March 2006 Archives
[Moozik: Project Pitchfork - Steelrose]
It would appear that two of my fave bands of all time are involved in some measure of legal hilarity at the moment. I noticed this on the front page of Depeche Mode's site today.
We are getting preliminary reports that Robert Smith (lead singer of The Cure) is looking to stop further production of the album "Playing The Angel". It is said, through sources, that Robert has a concern that the "Mister Feathers" character that Anton Corbijn created for the "Playing The Angel" cover bears more than a passing resemblance to the cover for The Cure's "Boys Don't Cry" single.Well, one cover has a picture of Robert Smith standing with his guitar and the other cover contains a drawing of a bloke made of feathers.
It's a bit of a stretch to say that the DM cover "bears more than a passing resemblance..." to Robert so it will be rather interesting to see how this plays out.
Update: Hilarity ensues as we find out it was an April Fools prank posted just a little early.
[Moozik: The Sisters Of Mercy - Colours]
Now that Battlestar Galactica is on hiatus until October, what's a Sci-Fi fan to watch eh? Well, the entire season of Firefly obviously. Now before I go any further I just want to point out that I didn't actually watch the show when it originally aired on TV. Yes, that sound you hear is the sound of my Sci-Fi street cred crashing to the floor.
Ahem, so anyway, for the past week when I've had chance to watch TV it has been all Firefly, all the time. The DVD boxset contains all 14 episodes, three of which (Trash, The Message, and Heart Of Gold) apparently never aired. I am, as they say, completely hooked. I love the setting (future meets old west), I love the characters, and I love the humour. I know I'm a little late to the 'shame it got cancelled' party but it's a damn shame it got cancelled. Disc four of the boxset will be finished up tomorrow and then I'm sure the movie will soon follow.
I found myself humming the bloody theme tune in the shower this morning. Yes, I'm *that* sad.
[Moozik: Sleepwalk - Behind The Horizon]
Because I apparently live in a cave, I'd never heard of this send up of Monopoly even though it's been around since 2004.
HAMILTON, N.J. - In this send-up of "Monopoly," players don't pass "Go" and they don't go directly to jail — they go to Guantanamo Bay.Instead of losing cash for landing on certain squares, they lose civil liberties. And the "Mr. Monopoly" character at the center of the board is replaced by a scowling former Attorney General
John Ashcroft.The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties.
In a nod to President Bush's prewar comments, the "Go" space in is renamed "Bring It On!" Players roll the dice to determine how many civil liberties they start out with, accumulating them from a variety of categories: U.S. citizens get 5; non-citizens 1. Whites and Asians get 5; Arabs 1. Ultra right-wingers get 6; Democrats 3 or 4.
Instead of landing on, say Oriental Avenue, players land on a color-coded spaces corresponding to the national terror alert. A player who lands on a red space loses one civil liberty, as does anyone else within five spaces. A player who lands on an orange space gets to designate another player to lose one civil liberty.
"Chance" cards are now " Homeland Security Cards," with orders such as, "FBI wants you for questioning; Lose one turn;" and "You provide the local authorities with speculative information on your next door neighbor; Collect one civil liberty from each player."
[Moozik: Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings]
I think I was about 14 when I heard The Smiths for the first time. I remember being blown away by the 'Sheila Take A Bow' single. From there I bought all their albums (yes, on vinyl) and played them to death. That was also the year that the band broke up. Since then I've always hoped they'd settle their differences and get back together as I would love to see them live. Sure Morrissey sings some Smiths songs occasionally at his gigs but it's just not the same is it?
Well, looks like I should probably stop hoping to see that Smiths reunion gig. Let's be honest, it's never going to happen.
As the son and heir of nothing in particular, money means little to Morrissey - not even $5m to reform the Smiths.The 46-year-old singer yesterday revealed how he and his fellow former band mates had been offered the sum to reform for just one gig at the Coachella Valley festival, held in the Californian desert.
At a press conference at the music industry's biggest showcase event, south by southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, Morrissey said: "If people must know, it was $5m." After the gasps died down he was asked if he had considered it. "I didn't give it a second thought because money doesn't come into it."
[Moozik: Icon Of Coil - Shallow Nation (2004 version)]
At least Haliburton does a good job once those no-bid contracts have been signed right?
Ahem.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death,'' an internal company report concluded.The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.
[Moozik: Droom - Eyes Like Oceans]
On the one hand, I can't imagine anyone but Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones. He *is* Indiana Jones in my mind and anyone else in the role just wouldn't be right. On the other hand, at 63, can he still be as convincing as he was 25 years ago in Raiders of the Lost Ark? I guess we'll find out soon enough.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Harrison Ford is ready to jump back into his favorite film role and begin shooting the fourth Indiana Jones movie soon, a German magazine quoted the Hollywood actor as saying on Wednesday."Steven Spielberg and I now have a script in hand that we both like. I believe that we can start with the filming soon," Ford was quoted as saying in an interview with German lifestyle and entertainment magazine Fit for Fun.
The third and last Indy film, 1989 hit "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," starred Ford as the whip-swinging archaeologist and Sean Connery as his bumbling father.
Ford, 63, was quoted as saying that he needed "to do a little practicing with the whip" to avoid injuries.
[Moozik: Flesh Field - The Collapse]
Ugh, Solaris grep doesn't have a -r command line option to recurse through directories. Which, you know, is a bit arsey if you want to search through 600+ files contained in many subdirectories.
So, a one minute Perl hack to the rescue. Ask me how much I love File::Find::Rule.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use File::Find::Rule;
use strict;
my $what = shift;
my $where = shift;
my $rule = File::Find::Rule->new();
$rule->file();
$rule->name('*.html');
my @files = $rule->in($where);
for my $file (@files)
open(FILE, $file) || die "Could not open $file - $!\n";
while(<FILE>) {
if ($_ =~ /$what/i) {
print $file, "\n";
last;
}
}
close(FILE);
}
[Moozik: Ride - Sennen]
I must say, it's rather nice to wake up to the sound of rain. Well, it is when you live in Arizona. The record breaking 143 days without rain finally came to an end today. It rained all day long and was cold too, 45°f in fact.
So, perfect excuse for a lazy day watching Battlestar Galactica. First up, the 3 hour miniseries DVD. After watching 2 seasons it was nice to go back to the beginning to help clear up some niggling plot points.
Next up, last night's 90 minute season finale. BG never ceases to amaze me. Best SciFi show EVAR. If I've watched a better season finale of any TV show, I don't remember it. Ron Moore, you sir, are a genius.
Do I really have to wait until October for the new season though? Dammit.
[Moozik: Icon Of Coil - Other Half Of Me]
Cutting to the chase, if you have a WinXP box with McAfee VirusScan, make sure you install DAT 4716. DAT 4715 has a plethora of false positives as I found out tonight. After my wife's WinXP box installed the new 4715 DAT, she suddenly had 55 files flagged as the W95/CTX virus. Seeing as some of those files were MS Office executables (e.g C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE) I visited the McAfee forums to see if anyone else had the problem.
They did.
So, long story short, just upgrade to DAT file 4716. No harm, no foul right?
Well yes, for me anyway. But it's a little scary that McAfee offers two suggestions when it, er, "detects" the W95/CTX virus: delete or quarantine. It would be interesting to know how many people deleted perfectly good executables because of a faulty DAT file.
Dear McAfee,
Please test new virus definition DAT files before releasing to the public.
Thanks.
Kevin Spencer
Update: Slashdot has picked up the story today (Monday 13 March). Looks like quite the clusterfuck. Thanks McAfee.
[Moozik: VNV Nation - Genesis]
Depeche Mode are set to reissue their classic Eighties albums albums 'Speak & Spell','Music for the Masses' and 'Violator' on March 27.You'd think they would at least get the decade correct. Violator was released in 1990 which, last time I checked, disqualified it as being an 'Eighties album'.
[Moozik Grendel - EVP]
If everything goes to plan, I may in fact be in Santa Clara next month attending the MySQL Users Conference.
[Moozik: Crocodile Shop - Blinding]
Last Wednesday was quite a sad day for Radio in the Phoenix area. For exactly one week now, we've been without Air America radio. The local station, kxxt 1010am, was bought by a Christian Broadcasting company which promptly dumped AAR in favour of more, er, conservative religious broadcasting. Which, you know, is good because it's not like we had 8 or 9 stations already on the air here in Phoenix doing the exact same thing.
Ahem.
While AAR can be streamed on the web, it doesn't help my lengthy commute home and I miss my Randi Rhodes show while stuck in traffic on the I-10.
But it's not all doom and gloom. It would appear Air America Radio Phoenix may live to fight another day afterall.
The former staff of Air America Phoenix has negotiated a deal to resurrect operations at a new home effective April 3, 2006 but we need your help! We must immediately raise money to cover our operating expenses out of the gate. Our goal of $500,000 will guarantee us a home for years to come.
[Moozik: PJ Harvey - 50ft Queenie]
I bought a new Degree Deodorant stick today. Upon opening the cap, I noticed the following was stamped into the actual white stick itself (yes the bit you actually use): "TAKE THE RISK".
What the hell does that mean? Take the risk of using the deodorant? Take the risk of *not* using it? Take the risk of driving to work with no seatbelt on?
But more importantly, is "the deodorant made me do it" a valid legal defense?
[Moozik: Skinny Puppy - Basement]
That sound you hear is the sound of relief washing over me. What a hectic week. After a couple of rather craptacular days at work, It culminated in a 3 hour Calculus exam yesterday that I had managed to get myself in a bit of a panic over. "I'm not ready" and "I haven't studied enough" were popular moments of terror late Thursday and most of Friday :-)
And now it's over and I can take deep breath. One down, four more maths classes to go.
So I now get next weekend off before jumping right back into the next level of Calculus. And yes it's on Saturday morning once a-bloody-gain.
[Moozik: Gary Numan - Remember I Was Vapour]
Now that there's video evidence that Bush received ample warnings about Katrina including the breach of the levees, Andrew Sullivan makes an interesting note that compared to Bush's "eery detachment", Michael Brown seems on the ball in comparison.
It didn't make a difference. Four days after the storm, Bush declared "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." He was either lying or had slept through his pre-storm meetings. The latter is possible. The record shows he asked not a single question in the pre-Katrina briefing. Maybe he was miffed his vacation had been spoiled. Michael Brown seems on the ball in comparison.