November 2006 Archives
[Moozik: The Beloved - The Sun Rising]
I really like Talk of the Nation and think you are a good host. But please sir, I beg of you, when mentioning the npr.org website, don't say 'npr dot oooh arrr gee'. We do understand the concept of the three letter word 'org' without you holding our hand. It's ok to just say 'org'. Really.
That is all.
[Moozik: Acid Horse - No Name No Slogan]
While watching CNN this afternoon I happened to catch an interesting piece on what happens to items confiscated at airport security checkpoints. Turns out they get sent to a warehouse in Pennsylvania before being sold on eBay. The report said that they've made a $280,000 profit thus far.
The idea of the government flogging your stuff on eBay seems wrong to me. Couldn't they give the stuff away to charity or something? Mind you, I'm not sure charities would want those handcuffs and whips though ;-) From the article (paraphrased from memory and totally cracked me up):
We get an awful lot of S&M gear. Here are some whips and chains and, oh I really don't know what these are or what you'd use them for.
[Moozik: Siouxsie & The Banshees - The Killing Jar]
A Linux distribution written in Perl you say? Sweet.
A Linux distribution where all programs are written in perl, from /sbin/init to /bin/vi
[Moozik: Siouxsie & The Banshees - Slowdive]
Just recently I've found myself giving an awful lot of change to people begging on the side of the street or in front of the local Circle K. Which is odd because I always used to just ignore them. Not only do you not know if they're scamming you, they'll probably just go and buy beer with the money they collect. So quite why I've changed my tune and find myself giving in is quite the mystery...
[Moozik: Iron Maiden - Wasted Years]
Please don't drink and then think it amusing to play "ring random phone numbers in the middle of the night". It's really not *that* funny afterall. So at approx 1:48am last night:
(Phone Rings)
Me (woken up and groggy): hello
Drunk Bloke: Who is this?
Me: Who is this?
DB: You just called me, so who is this?
Me: I just called you? Don't think so mate, you've got the wrong number.
(I hang up)
(Phone rings again 10 mins later after I've gone back to sleep)
Me (now a little annoyed): Hello
Drunk Bloke: Who is this?
Me: (lost all patience): Who the fu** is this?
DB: Why did you just call me?
Me: Look mate, you've now woken me up twice, I have not fuc**** called you.
DB (getting angry): I want to know why you just called me. Who is this?
Me: Oh for christ's sake, get a fuc**** life.
(I hang up)
(Phone rings 2 mins later, I am now wide-a-bloody-wake of course)
Me (friendly voice): Hello.
Drunk Bloke (clearly needing new material): Who is this?
Me: Ok you appear to be a having a hard time grasping the English language. I'll speak slower for you. You've now woken me up twice, I did not call you, I have no fuc**** idea who you are. Please go and enjoy a nice cup of shut the fuc* up.
(I hang up)
And that was that. The arsewipe had a caller-id block on his phone so I'm still none the wiser about who my drunken late night phone pal was.
[Moozik: Charlatans - North Country Boy]
Well, it worked for Bruce Willis didn't it?
The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.
Wanted: man to land on killer asteroid and gently nudge it from path to Earth
[Moozik: Visage - Fade To Grey]
So yeah, I like last.fm. I'm a total statistics junkie and when applied to my own moozik listening habits, I'm in heaven.
So, what did I listen to most of all last week? Oh c'mon, you know you want to know :-)
[Moozik: Thomas Dolby - Flying North]
Blimey, Thomas Dolby has a blog. Yes, that Thomas Dolby. I bought Golden Age Of Wireless when I was a kid and literally played it to death. Just the other day I happened to finally get the CD and have been taking the old trip down memory lane. A finer album of early 80s synth pop you will not find anywhere.
[Moozik: Muse - Starlight]
At the same time many of the senior figures in the Bush administration are on the way out. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has already gone. United Nations ambassador John Bolton is certain to follow him. The once feared campaign mastermind Karl Rove has the whiff of the fading rock star about him. And, of course, President George Bush himself has been reduced to a lame duck.
[Moozik: Japan - Quiet Life]
So the Dems take the house, *might* still take the senate, and Rummie quits. What a week :-)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post."The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," Bush said at the White House Wednesday afternoon.
Rumsfeld has been heavily criticized for his policies in Iraq, and exit polls taken during Tuesday's midterm election showed strong voter dissatisfaction -- 57 percent -- with the Iraq war.
[Moozik: Pailhead - Don't Stand In Line]
I'm supposed to be writing a book review for my History class. But I'm *so* glued to CNN watching them predict the outcome of the vote tonight. The Democrats have apparently just taken the house. Woohoo. Still drama to be had in the senate so I'll be watching bleary eyed to see what happens.
[Moozik: The Sisters Of Mercy - Phantom]
The good? Spurs beating Chelsea. The bad? England getting their arses handed to them by New Zealand. The bonus? Arsenal losing to West Ham.
[Moozik: The Cure - Just Like Heaven]
So just how good is the new season of Battlestar Galactica eh? I'll tell you, bloody good. I loved this week's episode and as always lots to absorb.
Hybrids running basestars...ummm...ok...sure, I'm in. Appears to orgasm when it makes a jump it agrees with. Fun. Starbuck flying a Viper, Chief doing chiefy things, Apollo back to being a Major. S'all good. But I must say that it does sometimes feel that you've missed an episode. The Adama Starbuck reunion, the Apollo Starbuck reunion, Chief getting back into the groove on the flightdeck, the civilians going back to their ships. That sort of thing.
Still the best show on TV bar none though.
[Moozik: Killing Joke - Exorcism]
Well, I thought it was amusing anyway.
[Moozik: Yazoo - And On]
DM won the best group award at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards. NICE.
[Moozik: Gary Numan - Random]
So back in September I mentioned that I'd spent about 4 minutes playing with iTunes 7 and that it seemed like a decent upgrade. Wow, how wrong was I? If you google for iTunes 7 problems you should get a handy sampling of suckage.
Personally I experienced stuttering during playback, extremely slow CD ripping speed, and it took FOREVER to sync my iPod. Apple released an updated 7.0.1 version a few weeks later but to be honest, it did bugger all to fix my particular issues. I did find a couple of workarounds however.
The stuttering was fixed by setting the sound out size to 24bit in my Quicktime audio settings (yeah, that's intuitive - ahem). The slow CD ripping was fixed in a rather hacky manner. I was experiencing 1.5x ripping while having the ripping screen in focus. Selecting any other playlist to be in focus increased the ripping speed tremendously. WTF?
So that left the craptacular sync time between iTunes and my iPod. I installed the latest iTunes update 7.0.2 tonight and et voila, iPod sync time back to iTunes 6 speed. Happy? Yes, very pleased indeed.
[Moozik: Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly]
If this post shows up then last night's upgrade to Movable Type 3.33 appears to have worked out ok.