Kill Bill Case Mod

This is insane. If you look at one shot, make it this one. I can't imagine someone would like that movie enough to do that to their computer, but to each their own I guess.

H2G2 Transcript Excerpt

The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting, telepathically, a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain. The practical upshot of which is, that if you stick one in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech you hear decodes the brainwave matrix.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But!,” said Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don’t. QED.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that!” and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore he proves that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

I Don't Know What This Is All About

suicidal penguin
don't you see
guns weren't designed
with flippers in mind

run away dog
your pancake body
looks so nice
pressed out on the highway

epileptic elephant
flopping around
you've crushed two people
what have you found?

geriatric man
hobbling around
broke yourself
falling down
now you can't move
you can only scream
but no one is near
so you'll waste away
all alone with your thoughts
so sorry

New MP3 List

For those curious, that's 59.7 gigs, 830 individual discs, ~11,509 songs, though I'm not sure on that number. If I had to delete my entire collection and choose only one album to keep.... It'd be Olivia Tremor Control - Dusk at Cubist Castle. That or The Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy.

Hitchhiker's Guide Teaser Trailer

I dunno where you can download it yourself but I grabbed it off a torrent. This little 1 minute or so teaser trailer kicks total ass. Now, all of a sudden, I am terribly excited about these movies. It shows they have their head on straight. Good stuff!

Update: MOS DEF AS FORD PREFECT!?!? WTF IS THAT SHIT!?! WHAT IN THE HOLY HELL???

Le Sigh

I am now irrevocably addicted to indie lo-fi pop neo-psychadelia. The Elephant 6 Collective owns me at this point. Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Minus Story, Beulah, The Apples In Stereo... sigh. I don't really like Grandaddy, though.

Also, The Beach Boys kick all sorts of ass.

Step back to watch the world die. The memories of your youth fade away. You wish you could go back to the beginning and change it all. The craving turns into a sickness you can't push away. You're all alone and that's all you'll ever be. No taking pictures on the beaches in other countries. No snapshots mid birthday cake candle blow out. No chances to be caught in the air for eternity. No more smiles spread wide across your face revealing all the imperfections in your teeth for the people who don't care to not notice. Can't take anymore pictures of you sleeping there, head on the pillow, that peaceful look of comfort that always vanishes on waking. Hanging from the branches of trees. Paint peeling off the walls. Rust forming around the drain in the shower. No more laying in bed together. It's all so very far away.

Seracks: soo man how ya been?
Brad: i've been ok
Seracks: ya? just okay huh?
Seracks: eh doesnt sound that convincing tho.
Brad: i've had a good day so far
Brad: got my polyphonic spree pictures
Brad: went to the library checked out a crap load of books
Brad: discovered a bunch of good new music
Brad: wallowed in my loneliness and self pity
Brad: you know
Brad: a normal day
Brad: the crying comes later

Rant Like Hell Time

FUCK YOU FIREFOX! FUCK YOU AND YOUR FINICKY CSS SUPPORT! FUCK YOU AND YOUR GODDAMN INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND PIXEL WIDTHS! FUCK YOU RIGHT UP YOUR BIG GAY BINARY ASS YOU SON OF A BITCH!

I give up.

I don't know where the fuck these scratches came from on my back but they're fucking nasty and freak me out. It sure as shit didn't happen at work.

Library Loot

After going through a sudden unexpected abscence of stuff to read upon completion of The Accidental Tourist, I went to the library today and went a little crazy with the books. Here's a nifty bulleted list of what I checked out today! Yay for bulleted lists!

• Watership Down, Richard Adams
• About a Boy, Nick Hornby
• The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
• In the Garden of Dead Cars, Sybil Claiborne
• Twice Twenty-Two, Ray Bradbury
• Driving Blind, Ray Bradbury
• The Martian Chronicles, (yes, more) Bradbury
• The Illustrated Man, (omg even more) Bradbury
• The Time Machine, H.G. Wells (Phew, not Bradbury)

Polyponic Spree at the El Rey Pictures

So, here's a directory of all the really bad pictures I took of The Polyphonic Spree at the El Rey. Disposable cameras suck ass. I need to get myself a new digital camera before I allow myself to go to another Spree show. Ugh.

Wow, theremins are expensive.

eBay is a Fucking Disease

(Editor's Note: The original title of this entry was "Fucking eBay is a Disease" but I thought that sounded really perverse so I changed it).

I knew I shouldn't have made an eBay account. I told myself, "No, you really don't need to bid on that blue Spree robe. There's no need Brad. Really, don't do it." Then, I thought, "Well, OK, I'll register and set a max bid of $30 and that'll be that. No big deal. I won't pay more for it than I would if they start selling them on Dead Fly."

Course, it doesn't stop there, no, of course not. Then it becomes, "Well, let's set a max bid of $40 just in case. I mean, $10 over regular price just to be assured a color you know you'll like is no big deal." Finally, comfortable with that, I thought to myself, "Well, let's see what other Spree stuff is on Ebay."

Finding nothng really particularly exciting I thought, "Hmm, I should probably close out of it now... No, wait! I wonder if they have any Olivia Tremor Control on here for cheap since I really want their albums..." And, three whole minutes later, I clicked the "Buy It Now" button for a $6.75 copy of Black Foilage Volume 1 by the OTC.

I'm such a fucking tool. Christ.

No one will ever be able to explain to me why the live show taping community only distributes in FLAC and have it make sense. So much wasted space for so little reason. Sigh.

Serious Injury

I think I seriously injured my leg at the Spree show or something. The day after the show my calves were hurting pretty bad, just sore, I figured just from jumping around and bouncing so much on my feet. Yesterday, they hurt even worse but nothing really too horrible. Now, my right calf hurts so bad when I try to put my foot flat on the ground that I can't keep my balance and I fall over. My left calf feels alright, but man, my right calf wont stop screaming at me. This really sucks ass. If it hurts like this at work today I'm going to have to go home.

A Riddle

A group of people at work couldn't figure this out after working over it for a long time and so I walked over there and looked at it for a moment and immediately had the answer. I was pretty proud of myself. I bowed.

What is greater than God, more evil than the Devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, you will die?

A Polyphonic Experience

A summary for the "too long; didn't read" crowd: I expected The Polyphonic Spree to completely blow my mind. I expected their show to be the most amazing experience I'd ever had. I, simply, expected sheer and utter bliss beyond what mortal men are meant to experience... And they blew all my expectations out of the water. I think if everyone in the world went to see a Polyphonic Spree show, the world would be a better place, if only a little bit. I drove 135 miles to see the Spree, and it was worth it.

(A note for my website readers, this is censored so I could post it on the Polyphonic Spree forum).

Now, for the long version...

The drive to LA was alright. I went and saw my mom, and she bought me a fan from Home Depot since I haven't got a fan of my own and it's typically about 85 or above in my room in Chula Vista. After showing her the live portions of the DVD that came with Together We're Heavy, I left for the show.

I got to the area the El Rey was in and quickly looked for the supposed parking on "1 block east Wilshire and Dunmuir" that the El Rey states exists on its website. This was another lie told by The El Rey Sadly, it doesn't exist at all, at least in any sort of way they'd describe it. I pulled up out front of the theater and walked up to two guys who were obviously Spree fans, and asked them where parking was. They, unfortunately, treated me like I was retarded and were very cold to me, so I went around the corner to a $7 parking lot and parked there, which turned out to be the El Rey lot which the website said was $5.

I got out and got in line. This large Mexican dude in a blue ADIDAS type jacket started talking to me about something some how, and he said, "You wouldn't happen to be the guy who recorded the KCRW show for the forum who posted his pic would you?" I said, "Yeah, that was me," and we talked about it a bit. He said he was working for the archivist for KCRW and that he was there to videotape and record the show (via the soundboard directly) but he wasn't sure they let him in.

We stood in line for a long time, he tried talking to the manager/owner of the theater and he said something like, "Well 99.8% of the bands that play here don't let people record them," in reply to his print out of the Spree's recording policy on the forum. He tried multiple times and we even considered grabbing one of the band members as they walked by, but we missed two chances and that was it.

Last I saw him was when they finally opened the box office/doors a little before 8:00 PM (Hmmm, the website said they open the box office at 7pm). He said, "Well, I'm going to go put the gear away and try to score myself a ticket so I can get in," and then he was gone. I felt really bad about that... Us fans would have had an excellent audio/visual copy of The El Rey show to download for free from KCRW had he been able to get in. Everyone boo the El Rey at once now.

When I finally got in, I searched for the schwag area immediately. I couldn't find it, so I walked around for a while until I finally spotted it. I brought $150 specifically for the show, pure spending money, just in case the robes were really expensive. Tim was behind the counter when I got there and he started modeling some shirts for this guy with green hair in front of me. I don't know who they were, but right before the show started they put on their "robes" behind me... and they were their graduation robes. Pretty hilarious, I think.

I bought myself a white robe with a bluish-green trim for $30, along with the two button set. I immediately put it on and shoved myself up front toward the stage. Shortly after getting there, this really cute chick, who was probably pretty young as she looked like she was with her dad or someone much older than her, ran up to me and asked me how much my robe cost. I told her and she ran off, only to appear later in her own robe. It looked good on her, I will admit.

Some big fat guy with porkchops walked up to me shortly after and eyeballed me in my robe for a second. Then he came up to me and asked, "Did you just graduate today?" I said, "No." He responded, "Just say yes, dude." "Ok, fine, yes." "Oh well congratulations," and he shook my hand at that.

Another guy bumped past me with a hand full of alcohol, (I will tell you at this point I was never more paranoid of ruining my robe than when the drunk people behind me were eating french fries covered in ketchup... augh), and he said, "Yeah, I approve of your robe, whatever," very rudely as he shoved by. I was sort of dismayed by the general rudeness involved with the people at the show, especially directed toward my robe... most of the people acted like they had no idea what sort of freakshow I was, more like they didn't know that the Spree wore robes at all.

Finally... The Section came out, that string quartet that does covers of rock music. I'm a huge string quartet fan, so this was an unexpected occurrence of pure awesomeness. They opened with a Radiohead song, not sure which, my fandom is waning. Then they played an AWESOME cover of No One Knows (Queens of the Stone Age) that I really enjoyed. They played some hard rock song, not sure which, something along the lines of Pantera or Metallica, not sure which, the audience loved that. I will take this moment to say that one of the violinists was a total babe.

They left and a short while later Jon Brion came out. He played about two songs. Someone shouted out, "WHO ARE YOU???" and he handled it perfectly, "I'm Jon Brion... who are YOU?" He was a good sport. There were two people behind me who absolutely hated him, they sat down and made rude comments to each other. After his first two songs, The Section came back out and they played two or three songs until one of the many highlights of the evening... They did "String Quartet Karaoke" and it was the coolest thing ever, because Jon Brion's vocal rendition of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" was absolutely unbelievable. The entire audience was into it if I remember correctly, singing along and all. It was just awesome. He's got one helluva voice. He threw the lyrics sheet he had into the crowd and the girl next to me grabbed it and kept it.

After they left the stage, it was time for the super long wait for the Spree. Roadies setting up and everything...

I'm not sure how to handle the Spree review part. I guess I'll just do highlights and moments....

The initial blast of A Long Day Continues was amazing. On the album version, you don't hear the horns separate at all from the blast, but when you're right in front and the horns are right in your face... oh man. You can feel the horns blasting you right in the face. It was awesome.

It's The Sun was one of the songs I really wanted to hear, and I jumped around like crazy to it. I knew I was going to go ape when the chorus kicked in, and oh boy, did I ever. After the first run through the chorus, I thought I was going to pass out. My legs went weak and I thought I couldn't breathe. Not exercising and smoking cigarettes almost caused me to collapse during the first song at the show, but I wouldn't let myself give in that easy. I didn't want to ruin the show for myself so I sucked it up.

2,000 Places was incredible if only because the entire audience had the lyric timing down so well that we started singing it right from the beginning, and Tim stopped singing and just listened to us... He said, "Thank you!" It was golden.

The visual portion of One Man Show was amazing. The little black figure climbing stairs for the entire song until Tim goes quiet and stares up at the screen for the big finale. I snapped a picture of him looking up at the screen, so hopefully the screen comes out seeable in the shot.

When they finally left the stage, we were all screaming and going crazy. A group of morons in the back started to chant "You suck, you suck," but I just yelled louder and we pretty much drowned them out until they were unintelligible.

The video of the boy with the red balloon, that I remember from when I was really young, was perfect to accompany Together We're Heavy (I think that's what it accompanied, I'm not sure at this point now).

I'd been watching the girl who asked me how much my robe cost a lot of the night but I lost track of her around that point. I knew she wasn't really dancing around or anything, and when she reappeared next to me for Solider Girl, another song I couldn't possibly wait to rock out to, I knew I had to do something about it. In the first batch of rocking out, I gave her a chance, and she didn't even move! I leaned over to her in a split second gap and I said, "You HAVE to jump!" she said, "OK!" and we jumped around together in our robes to Soldier Girl. I have to say that was one of the coolest moments of the evening, getting her to rock out and scream and the whole nine yards. Very, very cool. I wish I knew who she was... *melodramatic sigh*

A major spoiler for the evening that thankfully happened pretty late, and before Solider Girl I think, was this big drunk Mexican guy shoved himself through the crowd to stand in front of me. He smelled so strongly like beer you could gag on it. He started trying to talk to and flirt with this girl who was in front of me for most of the show (not the robe girl from above) and she totally blew him off. During this one quiet part, I think it was toward the end of Together We're Heavy, he shouted out "I DON'T GET IT!" and then waited to shout "PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND!"

I couldn't take it. I cleaned over to him and I said, "Can you do me a favor?" He said "Yeah, sure." I said, "Can you shut the f*** up?" (bad form on my part but I was PO'd) he replied to that with, "Yeah sure I can do that, just because you get everything and all." "I don't get everything." "Don't you f***ing lie to me!" and he got sort of in my face and I was a little worried he swing at me, but a big guy next to me leaned over and told him to cool it, I think, and I kept quiet and enjoyed the rest of the show despite his non-stop talking. He said something about the Beatles and how I looked like John Lennon, etc. He had a big talk with me after the show and was trying to make me realize that the Spree is a bunch of BS and that I should be ashamed of myself for wearing a robe.

That was quickly cut short when a shorter asian girl ran over to me and asked me if I would pose in a picture with her in her robe. I agreed, and then thought to run over and get the guy who was still around in a red robe. Then monet2u from the forum came over and joined the four of us. It was pretty cool since it was colored-white-colored-white between the four of us. I think about four different people came over to us and took pictures of us all grouped together in our robes.

I ventured over to the BBQ shop and asked for a bottle of water. The guy handed me a bottle of water and told me to keep it as I was fumbling for my wallet. One of the women there said, "It looks like you earned it!" since I was sweating PROFUSELY the whole show. I mean, I had sweat pouring down my face. I was wearing two shirts and a big pair of baggy pants BEFORE I put on my robe at the show, so I was wearing a lot of clothing during the show, added to fact that the place was packed and the AC seemed to completely disappear right before the show started. To say I was soaked in sweat would be an understatement.

I went back to the Merch window and bought myself a brown shirt with the blue logo, which might be one of the most comfortable shirts I've ever owned. The fabric is brilliant. I also got a copy of TBSO since I had yet to order it. Over all I spent only $62 at the show, when I brought $150 just in case. I guess I should have bought more schwag.

When I left, I called up my exgirlfriend and just raved incoherently about it. I was almost crying at one point because I was so absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer power of the Spree.

I went and grabbed myself some In&Out in Whittier and then took the drive back home. I got home about 2:30 in the morning absolutely exhausted. Aside from that, it was worth every penny spent and every hour consumed by driving. I'd highly recommend seeing them if you haven't seen them yet. Just watch out for ignorant drunk a**holes.

The Post Spree Show Delerium

I saw my wife today at Rubio's. She was sitting on the patio and I was on the other side of the glass right across from her. Although I know I'll never see her again, I know she was the one.

I knew I had to do something, though I know I wouldn't be able to summon the courage to talk to her myself. I patted my pockets looking for a pen that I knew wasn't there. I went up to the counter and ask them if they had a pen I could borrow, and after about three workers, one of them handed me a pen. I went back to my table and scrawled "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." on a napkin.

Halfway through my quesadilla, I lost my appetite. I threw the rest away and got up. I went outside and walked around to her side of the table she was sitting at. I said, "Excuse me," and put the napkin down in front of her, then I walked away as fast as I could without running.

Yeah I totally dig on the two massive army attack helicopters passing over my house. ;\

The Polyphonic Spree Live on KCRW

Yes, I know, I rock. You don't need to tell me. No, wait, you can, I kind of like it. Oh yeah, just like that.

You can download the Polyphonic Spree's appearance on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic in two versions, one is the entire 37 minute show in one MP3, which you can grab in this gorgeous directory.

The second version is the appearance split up into eight tracks and all ID3v2'd and ready to be added into anybody's MP3 collection. You can pick that one up in this even more gorgeous directory.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: If I catch anyone linking directly to these files, they will be removed IMMEDIATELY, your cat will die, your mom will get a cancerous ovarian cyst, your dad's balls will fall off, and your girlfriend or boyfriend will fuck someone else who has herpes and then spread it to you and deny that she/he had anything to do with it and say you must be a dirty cheating asshole/cunt/whore, and then she/he'll tell all your friends and family about the fact that you gave them herpes and no one will like you ever again, you direct linking bastard. It's true, bitches.

THAT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVAR

There was a squirrel right outside my window, dirtbathing itself next to my car. How the hell is there a squirrel in Chula Vista?

Polyphonic Spring on KCRW This Morning

The Polyphonic Spree will be playing on the KCRW radioshow Morning Becomes Eclectic this morning. The show starts at 9:00 AM and runs until 12:00 PM so there's no telling when the Spree will actually be on. Those of us who do not live in the Los Angeles or Orange County areas can listen to a KCRW simulcast at the following URL: KCRW / NPR simulcast.

I have to find out very quickly how I can record an MP3 stream.

Get a Free iPod

So it looks like this offer actually works, so I am going to try it out. It seems like there's a pretty failsafe way to get a free iPod and I'll lay it out for you step by step so you can hopefully follow it and help ME get a free iPod as well.

1.) Join the website by following this url which includes my referral code so your sign up is acredited toward me. You enter some personal information about yourself, such as your name and your address so they know where to send the iPod.

2.) Then, in order to get YOUR iPod, you have to do what I had to do, and that is agree to one of their offers. The safest bet there is happens to be the AOL Broadband 45 day trial since you get it for free for 45 days and you can easily cancel anytime within those 45 days after the iPod site registers that you signed up, thus costing you nothing. Once you sign up for that, you've completed the part of it that gets ME my free iPod, and start the section that gets YOU your free iPod.

3.) Now, just like I have here, you tell other people about it and get them to sign up using YOUR referral link (not mine, as some other instruction site tries to scam you into doing). Once you get five people to do it, you get your free iPod as well. Easy, no?

You get to either choose between five different colors of the 4gb iPod mini or one of the new 20gb iPods. This isn't a scam according to a large amount of websites online so do me, and yourself a favor, and follow the instructions above.

Also, use a gmail, hotmail or yahoo address since you will probably get a large amount of spam sent to whatever email address you use. Since I use Gmail, I had no problem putting in my real email address. Be sure to cancel the AOL trial right after it credits as well or else AOL WILL charge your credit card.

I changed the archives to monthly. Not enough posts in a week usually to make a weekly archive worth it.

So Far - Compilation

1. Blink 182 - I Miss You
2. Elliott Smith - Alphabet Town
3. Foo Fighters - Darling Nikki
4. Gomez - Silence
5. Harvey Danger - Why I'm Lonely
6. James - Laid
7. Laika - Go Fish
8. Local H - California Songs
9. Modest Mouse - Float On
10. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two-Headed Boy
11. Nick Lowe - Marie Provost
12. PJ Harvey - Sheela-na-gig
13. President of the U.S.A. - Peaches
14. Simian - LA Breeze
15. Soul Coughing - Unmarked Helicopters
16. Nine Inch Nails - Dead Souls
17. Tripping Daisy - Same Dress New Day
18. VAST - Turquoise
19. Brian Vander Ark - And Then You Went Away
20. The Polyphonic Spree - Two Thousand Places
21. Toadies - Hell Below, Stars Above

Damn. I forgot some Skinny Puppy.

I always hated the sweatpants I got for my freshman year gym class in highschool. Now, I love them, they are so comfortable. Oh, how it all comes around.

Finally

I'm finally used to the heat down here. It's about eighty-five degrees inside and I actually feel quite cool and comfortable.

I can't wait to get some speakers on Friday, before the show, for my computer. I've been blasting music from Bill's stereo so I can hear it in here when he's not here, but that sucks because the music I play doesn't count toward my Audioscrobbler profile. Sigh.

Polyphonic Spree show is in two days. I can't wait. You can hear me crapping my pants, right? Fifty hours, fourteen minutes.

The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler

Just finished reading The Accidental Tourist. I picked it up because a book about fiction writing was going to use it as an example throughout, so I wanted to be familiar with the material that was being discussed. I'm glad I grabbed it because it was one of the best books I've ever read.

The Accidental Tourist might not be one of my favorite books of all time, although it would probably fall into the top five at this point if I was to make a list of my favorite books, which I suppose does make it one of my favorite books, but regardless of my own stupidity in writing this entire pointless paragraph only to disprove the statement I originally made in the beginning of this massive run on.

I love it because it was so well written it was astounding. A rather lengthy book in my opinion, probably one of the longer books I've ever read, but it never felt like it. In fact, the story, in memory, seems so short and simple that it could have been written into a book half it's size, but it definitely wouldn't be the same.

It's almost like, and I read this in a previous review of the book, that Anne Tyler didn't write the book so much as... The characters in the book wrote it themselves. It feels like she was truly just watching this year of Macon Leary's life evolve from inside his head. Not a single section of the book is out of place, nothing in unnecessary or overwritten. It's all just perfect.

I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment on that, but I doubt it comes close to the book. You owe it to yourself to check this book out if you're a lover of any form of literature.

"Remember, always be yourself. Unless you suck"
- Joss Whedon

Another Spree Wallpaper

I made another Spree wallpaper using the splash page of the Spree official site. This one comes in all four standard resolutions from 800x600 to 1600x1200, and there are three random color variations to choose from for each resolution bracket.

elliott smith - from a basement on the hill

Looks like Elliott Smith's final album will finally be released. Might be old news. Maybe we'll learn a little something about why he offed himself, though I find that doubtful. Oh well, good news is better than no news, right?

And They All Go Marching...

It was so cold at night that four layers of clothing couldn't keep the chill from penetrating your bones, but as soon as the sun rose, the temperature was so high that nothing could possibly make it bearable. You froze at night, wishing it was hot. You baked during the day, wishing it was cold. He thought this was a pretty good simile of how people lived their lives most of the time.

Arnold Uses Comedy, Pisses Off Girlie Men

Oh man, this is just too funny. What's retarded is people calling the term "girlie man" homophobic. I guess if "girlie man" is a homophobic term, then "bitch," "pussy," and "you stupid faggot," are also homophobic terms. Oh, shit, that last one is, whatever.

"He says he's going to 'terminate' members in November? I really don't know what he means by that. That's not funny any more," Nuñez said.

Frustrated by the stalemate over his budget, Schwarzenegger has been using a series of weekend public appearances to drum up calls to lawmakers demanding completion of the budget. He plans to continue his campaign today at a shopping mall in Stockton.

Having used his charisma and celebrity to build relationships with lawmakers over the last eight months, the governor is adopting a combative new tone. Schwarzenegger said he would strive to oust Democratic lawmakers who vote against his budget.

"I want each and every one of you to go the polls on Nov. 2," he said Saturday. "That will be judgment day. I want you to go to the polls…. You are the terminators, yes!"

w00t

Only six days until The Polyphonic Spree in LA!!! Yes.

Also, I kicked Dan's ass royally in a Protoss vs. Protoss match in SC. Rock on.

HOLY SHIT MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON

This is golden.

Trying out Picasa. Here's an old picture of a cow.

All Music Guide's Shitty Fucking Redesign

What the fuck is wrong with them? They take a decent, if ugly, site and completely fuck it all up! So, now, when you search for an artist to find out if their albums are any good, it requires like eighteen steps. Search for the artist, get to their main artist page which helpfully displays nothing at all about the artist's discography. Then, click the Discography tab to view a list of their albums. Then, click on an album which no longer displays the helpful full review for the album, so then you have to click through on a "read more" link to get to the review.

HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY GODDAMN SENSE TO ANYONE!? Instead of getting the information I need within two clicks, three at most, now I have to go through four clicks, if not five? It totally destroys the usefulness and ease the former site had. Stupid AMG needs to die.

Some Video Comedy, or Horror, For You!

The only thing I miss about television is The Daily Show with John Stewart. The only thing worth watching was, yes, that news show. And this video all about the admendment on gay marriage is exactly why I love the Daily Show. Watch it, and if you don't crap your pants laughing, you are a worthless human being who should die painfully.

On the other side of the video spectrum is this only slightly horrifying video from Iraq which I can sum up by saying only this: So, uhm, you blow up a crap load of people and all you can manage to say is, uhm, "Oh dude," like that was the coolest thing you've ever done in your life? OMG I LOVE THE MILITARY!!!

The Polyphonic Spree Wallpaper

I made some Polyphonic Spree wallpapers. Well, just one, from 800x600 up to 1600x1200, with three variations for each. You can just check out the directory of them all right over here. Or, if you'd like a sample...

AH!!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M GOING TO GO SEE THE POLYPHONIC SPREE! SENSE OF EUPHORIA IS OVERWHELMING!! I MAY PUKE!!!

AHH!! HERE'S PICS OF THEM PLAYING WHERE I WILL SEE THEM!!!!

OMG WOOHOO!!!!

I AM SUCH A TOOL!

CHECK THIS SHIT OUT, FOOLS!!!

IMMA GONNA SEE THE POLYPHONIC SPREE IN LOS ANGELES ON THE 23RD!!! IMMA SO HAPPY SPENDIN MONEY I DON'T HAVE!!!

Wheee!

Blogging from work... I ran out and bought the new Polyphonic Spree album from Target. Comes with a cool extra DVD with two live concerts (about three-five songs each) and music videos, an interview with Tim and such. Pretty damn good deal for only $11.99. Listened to half of it, damn good stuff, too. Will review it when I get some and listen to it again. I'm happy!

The Butterfly Effect Director's Cut

The director's cut ending of The Butterfly Effect is so ;(

...

I'm going to go cry now.

Free 32MB Memory Stick from Dell

If you go and insert some personal information like your name and address into this handy form, Dell will give you a code that you can manually (or automatically when you register) will give you access to a quiz on Dell buisness products over at this URL.

Oh, and BTW: The quiz wouldn't work in Firefox for me, so you should open it all in IE.

But, wait, you don't really want to have to figure out the answers to the questions do you? Of course not. So here's a list of them! I warn that the answers are out of order a little bit, like the last two are sometimes switched on each other but it should be obvious which answer goes with what.

Level 5
All of the above
True
Yes

Level 4
Platinum
Advanced techs and managers
Covers *Most* accidental damage

Level 3
All of the above
True
Availible for 3rd party desktops / notebooks

Level 2
Click on the orange bubble, sigh.
Yes
Dell online training
No

Level 1
True
All of the above
All of the above

You can thank me when I see you in Hell! ;)

Amazon: Love You This Much Adult T-Shirt

I laughed SO HARD at this I almost crapped my pants. Zoom in on the large pic.

There's Nothing Left to Say

The internet is fucking boring. There isn't shit to do on it. I come home from work really tired and want to chill online but I don't feel like doing anything. Pointless surfing seems like suicide. I'm tired, but I'm not. I'm hungry, but I'm not. I should go to bed soon, but... Sigh.

Work sucked. Very busy. We're horribly understaffed, like, awlays, but that happens. There are some things in life that you can do nothing about.

I remember when I was really young, like really really young, like wake up screaming and crying from a bad dream young, I had a really terrible nightmare and I woke up from it screaming. There was an old baby monitor next to my bed that you could press a button for it to buzz or something, or it wasn't transmitting all the time so I could press the button and my parents could hear me across the house and in their beds. I kept screaming and crying and pressing the button and screaming into it and crying for what felt like an eternity. Finally, I summoned the courage to get up out of bed and I walked all the way into my parents room and woke my mom up and asked her why they couldn't hear me, and after she told me she didn't have the monitor turned on, I realized that I didn't have any idea why I was screaming and crying so much. I, even at that young age, and this might just be memory injecting it, felt retarded for making such a big deal for so long for no reason. Oh well.

I wish I realized that all the time. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. A lot of the time I realize it for other people... what's the point of bitching and moaning about something you can't fix? Sure, we all bitch, but sometimes... what's the point? Seems like we just scream and cry until we tire ourselves out. Or, we scream and cry for so long that all we know is the screaming and crying and can't even begin to remember what it all started over. Life is like that sometimes, I guess.

Thoughts At Work

My brain is melting. I think I could kill people. So much to do. Only an hour and ten minutes left. Ahahaha, whee. ;(

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Read this book. Damn good stuff. Definitely knocked one of my top five books out of position to nestle itself in there. Good stuff. I love books where I smile so widely at the end that my mouth hurts.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by mass amounts stupidity coming directly from my brain.

Cold Turkey -- In These Times

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

Good ol' Kurt Vonnegut.

WhatPulse

Dano and I have joined WhatPulse. For those not in the know, or down with the shizzy hizzy bizzle, WhatPulse is a pulsing program that records the number (but not the content) of your keypresses and mouse clicks and records them to a database. Yes, this is geeky and pointless, but it's cool. You can even set up a forum signature like the one below, and make teams. I made a team for EB, you can find it here, anyone who signs up is welcome to join it. Dig it!

Cell phones boost teenage sex!

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo is raising concerns after it found that teenagers who use mobile phones are more likely to have had sex.

According to The Mirror, the researchers, who questioned more than 10,000 youngsters between the age-group of 13-18, found that 60 per cent of teenagers who use mobiles a lot had sex, whereas, only nine per cent of the children who seldom or never used mobile phones had had sex.

Researchers also found that children with mobile phones often started having sex at the young age of 13. They are attributing this disturbing behavior to the fact that children often flirt on SMS and can also make "speedy contact" with their phones.

"The use of mobile phones is directly responsible for the early sexual encounters directly, they are as harmful as porn sites and adult magazines," said Professor Willy Pederson. (ANI)

I remember the good ol days when teenagers just had sex and didn't need to get kinky vibrating toys like cellphones involved. Sheesh.

Here's a picture of something dead to liven the mood.

My Happy Happy Fun Fun Day! Or, Two!

(This is another entry written deliberately sloppily, kind of like this one. Or maybe it's not).

So today I like totally woke up early, like noon, yeah, cos yesterday I didn't go to sleep until like four in the morning, the sun was coming up and everything! It was kind of crazy, like, hmm, sleep or no sleep!

Yesterday I made Bill listen to The Polyphonic Spree to and from work. I totally love them because they're like super happy and stuff and have a positive message and shit. I think Bill was a little creeped out since Bill is all depressed and stuff and sleeps for like fifteen hours. I came home one night at 9pm and he was asleep and he didn't wake up until like 11 or 12 the next day. I think he's sad because he's getting old and he's all alone. I would be sad too, if I was him. I'd probably kill myself.

AnywaY! So like I woke up today and twelve, and I called the Toyota service departmetn down the street and was like "I like totally need to get my Prius maintenced cos i'm like at that whole point where it needs maintence, can you dig it?" "yeah sure uhm come on in" "uh, wow, OK didn't think it would be that easy" *click* and so I took my prius in. The guy was like "Wow it's been sitting around for a while has it?" "uhm, no, I just haven't washed it in three months." "oh, well do you drive it?" "yeah, every day." "oh...." and his voice trailed off like he was thinking "what the fuck is upw ith guy driving a filthy car?" then he added "Well we'll wash it for you" so, hey, whatever. One less thing for me to do!

I sat and waited and read more of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman which is a really great book.

When my car was done, I drove home and set my mind to doing other stuff I need to do... like cleaning my room, and doing laundry, and listening to good music, and designing the new EB Review section.... but then I misplaced my mind somewhere in the clutter and it went unused, so I spent the rest of the day sitting on my ass not doing much of anything.

I uninstalled all 10gigs of UT2004 so I could make room to install Morrowind again. I played Morrowind for about two minutes before I got bored. I downloaded The Super Cool Free Version of the original Ground Control from Fileplanet the other day and so I played that a bit. Me and Dano played some Yahoo! Pool. Then, I had Dano download Ground Control and we played online together until he got tired of me kicking his lily white ass and quit.

Now I'm here and I'm tired.

Nostalgia

Why, God, why?

In other news...

I had a cool dream that woke me up very rudely today. The first part was some weird combination of clips from Constantine (the Keanu Reeves movie) and this really freaky love scene. I could try to explain it but it was very strange. I might have to use it in a movie in the future.

But then the second part was me chilling with this family in this hotel room in the top of this huge tower. I bet you can guess what's gonna happen next! The tower started vibrating for a while, very strange like, and the guy in the room said it might be an earthquake, but I shot that down since it was going on too long to be an earthquake. All of a sudden, I suddenly felt this falling sensation, and I grabbed the wall, but it stopped. About ten seconds later, I saw the view from the window change from looking out at the horizon to looking at the city below us rapidly approaching.... then I woke up, of course.

Scary Thought

There's probably some one else in the world thinking the exact same thing you are right at this moment.

The Polyphonic Spree remix/remake of Peter Gabriel's "More Than This" is the funniest/coolest thing I've ever heard in my life.

Izo: The Crotch is an Incomprehensible Demon-Man

Undeniably insane Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition) is apparently working on a movie titled Izo: The Crotch is an Incomprehensible Demon-Man. The synopsis:

We begin in 1865, when the Shogunate is on its last legs, but still capable of punishing its enemies. One is Izo (Kazuya Nakayama), an assassin in the service of Hanpeida (Ryosuke Miki), a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified.

Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continum to present-day Tokyo, where his finds himself one with the city's homeless. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine, his entire soul still enraged by his treatment in his past life. His response to the powers-that-be, whose predecessors put him to death, is the sword.

His ability to leap through time, slashing as he goes, attracts the attention of the lords of the universe, who are like a pre-war House of Peers, in office for eternity. Izo, however, is not about to bow to anyone, even the lords of creation (he even rapes Mother Earth).

In the final conflict, the prime minister (Beat Takeshi), calls in allies from all eras, from samurai swordsmen to the yakuza. It should be the most bloody and violent sword fight sequence ever staged.

Download a 3 minute trailer here. Link may go down.

This might just be the coolest thing ever.

Why BookCrossing Should Die

This site immediately pissed me off as soon as I saw it. Mike Brant is a major user of it and showed me his To Be Read list on the site. I figured I'd check out the site and see if it was what I hoped it was, (a good site for readers to post a list of what they've read and enjoyed so others would recommend books to them), but it wasn't.

What it really is, is this project in which you get some unique numbers to scrawl inside the books you own, and then you either 'release' the book by leaving it in some random place (so some random person can walk by and dump it in the trash can) or send it to some person who you see would like to read it. Then you sit and hope that someone puts in that special code you defaced your book with and tells you how much they enjoyed your book, course, to do that they'll have to join the site and increase the revenue for whoever owns this website, hopefully getting roped in and defacing their books and continuing the process ad-infinitum.

The reason this disgusts me is that people are throwing some stupid numbers in their books and then giving them away, or hoping to read undiscovered books, through this site... Instead of utilizing the one large free source of books that is accessible to young and old, to everyone, without having to join some stupid website or pay money to ship books to people... What is this great source of free reading, you ask? Well, the non-retarded of you already know...

Your local library!

Yeah, no shit. These strange buildings exist in the city you live in, there's at least one in every self-respecting city not fully composed of white trash, that contain tons of books! Many of which, I'm sure, you've never read! Fancy that! Even better, you can easily get this nifty little card that lets you, gasp, take home the books for up to a month, sometimes two with renewals, so you can read it as many times as you like! Then, you bring it back to the library so someone else can read it!

You know what's even cooler about these strange fantastic buildings? If you own some books that you'd really love for people to read, you can actually give your books to these Libraries! Then, for as long as the book stays in one piece, which may be for upwards of twenty years or more, perhaps even longer than you live, many people can read your book! Just think, if you donate one book to the library, and at least four people check it out a year, that's something like 160 people getting access to that one book in only forty years! Just imagine, if you donate twenty books and at least one person checks that book out every month, that would be 9,600 people you've exposed new books to in only forty years! No expensive shipping and handling to deal with either. No worrying about someone just finding your 'released' book and throwing it in the trash! (You can even get tax write offs for donating books to public libraries! Even cooler, right!?)

Some libraries even have music and DVDs for you to rent! My library allows you to check out as many DVDs as you want for only $20 a year. How cool is that? Instead of paying $20 a MONTH for Netflix and only having 3 DVDs at home at a time, you could pay $20 a YEAR for as many movies as you could possibly watch.

Also, needless to say, by supporting your local library by actually checking out books, or even donating books, you're helping prolong the life of that library. You don't need to give money to a library to help keep it going, you just need to use it! The more people who attend a library help keep that library in existence. You don't need to spend any money on it at all, you just have to go in there and read some books for free.

I don't know why people have this phobia of using the library. I've only just now realized that it exists. In fact