SEPTA strike maxxes out the cabs and 30th street is Far. Arrangements are made and Harry and his significant other are amazingly hoopy froods for manifesting wheels for Bryan and myself.

Day starts with a quick provisioning run to Wawa, followed by Billy Idol doing a live set with three Motley Crue-lookin' dudes on acoustic guitars in front of a live audience of young asian women and old scary-lookin soccer moms. Berlin's amazingly awful video for Metro, some {Jessica Simpson|Sharon Apple} thing, a snatch of Gorillaz, some Weezer-inflected hipster shit and Leo Laporte looking bored to near-stupor at some sort of bubbly OS X-powered software demo shot in July. Fucking TV.

Harry shows up, saving me from Bryan's control of the remote.

Leaving Drexel, Sputnik is thumbed on for the first time since Aoi (pronounced "owie" by Bryan and others - I'd phoneticized it as ay-oi internally, but seeing as how Pittsburgh is worldly in the same sense as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I'd no incidental means of the proper pronunciation happening to me), Friday night. First track off the drive is Wish by the Cranes.

Sputnik runs for the next seven hours and change without stopping and presently reads at around 3/4 battery capacity.

Stepping out of the Amtrak station in Pittsburgh, the lyrics of Vampires, track 10 of the final Godflesh album, Hymns. Apt. Complete olfactory collapse brought to you by the mandatory Asshole With Cheap Cigar blatting away into a cel outside the terminal doors. Start itching immediatly, having broken into a sinus-stopping sneezing fit between Greensburg and Final Destination.

The first words out if iTunes mouth as I'm offloading gear in the batcave? "This. Is. NECESSARY." - Tool, Aenima, Disgustipated.

Fitting.

Quickly followed by Soma FM's Secret Agent while unpacking (of equipment and other things) occurs, then Solios's Pumpcon 2k5 Theme Song - Die Warzau : Gone Chemical, with an Oxygene remix slipping unobtrusively in on the leadout.

Off to tie up other responsibilities; will sort through train photography later.

Contrast: Philly's 30th street station has a hotel-styled waiting loop for taxis. You escalate up from the trains, exit stage left, wait your turn, state your destination and cruise off in style within moments. Pittsburgh's Amtrak station had a jitney.

Yeah. A jitney. Just the one. No cabs.

Leaving the house to Front 242 : Religion (Pussy-Whipped Mix).

Woot.

The Drexel Dry-Erase Gremlin and my copy of Puzzle Fighter, back in my possession after a one-year hiatus:

 

Scale Comparison : Bryan's copies of the Errant Story and Mac Hall books against his copy of Primer and my current preproduction notebook:

The ES book is wee and the Mac Hall book is a behemoth, both swinging into totally non-standard ends of the spectrum. I'm hoping ATC hardcopy - if it's ever available in non-Unique form - will be the target 7.5x10 I've been building pages at since I started working on the thing.

Bryan says Primer is good stuff - I'll find out for myself here in a few minutes.

From left to right : Factory's Highly Advanced Cooling System; some weird chunk of Factory electrical gear, and a television-sized switch in the harbelhaus. Industrial strength nerd toys.

  

This round of Philly has been defined by Bryan sleeping while I couch out in the living room, alternatively surfing and reading The Stand, which I'm about a good 2/5 into. Rather than dick around with my ipod or whatever's on Athena, I've been listening to Secret Agent and Binary's Pow-Wow 2005 set, both of which are a huge departure from the usual sonic territory. Different town, different vibe. No need for the industrial-metal defenses here.

Went out to wawa earlier : neither of us felt like really being out, and there was one hell of a crowd in front of the target pizza place, as well as other general Halloween loudness. Turns out we're of similar minds on the whole "dealing with civilians" thing, so Bryan ordered pizza and we watched the director commentary on Aliens. There was much rejoicing.

Clocks are adjusted, alarms are set, and if SEPTA and the cabs aren't on strike tomorrow (one of which will be critical to the whole "travelling at least thirty blocks" thing) I'll be on the 1145am train out. There's a slight chance of rjbs if Bryan and I can manage the morning thing.

There'll be a couple more blog entries and another DCR between now and then, but I think it's reasonably safe to say that all of the excitement has cooled down. It's nice to have spent a couple of days chilling instead of making comics and drinking.

The only downside of the whole adventure is that I feel like I've secondhanded a case of Lucky Strikes. I'm used to two and a half to four hour shifts in smoky rooms followed by a break of at least sixteen hours, usually more - a four hour tour with a seven hour break followed by a six and a half hour run has left me hack-hack, wheeze-wheeze. That aside, Philly still gives off that clean, scrubbed-down-with-a-steel-brush vibe, in stark contrast to Pittsburgh's patina of I-showered-last-week-whaddayawant?! trailer park filth. Probably has something to do with the fact that the town isn't hemmed in by hills on all sides and the air actually has a chance to move around, or something.

Don't get me wrong, both cities have their clean bits and their nasty bits and I've seen plenty of both - but Pittsburgh is an unplanned dollop of asphalt in a river valley, and it looks like it. Philly is much less claustrophobic, and the openness and lack of a hilly horizon certainly feels fresh.

1. People dig the shirts. This has turned into a verbal agreement with Adam to do next year's shirts and some CDC shwag.

2. Apparently I'm loud. Or rather, LOUD. I have this on good authority from Evan and Bryan. Since I can barely hear Bryan even when there's no ambient noise, my only conclusion is that five years of headphones at work has caused permanent hearing damage. I've suspected this for awhile and take it as indirect confirmation. Less clubbing would probably be a good thing.... not sure how much of it has to do with the lack of nicotine in my system - I commented to my friend Ray a few weeks after I quit that I was having trouble processing parties because I couldn't sort the foreground noise out from the background noise anymore - some sort of head-filter took a shit around the same time the nicotine flushed. That or all the Quake broke my ears.

3. More interest in ATC than DCR; more "just shut up and draw!" as opposed to, say, feeling for the rendering conditions. That is, people want the story - hypothetically on a regular basis - and they'd rather it looked "okay" than "good." As a reader I identify and as the creator I'm not really sure how I feel. On the one hand, Bryan admonishing me in this capacity is validating.... on the other, I wonder if Shirow wouldn't have done all of GITS or GITS:MMI in full color if given the chance - how much of that was a creative decision and how much of that was a management call? The reality is, to paraphrase Bryan, "I'm going to read the page and flip the next one, I'm not going to spend twenty minutes looking at it." As that's ultimately what I read comics for, and as recent ATC isn't so much "shut up and draw" as it is "shut up and wait," I think the best thing to do at this juncture is to finish the planned scenes as planned and to angle a different approach for the third scene of Chapter Four and the remainder of the story.

4. Bullshitting with bda - instigated by the previous post - was quite possibly the most important conversation I've had in the past year. If I had friends like Bryan in Pittsburgh I'd never need to leave town, ever.

5. Given all of the above, it's looking like DCR won't be a break in the festivities - which isn't what it was planned to be, but is what I've been treating it as- an excuse to not work on ATC. Not good for either project. Definitely something I have to think about.

6. ONE shot of Jaegermeister somewhere in a VAST FIELD of whiskey, water, soup, food, cola and so forth.... four AM and a liter of water in my head, everything else behind me and I'm suddenly slammed with that ghost Jaeger aftertaste, no context left field BANG. Awesome.

There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

-- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"

12:42 < mdxi> map is neat, but i try to avoid it for Real Work for clarity's sake
12:42 <@rjbs> I tend to use it in Real Work for clarity's sake. :)
12:43 <@rjbs> but I know it can be abused.
12:43 <@rjbs> I mean... look at that fucking monstrosity.
12:43 <@rjbs> but: my @children = map { $_->children } @fathers;
12:44 < mdxi> yes. simple maps which would otherwise be 3-line foreaches are good.
12:44 <@rjbs> or: my @events = sort by_date map { $_->history } (@clients, @servers);
12:44 <@rjbs> right.
12:44 < mdxi> i wasn't saying GOTO CONSIDERED HARMFUL or anything
12:44 <@rjbs> I know.
12:44 <@rjbs> I just wanted to get my defense of map on record. :)
12:47 <@ejp> MAY CONTAIN TRACE AMOUNTS OF LISP
12:47 <@rjbs> exactly.
12:47 < solios_> GOTO is the only thing I know how to use.
12:47 < solios_> and then I can only use it in a BASIC that has line numbers.
12:48 < solios_> RENUM--
12:48 <@rjbs> (MAPCDR 'your-face '(*my-nuts*))
12:48 < solios_> O_o
12:48 < calliope> :-/
12:50 < mdxi> the symbol my-nuts should not be global. we all have our own copies of that.
12:50 < mdxi> okay, most of us
12:50 <@rjbs> mdxi: +my-nuts+
12:50 <@rjbs> mdxi: because the question of whose they are varies from scope to scope!
12:51 < solios_> hm.
12:51 <@ejp> they're also read-only. for whatever that's worth.
12:52 <@rjbs> $HTMaiL = ...
12:52 < mdxi> i dunno. some people definitely have clearance to change the state of mine (within certain parameters)
12:53 < solios_> to read-write?
12:53 <@rjbs> (defgeneric twiddle (gonad))
12:53 <@ejp> mdxi: but that isn't a direct write. it's accessed via the $scrotum object.
12:53 <@ejp> unless you do things far kinkier than I want to know about.
12:55 < mdxi> funny, i was just thinking it was usually called from $peener, unless one was doing something particularly kinky
12:56 < solios_> all a subclass of libnads.
12:57 <@ejp> $peener shouldn't be.
12:57 <@rjbs> ejp: **nuts
12:57 < solios_> well, structurally, libnads is called by $peener...
12:58 * ejp gets a knife
13:00 < mdxi> my $wang = CorporealForm::Human::Loins::Male::Weenis->new;

Images shot by me and processed by bda, as my iBook is currently sitting at his place and we're chilling at Factory. This is the first shirt design I've had in the wild since the summer of 2000 and they turned out AWESOME.

 

15:29 <@javaman> man those are sweet.
15:29 <@bda> Seriously.

13:06 <@bda> Fuck.
13:06 <@bda> I'm a goober.
13:06 <@bda> Lookit that.
13:06 <@bda> Goober.

Turns out the harblekyoob is about a ten minute walk from the train station. The Drexel nerdery is apparently where all the heat that isn't being used by CMNH goes and the bathroom is ..... interesting. In the paleobotany sense.

I'm fried but fairly functional (try saying that three times fast), and the fact I was a dumbass and boozed it up last night has jacked up my thermostat something fierce - I'm sure it'll settle down after gear gets stowed and I have a chance to walk around without 45lbs of ballast strapped on. I'd be gorging the Canon's CF card if I was at standard carry (eg no laptop, no duffel, etc, etc). Should get a chance to do that over the course of the weekend.

Sat next to some old dude on the ride in. The train was packed to capacity, full of cel phones and iPods and laptops, age range 18-25 and 60+, several women that looked like my grandmother and a guy that reminded me of Charles Kerault or some sort of "This American Life" analogue - a pair of couples sitting behind me chatting in soothing radio voices about this and that, perfectly at ease... making the Dookyweb-populated visualization of The Stand even more unsettling.

Almost as strange as my morg inbox, but that's a tale for another time.

Maybe I'm falling
Maybe I'm not
Surrounded by people
Unintentional art
The moving of people
The buck and the sway
You fill up my head
And then you get in my way

Gone chemical
Emotional
How is that?
Everybody's gone chemical
Emotional
How is that?
Everybody's gone

Maybe I love you
Maybe I don't
You misunderstand me
And tell me you won't
The moving of people
The buck and the sway
You fill up my head
And then you get in my way

-Die Warzau : Convenience (2004) : Gone Chemical

23:13 <@solios_> woo. 214 and the only things left to do before I leave are (1) make bed (2) shower (3) take out the trash.
23:14 <@solios_> I GOT FOUR HOURS TO KILL.
23:14 < sqweak> drink more
23:14 <@solios_> oh hells no.
23:14 <@solios_> I got me The Stand, The Complete & Uncut Edition.
23:14 <@solios_> Captain Trips owns my balls.
23:14 < sqweak> i thought you said you only had 4 hours :D
23:15 <@solios_> yeah, well.
23:15 <@solios_> train ride BACK and all...
23:15 <@solios_> also.
23:15 <@solios_> check this shit out,.
23:15 <@solios_> my train reservation number is a 6 digit number.
23:15 <@solios_> that has FOUR CONSECUTIVE FOURS.
23:16 <@ralfiboy> i'll bet two are in the middle.
23:16 <@solios_> :x

The current projects have the following production goals. These are hard-and-fast; points that have evolved out of the projects, rather than being goals laid down at the onset.

The Dualist : Taking place smack in the middle of ATC, The Dualist deals with multiple plotlines, symbolism and theme through color, and attempts to evolve full page and multi-page compositional skills. Production values are the highest that I can set them and the goal is to try to raise the bar with every scene and every chapter. Pages are produced as time allows and everything's planned out the yin-yang. The Dualist is designed for full-color, 7.5x10 print - not cheap.

1. Every scene is The Best It Can Be at the time produced.
2. Pages are produced as time and other factors allow.
3. It'll be done when it's done.

Dead City Radio : Production values for DCR are nothing like production values for ATC - rather than "when it's done" or "when it's doable," the major goal of DCR is to publish like clockwork. Monday through Friday, as close to midnight as possible. The strip format has made it possible to work ahead - as of this writing, a week ahead - and the idea at the moment is that there will be five DCR strips a week until it's Done. This is subject to change if the format evolves. It might, but it won't be until I'm certain of DCR's target output format. DCR can be currently be sensibly output at 2880x2000 or 2880x4000 - 7.2x5 or 7.2x10 @ 400 dpi. DCR is grayscale for several reasons - I can work a hell of a lot faster in black and white; it's a medium I like and can't do with The Dualist; and most importantly: it's a hell of a lot cheaper to print grayscale than it is to print full color. You'll see an issue of DCR well before you'll see a trade paperback of The Dualist.*

1. Five strips a week is five strips a week. Some will suck. Some will be good. Practice makes perfect.
2. Pages are produced as far in advance as possible and are released on a strict schedule.
3. The story is likely going to be roughly Dualist length, hopefully shorter. Strip format gurantees regular production : it is not a shot at a meal ticket.

* If for no other reason than I'm 10 Standard Comic Pages into DCR and about 190 into The Dualist, with The Dualist likely to finish up over the 300 mark. Standard Comics Length is 22-30pp, and DCR's format allows for incremental publication. Given the production difficulties I've encountered with Chapter Four of The Dualist (and the relative lack thereof with DCR), it's safe to say that we're going to see Whitehouse in the discount bin first. As things progress, you'll see why this is a Good Thing™.

I'm totally going to be placing an order with modbuttons as soon as I can scrape up the dough. Mostly because I've wanted 1" buttons for ATC and DCR since ever, but also because they provided a link to the Dookyweb Avatar Creator. I've seen the avatars around forever, but never thought to figure out where they came from.

Now I know, and knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe!

Since I don't have any pics of my Male Parental Unit on hand, I improvised and exaggerated a bit, in part due to the volume of exclamation points and expletives that follow, in part because the avatar generator doesn't have anything approximating his haircut. I hope he doesn't mind.

I've performed a couple of small edits to the text, mostly name removal and exclamation/expletive reduction. I think it's worth mentioning that my MPU was a technical writer at some point in his career, and has been performing vehicle maintenance for the greater part of his life. I'm firmly convinced that my DIY attitude towards computing is hereditary, though at times like this I think it isn't "DIY" so much as some sort of geek-routed masochism. With the exception of certain Big or Annoying jobs like transmission work, dad's totally aggro when it comes to projectile weapons, vehicles, consumer electronics and pretty much everything else that's prone to breakage or wear. The fact that he's good at it doesn't keep mom from smacking the occasional deer... and personally, I think he'd probably be a pretty bored guy if he didn't have something to fix.

That said, he recently acquired a 1998 Ford F-150, and has this to say about it:

It's pretty obvious that the majority of those who buy pick-up trucks nowadays do so strictly for the status of it. These assholes prance around with a limp wrist waving a perfumed hanky while proclaiming that they are so fuckin' kewl because they have a pick-up fuckin' truck! And judging from the condition of my recently-acquired '98 Ford F-150, this is most indeed the case!

I recently swapped out the air filter. The old filter sure wasn't pristine, but I've seen a lot worse!

Think Secret thinks 10.4.3 is imminent.

I hope so. Maybe it'll fix a few of the stupider things, like Finder's inability to draw every file selected in a drag operation:

Or maybe Safari will finally be able to drag-and-drop text, the way Firefox or Mac versions of Internet Explorer or most Mac apps do? Or is the inclusion of more basic functionality we had back in the 90s going to be a 10.5 thing?

Regardless, Finder's been one of the hardest things to come to terms with in OS X, and while it continues to improve, it also continues to suck - usually in new and interesting ways.

>

For some things, anyway. But Finder (9) had more than 10 years of polishing and spit-shining before it was retired, and Finder (X) is still in its single digit years.

The only thing cooler than the return of jeffk is modbuttons. Custom 1" buttons at extremely reasonable prices.

ATC shwag, ahoy!

Courtesy of bda's Superman research : Alan Kistler's guide to Crisis On Infinite Earths. A HUGE, positively EPIC summary of DC's year-long attempt to get their house in order in the mid 80s. Of particular interest to me was the bit about the relationship of Watchmen to Crisis, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg here. Anyone with an interest in the steaming trainwreck that is superhero comics continuity definitely needs to check this one out, take copious notes, and hope that their own projects and aspirations never require this degree of straightening out.

I thought brewing my own multi-generational, multi-incarnation epic was complicated. But I'm one man, with one epic and a day job. Crisis was a day job for several people for quite some time, and Alan does a commendable job of boiling one of the more confusing bits of DC history down into something that can be read over the course of a few lunch breaks.

I'm done putzing around with Doom 3. I finally got around to "breaking" Delta Labs, and I think I'll be stopping here - I'm busy for the rest of the week and after this, there ain't a lot of "fun" left to be had. Doom 3 is ultimately a prettier version of the Doom and Doom 2 "gameplay" of FIND THE BLUE KEY CARD TO PROCEED PLZ, and pretty can only do so much to cover up a formula that runs just fine on a 486.

Delta Labs is where it starts to wear thin for me- not only do you have to slog through Where The Wild Things Are to get a part for the teleporter, you wind up teleporting a whopping three meters. Maybe five. I don't know - I suck at metric.

The best thing is that if you noclip through the window instead of using the door, it fucks up the teleporter guy something fierce.

 

Additional D3 goofiness : A few frames of that guy's chair parking itself (244k, Quicktime), and a Pinky demon wiggling its ass (484k animated gif and 494k Quicktime).

As I've said previously, modern games are heavily scripted. Further proof of this came about when I turned on Doom3's notarget mode. Turns out it only applies to enemies that are already in the environment, just chillin' out - like certain Pinkies and Cacodemons. All of the triggered beasties still run your ass down and try to pry it off with fireballs, claws or whatever - and it turns out that pretty much every single damned enemy in the game is triggered. Doors, health packs, ammo, doors, being too far away from doors.... imp, imp, cacodemon, imp, revenant. We're talking predictable here, folks- open the door, step back, unload a rocket, wait for the screaming to stop.

It happens so often that it's more of a surprise when it doesn't, and the predictability gets damned annoying after awhile. I can't see why anyone would bother running through the game without using either god or give all or both - the play experience ultimately gives way to throwing on the codes and wandering around gaping at the detail of the environments.... something you can't do with Halo, since the assholes at Bungie got it into their heads that running through the entire game backwards while being chased by a shitload of aggro zombie-fungus would be a good time, and something the player would be so engrossed in as to not want life or ammo codes, ever.

The persistence of cheat codes is why I stick with iD titles for singleplayer FPS "fun." Lack of them is points off any FPS, especially Halo - a game that's extremely enjoyable until the shotgun shows up.

Genre frustrations aside, I prefer iD titles to the rest - specifically iD licenses, as WolfET is the most fun I've ever had on an iD engine. I'll be playing through Quake 4 as soon as I can get my hands on it, and the Doom 3 expansion whenever that makes it to the Mac. Hopefully somewhere in there I'll even be able to do it at home.

Until then, Philadelphia followed by a few months of being cold and doing comics.

13:33 < solios>
13:34 < y0shi> why would you want a hint of wang? that's like wanting really small boobs
13:34 < solios> nothing wrong with really small boobs.
13:34 <@ejp> solios: am I looking at a cutaway of a nuclear-powered vibrator or something?
13:35 < solios> single-cylinder engine.
13:35 < solios> 13:28 <@eniac> its an inline single cyl two cycle engine
13:35 < solios> 13:29 <@eniac> kooky italian engine designers
13:35 < y0shi> it's not inline
13:35 < mdxi> how can something be inline AND single-cylinder?
13:35 < solios> you'd know if you were STILL IN 215 :'(
13:35 < solios> mdxi: nfi
13:36 < y0shi> line is >= 2 points
13:36 < solios> dongs
13:37 < mdxi> i guess it's better to say "inline single" than "radial single" or "horizontally-opposed single"
13:37 < y0shi> mdxi: its inline, radial, V, flat, square, and parallel. ALL AT THE SAME TIME
13:37 < mdxi> it's *more* true
13:37 < solios> y0shi: O.o
13:37 < mdxi> The new Chevrolet Slant 1
13:37 < y0shi> i think it's just *less* false
13:38 < y0shi> true would be "singlge" (alternate "thumper")
13:38 < solios> thumper++
13:38 < y0shi> dodge magnum hemi 1
13:38 < solios> I should get one of those.
13:38 < solios> then I can ride a sandworm to work.
13:39 < mdxi> eat all the people you don't like
13:39 < mdxi> have reverend mothers drink them later on
13:40 < solios> see, Pitt is between work and home.
13:40 < solios> I sure wouldn't have to worry about grazing the worm.
13:40 < mdxi> gag comic idea: fremen bus-stops

solios@gridlock:~$ fortune # sum up my weekend plz.
You will pass away very quickly.

The problem with not knowing what you want out of people is knowing what you'd want to hear if you were in their place. Unfortunately, that knowledge accounts for about half of my bar tab - and all of my hangover. I'm looking forward to Philly because it's a chance to be social with no {perceived} strings attached. Pittsburgh is just too damned small to get that kind of a natural high anymore. It's small and after the past few nights out it's feeling positively claustrophobic.

A world - a city, anyway - of possibilities expertly FUDed down to a Yes/No.

I. Am. EFFICIENT!

The recently released Doom 3 demo actually ran useably (at low settings) on my home G4/733. Until the Radeon 9600 smoked itself in a power failure - now I'm back down to a GeForce 2 and I'm really not interested in seeing what Doom looks like on that piece of shit.

So I played the full version at work instead, for the third or fourth time. If they actually made games for the Mac, I'd play those, but they don't.* So I make due. In the course of making due, I've noticed that modern "games" are HEAVILY scripted. So heavily that breaking off the rails can often have strange results. Take this "shortcut" down the reactor shaft, for example:

 

If you run through the game the way you're supposed to - getting your ass scorched off in a million-year elevator descent - this bad boy plonks down out of the well as you step off the elevator, triggering monster spawns, spooky music and all that other silly shit Doom is filled with.

Until you hit that trigger point (or you waste 'im, which is what I did), he's just kind of sitting here, chillin' out. Which is what I'll be doing with my non-{work|comics|drinking} time until Quake 4 gets a Mac release.

Edit : Went digging for some DCR-worthy dates and timeframes, took some screeners and changed the title of this entry to the first line of the Wikipedia entry for Quake II. Quake was released in '96, and Quake II in November of 1997 - something I intend to note in DCR when the story gets around to it, as Whitehouse has "inherited" my appreciation for the series.

To give you an idea of just how far things have come since the Dark Ages of the late 90s, compare the above Doom 3 shots to Quake (left) and Quake II (right):

 

Intense.

I'd blither about how much I'd love to do texture maps for a game company, but iD hires real artists - they're the kind of portfolio target that can afford to be picky. With my luck, if I got a job in the game industry my first assignment would be something like this, which is all the incentive I need to persue any other career.

Also noteworthy : Quake II is the only FPS I've played that lets you pick which hand your weapon is in - left or right. Early FPS and Quake had it centered; Q2 defaults to right and everything else just sticks it there for good. Of course, around the same time that happened, weapon models and animations got a hell of a lot more detailed and some wit decided it would be neat to put the ammo counter on the weapon, so doing a flat-out mirror Legend-Of-Zelda-style for a quick-and-dirty "left" just doesn't cut it. It's noteworthy but it's not something I'm going to kick up a "woe is me" stink about like I would about scissors ($%^!@!!)- while I eat, draw, masturbate and lead with my left, it's also the trigger finger - I'm right eyed, so I hold a rifle (and a mouse) with my right hand. I remember shotgunning off of my left shoulder and being very "both hands down the middle" with a pistol, but we're talking isolated fragments here, as it's been awhile.

The last time I handled live ordinance was July of 2000, when I did some target shooting with my dad's .22 rifle. I still have the group in a notebook pocket somewhere. It's fairly telling- there's a reason I prefer flamethrowers, mortars, rocket launchers, BFGs, artillery and air strikes to machine guns, pistols and sniper rifles, and that reason is I need sandbags and yoga to hit better than the broadside of a barn. Don't matter if it's live ordinance or software - I think like a glacier and putting the crosshairs on a moving target requires either intuiting its motion or actively processing the propabilities, and I suck ass at floating-point math.

Math of any kind, really.

Skill aside, the sheer economy of wasting a dozen zombies with a single rocket without having to chase 'em and possibly miss... I like that. Pistols and assault rifles are too on/off for my tastes** - it's a hit or a miss. With splash weapons, there's a nice big "maybe" factor, the "did I get it close enough to count?" and that's the bit I'm decent at, the "maybe" - aim at the feet and suddenly a 25% chance at a hit is a 25% direct hit, 50% indirect, 75% chance you're going to take damage, just a question of how much, roll 10d6 against your ED*** plz. Or more anal-retentive and statistically accurate numbers.

These kind of numbers, for example:

 

The best thing about the killgames, aside from the not-dying-for-real bit, is there's no smell. It's going to be a very long time before they can get that element integrated.

* Yeah. I know. I'm not paying a monthly fee for fantasy crack, folks. Not until my home hardware can handle it, anyway. And spending an hour trying to find a Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory server that doesn't reject a Mac client just isn't my idea of a good time. On the rare occasion I can get on a server, WET is the most fun I've had with a video game since Puzzle Fighter. Hard to see the appeal of pointy-eared level grinding when MP-40s, smoke grenades and mortars make me so very, very moist.

** Nevermind you "HEADSHOT!!" kiddies - people like you are why people like me have the rockets and the 110% mortar accuracy ratings. Try that with bullets.

*** I stopped playing Hero way back with 2nd Edition. For all I know they've switched to d10 or otherwise changed/streamlined the system by now. I kind of hope they haven't - Hero was so over-the-top math-heavy that the process of getting the system out of the book and into my head hauled my math scores up from the D- and F+ territories into the C+ range. The system provided some actual incentive to learn math. Makes me wish there was some concrete, tangible benefit to picking up budgeting skills - "less drunk now so you can be even less drunk later, when they raise your rent, raise bus fair, raise the "you work in pittsburgh!" tax, hike the take-out for health benefits and fail to give you a cost of living increase for the fifth year in a row!!" isn't much of an incentive, really. Especially when the price-to-performance ratio on new or near-new gear keeps getting more and more favorable.

A couple of Pepsi products that don't exist any more come up in the course of this week's DCR strips. Turns out I'm not the only one who thought Pepsi Kona - coffee flavored Pepsi - was complete ass.

20:26 <@rjbs> Kona was fucking disgusting
20:27 < solios> 1997 is when I remember Josta.
20:27 < solios> Kona was k-gross.
20:27 < solios> also 1994.
20:27 <@rjbs> I have some Kona t-shirts somewhere.
20:27 < solios> send one to xeno.
20:27 < solios> he LOVED that shit.
20:27 < solios> in fact he's the one that told me about it.
20:28 <@rjbs> xodm
20:28 < solios> was all OMG DOOD DOOD DOOOOOD! THEY HAVE COFFEE FLAVORED PEPSI!!!!!
20:28 < solios> and I was all "you mean coffee-scented asswater." :P
20:28 <@rjbs> One night, coming home from the movie theater, Paul and I stopped at 7-11.
20:28 <@rjbs> I saw "Pepsi Kona." We were a test market.
20:28 < solios> so were we.
20:28 <@rjbs> I don't drink coffee, but I thought, "Hey, I'll try anything once."
20:28 <@rjbs> It was about 0200.
20:28 < solios> bet that cured your habit.
20:29 < solios> (of trying anything once)
20:29 <@rjbs> I went to the counter and paid for it, opened it, and took a swig.
20:29 < solios> :|
20:29 <@rjbs> Paul and the cashier both looked at me expectantly. Paul said, "How is it?"
20:29 <@rjbs> I said, "Actually, it's really not that -- AUGAAHGAUGH!"
20:29 <@rjbs> as the horrible taste sank in
20:29 < solios> The aftertaste?
20:29 <@rjbs> The cashier said, "People been doing that all night. Go get something else, I'll throw that out for you."
20:29 <@bda> ah, shit. I think this is the first Rik-story I've heard twice now.
20:29 <@bda> Fuck. :(
20:29 <@bda> It's all downhill from here.
20:30 < calliope> Aw, poor bda.
20:30 <@rjbs> bda: perhaps you do not know Act II....
20:30 <@rjbs> So, a few weeks later, Pepsi showed up at the theatre with t-shirts and a huge supply of Kona. We were to give samples to customers.
20:30 <@rjbs> Paul and I both said, "No fucking way," because we didn't want that on our consciences.
20:30 < solios> hahah!
20:30 <@rjbs> so Joe said he'd do it
20:30 <@rjbs> so he put on the Pepsi Kona shirt and started giving people little plastic cups of Kona
20:31 <@rjbs> then he decided it was great, and wanted to drink it all the time
20:31 <@rjbs> so when Paul and I refilled the machine, we got a case of Kona and put it in one of the vendo slots
20:31 < solios> he wasn't right in the head, was he?
20:31 < calliope> That's awesome.
20:31 <@rjbs> About two cans later, Joe saw the light and realized that it was fucking horrible.
20:31 <@rjbs> We made him drink most of the rest of the supply, though.
20:31 <@rjbs> A few cans we gave to other employees who had missed the initial drama.

Kona doesn't come up directly in DCR - not yet, anyway - and neither will Crystal Pepsi (which I liked), as that was over and done with well before the time in which the story takes place.

22:26 < solios> wow. Lynch + drunk = no-go.
22:26 <@bda> >_<
22:27 < solios> yeeeeeeah.
22:27 < solios> I THINK it might go like this:
22:27 < solios> lots of drugs : THAT'S RIGHT, MYOOSIK!
22:27 < solios> some drugs + yoga : Lynch
22:28 < solios> broken + analysis : Cronenberg.
22:28 < solios> personally, I feel - QUITE STRONGLY - that Davids Lynch and Cronenberg need to collaborate on something.
22:28 < solios> do some sort of VULCAN MIND MELD.
22:29 < solios> Ten bucks says you're Betty.
22:30 * mdxi checks
22:30 < mdxi> not betty
22:30 < solios> Well.
22:30 < solios> You just WON'T believe what that kangaroo did to this courtyard.

Who's the artsy anarchist
Who's the magic masochist
Who's the piggish postulator
Who's the anal agitator
Who's the heinous plagiarist
Who's the sexy satanist
Who's the manic masturbator
Who's the cryptic constipator
Who is
Who
Who the hell are you
Do you love me
I'm the salt in your wound
I'm the fist in your face
I'm the thorn in your side
The devil in disguise

-KMFDM : XTORT (1996) : Wrath

As part of the whole "remodelling and expanding Dino Hall" thing, whoever it is that's in charge of such things decided it might be a good idea to drain the air conditioning system. The taps for the Dino Hall AC are - you guessed it - right over my desk.*

The best part? It was supposed to be done at some point on Wednesday. Good thing I was off on Thursday - according to Smith, they didn't bother to unplug the hoses (and close the frigging window) until some point Thursday afternoon.

If Pittsburgh were in Texas, this wouldn't have been much of an issue. But yesterday was another one of those flat gray Blade Runner days - the kind of day that looks and feels like the bowl of clam chowder that's been sitting in the crisper since March.

High point to a mostly shitty week : sleeping in at home while my coworkers got to freeze to the tune of construction crew "competence."

* The BetaCamSP, SVHS deck and NTSC monitor used to be next to the window until the AC system decided to piss all over them a couple of years back. Hopefully modern - or maybe even 20th century - HVAC is part of the expansion/overhaul plans.

23:04 <@solios> I'm watching Sky Captain.
23:04 <@solios> so far it would appear I'm watching it only for those flappy robot things.
23:06 <@xeno> I liked it.
23:06 <@xeno> but i'm a sucker for art-nouveau-looking things
23:06 <@xeno> and i liked the almost-sepia tone
23:06 <@solios> heh.
23:06 <@xeno> and the soft filter
23:06 * xeno shrugs
23:06 <@solios> it sucks for lucas that I've been rating things in terms of What The Prequels Should Have Been.
23:06 <@solios> this being one of those things.
23:06 <@xeno> and big stompin robots and impossible aerobatics don't hurt either
23:06 <@solios> dude.
23:07 <@solios> flappy robot planes.
23:07 <@solios> :D
23:07 <@xeno> and Angelina Jolie
23:07 <@xeno> IN AN EYEPATCH
23:07 <@solios> shrug.
23:07 <@xeno> *swoons*
23:07 <@xeno> yes, well, it has Jude Law in it, just for you.
23:07 <@xeno> ...
23:07 <@xeno> ...
23:07 <@solios> she looks too much like John Voight.*
23:07 <@xeno> you were just talking about asjdl';fkasdf
23:07 <@xeno> STOP THAT
23:07 <@solios> and Jude Law is hot. :P
23:07 <@xeno> you were just talking about Jude Lawajsdl';fkasdfasdf
23:07 <@xeno> ...
23:07 <@solios> k?
23:07 <@fagbot> k!
23:07 <@solios> k.
23:07 * xeno throws a shield around _Lasar**
23:07 <@xeno> RUN BOY, RUN!
23:08 <@solios> hah.
23:08 <@solios> (he IS, you know...)
23:08 <@solios> secretly.
23:10 <@xeno> Dan, I'm begining to think you've got The Gay.
23:10 <@xeno> ...
23:11 <@xeno> Gaytorade(tm) - It It In You?
23:11 * xeno dies laughing

* The parts that don't look like her dad look a lot like an ex. Having seen those parts in 3d with smell-o-vision, seeing them otherwise just doesn't "do it" for me.

** See previous. Secretly.

13:13 <@solios> (Jude Law)++
13:14 <@solios> fagbot: god?
13:14 <@_Lasar> Thanks.*
13:14 <@fagbot> God has a hardon for Marines. Because we KILL everything we SEE.
13:14 <@solios> fagbot: god is also |<reply>GOD, THE MECHANIC!
13:14 <@fagbot> okay, solios.
13:14 <@solios> _Lasar: :D
13:15 * solios is watching eXistenZ.
13:15 <@_Lasar> let me know how much you think it sucks.
13:15 <@solios> a two-headed dragon the size of a kitten is crawling over a gas pump.
13:16 <@solios> dude, Doctor Who, Paul Smecker, Ash from Aliens and everyone else cool is in it.
13:16 <@solios> also, it's Cronenberg.
13:16 <@_Lasar> I still thought it sucked.
13:16 <@_Lasar> Pretty hard :/
13:16 <@_Lasar> At least the end was utter shit.
13:16 <@solios> heh.
13:16 <@_Lasar> Up to that it was kind of weird, but promising.
13:16 <@_Lasar> Well, let me know.
13:16 <@solios> k.
13:17 <@_Lasar> Been a long time.
13:18 <@solios> hah.
13:18 <@solios> wd-40.
13:18 <@solios> well, xe-60.
13:18 <@solios> same bottle, same type design.
13:20 <@solios> YOU BLEW MY POD!
13:33 <@solios> sdkjfgggghjj.
13:34 <@solios> Cronenberg > *
13:38 <@solios> o_O
13:38 <@solios> pwn.
13:48 <@solios> dflkjhgjksdhfgjklh
13:48 <@solios> EXISTENZ! IS PAUSED!
13:48 <@solios> plop.
13:48 <@solios> pwn.
13:48 <@solios> (Jude Law)++
14:05 <@solios> oh, geeeeeeeeeross.
14:15 <@solios> :o
14:15 <@solios> O_o
14:22 <@solios> _Lasar: I thought the ending was fine.
14:23 <@_Lasar> shrug.
14:23 <@_Lasar> I thought it sucked because it was a non-ending or so. But maybe I have to rewatch it.
14:23 <@solios> heh.
14:23 <@solios> well, it is a bit of a non-ending, yes.
14:23 <@solios> but Jude Law rocks.
14:26 <@solios> er.
14:26 <@solios> Code 46 was 1:33:13
14:26 <@_Lasar> ?
14:26 <@solios> eXistenZ was 1:33:03
14:26 <@solios> ...
14:26 <@_Lasar> I haven't watched that to the end.
14:26 <@_Lasar> haha

* Lasar is secretly Jude Law. Don't tell anyone, it's a secret.

solios@gridlock:~$ fortune
You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life."

17:33 * bda watches the Guide movie.
17:38 <@bda> So far it sucks.
17:38 < calliope> It won't get better.
17:39 < calliope> :(
17:44 <@bda> This is awful.
17:45 < calliope> Hope you have a barf bag on hand.
17:45 <@bda> Why isn't Trillian British?
17:45 <@bda> WHY DOES THIS SUCK
17:45 < calliope> Suck. Don't tell me about suck ...
17:45 <@ejp> asljkdfasljkdf
17:45 <@ejp> synergy++
17:45 <@ejp> SO AWESOME
17:46 <@bda> OMFG ZAPHOD
17:46 <@bda> THIS SUCKS
17:47 < calliope> o/~ So long and thanks for all the fish...o/~
17:56 <@ejp> Mmm, fish
18:15 <@bda> ugh.
18:17 < solios_> yeah
18:17 < solios_> I overheard the scene before the catalogue and saw the catalogue bit.
18:17 < solios_> fucking lame.
18:18 <@bda> DEEP THOUGHT SUCKS
18:19 <@bda> THE PHILOSPHERS SUCK
18:19 < solios_> just you wait.

Yay for the last fourteen hours.

In addition to the previously mentioned list of Joy, I've heard back from OWC. The response to the RMA request was ambiguously worded so I requested clarification. I want to know exactly where I stand on this as I'll be shipping the dead card back to OWC on my own dime.*

Messy dream around 0700. Noteworthy in that the consciousness/squirt trigger still rings clear as a bell and that was the realization in-dream that SHE HAS NO SECRETS. Read what you want into that one, folks.

I've got my own theories.

General feeling-like-shit this morning, which I attribute to pummelling my skull with Gin and Thunderdome. Not a hangover but the general ooginess is amplified and I'm immediatly in a foul mood as soon as I get to work - they're draining the hall AC system and the taps are right over my desk, so there's hoses everywhere, the girl us headphone-wearers share the workspace with is thinking out her mouth again and the 80g firewire disk on my desk is making the asthmatic whrrrrrrUCKuck whrrrrrrUCKuck that the other five MacAlly firewire cases made before their fans (and their drives, if they were IBMs) died.

Looks like it's time for another round of kit dropping like flies, and fixing gear I've been ignoring for weeks. Fortunately that's a short list, unfortunately it's all work PC equipment. It's pretty gross - I did a drive transplant on a 1u furnace today and the manufacturers idea of "securing" the disk was sticking the thing to the bottom of the case with quarter-inch rubbery double-sided tape, then screwing an L-shaped bracket over the exposed electronics. People actually pay money for this kind of shit - what amounts to duct tape drive mounts. Unreal.

I'm fairly certain I can haul myself out of this one before doing any serious damage. Right now "serious" is looking like gas lines or transformers - the mindless rage that's been clawing at my head past week or so seems to be having a Tetsuo-like affect on my surroundings... and even if it isn't, the thought that it could be is as nifty as it is sobering.

On a positive note, I should mention that the main clincher for ordering from USCav instead of Target was Target's ship time of "two to six weeks" and USCav's FedEx option. We're talking ordering pants on Saturday and having them Tuesday morning.

* If I'm readiny my inbox correctly I'm good to go, though I'm not sure if they're going to smack any more charges on me when the item hits the OWC offices. Regardless of how well the RMA procedure goes, I'm still out the shipping fee, which is money I wouldn't be spending if Duquesne Light hadn't hiccuped around midnight.

Job pays crap but gives access to equipment I can't possibly afford. Job is not very demanding and pays accordingly.

Jobs that pay better do not have same level of equipment access. More demands, more bullshit, more drain, less time for comics work.

So, shit for cash, time for comics.

Not like I can afford to do anything else, really.

Cutting a ragey IRC rant down to a few lines:

1. USCav pants don't fit right. I've now lost something like 80$ total on clothing in the past two weeks.
2. Landlord finally gets me an updated lease, three months after the fact, and pressures me to pay "on or before the 5th" (as if I didn't already have enough financial problems!).
3. Roommate's GF is in the house. Which, since it's 50 outside, means the heat is on. Which means the house is a fucking SAUNA*, particularly my room. Yay.
4. As if on CUE, the power goes out....
5. ... killing the Radeon 9600 in Minerva, my G4DA.**

That was a shitty ten minutes, let me yell you. The assessment?

1. Biiig surprise. Incentive to get off my ass and lose some weight.
2. The rent amount is correct this time, so there's some incentive to sign. Paychecks line up properly for the next three months, so it's not as big of a problem to Pay On Time as it was earlier this year.
3. Roommate pays the entire gas bill. Fortunately.
4. Third time this year, I think. I need a UPS.
5. I've submitted an RMA on the Radeon, as it allegedly has a one-year warranty.

It's a damned good thing I bought gin on Monday.

* Ben likes the heat somewhere around Off. I'm partial to the 55-65 range in the winter. Natalie won't settle for anything less than 78. The thermostat controls and temp sensors are in the front room of the house, which is the coldest. I live in the attic and the fans, they never stop running.

** "Big deal," you say. And if I was driving an Intel or AMD rig, sure. A 9600 is drinking money in the Windows world. In the mac world, they're 110$ + shipping for a 64-meg model with DVI and ADC ports. If you want to ditch the ADC, you have to leave the 4x AGP behind. Moving up to 8x AGP hardware bumps your cost of entry up a few hundred bucks.

Composer : David Thrussell Genre : Electronic Label : Psy-Harmonics Psy-054 (2005) Format : Digipak Special Features : Stickers!!, booklet containing the essay Eating Fossil Fuels by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, complete with an ibid. loaded bibliography.* Sounds Like : Just about every other Black Lung release with the exception of Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars.** Rush Limbaugh Would File It Under : Liberal Histrionics Runtime : 57:05 for 13 tracks Overall iTunes Rating : [***xx] This isn't a review it's : The "reviewer" finding as many ways as possible to say "this isn't Silent Weapons! Damn!"

Note that the album is rated against other Black Lung material using Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars as a baseline [*****]. As the baseline is a matter of personal taste, ratings should be taken with a grain of salt. Bold tracks are standouts- the most likely to be piled onto a comp or thrown into a playlist. If I excluded Silent and rated Dark Age against all of the other Black Lung releases I've heard, we'd be looking at a solid overall 4 rating as opposed to a three-point-something.

01. [***xx] The Coming Dark Age
02. [**xxx] The Sins Of Megalopolis
03. [***xx] Karmageddon
04. [****x] The Great Automobile Hunt
05. [****x] The Doomed Fortress
06. [***xx] Concrete Octopus
07. [***xx] Armies Of Oil
08. [***xx] The View From Hubbert's Peak
09. [***xx] Battle For The Grim Plateau
10. [****x] Leibowitz's Canticle
11. [***xx] Toward The Petro-Apocalypse
12. [***xx] Megalopolis Dies
13. [***xx] The New Dark Age

I'm kind of bummed that I paid out the ass for the import off of Amazon (moreso the fact that it took about a month to show up), but the thing came with stickers, so it's all good.

I say "bummed" because the reason I like Black Lung in the first place - the above-mentioned Silent Weapons - seems to have been a complete fluke. It sounds almost nothing like the rest of the Thrussell catalogue and it's the album that strikes the closest to my industrial/shortwave preferences. I love that album so much that it's completely biased me against the rest of his output - this doesn't mean that Thrussell sucks, mind you. It means he scratched my itch once and I keep to hoping that he'll do it again. The fact that he hasn't shouldn't reflect badly on him. I can't knock Dark Age, but I can say that my pants were dry from beginning to end.

My personal bias and general inability to write about or appreciate music from the perspective of the musician aside, Dark Age is still a solid, listenable release. It's the late-twilight kind of dark as opposed to the screaming-nightmares dark, it slides off of your brain if you're not paying attention to it (makes for good work music), and there's enough "dark age" flavor to distance the album a bit from other releases. Thrussell fans will be able to easily differentiate Dark Age from, say, Extraordinary Popular Delusions or The Depopulation Bomb - and there's certainly no mistaking it for Weapons. I keep fapping about that album for a reason, folks - go hunt down a copy of either Silent for Quiet or Silent for Silent, which is the same tracks in a different order with nasty album art. It's sort of a Myke Weiskopf vs. Electronica thing.

While The Coming Dark Age is a decent album, I certainly can't recommend purchasing it at Amazon [IMPORT] pricing unless you know for sure that Thrussell's blend of electronics is your thing. If you're going to drop coin on a Black Lung release and want the absolute maximum bang for your buck, spend your money on the incorrectly named and incorrectly track-ordered Silent Weapons For Silent Wars. Seriously.

* I like the stickers.

** If I don't keep my eyes on the screen, I repeatedly mistake Michael Easton for Keanu Reeves. It's not that I have a tin ear so much as if I'm not paying strict attention to music it starts to blend together, the way faces and body types and clothing blend into a handful of extras mirror-tricked into a full-sized crowd on the street. In this sense, Thrussell is Thrussell - I recognize the work as such but it doesn't reach out and smack me around the way Silent Weapons does - it stands out like Terry Gilliam's Red Knight would in the New York Stock Exchange.

A brief disconnect and it feels like I've been out of the loop for an eternity.

Discovered Flaky Pastry on Sunday - it's a cute little DnDish comic and the jokes appeal to my tabletop gaming roots. Tasty. Sometime before this - I think I was still drunk from ceremony - I bought pants from US Cavalry. After three trips to Target and one to Old Navy, I was positively relieved to find that the pants I'm after exist at all - both stores and their web sites ascribe to some form of selective reality in which "black" and "cargo pants" simply do not coexist. Horrors.

Since neither store bothers to stock heavyweight black t-shirts*, it looks like I'll be buying everything but socks and underwear on the internets. Perish the thought.

Watched Sin City early this morning, fueled by Digiorno and Seagram's dry (lime!) gin. Amazingly good stuff on all counts - Digiorno is a bit weightier in the crust than Freschetta, Seagram's gin goes great with Seagram's gingerale, and man. If gin isn't cut with coca-cola, it smacks me upside the head like a garbage can. I enjoyed Sin City quite a bit, though I'm fairly certain that having read a shitload of Frank Miller comics** helped. It's easily the most faithful translation of a comic book into a motion picture that I've seen, and makes the recent Marvel onslaught look like gaudy focus-group revisionism. Which is what it is, really.

Fortunately the hangover is more of a hydration thing than an OH GID THE PAIN flulike symptoms slog. Bonus.

Woke up on my friend Randy's couch and eventually made it home, after which I cruised to the bookstore and picked up some King - From A Buick 8 (138 pages in thanks to laundry) and The Stand, "uncut and expanded," which I'm saving for the train to Philly at the end of the month.

I'd link to the gin, since it's magic happy fun gin, but Seagram's - like several other boozahol vendors - has a lameass age-check flash thing in place of an actual website. Boo.

* I mean black with a black crew neck. Old Navy has black shirts with gayass grey crew necks, and Target has packs of shirts which, on occasion, might containe a black shirt - but never a pack of black shirts. I WANT to give these people money... why they're being complete assholes about it is beyond me. Maybe Hot Topic bought up all of the stock.

** Dark Knight Returns and the Sin City graphic novels, with a smidge of 300 thrown in. Electra is the sort of thing I instinctively avoid, and I was never really into Daredevil.

solios@gridlock:~/video$ fortune
You are number 6! Who is number one?

13:33 < vai> WHAT NEXT WORLD?!
13:33 < mdxi> poop
13:34 < solios> poop++
13:34 < vai> s'been done.
13:34 < solios> yes. :|
13:35 < mdxi> several billion times today, no doubt
13:35 * solios wonders how many tons of poop are generated in a 24-hour period.
13:37 < vai> cubic assloads!
13:37 < solios> those are the best kind.
13:39 < vai> the edges hurt :|
13:39 < solios> lube, sonny. lube.
13:40 < vai> fagbot: doot cubic log.
14:10 < y0shi> the metro atlanta area (pop 3.5-4 mil) creates in the neighborhood of 500 million gallons of wastewater a day. ~1/10th of 1% is "solid waste", i.e. poop
14:11 < shil> 1 gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs... although "solid waste" may end up being varying weights, that would probably be a good estimate.
14:12 < y0shi> 8.54lbs/gal
14:12 < shil> :P
14:12 < y0shi> that's 500000 gals of shit /day
14:13 < y0shi> 3.5 million people
14:13 < solios> O_o
14:13 < shil> 4,270,000 lbs of shit
14:14 < shil> 2135 tons
14:14 < y0shi> 6 billion people == 857142000 gallons == 7319992680lbs of shit
14:15 < shil> per day\
14:15 < y0shi> 3659996 tons
14:16 < y0shi> 3.7 million tons of poop

solios@gridlock:~$ fortune
You definitely intend to start living sometime soon.

e2 node (comprehensive), Wikipedia entry (another take), some .wma samples from KGB stations and general "short wave espoionage", plus an 80 meg podcast loaded with plenty of IDM/ambient and Numbers Station samples, and Stephenson's already clued us on the one-time pad.

Blame xeno for the sudden interest, and Whitehouse for context.

I'm pretty sure my dad knows more than he can say about the subject, considering the presence of a bigass low-freq antenna in several of the slides from his USAF tour. I know a stockade-sized low-frequency transmitter is the sort of thing used to talk to subs, but hey - signals is signals.

As with anything creative, the idea is to suck up enough of the concepts and base principles as possible, then let it stew until I figure out exactly why I've been sponging it up in the first place.

17:39 <@javaman> solios
17:39 <@javaman> did you see my msg about the tshirts?
17:39 <@javaman> 13"x13" for the back
17:40 <@javaman> she said 13" x 7" for the front, but i forget which side is the short side.

The Tactiva Tactapad. It looks like a cracked-out U-Force, the demo movie is mind-blowing, and it's currently not in production. :| (src=bda)

Digging up the U-Force link lead to Jeff Hoefs, who's rewired the things into a MIDI controller. Awesome.

Since the Arbies was closed last night (:-|!), it's been pizza Saturday and Sunday at 3am... which in turn means pizza Saturday and Sunday at 3pm.

Salty as hell but infinitely preferable to the food-shaped pre-diarrhea served at Tom's Diner, which is the only thing open in the south side at 3am on a Weekend. I'll review the place for the Pittsburgh section at some point - at the moment it's enough to say that the only thing the joint has going for it is that it's almost never, ever closed.

Through apod : rollout of a Soyuz-tipped R7 rocket.

Gorgeous. Unlike the hangover I purchased last night, which is kicking around my skull like an Acidbath tune-up.

Said hey to John for the first time in something like four or five years, thanked Matt profusely for playing Big Black, fanboid at nurse Allison and was subjected to some guy who sounds like a slightly smoothed-out Jim.

If shit like this keeps up I'm going to need to add a "drunk/high/intoxicated" category:

17:42 <@solios> THIS PIG WILL WALK ON THE WATER
17:42 <@solios> THIS PIG WILL WALK ON THE SEA
17:42 <@solios> THIS PIG WILL WALK WHEREEVER HE WANTS
17:42 <@solios> WALK ON ME
17:42 <@solios> PIG++
18:18 -!- You're now known as gothlios
20:13 -!- xeno [~bafh@cloak-FBC748D1.stcgpa.adelphia.net] has quit [Ping timeout]
23:23 -!- You're now known as solios
23:48 -!- solios changed the topic of #dotnet to: The networks current state did not exist before humans affirmed its existance.
23:48 <@solios> DISCUSS.
23:52 <@solios> hm.
23:52 -!- solios changed the topic of #dotnet to: The Network did not exist until humans affirmed its existence.
23:53 <@solios> (the internets as a projected physical model of the subconscious, etc)*
23:53 <@solios> THIS PIG CAN WALK ON WATER
23:53 <@solios> THIS PIG CAN WALK ON THE SEA
23:53 <@solios> THIS PIG CAN WALK WHEREEVER HE WANTS
23:53 <@solios> WALK ON ME

* The moment I was typing this mess, it made COMPLETE sense. The kind of sense that Buddah strives for. It's that kind of truth - the boozahol-fueled morass that you spend huge chunks of the rest of your life trying to re-aquire or forget. In this case, I'm rolling the dice on re-acquire, as I caught a glimpse of the Truth behind my vastly inaccurate thesis of The Internet As A Synthetic Plane Of Existence. It isn't. What it is is a fundamental shift in the way the physical plane is accessed and/or utilized - for an instant I had the size of it, and it hiccuped away like the mental equivalent of a beer fart. :P

While looking at Chapters Three and {what there is of} Four in the Art Institute lobby, my sister - who I hadn't seen in almost four years, who was in the process of getting the I'm Gonna Be A Graphic Designer ball rolling, had one question she asked almost immediately- "Why don't you market yourself?"

I didn't have a real answer for her. She asked again a couple of minutes later, and I still didn't have one. I'm bad at talking up my ideas, I'm bad at sucking up to anyone whose work or attitude I find inferior or lacking, and a bucket of icewater rockets down my spine whenever anyone tells me they've been following my work "for years," as this implies I'm still not (nor will I ever be) free of the Porn Stigma - were it an actual disease, it would be some form of embarassing stealth leprosy that would pop up at the least convenient times (meetings, sex, grocery shopping, etc). The Porn Stigma is usually subconsciously invoked by the strata of the ego that wants attention and knows, historically, that Invoking The Porn is the best way to get it in volume.

Funny thing, that strata. It's all about the quantity - not the least bit interested in the quality.

I think the main reason I don't "push" ATC is that "Twin Peaks versus Star Wars versus Max Headroom*" isn't really an accurate description and anything else takes several minutes to unravel and spit out. There's also the fact that ads cost money and I don't have any - and doing the cheap-and-easy things that will turn ATC into some sort of revenue generator involve a staggering compromise of aesthetics, attitude, and effort. It means putting shit on my sundae and right now that's not something I'm interested in.

In short, I suck at selling myself because ultimately, whoredom of any sort involves people. People dealing-with is why whores have pimps, musicians have managers, freelancers have agents and companies have lawyers. A dubious joy of being an independant web artist is that you quickly find out what your weaknesses are, and you eventually get a handle on which ones you can improve, which ones you can work around, and which ones are going to dog you to your grave.

For the time being, marketing is in the latter third of that Triumvirate Of Suck.

* That part is after The Dualist, which in turn is after Dead City Radio, and bears about as much resemblance to Max Headroom as The Dualist does to Star Wars.

Why is it that whenever I get more than six or seven hours of reasonably uninterrupted sleep, I always have horrible, brain-wrenching nightmares? Usually of a social nature, I've had at least two "violent death" dreams (the last one obfuscated or implied) and at least two of the teeth-falling-out variety, both combined with said violent incidences into some sort of montage. Bleh.

Last time it was just one tooth - the previous one was the whole set. We're not talking fragmenting or fracturing or dissolving, but the whole thing sliding out intact. Tasty.

Lots of blood, of course.

Naturally, six hours of sleep or less and I'm dream-free. Lately this seems preferable, as the only thing my subconscious seems interested in is flogging me forward, kicking and screaming, whatever the cost.

Also, 333 keeps cropping up. Usually the time (13:33 or 03:33 am/pm), but also street addresses, store receipts and so forth. Nothing to do with the fourth century, I'm certain. This has been going on for a few weeks now, and I'm reasonably certain it's symptomatic of other events, pending and otherwise [Insert Pi rant and mutterings about causality here, follow up with autosuggestion and counter-suggest that it isn't a symptom of Some Silly Conspiracy so much as the backbrain screaming bloody murder that things are very out of whack, look harder it's obvious - change is instability etc.].

13:14 <@bda> Yeah, friends != fuckbuddies.
13:14 < calliope> UH
13:14 <@bda> ?
13:14 * calliope looks around with shifty eyes
13:14 * solios_ tries to remember the last time he had sex
13:14 <@bda> er.
13:14 <@bda> wtf
13:14 < drusilla> are we making a righteous indignation line?
13:14 < solios_> to the left
13:14 <@bda> "!=" means "does not equal" :P
13:14 < mdxi> solios_: it was about 2 weeks ago, wasn't it?
13:15 < calliope> heh
13:15 < solios_> no, there was no penetration during the threesome.
13:15 <@bda> It worries me that Shawn remembers when you had sex last, Dan.
13:15 <@bda> ;lsdjfas;l
13:15 <@bda> ;alsdfkj
13:15 < mdxi> or did i misinterpret some of your drunken scrollback?
13:15 <@bda> jsdaf;
13:15 < mdxi> ahh
13:15 < calliope> hahahahah
13:15 * drusilla gives bda soothing poison.
13:15 < solios_> I think I just killed bda.
13:15 < mdxi> well, see, now we come to defining "having sex"
13:15 < drusilla> ooh, ooh!@
13:15 <@bda> The peepee goes in the hoohoo.
13:15 < drusilla> i have a good definition
13:15 <@bda> Or the hawhaw.
13:15 < solios_> bda++
13:15 < drusilla> orgasm induced by a partner
13:15 <@bda> Or the nyucknyuck.
13:15 <@bda> zing.
13:15 < solios_> preferably the hoohoo.
13:15 < mdxi> bda: patriachal swine :D
13:16 <@bda> Dru wins.
13:16 < solios_> or the herhoo.
13:16 < solios_> as opposed to the hehoo.
13:16 < drusilla> mine covers everything.
13:16 < solios_> no.
13:16 * bda coughs.
13:16 < drusilla> phone-sex, barnyard, whatever.
13:16 < solios_> handjobs aren't sex. :P
13:16 < drusilla> if you do them right, they are.

Polecat Aerospace built a 1/16 scale model of a Soviet N1 rocket. The N1 was a wonky Doctor Whoish design that was intended to put cosmonauts on the moon. For whatever reason the Soviets never pumped enough dough into the program for thorough testing (much like the Buran, so the Polecat page is about as close as you're going to get to seeing a modern flight of the N1.

In other news, Autodesk bought Alias, putting Maya and whatever else Alias makes (do they make anything else?) firmly into the hands of a company hellbent on subscription application licensing*. Technically this is probably a good thing, as I've never heard anything good said about the 3dsMAX NURBS implementation. Politically, this is probably worse than the Macrodobe merger (whatever happened with that?), in that it continues to propagate the Highlanderish attitude that There Can Be Only One... and in business, The One is the company with the most money - not the most skill or the best product.

* That's the thing where you pay a shitload of money per seat per year rather they release a new version or not. The loose "upside" to this is that 3d modelling and rendering is so stupidly complex that Autodesk is able to release as regularly as your morning bowel movement - jamming in the fixes and the updates and the features and charging you out the ass for them. It's a situation where there's actually some upgrade incentive... unlike, say, Photoshop.

10:55 <@rjbs> bda: I have rulebooks for you to peruse.
10:55 < solios> THIRD EDITION?!
10:55 <@rjbs> bda: I'll put them on... where?
10:55 <@rjbs> solios: 3.5 is current DND, but these will be d20 Modern, not DND
10:55 < solios> o_o
10:56 < vai> I froze at 2nd edition happily.
10:56 < vai> s'all just to get the monkeys to buy 7000 more books.
10:57 <@rjbs> Not really, no.
10:57 <@bda> rjbs: gibson?
10:57 <@rjbs> bda: ok
10:58 <@rjbs> the d20 rules are much better than 2nd ed.
10:58 < vai> that I know. But at R200/300 a book ...
10:58 < vai> oh. wait. You probably live in a country that doesn't have a LUXURY TAX on books.
10:59 < solios> er.
10:59 < solios> luxury. tax.
10:59 < solios> on BOOKS?!
10:59 <@rjbs> solios: many countries do that.
10:59 < solios> !!
10:59 < vai> yes. purchase and luxury import tax.
10:59 < solios> import I can understand.
10:59 < vai> even textbooks.
11:00 < vai> the tax is 75% of what I'm paying for at the counter.
11:00 < vai> how much is a crapp paperback there?
11:00 < solios> a _crap_ paperback?
11:00 < solios> like four bucks.
11:01 < solios> maybe eight.
11:01 < vai> kay about $17/18 if I do the math.
11:01 < solios> ...
11:01 < solios> 20$ for something with fabio on the cover.
11:01 < solios> awesome.
11:01 < vai> yea.
11:02 < solios> here's hoping that .za doesn't have the flabby women slugging on couches sucking down romance novels like cheap crack wondering why their husbands stopped paying attention to them in the 80s problem.
11:02 < solios> because it would be damned expensive.
11:02 < vai> no. reading is an arcane art. well, reading for pleasure anyway.
11:02 < solios> -_-
11:03 < esch> that's just perverse.

Spent about three hours in various parts of the current Art Institute of Pittsburgh (420 Blvd. of the Allies. 420, duhr-huhr-huhr.) with my sister and mother as my sister went through the preliminary paperwork and initial grilling of Admissions and so forth. Looks like (barring difficulties) she'll be starting at AIP in January, majoring in Graphic Design.

This comes as quite a surprise to me. Though I haven't seen my mother or sister since December of 2001 and have only talked to them a handful of times over the past few years, so it's my bad for being anti-social, I guess. I like the AIP offices - they're roomy and airy and light and open, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for my work office these days.

After quite a bit of catching up, several No Left Turns, dinner at Fuel and Fuddel, talking to mom about Jen and to Jen about mom, I'm finding cel phones to be extremely convenient* and I'm very jazzed about the idea of Jen Versus AIP. I've also received my dad's malfunctioning iMac (for diagnostics, repairs and possible recovery), a late birthday gift from mom, and another surprise - a freelance client remembered they still needed to pay me and has done so. Bonus!

So, today kicked ass. Tonight is backups and Doctor Who; tomorrow is more DCR (and possibly ATC), and at some point this week I'll be doing some long-range planning for hardware maintenance and upgrades - I told my sister I'll give her my "old" G4 (Maniac, 2x450 1g ram, still in use) when she starts class, just so she'll have some sort of home machine.

Today wins. More of the general DCR-vibe goodness that's made the past few months interesting.

*I have a POS pay-as-you-go i215 and Jen has some widget-loaded Verizon thingy, making coordination completely painless. Shock.