You Can't Take the Sky From Me...

How is it Fox can take a show that has great promise, and great writing, and bury it just because it doesn't fit "The worlds blankiest blank" mold? For once, I am not talking about Futurama...(although that is a good example)...but instead I'm talking about Firefly, the Joss Whedon Sci-Fi creation, and in my opinion the best Sci Fi "verse" since Star Wars.

The show only lasted one season, and was followed up by the movie called Serenity. Last night I finished watching the last episode of the series, and it left me wanting more. Now I am sad...cause this was a show that was gone too soon, and there are no more episodes for me to watch. At least I can be comforted by the fact that Serenity will make it's appearance in HD-DVD Format in the very near future.

Crazy Tom's Adventures in Birthing

Here's a little game that is in honor of the "quiet birth" of little Suri Cruise.

The object: Catch Tom's "Crazy Pills" to keep Katie Quiet. Enjoy!

And Baby Makes Three

Scientologists of the world rejoice...another one has been brought into this world to join your crazy quazi-religous cult. According to sources, Katie Holmes has fulfilled her duty as an incubator for Tom's little bundle of couch jumping joy, when she gave birth to a 7 pound 7 ounce baby girl that the couple reportedly named Suri. Now that Ms. Holmes has fulfilled her role as BDS (Baby Delivery System), Tom can go right back into the closet where he belongs, along with Isaak Hayes and John Travolta, (to prove that it's not just the "men's" club, you can add Kirstie Alley in there, although they would have to really put an expansion on the size of the closet!)

Now that the hard part is over, TomKat can focus on their marriage plans. No date has been set as of yet, but once Katie becomes Mrs. Cruise she will be the envy of all the other sham marriages in Hollywood. Tom will then be able to get the starring role in the new "Planet of the Apes" Broadway Musical....God help us Dr. Zeus!!!!

Linkuesday

Hey, now that the statute of limitation on class action law suits is up we'll tell you whatever you want to know.

Chlorinated, treated, and filtered tapwater... FROM SPACE!

Oooh yeah, right there... hold it...hold it....

The Bush Campaign had "operatives?"

Well that's just Damned Interesting!

This week's MUST CLICK!

Take that A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte!

Bootleg City. Someday I'll have them all!

Don't blame me if you click this. I told you not to. (There's audio... I hope Danbury Connecticut is a big city) OMFG Actual quote from the audio testamonials - Pamela from Pittsburg "I was a social outcast.... This product has changed my life!"

During the war they would fire audio codecs into the air to damage plane engines and control surfaces

I haven't tried this and the result is controversial. You decide.

Again? So soon, baby? Oooh... right there... yeah....

Helpful MS Word tips

Ooooh. It's like Google. Only it's the same as Google.

What do you mean you don't have a USB auto sensing whiteboard? You're the richest son of a bitch who ever spoke English for Christ's sake.

Who didn't know this already?

The first step in your lonely journey of self support.

Repost? I don't know if it is or not but it relates to a later link so I'm posting it.

Legos + Chocolate = Nothing, really. But it's cool!

So I read this article all the way through but now when I click on the link I get a subscription log-in. Click it anyway. Some of you are members already, I know.

I lost fluids over this one

Well that's just rude! How dare you! On the other hand...

More fluid loss

I love a good conspiracy theory. Especially the thin ones that are short on theory and long on "Duh!"

Remember the possible repost from earlier? Here's why.

This link will give you E-V.D. Be careful. (the noisy killer)

The true class of the Beastie Boys shines in every moment

The Real Question is: Which one of your coworkers do you think about when you take the quiz?

Oh No He Fucking Didn't!

XM Radio Going Commercial

This topic makes me a little upset. For the last year ( since I bought my new car)...I have been a happy XM Radio Customer, and even dropped the money down for a 3 year subscription. The fact that I was able to get radio content commercial free was the best thing that has happened to radio in years. But as of today XM Radio has changed it's format, so that all Clear Channel feeds will now carry commercials. This is an upsetting development...If I wanted to hear commercial radio, I would just turn it to FM. What is the point of paying a subscription fee to listen to commercials? So sadly, the Mix, and Kiss will channels 21 and 22 will be leaving my listening lineup for good. Someday soon I will be saying to some young whipper snapper "remember when XM had commercial free radio?" ...sort of like the generation before me saying "remember when MTV had videos?" Damn, I feel old. :(

Why can't anybody just o far enough? Why does everyone have to go too far?

I wish I had some more information about this. If anybody knows what this is all about (Like AOASUS who has probably seem something on this in the local news) I'd sure like to hear some details. What caught my attention about this article was the fact that the action of arresting people for being drunk INSIDE THE BAR, before they even attempted or announced an intention to drive, was supported by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. So M.A.D.D. doesn't just want to prevent you fron drinking and driving. They want goverment agents to arrest you merely for drinking. It would seem that they are exceeding the orignal mandate of the organization. It's not the first time. M.A.D.D. and the other A.D.D. orginazations are also lobbying in all 50 states for stricter seatbelt rules, enforcement, and punishment. They have begun to lobby against people who use cell phones while driving. In one story I read R.A.A.D.D. were lobbying for higher fines, stricter enforcement, and lower thresholds for laws concerning how loud your car stereo can be. Soon they will begin to lobby that the interior of your car must be kept at 70 degrees. Why can't they use the money they've been donated to make a difference in reducing drunk driving? Why don't they promote public transit? Why don't give ride share vouchers out at bars in cities where there are taxicabs? Why don't they support bars who choose not to overserve or fund programs like one I saw in Chicago once where the bar had free private valet parking but wouldn't give you your keys back if they suspected you were intoxicated. You know... why don't they encourage people to take personal responsibility for themselves rather than try to force it on everybody? Why does the solution to every problem have to involve government control and intervention?

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me!

As I've mentioned in the recent past I have been downloading a lot of music that I can't get anywhere else. Lots of bootlegs and live shows that you really can't find in a music store have made a path into my collection via Azureus. A small percentage of the music I've been downloading is in .flac files. Flac stands for "free lossless audio codec" and is a filetype used to compress audio without a loss of quality. I have been converting these files to lossless wma files using a program called GXTranscoderV2. I have recommended this program to a few of you lately as an excellent freeware audio transcoder. It works well but it has a clunky interface. I have found that after adding files to be converted, then telling the program what directory to put the outgoing files into, choosing and verifying the settings for output quality and then allowing the program to complete the conversion that the last file in the list is never converted. It's just gone. It was in the list but it never showed up in the destination directory. I have gotten used to just going back in and converting that one file all by itself. Tonight, to my horror, I found out why the final file was never showing up. I was checking all the details of a conversion before I hit the "start" button and I was paying special attention to the destination directory details in order to see if I could find where the problem is occuring. I found it. Oh I fucking found it alright. You see when I highlight the list of file to be converted, right click on them, and change the destination directory the last file is (for some dumb fucking reason that makes me want to find the software's creator, put a bullet in a non-critical region of his brain, and fuck the bullet hole as he slowly fades away) the output file for the last file in the list is renamed the SAME NAME AS THE FIRST FILE IN THE LIST!!! What that means is that in every instance where I was unable to find the final file in the destination directory it had been converted but it had been named the same as the first file in the list and subsequently replaced that file. In short... the last song on the "album" was given the name of the first song on the "album" and the first song was deleted. MOTHER FUCKER. Now I don't have the orignals anymore. Those files are huge so as soon as the conversion was done I deleted them. I've also converted 30+ "albums" this way and I don't remember what they all were. I may never know. I've even replaced albums I already had with these converted files because they offered a better sound quality. So now I have to try and remember which ones those are so I can pull the appropriate files off the backup drive. Who knows if I'll ever get it sorted. I uninstalled GXTranscoder in anger. Now that I know about the problem it wouldn't ever happen again and I could probably continue to use GXTranscoder but I am so freaking angry that every time I look at that program I would remember this moment and how I'm tempted to go to the kitchen, find a knife, go outside, and kill the first thing I can catch just to feel relief. DAMNDAMNDAMN DAMNDAMNDAMN DAMNDAMNDAMN DAMNDAMNDAMN DAMNDAMNDAMN DAMNDAMNDAMN

Continuing the comments of the post below.

Dear Whackly

This email is confirmation that you have registered for the Xbox Live Diamond Card. We will be reviewing all registrations for compliance with the terms and conditions. In 6-8 weeks you can expect to receive your personalized Diamond Card in the mail, sent to the address you provided.

Once you have received your Diamond Card in the mail, logon to www.xboxlivediamond.com to see a complete list of participating retailers, review the discounts, and read any additional program information. All you have to do is present your Diamond Card and the appropriate printable coupon (found on www.xboxlivediamond.com) when you shop in person, or use the checkout code provided on the site when you shop online.

Thank you for registering for the Xbox Live Diamond Card!
The Xbox Live Team

Please do not reply to this email. If you have questions please go to the xboxlivediamond.com website.

Above is the email confirmation that I got from the Xbox Live Diamond Card People on the 30th of December. I'm sure we call all attest that much more than 6-8 weeks has passed since that time. I have recieved no card. If I go to the webiste I get an error stating that my Gamertag has not been registered. If I try to re-register it tells me that I can not register my Gamertag because it has already been registered. Long story short: I called them and they told me to call back later in the week to see if anything had changed. She didn't even ask what my gamertag was. I hate this world. If she'd had an Indian accent I would have hung myself.

Diamond in the Rough

Finally, after months and months of anticipation, my XBox Live Diamond Card came in the mail. It really isn't all that exciting, except that I am suppose to be able to get discounts on stuff from different retailers. Woo Hoo! I signed up for my card the same time as Whackly, but he hasn't gotten his yet. Maybe they are doing it alphabetically...via that theory Whackly you should be getting yours sometime next February!!!

Who Done It?

So, mystery person, I was just reading this and it reminded me of a recent dream you shared. Who am I talking to? Don't you click the links on the right hand side of the page?

Pink Floyd

I Don't Like The Wall. I never did. I found the movie convoluted and found the album to be luddite and more of a movie soundtrack than a complete experience....

The Wall was my first introduction to Pink Floyd and since I didn't like it I never really gave them a second chance. I did, however, walk into a dorm room with a couple of friends where Dark Side Of The Moon was playing. We proceeded to get extra-super-shiz-nittle-slip-slap-sally-style "tore up." That was a good time. I remember staring at the textured tiles above me and realizing that they were all the same. That meant that I could have my eyes pointing different directions at two different tiles but still have my brain fooled into thinking I was looking at the same thing with both eyes. But I couldn't tell how far away they were because the depth perception didn't pan out and my mind couldn't resolve it. I remember feeling like was was floating. Good times. I puked my everlovin' brains out and later Dave left and I ended up with a Japanese student who looked at me as if I was the first American he had ever spoken with outside of an airport... because I was. He and I were friends just long enough for him to find the table of Japanese students. He was a rockabilly drummer and he and I shared a love of Reverend Horton Heat. He had a cool stereo with mysterious buttons I will never understand. All that aside I was going through my music collection a while back and found Dark Side Of The Moon in there. I had purchased it when Marcia got a DVD of the Wizard Of Oz as a gift. It was $3. So Marcia and I went through the "proper preparations" and slapped in the DVD. We followed instructions off the internet to sync the CD of DSOTM to TWOO. It was pretty cool. A little too cool to be coincidental. I have some theories as to how that came about. It's possible it's all on purpose and the band doesn't know. It's possible the band does know. Who cares. It seems like it was on purpose. If it's not it's a cool co-incedence. It is not, however, ironic. So fuck you, Alanis Morrisette, and all your French Candian Flannel Frog Family.... damn it. And what does all this tell us, children? It tells us that enjoying Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon could be a gateway drug. I'm living proof. I took two hits of Dark Side Of The Moon. I took them years apart. But that's all it takes. Now I am hooked. I'm scrabling around the internet looking for the recording of the 1972 Sapporo Japan show that was released by an Italian as a bootleg called "The Great Gig On The Moon." I'm listening intently to 1971's "Meddle" and picking it apart to find all the different elements that became DSOTM. I'm trying to stop myself ordering the "Live at Pompeii" DVD re-release from Amazon. Why the fuck, btw, is the DVD portion of the DVD-A of DSOTM in 4.1 Dolby Digital AND 4.1 DTS with no center channel? It still sounds great and the stereo itself already finds any parallels between the left and right audio tracks and broadcasts them on the center channel. It's just wierd. Right now Azureus is downloading some 8.5GB file I found that just chalf full of live shows and bootlegs I can't find anywhere else. They can't be bought, PEOPLE!. The have to be downloaded from the internet. ... I AM NOT STEALING TO SUPPORT MY HABIT!!!

JUST SAY NO!
To Pink Floyd

Brought to you by The Partnership For A Floyd Free America

Life Imitates Stop Motion Animation?

HA! Ben Stiller just said "Kosher-Nostra" on T.V.

It's your router!

Digg.com VOIP article.

I was reading the above link, and the article it refers to, this morning and getting absolutely spitting mad at the comments. As those of you still working as TSRs can attest the problem described here is common and is caused by voip hardware (The Vonage/Motorola Voip router) more often than any toher thing. It's possible the ISP is shaping voip traffic although it's likely to list voip as a relatively high priorty when configuring QOS. If packet shaping were the cause, though, only voip would be affected. This person reports 100 percent packet loss the very moment he takes his voip phone off the hook. It's so God Damned obvious it's his voip equipment it's sad and OF COURSE Vonage blamed it on the ISP. THEY ALWAYS DO! Just like HP, Dell, Linksys, Gateway, Sony, Microsoft, and every other company who makes products that interface with the internet. They blame the ISP because it's easy. It is, however, not true. I could have posted this as a comment on Digg but then I would have to sign up with a username and password and I just didn't feel like it. I love it when people get all "DAMN THE MAN" about stuff but this ISPs blocking Vonage crap is absolute bullshit.

The Running Joke Continues...

Seems that SOMEONE out there is still interested in Paris Hilton's acting chops. According to this article, she is being considered to play Mother Theresa in a film. Besides the fact that she can't act at ALL (the Olsen Twins at 2 had better delivery than she does now)...this casting choice seems to be horrific. Better get a nice cleaver and put some paper down on the floor, cause here comes a "butcher".

Linkuesday

What The Fuck? If you took 40,000 Tylenol instead of 40,000 pills of MDMA you wouldn't have lived. Does that mean that Tylenol is more dangerous than Exstacy? The fact that there is a story about it in the first place means it's already blown out of proportion, Doctor.

Mezzo! Let's buy the torque engine and make games for Xbox Live!

No freakin' way.

We should sell the South to Mexico.... Cheap...

Looking for FREEWARE? Here's a good reference.

Drag and Drop for Wordpress. EzMezzo, we should switch.

Drivers up the wazoo. You reall should download this and keep it around on a DVD.

I'm waiting for the precision single finger with fingernail model.

Browser for the Nintendo DS

The also have Hannibal Green tea. You don't drink it. You just march up to it and wait while it sells your campground out from under you.

If you use electroshock to turn enough human beings into zombies you can eventually learn this. Do the ends justify the means? LOL!

It's like Doordolt.com for Nerds

DAMNED STRAIGHT!!!

The Proof.

I would be so freaking psyched if I understood any of this.

Remember that day Doordolt seemed crazy angry for now reason? Here's why!

Comes with a free executive ball scratcher.

GO!

This is what telephone surveyors want to talk about? Now I'm even more glad I fuck with them.

GENIOUS!!!!!!!!!

MORE FREEWARE though more limited it is a much easier site to use.

Sticking it to the man.

Boring M$ article.

Sign this in the presesnce of a Notary. Really.

Dare to be stupid.

Dirty Rotten Sons of Bitches!

More 360 hacking.

Linkuesday goes on and on and on.

One of this week's MUST READs.

Whatever!

VOIP SUCKS right here in MN.

In case nibbler steals the one you are wearing.

Bose, The Oldsmobile of luxury cars.

360/PS3 news.

Linkuesday

Brokeback Mountain, despite the buzz, lost to Crash at the Oscars for "Best Picture". I have a feeling the sequel would do much better. I know it would get my vote...

Never put metal in a microwave...but what if you are like Goldmember and enjoy smelting? Try this.

I love crab! I always try and find new unusual species at restaurants. Australian White is still my favorite, but I had never heard of the Canadian Emperor Crab until now. This thing is massive...and the $450 dollar price tag would be pricey. Too bad it's mostly shell and doesn't taste that great (according to the reviewer).

I owe a big debt of gratitude to Whackly for introducing me to this universe.

Singin' the blues? Or just need respite from the monotony of everyday activites?...try this.

Linkonday

Normally I would have saved this for Linkuesday but I liked it so much I thought I'd post it today.

Best Headline Ever

NAKED LUNCH

http://www.dustindiaz.com/naked-day/ Just so you know... April 5th is naked day. You are supposed to delete your style sheets and go just raw html for the day. Great idea, yes? WE HERE AT MENTAL FIBER SPIT ON YOUR INTERNET NAKEDNESS AND REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE.