23:39 < mdxi> man, i really want some more day off :(
23:39 <@bda> Me too.
23:40 < solios> ditto
23:40 <@bda> I really don't want to go to work tomorrow.
23:41 < drusilla> me either
23:41 <@bda> We should form a commune.
23:42 < drusilla> awesome
23:42 < solios> FREE LOVE?!
23:43 < drusilla> no.
23:43 < solios> :<
23:43 < drusilla> this will not be a heinlein commune
23:43 < drusilla> my dads are too icky for that.
23:44 < mdxi> free bandwidth?
23:44 < drusilla> yes
23:44 < drusilla> god, yes

19:47 < mdxi> "I called EB Games to see if they had the new HOMM...and the helpful attendant informed me that they had (get this!) "pre-sold out." Pre-sold out. Sold out in the past? Sold out before it came in? What the fuck kind of statement is this? It's the sort of nonsense language you wash down with a dose of oily Victory Gin."
19:47 < mdxi> tycho++
19:48 <@ejp> PA is a mass of ISEs for me.
19:48 < esch> mdxi: I tried to get theater tickets a few weeks ago and the same thing happened.
19:48 < esch> Teller: They're all sold out.
19:49 < esch> me: THEY DON'T GO ON SALE FOR TEN MINUTES.
19:49 < esch> teller: we sold out already.
19:49 < solios> \o/
19:49 < esch> me: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?
19:49 < mdxi> that was probably some sort of fan-club presale or something
19:49 < solios> dongs, apparently.
19:50 < esch> mdxi: Dude.
19:50 < mdxi> the local decent rock station does that with the concerts they sponsor
19:50 < esch> This is like, fifty five shows.
19:50 < esch> at least 500 seats a show.
19:50 < esch> Some of these are on monday afternoons.
19:50 < solios> asswholes.
19:50 < esch> It's _retarded_.
19:50 < solios> (oppose asshalves)
19:50 < esch> Which reminds me.
19:50 < mdxi> okay, okay
19:50 < esch> You see this new shit that ticketmaster is trying to pull?
19:52 < mdxi> i haven't had anything to do with TicketBastard since, like, 1997
19:52 < solios> ticketmaster is asswholes.
19:52 < esch> with the auctions?
19:52 < solios> O_o
19:52 < esch> No.
19:52 < esch> Ticketmaster is a ship of ass-ramming homopirates on a tour to gayland.
19:53 < esch> [link]
19:53 < esch> Motherfuckers.
19:55 < solios> suk
19:55 < esch> No.
19:55 < esch> That's more than suck.
19:55 < esch> That's "motherfuckers."

Thirteen tracks totalling 43:50, with some nice solid shitting at the beginning, some noise at the end, a couple of xopher.tm remixes and some other goodness. Tracks 3, 4, and 13 were produced right after LOGGERFICATOR and would have been part of an EP entitled "Wipetap," but I decided to save them for a full album release. Such as it is.

Album titled by mdxi, track 3 titled by ejp. Dung mixes are remixes of older PPAC tracks by xopher.tm. Everything else by me.

01. Assblower XP : It ain't PPAC without some ASS, and this track delivers it in slightly dancy style, dammit.

02. Bone Honer : One of the first tracks cut after discarding the "wipetap" EP. Boingy bass and some grindy percussion.

03. Gesticulates A. Blot : Disco industrial.

04. Tweed : Originally an attempt to reconstruct Front 242's "Headhunter." Having failed (spectacularly!), a buttload of noise and crunch was slopped in on top of it.

05. Moonbase Alpha : Sampling Space : 1999 into some Bone Honer-ish techno loops. Boy is it black.

06. Godflush (Phenolphthalein) : Cut down, uptempoed version of Godflush (Kaolinite). Phenolphthalein is, among other things, a laxative.

07. Spartan : Drone with sparse bass and percussion.

08. Whores Of The Dong : The Whores Of Doom / Burt Goes To Los Angeles riff crossbred with The Eye Of The Dong groove. The resulting sound is pretty nice, I think.

09. Dung [Xopher.tmix] : Dronier remix of [Dong].

10. Dung [Xopher.tm Revenge Mix] : Weird "remix" of [Dong], with some strange vocal and clicky-poppy elements.

11. Godflush (Kaolinite) : Vaguely Godflesh-like dronesludge. Kaolinite was at one time the active ingredient in Kaopectate.

12. Brickbat Brigade : While fiddling around with the intent to produce something else, I accidentally hit on a Wumpscutish grind-slam thing. So I ran with it.

13. Trough : The PISS to round out the ASS. Noisy gurgles and grinds.

As usual, shoot me an email if you want to listen to this stuff.

08:43 <@rjbs> ejp: if you're not nice, I'm not sharing my dozen dildoes with you
08:43 <@ejp> \o/
08:43 <@rjbs>  |
08:43 <@rjbs> er.
08:43 <@rjbs> \o/
08:43 <@rjbs>  |
08:43 <@rjbs> _|_
08:43 <@rjbs> martini
08:44 <@rjbs> dildo dildo dildo
08:44 <@rjbs> I made it out of gay
08:44 <@rjbs> no, wait.
08:44 <@rjbs> dildo dildo dildo
08:44 <@rjbs> I made it out of clay
08:44 <@rjbs> dildo dildo dildo
08:44 <@rjbs> that doesn't mean I'm gay
08:44 <@rjbs> .

Went to the Apple Store with the carcass of sputnik, talked to Arvin and was forwarded to an open employee. Described the symptoms sputnik was experiencing - he confirmed this (and was o_O that I'd described the current status of the device exactly), did some tappy-tap on a powerbook, handed off to another employee. A storeroom trip, some more tapping, and a print-and-sign later, I have a brand new silver 6 gig mini with three months left on the warranty (option to buy applecare at academic rates before then).

A completely painless process that didn't cost me a dime. Gotta <3 Apple service!

Earlier this week I was notified that I needed to clean out the tech dump so workmen could get in and install new taps on the pipes. Cleanout wasn't good enough - they wanted a good-sized chunk of the rear of the workpit as well. Okay, fine, no problem... thursday the back chunk of the tech dump was taped up with white plastic and nobody was around to do anything with it. I come in today and chunks of white have been replaced with black plastic and they've added an ET-styled "airlock" to block off access to the servers.

Oh, and the ET-styled "airlock" has a pair of Asbestos signs on it. Yay.

 

Further proof that today is One Of Those Days : my camera batteries died while trying to get better versions of the above shots. Specifically, attempting to illustrate the 10" gap the work crew left for server access.

Sputnik froze hard en route to Utrecht. Time of death : 12:11 EST. Reset brought up the Sad iPod icon, after which the device powered back down. Tethered to a mac, the device will start, display the Sad iPod icon, then proceed to charge for a few minutes (battery icon), after which it restarts itself and the process repeats.

The iPod does not show up in the Finder, Disk Utility, iTunes or the iPod Updater, which renders it completely impervious to any and all of Apple's recommendations listed in the iPod Support section of the Apple website.

Annoying.

Fortunately the thing is less than a year old, so the warranty should theoretically still apply.

Lucas noticed that The Fanbase wants the original (read : undefiled) trilogy on DVD.. Nice bit of spin on the press release: finally, the Infernal Lucas Machine spits out something worth buying (link src=mdxi)- the Star Wars I know and love. Oppose the Star Wars I avoid and loath.

In other SW news:

22:25 < dragorn> wow. this is horrible. "Happy Jedi day."
22:25 < dragorn> "May the 4th be with you."
22:26 < dragorn> I think I just died a little on the inside
22:26 < Devi0us> wow.
22:27 < Devi0us> i'm going to have to use that at work
22:27 < Devi0us> that should kill any meeting i'm involved in

The wikipedia entry on OCPD reads like a pre-flight checklist.

[X] Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, bodily functions, or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost.
[X] Showing perfectionism that interferes with task completion (e.g., is unable to complete a project because his or her own overly strict standards are not met).
[X] Excessive devotion to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships (not accounted for by obvious economic necessity).
[X] Being overconscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values (not accounted for by cultural or religious identification).
[X] Inability to discard worn-out or worthless objects even when they have no sentimental value.
[X] Reluctancy to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they submit to exactly his or her way of doing things.
[-]* Adopting a miserly spending style toward both self and others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded for future catastrophes.
[X] Showing rigidity and stubbornness.

* Cash, no. I'm Extremely Bad with money. However, I hoard data like a motherfucker- in fact, on the walk home I put a few minutes into figuring out how to archive and pry eight gigs of Classic MacOS apps out of my home directory. Eight. Gigs. Of Classic apps. Shit I haven't used in years but refuse to wipe because hey, you never, ever know. Oh, and two gigs of SGI freeware that have been riding along since Torg showed up on my doorstep, back in 2004.