"If you understood everything I said, you'd be me" - Miles Davis
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" - George W. Bush
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell
"Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we" - George W. Bush
Utility Fog Banner

  Living on the Edge
Upgraded Ubuntu to Hardy Heron. Despite a thrilling "Fatal IO Error 9" it works just fine. I guess it wasn't quite fatal. Only partly fatal. Slightly fatal, but not completely.

I did have to futz with Thunderbird to get it to open links in Firefox. TBird thought Firefox was called "mozilla-firefox". And I'm beginning to think that they shouldn't have gone for Firefox 3 beta-half my extensions don't work and it's like my thumbs have been cut off.

P.S. Arrrggh!! FireFTP doesn't work! If I can't use FireFTP to update the blog I'll have to fall back to using the command line. I've been using FireFTP for years and I've totally forgotten what to do.

P.P.S. Scrounged the newest beta of FireFTP. It works, so here's to untested software.



  Harry Hullaballoo

I heard a NPR story yesterday where someone from Amazon was talking about the lengths they've taken to keep the last Harry Potter secure. He would only say that he was in Nevada, because naming the city might be a security risk. At this point I yelled "You're in Reno, you idiot". Anybody in the book business, or that can read a return address on a label, or that has access to the Internet could tell you where the largest Amazon fullfillment center is. They Amazon rep then when on to describe how the book is in a secure room, with admission by card only, and how only select Amazon employees wearing gloves are allowed to pack the books for shipment, and how Amazon is performing inventory counts constantly to maintain security.

I found all this very amusing because at that exact moment I was tooling around Seattle in a Ford van with over 500 Harrys packed into the back-just me, with only a large box knife and a bad attitude standing between Potter and hordes of biblophile highwaymen. And I wasn't even wearing gloves.



  Good Impulse Control
buick hearse phillys
From Craigslist:

"HEY I HAVE A BUITIFUL 1986 BUICK HEARSE W/74/K ORG DROVE BACK AND FORTH TO CEMETARY.. AND A COUPLE OF SIDE JOBS IT SILVER/W BLACK VYNAL EVEN HAVE AM/FM TUNES. BLUE INTERIOR. I NEED HELP ITS GO TO GO TONITE PLEASE !!!~ CALL ME ON MY CELL XXX-XXX-XXXX I KNOW IT LATE BUT MONDAY BY 2 PM WOULD WORK

ON THE WEB GO ETO HEARSE CLUBS THEN GO TO RAIN DAILY CLUB THEN TO PICTURES THEN FIND LILLY PHYLLIS U CAN SEE IT 4 UR SELF ANY QUESTIONS CALL ME CRAIG XXX-XXX-XXXX THANKS I REALLY NEED TO GET RID OF THE TOYY GREAT OP TO MAKE EXTRA MONEY U ASK I WILL EXPLAIN"

Let me tell ya, last Sunday night I was this close to calling Craig and heading out to West Seattle with $750 to buy myself a hearse. Then my inner adult regained control and I realized that this might not be a suitable daily driver for a 200 mile weekly commute. But if I already had a working car and a place to park a hearse, right now I would have one serious funmobile.

More pictures of the loveley Phillys


  It's Too Funky In Here
Sweet Buddha with a chainsaw! Now my whole apartment has acquired a definite taint of dead-neighbor stink. It's not intolerable, but it's not good, not at all.

  Holiday Surprise
Sure enough, the guy next door is dead. No sign of him since before Xmas, newspapers piling up, his van hadn't moved, and his radio was on 24/7-so I finally called the police. It looks like he died on his bed from natural causes, though the Medical Examiner is going to have the final say. Chalk up another life experience, now I know what a dead body smells like.

  What I Did This Weekend
Friday I took the plunge and shelled out for Reason from Propellerhead, a computer music program. Reason models a rack of synths, samplers, drum machines, and audio gear tied to a sequencer. The sequencer could use some work, but the virtual hardware side is amazing. Your rack is infinitely changeable, limited only by the capabilities of your computer. Plus you can "flip" your virtual rack around and play with the cables that route audio and control messages from one piece of gear to another. The program is very well written: I ran a mixer, 3 samplers, a synth, 3 distortion boxes and assorted reverbs and barely made the CPU usage meter blink.

I tried to update the software on the Kanotix Linux side of my computer and screwed the pooch. For some reason known only to mad Germans the dhclient program echoes rejected packets to the terminal window that is also home to the GUI for the update. Result: I can't see what I'm choosing. I managed to cripple the default display manager, which means when the computer rebooted I got no graphics, only text terminals. 11pm on a Sunday night, and suddenly I'm like Locke in the Swan hatch, without even a fake Henry Gale or Mama Cass records for entertainment. Thankfully the update program made backups of the configuration files it changed so I was able to get my baby back up and running today.

  Firefox
I've updated to Firefox 1.5 and it's all good. I hadn't realized that all my preferences and bookmarks are kept in a directory separate from the browser-that makes updating really easy.

On a different matter, I get a big kick out of spam with a date in the distant past. Like I might have important unread e-mail from 1969.

  The Things I Wonder About
I haven't been able to determine if any of legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi's sculptures have survived to the present day.

Damn you Interweb, for failing to satisfy my every intellectual craving!

  Boat+Warehouse=Fun
Last Friday night a large (about 20ft.) boat was moved into my employer's warehouse.
I stayed after work to enjoy the show and take pictures.
boat in warehouse 1
A Little To The Left...No, MY Left

boat in warehouse 2
When the forklift came into play I had visions of subpoenas.

boat in warehouse 3
Easy Does It

  Dude, I've Got It Covered
I got a big charge out of the concern the Circuit City clerk showed about me carrying my new stereo receiver out of the store. He warned me TWICE that one end was heavier than the other. I just looked at him like he was advising me to continue breathing. I think I delivered something like 2000 pounds of books that day-unless Sony is making their stuff out of solid depleted uranium I think I can handle it. They must get a lot of clumsy customers.

  Babysitting

I learned 2 things from overseeing my 3-year-old niece for a couple of hours yesterday:
1: Sometimes the best toy is just your basic push-broom. You give a little kid who occasionally seems to be channelling John Belushi, circa Animal House, a big heavy stick and room to swing it around and you're talking big fun.

2: My impression of a cranky Toshio Mifune is endlessly amusing.


  Like 2 Flamingos in a Fruit Fight
you are Captain Beefheart!
Captain Beefheart... you are one of the first
modern fucked-up geniuses. When it comes to
creating, you rank right up there with the
likes of James Mangan, John Wilmot and Edvard
Munch.

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Via Tom Waits for No Man

  Riiiight
I get home, and there's a message on phone machine. It's not even a live human, just a recording: "Hi, this is Dave with the Family and Individual Health Department and I'm calling....". Nice try, but vaguely official names make me suspect that you're just shady fuckwads.

  Photographs By Izzy
sashas tongue

branches by Izzy

flower by Izzy

  Blogito Ergo Sum

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist

75%

Materialist

69%

Cultural Creative

63%

Idealist

63%

Postmodernist

63%

Modernist

56%

Romanticist

44%

Fundamentalist

19%

What is Your World View? (corrected...hopefully)
created with QuizFarm.com
Link
Via Adventures of Accordian Guy...

  Mencken's Creed
"I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant. "
Link
Via Metafilter

  What Fun
I was awakened this morning by the firm knock on my door of the Seattle Police. It seemed that my car was sitting in the middle of the road. Upon further inspection it became clear that the brake hadn't slipped but rather that some bastard had tried to steal it. They ripped the passenger side door handle off and pulled the wiring harness from the ignition, probably so they could hot-wire it. The thief obviously hadn't forseen the possible mechanical problems in actually starting and driving a 20-year old VW Rabbit: That car isn't going anywhere (except downhill) until it's warmed up, and that can take at least 10 minutes. And after 5 minutes it doesn't want to hold an idle and it can be hard to keep running. Luckily the thief must have been so upset he didn't take anything.

  A Pox On The House Of Jiffy
Let me put it this way: I drove into the University Village Jiffy Lube in a functioning car, I drove out with a major oil leak. My mechanic says the drain plug was about to fall out entirely, which is not the sort of excitement I need. Most of the Jiffy Lube horror stories I've run across involve them overtightening/stripping the drain plug or filter, not undertightening- especially if they noticed the resultant leak. I suppose they might have been fishing for some "repair" dollars, but that's only a theory. I should have stopped going to them after they offered to "fix" my working back-up lights-I think they just couldn't get my car into reverse. In conclusion:Screw Jiffy Lube

On a related note, I recommend Michael and Laura at Auto-Mobile Auto & Truck Repair. They've been my mechanics for 7+ years and 3 cars. They come to your car and fix it on site if they can, driving or towing back to their shop if they can't. I couldn't be happier with them. If you're in the Seattle area and need car repair give them a ring at 206-764-1151.

  I Call Bullshit
I'm constantly seeing (and hearing) this publics service spot with the tagline "Cops write tickets because seatbelts save lives" and it's getting on my nerves. Cops don't write tickets because seatbelts save lives, they write them because it's against the law. It's not that I disapprove of seatbelt wearing, but blatently false statements bug me.

  Words thats bug me
Problematic-When did every jughead on radio/tv decide to stop calling things "a problem"? Now they have to be Mister (or Mrs) Multisyllabic Vocabulary. I think if you meet any flesh-and-blood people who use "problematic" you can assume they are a dickhead.

  The limit of my curiosity
I"ve just realized I really don't care what the difference is between tea and chai.

  Don't Try This at Home
Leaving work today my car made a loud ringing rattle and the alternator light came on. The bar that holds the alternator taut against the belt that drives it broke. This belt also drives the water pump. It is a very important belt and it was flopping around uselessly. I "fixed" it with bungee cords. Actually, "jury-rigged" is a better term than "fixed". There is actually a bungee cord coming out from under the hood to hook onto the wheel well. That cord is holding the main cords away from the engine block because heat is bad for rubber. It all works like a charm, though somewhere a german engineer is crying. Bungee cords-don't leave home without them.

  Nuking Junk Mail
A little-known Federal law allows individuals to send a Prohibitory Order against companies that are sending unsolicited sexually provocative or erotically arousing mail. The Supreme Court went one step further, allowing individuals to decide what constitutes "erotically arousing" mail. The law makes it illegal for a company to send mail to an individual within thirty days of receiving the Order.

Considering the amount of crap I receive and the sheer gleefull nastiness of this tactic, I might just give this a go.
Link
Via Boing Boing

  Study Up
You'll never pass yourself off as a 4 year-old unless you are fully caught up on "Bob the Builder" and "Dora the Explorer".

And that commercial with the 200 dachshaunds instead of 200 head of oxen just cracks me up. Just the idea of 200 wiener dogs makes me giggle.

  Long National Nightmare is Over
Finally the dreaded Xmas season is gone. 15 years of retail and wholesale-to-retailers has convinced me "the holidays" are the most stressful and un-fun time of the year. Give me Halloween anyday. I just spent the last 3 weeks delivering 2 tons (literally) of books a day, 6 days a week. I know I've never been stronger, not even that summer I worked construction when I was 18. Thank ghod I didn't get this as a gift.
Via Making Light

  Dancing in the streets
I'm listening to a homemade Roxy Music compilation (with a little Pere Ubu for flavor) right now on the trusty playstation. Homemade mix cds are a good thing, even if they will be a felony soon.

  Mad Skills
I've successfully installed and configured a CD-burner. All modesty aside-I rock. Now for the mix CDs.

  Who's the Man?
I'm the man, that's who. I now have a working car stereo/cd player! God bless Radio Shack, even if they are Bill Gate's butt-monkeys.