OK, so it's Fox News, but they obviously knew where to go to to get a creative commons digital image of a maggot! Although, actually, I think it's a grub, but whatever.

CC FTW :)

I don't know who the hell Bam Margera is, but Pandora introduced me to a compilation album by him called "Bam Margera Presents: Viva la Bands, Vol 2". It's got GWAR, Clutch, Shiny Toy Guns, Bloodhound Gang, Kill Hanna, and a bunch of crap I've never heard before but mostly sounds pretty awesome. Four stars.

* Define "mostly": If I had this album when I was a teenager, it would have stayed in the cassette deck in the Chevette for WEEKS.

I'm listening to "A Season of Poison", the new Shiny Toy Guns album, which they've put up in it's entirety on their MySpace page. It's not bad. There's a lot more crunchy guitar, and I've always been more fond of their synth but if it wasn't STG, I would actually have said it was pretty awesome. They set the bar really really high with "We Are Pilots".

I'm also very unhappy with their decision to fire singer Carah Faye, since the new girl sounds very similar (but not quite as poignant). She *can* sing though, the "Frozen Ocean" track is proof of that. It's not like I'm in the band or know anything about what their reasons were for that, so I'm going to try not to hold that against them. But they *did* re-do 'Turned to Real Life', which was practically the signature Carah song (except maybe 'Sky Fell Over Me') which seems a little petty. Or I'm reading too much into it.

Anyhow, if you like STG, or haven't heard of them, I recommend giving it a shot.

Is Fallout 3 any good? Despite running out at midnight to pick it up in Tysons, I can't tell you. They're using Securom DRM and it won't install/run on my machine because I have a SCSI drive. Those, apparently, look like drive imaging tools that hackers use. SCSI drives are also a widespread standard and anyone with a Zip drive, an SATA cdrom, mirrored drive, or a slew of other types of drives are likely to find themselves in the same boat.

This is ironic because Bethesda made a very big deal on Oct 2nd about how there would be no DRM in Fallout 3 because of the Spore debacle. Nice to see they're an honest company.

I'm taking this maturely and posting in lots of forums about how they lied and using lots of profanity. But for you, dear reader, take heed and don't get the PC version unless they sort this out.

Memory failed on primary. Vendor dispatched. While bringing up secondary, Vendor can't bother to read hostnames and hard reboots secondary.

An hour later at 4am we're still watching it fsck.

Had a great weekend with friends, both local and visiting, hanging out, gaming and generally having a great time. And tasty wine, mashed potatoes, creampuffs. Add in risotto, coca-cola, sushi, and cider.

And delicious, delicious cigarettes.

Then Sunday was spent napping, hanging out with the girl, and eating ice cream and pizza while waiting for Venture Brothers.

A truly great three days.

Then, Monday's xfit (nalroth was there!):

Run 2.4km
150 back extensions
150 sit ups

Stupid mortality.

Today Tom was kind and cut the workout in half. So we just ran 5k.

Stupid mortality.

Yesterday at XFit, hugeboozehound and I did:
( cut for those who care not for xfit )

Because I think Jury Nullification is an awesome concept:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1719872,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics&iref=werecommend

Requesting recommendations for instrumental music suitable for listening while performing other tasks (poster is distracted by vocals when coding).

Music with unintelligible lyrics (such as Cocteau Twins) is also acceptable.

Thank you for your support!

Reston had I Am Legend at 7:30pm. I propose meeting for dinner around 6 at Rios and then seeing the movie there. I realize it's not the best theater around, but Cinema De Lux does not have our movie playing :(

Dave and I are having our usual round-up of strays for Thanksgiving, so if you're interested please let us know. This year it will be at casa de Dave out in MD. I can fit two people in my car if anyone is interested in carpooling.

Current Mood: hungry

Today I stared at the sun.

( And took a picture )

Current Mood: nerdy

The forces of Stupidity and Evil have teamed up and locked all seven of poor little Scylla's heads up in my garage with no way to get out and roam the internets. They say they'll be there tomorrow and let her out but I don't have a lot of faith in Covad on-site technicians and at the least that means there will have been two whole days of silenced packets.

Edit. Apparently the problem was something on their end after all, and they fixed it. I should neglect to tell them it's working and not be there when the tech shows up. Waste his day for once.

So thus this dawn I set out on the 120 mile trek out to the hollows of the mountains to find the apple of my desire. Twice haunting voices sent pages to me, entreating my return, and I sent them back alone with dismissive (but complete) instructions.

Three times there and three times back, did I see vultures circle overhead.

( cut for your pleasure )

Current Mood: accomplished

Once I tried to eat an entire pineapple and recieved chemical burns for my trouble.

Today I have malic acid burns on my hands.

Perhaps being corroded by fruit is my destiny.

This I had no choice but to share.

In Episode 2 of Rob's Stuff, Free to Whomever Takes It Away, I offer a 20 inch HP A series monitor. Works fine, a little fuzzy at high resolution, and the 5 BNC to VGA cable that comes with it has a loose connection to one BNC.

Nocsters will recognize it as an olde HP PA-RISC 715 monitor.

Last night I had an unpleasant dream that I didn't really remember all that much. By the time I'd gotten to the shower it was just a few strange fragments, and all I could piece together was that it was very unpleasant.

Later this morning I walked into my office and saw the fudge round that has been sitting there for about four weeks now, lying somewhat flattened on my filing cabinet. And I remembered something...

I remembered that at some point in the dream I had eaten that fudge round, and it was slowly poisoning me to death.

So, now, what to do? Dismiss it completely? Throw it out and be rid of it (and saved from any awkward poison)? Or should I face my fears and eat the damn thing?

I'm leaning towards eating it.

In short: Operator error at the cafeteria espresso machine. Result: I am drinking a 16oz (!) espresso, gratis.

FUCK yeah.