardo DiCaprio should not be narrating science flicks. fortunately, i was there with Mark, and his commentary was far more edifying. also, he was much better at pronouncing astronomy terms.

[29.] What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
i turned 28 in 2010. i had to work the night before, so i got off at 7 in the morning. i met up with Mark around noon; he was in Chicago at the time. that afternoon we drove up to Detroit, and stopped for dinner at Schuler's (in downtown Marshall, MI -- right around the corner from the Museum of Magic that we visited for Scavhunt this year!) on the way over there. we got into Detroit fairly late, and i hadn't slept that night, so we spent the rest of the night in, and decompressing. it was my best birthday in years, possibly ever.

[30.] What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
feeling like i know the least bit about anything that matters to me.

[31.] How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
same as it has been since i was a teenager -- black t-shirts and jeans. jackets made with a certain pattern of italian camouflage started making a pretty frequent appearance, though.

[32.] What kept you sane?
sanity is overrated.

[33.] Which celebrity did you fancy the most?
i don't tend to fancy celebrities...seriously, i'm racking my brain to see if i can think of anyone famous that i really fancied this year, and am coming up empty.

[34.] Which political issue stirred you the most?
ugh. i find politics disgusting, and i only got more disgusted about them over the course of 2010. my general response is to just disengage, because i don't actually feel like there's a damn thing i can do to make t any better. it's a problem bigger than i am, and bigger than i can ever be.

however, i did get pretty pissed off when Iowa voters threw those justices that ruled in favour of gay marriage off the bench. i abstain from judicial elections on principle, because the judicial branch is supposed to be the check against the fickle passions of the populace. that put that problem in clear relief.

[35.] Who did you miss?
the problem with meeting so many friends at cons is that these friends live all over the place...i'm always missing them, and only ever getting to see them one weekend a year, or maybe a few weekends a year.

[36.] Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year?
no matter how beholden you feel to something, or how much it meant to you at one point...if it becomes toxic, getting paralysed by feeling bad that it has soured will do no good. the best thing to do is cut and run, and find some more productive outlet for that energy.

calendar numbers and stuff

2011-01-01T05:20:00.003-06:00

2010. what to say, what to say?

considered as a whole, i wouldn't call it one of the best years of my life, but i wouldn't call it one of the worst years of my life. however, looking at it from 30,000 feet gives the year short shrift, and implies that it may have been either easy or insignificant. i'd call it neither. considered in parts, i had some really awesome things happen to me this year, and some things that utterly and completely sucked.

hopefully 2011 (which i keep typing as 2001; i really don't want to know what, if anything, that implies...) will be a better year. if anything, i hope it is less tumultuous than 2010 was, and manages to maintain or build on the good parts of 2010.

i stop here, because i get the feeling that going into any more detail than that here would be schmaltzy at best, and revealing far too much in a public forum at worst.

if i could change, i hope i never know

2010-12-31T06:15:00.001-06:00

steps on soapbox

2010-12-20T03:08:00.002-06:00

i'm watching one of those "you are not the father" episodes of Maury on Hulu, and seriously, i want to smack pretty much everyone who shows up on it. i get the feeling that most of these people are really not mature enough to be having sex.

i want to shake them by the shoulders...all of them: the men and the women...and tell them that they need to think about whether they want to have kids before they start having sex. and, if they decide that they don't want sex to result in kids, they need to learn to use birth control properly and also come to terms with the thought of either choosing abortion or putting the kid up for adoption in the event that birth control fails and they still have no desire to raise a kid.

that's a major reason i waited as long as i did to engage in sex acts that carry a risk of pregnancy -- i didn't want to open that particular can of worms until i thought through it and felt comfortable with my options for what to do if the condom broke and i turned up pregnant. even though sex is about pleasure rather than procreation for me, as a woman who never wants to have kids...certain acts carry a risk that anyone considering them needs to face thoughtfully before they actually do it.

end of rant.

crackhead mayor strikes again

2010-12-17T03:16:00.003-06:00

Dear Marion Barry:

You probably wouldn't have left your keys in your car ignition in Washington, DC had you not fried your brain on all that crack.

love,
the persecuted crack smoker

i ripped the tag off a mattress.

2010-12-16T02:35:00.001-06:00

BLOODY BRILLIANT.

STFU.

2010-12-14T23:02:00.003-06:00

dear mainstream media, FDA, law enforcement, and everyone else:

will you please shut up about four loko, already? i'm sick of hearing about it. railing against it is going to do absolutely nothing. banning it is going to do absolutely nothing. and, the fact that the FDA is just now trying to declare caffeine in alcoholic beverages an "unsafe food additive" is laughable.

four loko is nothing new. there have been plenty of caffeinated malt beverages over the years: Sparks, Joose, Tilt, Natty Up...there have been a handful over the years. four loko has just been the most popular, for some reason. i've never had it, so i don't know if it tastes any better than its foul-tasting caffeinated alcopop predecessors...but it's the same thing.

and, even more popular (and more delicious) than purchasing caffeinated booze? rolling your own. think about it: jager and red bull. rum and coke. irish coffee. there are a million different caffeinated alcoholic beverages that people have been mixing themselves for years, and there's nothing that the FDA can say or do to make us stop making them. what are they going to do: stop selling liquor and/or caffeinated beverages for fear that we're going to mix the two? get real.

in other words, focus your energy on something that actually matters.

no love,
me

P.S.: criminals, if you're reading this, don't blame your idiotic actions on four loko. the only reason it's even notable that you said this is because you blamed your actions on the scapegoat du jour. if you blamed the fact that you stole stuff on the fact that you had one too many vodka-and-red-bull drinks, people would have just laughed at you and continued the arrest. but, since you invoked the latest Big Moral Panic, stupid people are going to get even more up in arms about it. so, take it from me: i don't care if you drink four loko, beer, whiskey, or club soda -- just don't be a dumbass and rob people, okay? and, if you do rob people, don't blame it on what you're drinking.

tee hee.

2010-12-09T23:06:00.001-06:00

i was just plugging in a USB peripheral, and caught myself singing "get on the serial bus...get on the serial bus" out loud, to the tune of "get on the city bus" by wesley willis.

i'm special.

lolspams

2010-12-09T04:24:00.001-06:00

as seen in a lottery spam:

The selection was made through a computer draw system attaching personalized email
addresses to ticket numbers. If you ignore this message, you will definitely regret it
later. Microsoft is now the largest Internet company & in effort to make sure that
Internet Explorer remain the most widely used program, Microsoft/Msn is running an e-
mail beta test.

that makes about as much sense as oh, i don't know...still using Internet Explorer.

eternal wisdom for the ages

2010-12-09T03:03:00.001-06:00

"why does Christmas music suck?"
"because it isn't very good."

i <3 Beavis and Butt-Head.

oh, shmooballs.

2010-12-01T11:24:00.003-06:00

foiled again.

my chance for a shmoocon ticket looks like it will depend on one of two rather unlikely happenings: scoring a ticket in the January 1 sale, or having my talk proposal accepted.

i'm still thinking that even if i don't get a ticket, i'll probably go to DC that weekend just to hang out with everyone.

:-/

2010-11-30T13:53:00.001-06:00

it would be nice if i could remember how to think clearly.

angelfire

2010-11-26T04:57:00.002-06:00

dear spammer,

i didn't ask you, or anyone else, about a website.

even if i did, i am sure i would not have asked about [randomgobbledygook].angelfire.com. i may be rather open about my abiding love of the 1990s...but even in a state of deep nostalgia, i'm able to separate the good 1990s stuff from the bad.

and, angelfire sucks. it sucked then, and it still sucks.

no love,
me

campaign promises...or not

2010-11-23T22:31:00.002-06:00

Rev. James Meeks, one of the candidates for Chicago mayor, recently said the following:

"I think the most dangerous thing you can do is to say what you're going to fix. There are a lot of places that we can trim, but there are none which you can talk about now....You can't be specific right now. You just can't be specific."

this is one of those things that i read, and i can't decide whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it's pretty disgusting when a politician doesn't actually come up with any concrete plans. on the other hand, the raving cynic in me knows that the best way never to be busted for breaking your campaign promises is never to make them in the first place.

on t-shirts and bible quotes

2010-11-14T09:15:00.002-06:00

dear $high_school_kid:

you said, "I was shocked. There is clearly a double standard here, and we're really upset about this. They said the reason we can't wear 'Straight Pride' shirts is because they are disruptive. And I can understand how maybe some people were intimidated by the shirts with the Bible verse. But I don't understand how some students are able to wear 'Gay Pride' shirts while we can't wear shirts that just say 'Straight Pride.'"

if the shirts you wore to school just said "straight pride" on them, they'd be controversial, but i agree that they shouldn't be banned, at school or anywhere else. the problem is, you are twisting the facts. the shirts people at your school were wearing didn't just say "straight pride". they had a few other words on them as well...that "bible verse" that you ever-so-tactfully say may have "intimidated" people.

the last time i checked, the "gay pride" shirts that people may have been wearing to your school (or anywhere else) didn't also have on them some quote on them about how men who lie with women should surely be put to death.

things like trying to start a conversation about your religious beliefs as they apply to sexuality, or taking pride in your sexuality, are one thing. however, responding to a student-organized week against sexuality-related bullying by wearing a shirt that says that gays should be put to death is another thing: specifically, an example of the kind of bullying that needs to come to an end.

queer students and their allies aren't running around trying to make you feel subhuman because you happen to only be into people of the opposite sex. give them the same ounce of respect.

you are a spammer.

2010-11-05T02:29:00.001-05:00

and, joining the ranks of Dubiously Reputable Purveyors of University Degrees, we have this guy:

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

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i want to call this spammer to see if he talks like he types.

BALLS.

2010-11-05T02:02:00.003-05:00

i dodged a major bullet today...or, it could be better said that i dodged a major shmooball.

there were massive issues with the Shmoocon ticket sales on Monday. the web server just couldn't handle the amount of load it got from people trying to buy tickets, and it crashed. no one got any tickets. the powers-that-be cancelled Monday's ticket offering to test it further, and then announced on Tuesday that tickets would go on sale Thursday at noon eastern time. as such, i set my alarm for 10:45am Thursday, so i could be up for the ticket sale--11am central time.

fast forward to Thursday morning. i slept like bollocks on Wednesday, and was exhausted when i got home from work Thursday morning. i passed out by nine thirty or so. all of a sudden, i hear my alarm. i'm confused, because it's light outside. my alarm doesn't go off until 7pm on Thursdays--and this time of year, it's already pitch-dark by then. i muttered some curses under my breath, killed my alarm, and went back to sleep until 6pm.

i didn't realise until i was walking into work around 8:45 tonight that i had failed epically. i had set that alarm for a reason, that reason was Shmoocon tickets, and i had probably slept my way out of my best chance to buy them. i arrive at work, freaking out, and fire up the Shmoocon page as soon as i logged onto my workstation.

of course, since i said i dodged a shmooball, i bet you know what happened: ticket sales were postponed yet again. i sighed with relief...and vowed to put a note by my alarm to the effect of "WAKE UP, ROGUE, YOU MORON. YOU WANT SHMOOCON TICKETS, DON'T YOU?"

i still can't believe i bungled that today...

LJ Idol Week 1: Here There Be Dragons

2010-11-04T08:14:00.004-05:00

LJ Idol Week 1: Here There Be Dragons

my left wrist has become a ragtag collection of bracelets. there are four of them so far. three of them have maintained their colour and their shape well, even though they've been dangling from my dominant arm for anywhere between six months and a year and a half. however, one of them has become thoroughly dingy and stained.

HERE BE DRAGONS -- 26C3 -- 27.-30. DEZ 2009

it was lemon yellow when they put it on my wrist last year at the registration desk on December 26th of last year. that's one of the few memories i have of the con itself that's not clouded by massive sleep deprivation, massive sensory overload, or massive consumption of delicious German beer. i waited in line for two and a half hours, since they only pre-sold tickets to members of the Chaos Computer Club last year. since i'm not German, there's not a friendly neighbourhood branch of the CCC for me to join. i was stuck waiting.

i have very few specific memories of waiting in line, except for a brief exchange with one of the guys at the help desk...and the entertaining aftermath. i had let it slide to the guy at the help desk (his name, i never got...) that i had checked the line earlier and judged it to be too long--only to come back later to see the line doubled in length. he laughed at me almost but not quite like Nelson Muntz, the bully from the Simpsons..."HA-HA!" i giggled; this twenty-sixth Chaos Communication Congress had been my first, and i was learning my lessons the hard way. however, every time i ran into help desk guy at the con, he broke out in this big smile and went "HA-HA!" i wasn't even immune from this when i was sleeping. i was an "angel", a con volunteer, and was taking a quick nap in "heaven" (the angels' lounge and command centre) before my next shift. i woke up, and noticed a strip of tape affixed to my jacket. written on it was "HA-HA!".

i got to the end of the line, paid the entrance desk the eighty euros cash that i had left in my passport wallet from the previous summer for this specific purpose, and they gave me the bracelet. American hacker cons generally give out badges that hang around the neck; any European con i've attended has given a badge in the form of a fabric strip held around the wrist by a crimped piece of metal. i moved the metal ring to loosen the bracelet, put it around my wrist, and adjusted it to the size i thought i wanted. i made sure the text was facing me; my bracelet from the Dutch hacker camp i had attended the previous summer had the text facing out, and that continues to bother me to this day. then, i let the angel at the registration desk crimp my bracelet.

i realised it was too loose, and i could actually slide it off if i tried. however, they would not give me a new ring. loose it would stay.

from then, the weekend was a blur. i didn't give a talk at this con, but i stood up and introduced four or five different talks. i wandered Berlin for lunches and dinners with hastily-wrangled groups of hackers. i worked the info desk a few times, although the fact that i didn't speak German made me less useful than i could have been...and even irritated quite a few of the people coming to ask for information. i partied late into the night. i hung out in the hackerspaces area, where the more-productive-than-i were working on projects.

Berlin never really slept, and i tried not to as well; i subsisted on Club-Mate, döner kebab, and the occasional wink of sleep back at the hostel if i was particularly delirious. i'm sure if i were asked more pointed questions about specific things that happened at the con, i'd be able to recall more details.

my memory may be as dingy, worn, and blotchy as the bracelet has become...but that's okay. i was there. time hasn't vanquished that bracelet, and time hasn't vanquished all of my memories of the Congress.

election 2010

2010-11-02T05:18:00.002-05:00

today's election day.

a huge part of me was tempted to do write-ins for utter and complete bullshit things (minazo the lolrus? i hate you all?), since i have a burning distaste for so many of the candidates. however, doing that would be tantamount to not voting at all, since it requires just as little actual information. doing so would fly in the face of my "if you don't vote, don't bitch" ethos...i feel a duty to be familiar enough with what's going on and what the candidates plan to do if elected such that i can cast an educated vote, despite my distaste for following politics.

am i voting for any candidates of whom i'm so enamoured that i'm going to promote them here and suggest you vote for them? no. but, do i feel like i'll be able to look at myself in the mirror because i've negotiated my most palatable set of options given the ballot with which i'm presented? yes.

LJ Idol Week 0: The Introduction

2010-10-28T02:37:00.002-05:00

LJ Idol Week 0: The Introduction

my name is nicolle. that's right, nicolle...with a lowercase n. i decided long ago that it made no sense to capitalise my name. that thing over there is a table, that other thing over there is a phone, and that thing right here is a nicolle. i capitalise other people's names out of respect for them, but as for mine, it's not quite right to me unless it's lowercase.

then again, in my own mind, i think of myself as adalia at least as often as i think of myself as nicolle. that name was taken from the song "adalia" by madina lake...a song about a girl who people find intriguing for some ridiculous reason, although she really wants them to just forget about her, and let her withdraw completely into her own head. i feel that way often, probably more than i should. i thought that feeling would possibly fade as i left my angsty teens, and then as i left my angsty early twenties...no. i'm kissing my mid-twenties goodbye in less than a month, and that feeling is still as strong as ever.

i've thought a lot about changing my name to adalia anderson ward. anderson is for Scott Anderson, the lead singer of Finger Eleven. ward is for Scooter Ward, the lead singer of Cold. they've been my two favourite bands for years now, and i could write a pretty good description of my life using quotes from just those two bands. i've never had the guts to actually go through with it. to this day, the only time i regularly go by the name adalia in public is when i sing karaoke.

it's a shame, really. one of the things i most resent about being "nicolle" (or even its derivative "nicky") to everyone is the fact that i didn't pick that moniker for myself. it's something that nags at me to look back toward a past that i spend every day of my life trying to get as far away from as i possibly can. i've been able to get away from some really big things in life that made it intolerable, like the suffocating town i grew up in as well as a horrifyingly bad career choice. however, i haven't been able to shed the name i was born with, and as much as i hate to admit it, the fact that i still have it is a mark of my inertia and cowardice.

LJ Idol

2010-10-27T22:10:00.001-05:00

i watched a few of my friends play LJ Idol last season...i didn't play, but it looked like there were some interesting writing prompts, and they wrote some really awesome stuff for it.

this season, i shall try my hand.

i love the '90s...you love musicals...

2010-10-26T03:53:00.005-05:00

two nights ago, my roommate and i went out to karaoke. (well, we also went last night, but this story is from two nights ago.) a brief exchange we had after she searched the karaoke songs sums up our trips to karaoke in one nice little nutshell:

my roommate: boo! they don't have anything from Wicked!
me: what, the only song called "Popular" they had was by Nada Surf?
my roommate: how'd you know?
me: it's the most popular song called "Popular"! it's a '90s classic!

an eventful laundry day

2010-10-26T01:12:00.002-05:00

suck of the night: when some apartment maintenance people were here on Saturday planning the heating work they're doing here next week, they unplugged the water drainage hose for the washer. they didn't tell us they unplugged the hose, so when i put my laundry in, it flooded the laundry area, the bathroom, and part of the hallway an inch or so deep.

sigh of relief: even though this happened around midnight, the landlord came with his mop and bucket, and got up most of the water.

win of the night: using one of my old law school t-shirts to wipe up the dusty, grimy dregs of the flooding. cathartic, that.

oh, people. :-/

2010-10-22T03:21:00.003-05:00

i was googling for information on whether or not i could build a certain kind of utilities LiveCD with the hardware i was using. the first three words of my query were "can you make". i was halfway typing the third word, but i had to stop typing because the four searches google suggested were just so bizarre:

1. can you make money on youtube
2. can you mail alcohol
3. can you make money blogging
4. can you mail beer

my suggestion? sell videos of yourself doing dumb things under the influence of alcohol you order online, and promote it via a blog and some youtube teaser clips.

farking genius.

2010-10-22T02:44:00.003-05:00

the main reason i read fark.com is for the headlines. the weird news is fun, and sometimes i read the threads, but my favourite thing about the site is seeing the clever one-liners people write about things.

and, today, i have seen what may be my favourite headline in my six-ish years of reading fark.

the headline stated "Evidence emerges that most "crazy teabaggers" at rallies are indeed plants."

...and the accompanying link pointed to a Missouri Botanical Garden page about the Caucasian Wingnut, a shade tree native to the Caucasus.

if this does not win Headline of the Year, i'm going to cry.

fool me thrice?

2010-10-21T01:44:00.003-05:00

dear spammer,

i see you titled your email "find a path to the degree you want." i've already found a path to two degrees i thought i wanted at the time, but later figured out were mistakes. i'm not falling for that trap called "formal postsecondary education" again.

no love,
me

fucking politics, how does it work?

2010-10-20T01:13:00.003-05:00

Campaign 2010 has become the election year of the internet meme. cases in point:

we've got Christine O'Donnell's Bed Intruder parody.

we've got Joe Miller's Old Spice Guy parody.

and we've got Jimmy McMillan, whose Rent Is Too Damn High debate clips have in themselves become viral video.

screw it all. i'm casting a write-in vote for the lolrus for every position this year.

nom nom nope.

2010-10-15T04:10:00.002-05:00

dear crack smokers,

am i going to have to spell everything out for you? i realise that's a rhetorical question, since you are crack smokers, and therefore not very likely to retain your logical reasoning faculties to any discernible extent.

that said, i apologise for my frustration. i'm really just trying to help. i know i've told you a million times here already that eating your crack is a bad way to get rid of the evidence. it's probably just going to make you sick...but i know it seems like a good idea under pressure. finding some way to get it into your system is tempting, since you want that last hit of cracktastic goodness before you're thrown in the [ostensibly crack-free] pokey for a while. i understand your thought process here.

however, i never dreamed in a million years that i would have to make the following suggestion:

for the love of crack, do not eat your crackpipe!

crackpipes are not delicious. crackpipes are made of glass. they will shatter into a million pieces, and you'll be spending the rest of your life plucking the little bits of your crackpipe out of your tongue, gums, and cheeks. if you swallow it, you will either die or be sent to the hospital for them to try and get the shards of your favourite crackpipe out of your esophagus and your stomach. i can only imagine that the hospital bills alone will amount to enough money to pay for all the crack you could ever want for the rest of your life. there's no way you will be able to eat a crackpipe without Officer Friendly seeing what you did there.

this is not a worthwhile trade for what little crack residue may still be on your pipe. even a crack-addled brain should be able to understand this...and, for not quite getting it, our friend in Oklahoma has found a place in the list of crack smokers who are too stupid to take refuge at the Last Refuge of the Persecuted Crack Smoker.

in other words, don't be this guy. don't eat your crackpipe.

love,
the persecuted crack smoker

naughty, naughty

2010-10-14T03:58:00.002-05:00

i was looking up some documentation about Fortigate, a kind of firewall. the search page gave some rather special help text:

There is no page titled "fortigate". You can create this page.

Did you mean fornicate?

i wish, but i'd probably get fired for fornicating on the job. ^.^

B-Sides Ottawa, anyone?

2010-10-14T02:02:00.003-05:00

are any of you who may be reading this trudging up to the Great White North for Security B-Sides Ottawa on November 12 and 13? just wondering, because this week i got the requisite days off work, got my plane ticket, and all systems are go for spending that weekend in Ottawa.

(if you haven't signed up, there are still slots, but you have to plan soon since it's 90% full as of this morning!)

i'm excited. i haven't been to Canada since i was a teenager; my junior year choir trip was to Toronto. i've never been to Ottawa, ever. even more importantly to me, there are a lot of cool talks planned (i'm most excited about the nmap scripting engine talk), and a lot of fun people are coming, so it should be a fabulous weekend.

i had just better not forget my passport when i leave for the airport. ;-)

:-O

2010-10-13T01:01:00.001-05:00

Meat Loaf did a cover of "It's All Coming Back To Me Now"?!?!?!

wow, it's terrible. and, yet, my life is somehow more complete because this exists.

walk like a penguin!

2010-10-12T23:34:00.003-05:00

this is my favourite ad ever.

when i was in eighth grade, i'd turn on the Weather Channel at 50 minutes after the hour every hour i was home, because Safe Step Ice Melter sponsored the winter weather update. this ad always ran at that time, like clockwork.

i don't know if it's the computer voice, the penguins, the people slipping on the ice, or all of the above, but this is pure genius!

...on Coming Out day

2010-10-12T08:01:00.003-05:00

(i intended to write this yesterday, since it's a little reflection on national coming-out day, but since i spent yesterday at work, then completely insomniac and mentally dead, and then finally asleep from about 3-midnight, things didn't quite work out as planned.)

generally, i can't stand awareness-themed days. disease-awareness, children-awareness, such-and-such-a-sexuality-awareness, human-rights-issue-awareness...all those days usually end up driving me crazy because people try to pressure me into paying lip service to causes. if you actually care about an issue, you work it into your life every single day, and don't spend a day a week doing meaningless gestures like "donating" your facebook status or waving a sign for whatever the cause du jour happens to be.

however, i pretty much love national coming-out day. it's the one awareness-related observance that i can personally get behind, mainly because it doesn't feel like an empty gesture to me. it's not like most awareness-related days, where any observance i made of it would be something along the lines of "i'm saying something about it because it's this one day, and the other 364 days a year i put no thought whatsoever into it." instead, it actually feels like a way to start conversations about an issue that's very personal to me, an issue i think, read, and talk about on a daily basis.

i spent years in the closet because i wasn't comfortable enough with myself to tell people that i was bisexual, and i wasn't comfortable enough in my connections with other people to be confident that they'd be okay with it, instead of just thinking i was saying it for the attention. i remember how much it hurt to not be open or honest about my sexuality i frequently have discussions with people about sexuality: exploring it, figuring it out, becoming comfortable with it, and figuring out how open to be about it. i truly care about being in a world where people are comfortable enough to come to terms with their own sexuality, whatever it may happen to be.

in short, i like national coming out day because it's not an empty observance for me. it touches on something i care about every day out of the year. however, the reason i like the day is because it's personal. i'm never going to try and guilt someone else into doing something empty in observance of coming-out day, because i know how onboxious it is when people try to guilt me into doing something empty to draw attention to their causes (or, worse, draw attention to some cause that they're only emptily drawing attention to). i just let all the other this-and-that days blow past, because no matter how many guilt trips people post in their facebook statuses, twitter feeds, or blogs...it would ring empty for me to tout that cause, since it's nothing i put any actual effort behind.

song meme: day 30

2010-10-10T22:28:00.004-05:00

Day 30: Your Favourite Song At This Time Last Year

it was October of 2009 when i first heard "Snuff" by Slipknot...and it was the first time in a long time that a new song really had much of an effect on me. i still really love this song, and think it describes things that go on in my head really, really well.

*****

and so ends this music meme...and here's hoping i can devise some content that doesn't suck in the near future. :-/

right now what's really on my mind is the fact that i won't get to go to CCC this year. the fact that i'll have to miss 27c3 hit me like a ton of bricks this week...i got a preorder offer since i was an angel (con volunteer) last year, which would have been awesome because the line to buy CCC tickets on site is absolutely horrendous. but, there's just no way i can take that whole week between christmas and new year's off of work. i have enough vacation days to do it, but there's just not enough shift cover to go around during the holidays. that's the drag of working at a 24/7 place, and the fact that the con is between christmas and new year's.

the way it stands, i'm going to be ringing in 2011 at work, and not in Berlin. i'm heartbroken over this, but i know it's how it has to be.

song meme: day 29

2010-10-09T02:52:00.002-05:00

Day 29: A Song From Your Childhood

nowadays, i could not be more ambivalent about The Beatles. i know a lot of people still like them, but i find most of their stuff kind of...boring. however, when i was a kid, i listened to pretty much nothing but sixties music. i was so proud of myself the first time i finally Learned The Words To A Song I Heard On The Radio. that first radio song i ever learned was this one, "Eight Days A Week".

song meme: day 28

2010-10-08T18:34:00.003-05:00

Day 28 - A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty

"Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel" by Barenaked Ladies. enough said.

song meme: day 27

2010-10-07T23:14:00.003-05:00

Day 27: A Song That You Wish You Could Play

there are a lot i could put here...but i've really, really always wanted to accompany myself on the piano while singing "My Immortal" by Evanescence. i can sing the song really, really well...but trying to learn how to play it on the piano was a total disaster.

song meme: days 22-26

2010-10-06T22:48:00.003-05:00

despite the fact that i've had home internet since monday, i've just been so uninspired to write these last couple days that i've fallen five days behind on this thing. then again...i can't promise this will be well written, since i'm not inspired to write even now. i'm just...not liking being five days behind on this.

i'm also fucking cranky tonight. can you tell?

anyway, here goes.

Day 22: A Song You Listen To When You’re Sad

maybe i'm weird. maybe i'm masochistic. but, when i'm sad, i only like to listen to songs that are sad. then again, most of the time i only like to listen to songs that are sad, because there's no better way to piss me off than to shove happiness in my face. but, when i'm sad, i like to listen to a song that makes me feel like somebody somewhere gets how i'm feeling and understands why i can't be happy or satisfied.

and, often, "Kody" by Matchbox20 fits that bill.

Day 23: A Song You Want To Play At Your Wedding

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*catches her breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

me? getting married? you must have confused me with someone else. seriously. i'm never getting married...there's no way i can look anyone in the eye and say "'til death do us part." me getting married is only a recipe for me getting divorced, and the fact that i believe in making good on promises i make to people i care about means i can't actually promise someone i care about the rest of my life, knowing that the odds are against me actually being able to give them that much. so, as a message to anyone who would prod me toward marriage...i bring you "Fuck You" by Wesley Willis.

Day 24: A Song That You Want To Play At Your Funeral

i want my funeral to be a celebration of me and all the things i thought were awesome in life. as such, at my funeral, i want people to play songs i love. people usually think of playing hymns at a funeral...and maybe there'll be a bit of Pretty Choral Music at my funeral, since there's a good bit of Pretty Choral Music i love in life. however, there had also better be some good rock music at my funeral, since there's no music i love more than that. and, if one song is responsible for getting me started listening to good rock music, it's this one: "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe.

Day 25: A Song That Makes You Laugh

duracells...energizers...automatic circumcisers...yeah, i can think of a good choice for this one. :)

"Hardware Store" by Weird Al Yankovic, for the win.

(although "Trapped In The Drive-Thru" was really tempting.)

Day 26: A Song That You Can Play On An Instrument

me? play an instrument? that's a funny one. seriously, i suck at musical instruments. they require finger dexterity, something that i very much do not possess.

the closest i can come to this is "a song to which i taught myself the guitar solo when i was in high school": "Like A Stone" by Audioslave. i never could play the rest of the song, and only vaguely remember the solo, but given my instrumental ineptitude, it's the best i can do.

song meme: day 21

2010-10-01T03:09:00.003-05:00

Day 21: A Song You Listen To When You’re Happy

i'm not sure i really have a go-to song when i'm happy. i don't go, "school's closed, and some dude just gave me twenty bucks for a dead bird. today's a good day. next, i think i'll go turn on some music." the opposite happens...i'm having a neutral day or even a sucky one, i turn some music on to fill in some perceived empty space or to give me some emotional support, and the day gets better. but, i can't think of the last time that happiness was what led me to turn on music.

however, i do have an answer for a song i associate with loudly singing when i'm happy [and possibly somewhat inebriated]: "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" by Jonathan Coulton.

song meme: days 19 and 20

2010-09-30T23:29:00.003-05:00

Day 19 - a song from your favourite album

my favourite album? there are several albums that rank up there...albums that have several great songs, the rest good songs, and nary a clunker to be found. that's the thing...most albums, even by bands i love, have a song or two that just aren't up to snuff.

but, if i had to pick one album...i'd probably go with "Secret Samadhi" by Live. never before and never since did Live do an album that was nearly as good as that one. it was their experiment with being harder-edged, and i'm annoyed that so many people thought it was a failed experiment, or just not up to snuff with "Throwing Copper". it was a different animal, not what people were expecting...but it was better, and almost anything i listen to by Live anymore is off this album

Day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry

for as unhappy [and even angry] as most of the music i listen to may be, i really don't get angry all that often. it's just not my personality. however, sometimes things get under my skin enough to make me truly angry. and, nowadays, when that happens...i'm most likely to play "Tears Don't Fall" by Bullet For My Valentine.

song meme: day 18

2010-09-28T07:10:00.002-05:00

Day 18: a song that you wish you heard on the radio

wow...i could go on all day about this one. i could go on all year about this one. between the non-album tracks by bands you do hear on the radio, and the songs by all the random local artists i listen to that have never really gotten any radio play over the years, i could answer this with something along the lines of "the vast majority of my iPod, silly!"

but, so as not to be writing this all day (or expecting you to spend the rest of the year watching thousands of videos), i'll narrow it down to one. and, today, that one is "The Nurse with Amnesia" by Shades of Fiction. they were a local band in Chicago in the mid-aughts...who i was lucky enough to see a few times in concert, and to have a few songs from in demos and compilations. in fact, the handle faceless-wonder (which i use on livejournal and dreamwidth) came from another one of their songs, "Faceless Wonder of the World". but, as much as i like that song...i like this one better. :)

the Chicago music scene really lost out when these guys broke up.

huh-huh. cool.

2010-09-27T15:29:00.000-05:00

Beavis: "whoa, hey, check it out! i think that's that bell that they, like, taught us about in history class...where they, like, rang it, and it put a big crack in it?"
Butt-Head: "no, Beavis. you're thinking of Bible class, when they talked about how God created the butt."
Beavis: "oh yeah, yeah. and then He created poop."
Butt-Head: "yeah. that's in that Doo-doo-ronomy section."
Beavis: "the Bible kicks ass!"

song meme: days 16 and 17

2010-09-27T03:16:00.002-05:00

Day 16: a song that you used to love but now hate

this is a toughie. there are a lot of songs that i really adore at some point and then just get bored with...and there are songs i hated at some point, but eventually grew on me. however, i don't usually really love a song only to later hate it.

however, "Oh How Happy" by Shades of Blue was my favourite song over about the first half of elementary school, and now i find it awful. disgustingly awful. i can't bring myself to believe that i ever liked this bubblegum piece of crap, and listening to it kind of makes me sick.

i was a dumb kid.

Day 17: A song that you hear often on the radio

what is this "radio" of which you speak? it has been a long time since i've listened to terrestrial radio at all. for the most part, the radio i listen to nowadays consists of my Pandora stations, since Pandora keeps me company during those long nights at work. there are quite a few songs that come on there a lot...but i'll go with "I Don't Care" by Apocalyptica (featuring Adam Gontier, the lead singer of Three Days Grace), just because the song is awesome, and catchy, and i can't get enough of it.

i ♥ bad jokes.

2010-09-25T05:05:00.004-05:00

i just popped open a terminal on one of the workstations in my office. this box runs Linux Mint, and it's configured to pop up a picture of an animal (this time, a penguin) saying a random quote. the one that just appeared cracked me up way more than it should have:

Q: What do you call the scratches that you get when a female sheep bites you?
A: Ewe nicks.

*sporfle*

News Crack Smokers Can Use: September 25, 2010

2010-09-25T02:18:00.002-05:00

if one phrase deserves to be crowned the refrain for this little corner of the internet, it's this one: hide your crack. crack is illegal, and the whole secret of happy crack smoking is not getting caught by the authorities, or by anyone who will turn you in to the authorities. however, there are good places to hide your crack, and bad places to hide your crack. Since this is News Crack Smokers Can Use and not Thickly Veiled Profiles Of Successful Crack Smokers Who Have Been Smoking Crack For Twenty Years But Never Arrested, however, we know what category all of these locations fall into. if you're not a crackhead, take pleasure in the fact that you're not as stupid as these people. if you are a crackhead...you can add these things to the list of what not to do if you don't want to get busted for being a crack smoker.

so, without further ado, i present this installment of News Crack Smokers Can Use:

Kinder Eggs are awesome, or so i've heard. they're not legal here in these United States, because some silly federal law prohibits the introduction of "non-nutritive items" into dubiously nutritive candy. however, crack smoking is a global pastime, and after growing up finding toys hidden in your chocolate eggs in Merry Old England, it may make sense to you that stashing crack in the beloved yellow plastic shell from your Kinder Eggs might be a good idea. however, the constable and his trusty drug dog probably love Kinder Eggs as much as you do, and will find your hidden surprise.
contrary to what you may believe, placing crack rocks next to something legal does not qualify at all as hiding your crack. it will not fool people into thinking that the crack rocks are also legal, unless the people are too dumb or too inexperienced to know better. for example, it's probably not such a good idea to set your crack rocks on a plate next to your toddlers' snack food. your toddlers probably don't even know what crack is yet, and are still at an age of experimenting the bounds of what is food, and what is not. the police, however, are a few years older...and will probably not only slap you with crack charges, but also with child endangerment charges.
choosing a place to hide your crack requires a sophisticated balancing analysis. sure, you need to put it in a place where police are unlikely to find it, but that is not the only consideration. you also want to put it in a place where you can retrieve it later in prime smoking condition. otherwise, even though you had crack at one point, your attempts to hide it from the authorities have made it unfit to provide you with crack-smoking pleasure: and you'd be better off not having bought it in the first place. what does this mean? in short, you should probably refrain from hiding eleven pounds of crack in the gas tank of your automobile, and then actually trying to fill the tank. sure, Officer Friendly is probably not going to rifle through your gas tank, even for such a stupendous amount of crack. however...your crack might go boom. your car might go boom. you might go boom. congratulations, anonymous couple in Brazil: you have made it onto the roster of crack smokers who are too stupid to take refuge at The Last Refuge of the Persecuted Crack Smoker. i hope you're happy.

that's it for this round of News Crack Smokers Can Use! as always, if you have any strange or stupid tales of the lengths to which people will go to smoke or sell crack, send me an email, drop me a comment, or post it on the big light-up sign outside of the United Center.

song meme: day 15

2010-09-25T01:56:00.002-05:00

Day 15 – a song that describes you

it's probably bad that the answer to this prompt has been the same song for nigh on ten years now, but there you go. no matter what other changes happen, no matter how many wrong turns i take or stupid things i do...i'm always going to be well-described by "The Way You Like it" by Adema. it's a song all about being a person who does all kinds of idiotic things, and gets frustrated by self-righteous asshats who don't remember when they did all kinds of idiotic things.

song meme: day 14

2010-09-24T02:23:00.002-05:00

Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love

this is a tough one. most of the songs that are so unlike the other stuff i listen to that no one would expect me to like them, i've publicly expressed my love for them enough that people have figured out that i love them.

like...pretty much anything by Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson is awesome, and anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong.

or Meat Loaf. i've professed my undying love for all songs Meat Loaf on many, many occasions. in fact, i think i'll do it again right now. did i ever mention Meat Loaf is awesome? because yes. Meat Loaf is awesome.

the least-expected stuff in my playlist, by a long shot, is the smattering of Christian Rock that inevitably pops up in it. it's weird...when i listen to internet radio that i can control (a la Pandora or Launchcast), there are always a few bands that pop up, and i was shocked to find out that some of them i really, really liked...even though i'm not Christian. as long as the lyrics are not trying to shove something down my throat, it's really easy to just kick back and rock out if i liked the sound of it. thinking i couldn't do that for religiously motivated music had been a misconception i had previously held.

in that vein, i'm going with "Analogue" by Spirit Creek for this one. i first heard it years ago, probably around 2003 or 2004, when it started popping up on the best radio station on the entire intertubes. i had no inkling that it was a Christian song, or a religious song at all...the lyrics could just as well be applied to any kind of self-discovery, i feel. finding out that they were a Christian band is what made me face and change that idea that there was no way i could listen to Christian music at all...because some of it was just too darn good to reject for such a stupid reason.

there's no youtube video for it, but there is a download link on the radio.wazee website, or you can stream it from their band page on radio.wazee.

song meme: day 13

2010-09-23T01:26:00.003-05:00

Day 13: a song you think is a guilty pleasure

there are few songs i think are guilty pleasures. but, there are a few. there are a few songs i feel truly awful about liking, but i like them anyway. this is a song that i feel so awful about liking that i almost put it up yesterday, as a song by a band i hate. because...this is a band i hate. this is a band who falls into the same category as Puddle of Mudd, as a band who gives the rest of nineties/early-aughts alt-rock/nu-metal/post-grunge/whateverthefuckyouwanttocallthatawesomemusic a really bad name. most of this band's music is terrible.

but, unlike Puddle of Mudd, they put out a few tunes that are just so catchy and fun to listen to that i have to crank them every so often.

what's really sad is that i had to actually pick which one to post among four Limp Bizkit songs, since there are actually four of their songs that i like. i went with "Nookie", but i could have just as well picked "Rollin'", "My Way", or "Break Stuff". i am truly an awful person.

...i just went with "Nookie" because of the several conversations with friends of mine that have turned into lengthy discourses about the ramifications of taking "that cookie" and sticking it up one's "yeah".

song meme: days 11 and 12

2010-09-22T01:45:00.002-05:00

again, playing catch-up.

soon i'll have more reliable internet access. all my tubes since i moved have been either tethered to my phone, at work, or at coffeehouses. we should have DSL at home come October 4, though... *crosses fingers*

Day 11 — A song from your favourite band

i have two favourite bands...so i won't discriminate. i'll post one from each.

first..."she said" by cold. seriously, if i had to pick a favourite song of all time, it would probably be this one. cold has a lot of amazing songs, but none quite so well woven together as this one.

and, second..."costume for a gutterball" by finger eleven. it was rather difficult to pick just one of their songs. all i know is, it's a shame that everyone knows them for "one thing" and "paralyzer", because they've been putting out great music since the mid-nineties. i almost put "stay in shadow" since it's my favourite song on the self-titled album as well as the antithesis of what they're known for...but there's just something about "costume for a gutterball" that does a little more to speak to my life at this point.

Day 12 — A song from a band you hate

puddle of mudd sucks. this song sucks. seriously, it's bands like puddle of mudd that give good, rocking nineties alt-rock bands a bad name.

really, i only posted this because it encapuslates the spirit of the item of the meme, posting a song by a band you hate. if you respect your ears at all, you're not going to press play. why?

because puddle of mudd really, really sucks.

song meme: days 9 and 10

2010-09-20T00:13:00.003-05:00

Day 09: A Song That You Can Dance To
no song makes me want to dance like "Ark of the Envious" makes me want to dance. this is Brian Vander Ark singing it solo, although it was originally on The Verve Pipe's 1992 album I've Suffered A Head Injury. still, this version captures the MUST GET UP AND DANCE NOW feeling of the original...fortunately, he's performing the song as i know it, and didn't hack it to pieces like he did "1229 Sheffield".

(and...the realisation that I've Suffered A Head Injury is eighteen years old makes me feel positively ancient. sure, i know, i didn't even hear the album until 1997, but still...file that away with the fact that i moved to college 10 years ago this weekend, and that my 10 year high school reunion was this weekend¹, and i'm in a major state of Get Off My Lawn.)

Day 10: A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep

i can't say there's a song that makes me fall asleep per se, but i find listening to anything off of Snake River Conspiracy's album Sonic Jihad around bedtime to be extremely soothing. it's great winding-down music.

***

¹ no, i didn't go to my 10-year reunion this weekend. i didn't see the point. i don't generally keep in touch with people from high school, and i really didn't want to blow all that money and time going to a place i can't stand, and trying to remember and relive days i'd rather forget. it was tempting, as a matter of car-crash fascination, but i think i did the right thing staying in Chicago this weekend and spending what would have been reunion night singing karaoke with my friends here in Chicago.

News (Possible) Crack Smokers Can Use

2010-09-18T06:51:00.007-05:00

this week in Metro Detroit, there has been the invasion of the stupid criminals.

Confidential to my friend in Ferndale: i get the allure of the party store¹. really, i do. it's a magic emporium in which you can purchase all sorts of delicious beer, liquor, and related paraphernalia. however, in order to leave the party store with libations instead of another line on your rap sheet, it is generally recommended that you bring money to exchange for the goods. failing that, you are most likely to avoid that line on your rap sheet if you hide your identity before entering the store. yes...this means you should have put on that Darth Vader mask *before* walking into the store and having your moment under the lenses of the security camera. otherwise, you just make it far too easy for Officer Friendly to find you

Confidential to my friend in Royal Oak: we're all human beings here. when you've got to go, you've got to go. sometimes it's hard to hold it. and, if you're a guy, you have the advantage of being able to find a secluded corner, whip it out, and relieve yourself with a minimum of fuss. however, the key words there are "secluded corner." the side of the police station is not a secluded corner. and, even if you've gone that far, your next course of action after peeing on the side of the police station should be getting as far away from the police station as possible, as quickly as possible. it should not be wandering into the police station to report something.

i don't know if either of these guys were on crack, but i wouldn't be surprised if they were. if they weren't, though...they can consider themselves honourary crack smokers, for going above and beyond the call of duty for non-crack-addled stupid people.

***
¹ what i don't quite get, however, is why Michiganders uniformly call liquor stores "party stores".

song meme: day 8

2010-09-18T01:06:00.003-05:00

Day 08: A Song You Know All The Words To

wow...this is a large category. i know all the words to a lot of songs...and to pick just one of them? le sigh...

i'll pick "iron flower" by k's choice. why? because i've loved it since i first heard it back in '97, and to this day i'm really, really sad that there's no karaoke track for it. there are few things i want more than a vocals-less track for this and someone to sing Gert's part while i do Sarah's.

(and yes, i know Gert's part as well, but Sarah's is more fun. and, since singing this song is my idea, i call dibs on Sarah's part!)

song meme: day 7

2010-09-17T03:10:00.002-05:00

Day 07: A Song That Reminds You Of A Certain Event

in May of 2008, i went on my first of [so far...] 3 ScavHunt roadtrips. this one was all over rural Kansas, and most of the terrestrial radio stations sucked. fortunately, there was satellite radio in the car. the station played the same few songs over and over again. one of the songs it overplayed was some song by some terrible indie darling of the month; fortunately, i have blocked it out of my memory rather effectively. the other, however, was "handlebars" by flobots.

i heart this song.

song meme: day 6

2010-09-16T00:34:00.002-05:00

Day 06 - A song that reminds you of somewhere
this reminds me of sitting at my desk at my summer job in 2002. kind of lame, i know, but it's a really good song...

song meme: days 4 and 5

2010-09-15T05:44:00.003-05:00

okay, we're playing a bit of catch-up here...

Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
"1229 Sheffield" is one of the saddest songs ever...and still, one of my favourites. i could only find a version of Brian Vander Ark doing it solo, but if you can get your hands on The Verve Pipe's version from the Clay Pigeons soundtrack, i suggest you do, because it's even better. (hint: if you see me IRL, i have it on my iPod.)

Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
the first song that popped in my head was "dizzy" by orgy, but apparently there isn't a video of that song anywhere. again, find me and my iPod, and i'll gladly play it for you.

anyway...here's another one that reminds me of someone, someone different than the previous song: "in the dark" by tiesto, featuring christian burns.

North Carolina, born and raised up...

2010-09-13T09:08:00.004-05:00

dumb: trying to bring a gun on your airplane carry-on luggage.
dumber: trying to bring a gun on your airplane carry-on luggage if you are a convicted felon.
even dumber: trying to bring a stolen gun on your airplane carry-on luggage if you are a convicted felon.

then again, i guess we learned about ten years ago that old Petey Pablo isn't the brightest crayon in the box.

song meme: day 3

2010-09-13T07:18:00.001-05:00

Day 03 - A song that makes you happy

heh-heh. they say butt.

song meme: day 2

2010-09-11T04:53:00.002-05:00

Day 02 - Your least favourite song

there are more songs i dislike than like...but fortunately, there is one clear-cut choice for Worst Song Ever. any song in which Chad Kroeger sings about screwing around with jailbait must win worst song ever.

...and yes, i say this as someone who actually enjoys a handful of Nickelback songs. for example..."Leader of Men" is the ultimate paean to apathy, and a damned fun karaoke song. but this? this song sucks.