Hamm's

Being a lifelong fan of Hamm's beer logos, scrolling ripple signs, and TV commercials, I decided they needed to sponsor one of my racing cars. While an old rice burner ain't exactly what one thinks of when one says Hamm's, but it looks cool. And it's all hopped up, as you can see by it passing a GT–40.

Who Let Them Out?

Who was the dumbass that decided to let prisoners out of Guantánamo Bay? Now they're back to being terrorists. And who wouldn't, being promised "a car, job and a nice wife"? Only an idiot would let them go, and only an idiot would want to shut down the GB prison by January 22. Thanks, Odumba.

New Rule for Newscasters

You're no longer allowed to make puns. This genius made about, I dunno, 17 pop–related puns during her report on a pop machine theft and chase.

Oh, and I'd like another new rule instated: No southerners can be in positions of authority or education. You sound like idiots when you speak that way.

Pull the Plug

Here's something funny. It's our old guitarist's new band. It's like Margie from Fargo is singing. Their version of Long Tall Sally is about as straight as it can get—Lawrence Welk could rock this harder. The one that really hurts the brain is this song. And it's over 7 minutes long. I'll give you a cookie if you can make it all the way through. Jack's solo starts at 3:56. You'll recognize his playing instantly if you've ever heard us when he was with us. Look out, EVH!

The bar is where we used to play a lot, but, mysteriously, we can no longer get booked there. It's proof that talent is not what a bar owner wants to book. They'd rather get bands who say they can draw a large crowd.

Voxmoghini

My Lamborghini Miura concept needed some neat paint. What's neater than the old Voxmobile? OK, so it didn't work out as cool as I thought it would. But what the hell. Woulda been cooler if Forza let you add some compression drivers to the hood and an organ in the trunk.

Fonz Was in the Monkees?

Leave it to model companies to cash in on one generation's trend and market it to another generation. This is the Monkeemobile sold as a Fonzie car. That's as bad as the way record companies do business.

What the Wtf?

I went onto Mediacom's web site to pay my bill. It asked me to enter my "Pin Number". Stupid sons of sobs. We've all heard people say "pin number", but I've never seen anyone stupid enough to actually type it out that way.

Badman

One of my favorite models was Monogram's Badman '55 Chevy gasser. Forza 3 has no '55 Chevy's, so I had to settle for an Aston Martin. I always liked the lettering on the backside and the red tinted windows and matching hood scoop. I wish they'd let you put stickers on the windows.

Super Groovy Gig

Here's what I love about this photo:

• The finish on the drums (can't tell if it's pink sparkle or champagne sparkle).
• The drummer has dropped a stick.
• The crash cymbal stand is very close to falling off the stage.
• The drum rug is some early type of shag.
• The singer's hair. (That'll show those uptight squares!)
• There's another stage for another band. I wonder if they both jammed together at the end.
• Somebody decided that wrapping the stages with burlap would look nice.
• And of course, the big ass, bitchin' Kustom PA speaker.

My Next Band

This is pretty indescribable. The slide guitar sounds like something I recorded in Ottumwa.

I Thought You Were Dead

I did this today while waiting for water putty to dry. Had to fill in the old hinge slots on the cabinet frame before I veneer it. Don "Snake" Prudhomme classic Army paint on a Lamborghini. OK, it's the wrong Snake for the quote.

Old Alfa Romeo

Getting a bit sideways on turn 1 at Circuit de la Sarthe. I tried to work the effects sliders to make this look like an old Kodachrome, but it looked much different on the TV.

Donnie Iris

I forgot about this song until we were driving back from Thanksgiving and heard it on satellite.

Schlitz Malt Liquor

Is this what the White House looks like now every night? Goddamn, that's goofy. Much goofier than anything you'd see on Hee Haw or anything like that.

Rogers

Here's some guy with a giant set of Rogers, same vintage and finish as mine, although most of his are double–headed and the smallest look like power toms (which were just coming into vogue around then). Looks like he has some of those aluminum Rogers kick pedals like I had. Those were great. Home–built plywood cases—that looks familiar. :)

Little Stevie Vai

I TiVo'd a Steve Vai concert on Palladia (a great channel to watch HD music) and watched it the other night. It was just an hour's worth of a Blu–ray/DVD/CD he has out called Where the Wild Things Are (nothing to do with the book/movie), recorded in Minneapolis in 2007. What a powerhouse of talent he still is. All the technical wizardry humanly possible, and loads of feeling. He can convey emotion so much better than Clapton. I just don't get why so many guitarists think Clapton is god. He mostly bores me. This band had 2 keyboardists who also played violin, one of them an incredibly cute Asian chick. My oh my. That's the stuff right there. Although plenty talented, I didn't dig the drummer so much; all tattooed, shirtless, and fauxhawk.

Carnage

If you race one of the stages from one of the great big tracks (Fuji, Nürburgring) against CPUs, the CPU cars will stop once they get past the end of the stage. For the helluvit, I turned around and went all the way around the track until I got back to the finish line where they were parked. I spent 15 minutes bashing into them. Sometimes one of them would drive a few feet down the track after I rammed them closer to the finish line. Hooray for technology. That's me up on my side against the guard rail. I opened the lens all the way to kinda get a tilt–shift thing going on.

Whta the Fuck Are You Lookin' At?

Santa with an attitude.

Alien Invasion

Here's an explanation for the freaky spiral in the sky over Norway.

Forza Stuff

Datsun beater. I just remembered that 101 was KKRQ, now KQCR. Gotta redo the bumper sticker. I wish they'd add flat paint.





Spotted this while watching a replay at Le Mans. I don't think I'd wanna lick that ice cream.

What Are the Odds?

One of our tech support/testing guys in Peoria is a drummer. He sent me a little story about building a drum riser. He Googled and checked out the first hit. After a bit he recognized the url. It was my drum riser plans I'd put together years and years ago, apparently when the world was still black & white, before we got color.

He added a nice touch to the top surface; stick–on 1x1' carpet tiles. Mine was always bare plywood, which made it good for marking hardware positions with magic marker, and easier to clean when the bass player spilled beer on it.

Yes, Minnesota Has Dumbasses

Here's the goofball that threw tomatoes at Sarah Palin during her book signing at the megamall. What a fuckin' dweeb. Throwing stuff at a woman—a woman who's not Anita Bryant—is just pitiful. And she's not even in office! Fucking political wackos can all go to hell.

NASA Nikon

It has big buttons like an old person's phone. Free shipping!

More New Tunes

Had practice today and worked up Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting and Holiday. Kinda of a weird combination, when you think about it. A gay man singing about fighting, and a punk band singing about not fighting. Or something.

Van Halen Paint

The NSX I was using was really boring in just white. I added some EVH paint to make it more interesting. When I went to upload the screenshots, I entered a description something like "Inspired by Eddie Van Halen's guitars." That phrase did not pass their no–naughty–words filter. WTF?

I love this course set up in a quaint old town on the coast of Italy or Greece or Sicily. Something like that. Cobblestone streets that are bumpy as hell. Lots of great curves, corners, and hills. The Mt. Fuji course is also a blast.

Planets Are Creepy

Ever wonder what a planet sounds like? Me neither. But it turns out it's a cool mix of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Forbidden Planet (yeah, I own that), and Rush's 2112 and Cygnux X–1. NASA made recordings of the electromagnetic waves as Voyager flew by.

Speaking of Rush, Exit Stage Right was pretty good. The guitarist and bass player were both amazing. The keyboardist played everything exactly right and was really fun to watch. He loves himself some Rush. The drummer did a pretty good job, but—no pun intended here—rushed the hell out of a lot of stuff and lost his place a bunch of times. They don't play live much, so it could be nerves. He looked kinda like a skinny John C. Reilly. I only stayed for about 4 Zed Leppelin songs, not being a big fan. They were also really good. Much tighter than ESR, but then they play a lot I guess. They do the Led Zeppelin persona thing—wigs and stuff. I think that's kinda lame. Just play the fucking music. The drummer had the same amazing right foot that Bonham had, did those flurry of quick doubles in Good Times Bad Times that you can hear in the beginning of the iTunes clip. Wish my foot could do that.

Sewing Machine

So that's how it works! It took me a few seconds once the animation started running to figure out it was a sewing machine (yeah, I didn't see the title). I never wanted to devote the brain cells to figuring out how they worked their magic because I was sure it involved worm holes and voodoo. What's amazing is how fast some sewing machines can run and still do that without getting all fucked up or breaking the thread. Ever see industrial ones run? Sounds like a minigun sawing an Iraqi hut in half.

Disad–Vantage

There was a card that came in the Forza 3 case for getting a free bonus pack of cars and tracks. 10 cool vintage cars, including a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe (always liked those better than the roadster), Charger Daytona, and '67 Miura that is a blast to drive, as is the little '65 Alfa. It also has 2 tracks with multiple courses at each one. The one is a huge concrete test track. It has about a dozen different configs. Some of them go through some old warehouses. You could probably do one of those videos if you were good. Much like that Ken Block video, there's a helipad. I thought I could drive over it and run into the helicopter. Nope. There's a 6" curb that's a bitch when yer doin' about 80 in a Vantage. Why she's no fun. She fell right over.

I Won a Veyron!

Sadly, I can't touch it. It exists only as 1s and 0s. I also can't paint the 2nd color (the red area). Slight bug in their car painting editor that you can't change the 2nd color of a 2–tone paint job. But I made the best of it and added the trippy purple wingy stuff. Sick? You bet. And it goes like bat shit. Sure, ya gotta start braking half a mile out. After upgrading parts to just a couple points below R2, I used it in an R3 race in New York (the old track with long straights) and lapped every car before the end of the 12th lap.

Badass Frogmobile

I love the Citroën DS, so it's no wonder I dig this off–road version. It actually looks like it should've been born that way. Nice job on widening the hips to make room for the big meats.

Bohemian Muppets

This Muppet video version of Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty good. Could done without Miss Piggy though. She's such a pig. Ha. I never realized both the guitarist and bass player were left handed.

Them Crooked Vultures

Kim got me the album for my birthday. It kicks ass all sorts of ways. Lots of neat experimentation with moving the beat around while other instruments carry on. I used to hate Dave Grohl, but I'm digging the drum parts he comes up with. You can definitely hear John Paul Jones' Led Zeppelin influence in some of the stuff, like Elephants and Scumbag Blues. And Josh is all over everything. Yay for that. He makes cool sounds. Go listen. Now, you bastard!

Vintage KISS

A bunch of neat photos, including a live Wicked Lester. Check the flowers on Peter's rack tom.

AMX/3

This would've changed everything. AMC would probably still be around if the AMX/3 hadn't've been killed. I've seen a couple pictures of it before, but never knew it's story. Damned good lookin' car—has a bit of a Miura profile up front. Who knows, maybe I could've been driving a modern AMC right now. Well, not right this second—that'd be dangerous.

Paul Newman Smashes Donkey Kong Record!

Ha ha ha! Eat it, Greg! Ha ha! :)

Steve McQueen Almost Beat Mario

Fucking amazing. The team of Steve McQueen and Peter Revson almost beat Mario Andretti in the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race. That would've been cool. Oh, and Steve had a broken foot in a cast while he raced. Some fantastic photos there. Loving that guy's blog.

Keith Moon

Here's a neat article about Keith, including a great photo of his groovy drums, 2nd picture from the top. I like the 2 arms connecting the 2 bass drums to help keep them in place, and I'm sure he needed all the help he could.

Great T–shirts

T–shirts with stuff on them have always been my favorite form of dress and personal expression. I think my favorite of those is the "Who the fuck's Mick Jagger" shirt. The Nugent/Denver one is pretty good too.

I just found that blog, but will be checking out much, much more of it. It looks really good and is full of shit I like to look at.

Cherry Wainer and Don Storer

Here are two people I've never heard of; two people that make some really tasty sounds. And she has some fantastic arms. I bet the rest of her was also nice and toned. I like their version of Brubeck's Take Five, where Don shows his chops. Some of the videos have shots her her feet, also getting a great workout on the pedals. What a feisty little number she was. I dig her matching Leslies and Hammond with what looks like pearl laminate, perhaps from a drum company.

Shooting Star

I wonder why I never heard a Shooting Star song. I remember reading their name in, probably, Creem and stuff. Andy mentioned them tonight when he and Kim & I went out for supper. Kind of a neat mix of Kansas (they're from Kansas City), Bad Company, Triumph, and a little early Journey. I dug it enough to buy their 2nd album and a few tracks off the 1st.

Very interesting drum sounds. The toms are very period perfect; single–headed, medium–loose tension, sounds like plain ol' Ambassadors, maybe a bit of tape to control some ring in the studio. I've grown to dig that sound. It's kinda sucky, but a good kinda sucky, like the way a little ol' underpowered tube amp will break up when you push it too hard.

Back Boobs

Augh! Sorry about your eyes.

Music Rights

Cripes. After telling somebody about the Gumby vs. Killdozer movie Brent and I made, I went through all the trouble of ripping the DVD (thanks Brent) with Handbrake and uploading it to YouTube. I'd done a director's cut in iMovie HD and added new video and audio f/x, along with closing credits and music (theme from S.W.A.T.). After it finally got uploaded to YouTube I checked it out and found that they'd disabled the audio because it contained audio that was unlicensed. I simply cannot stand music licensing bullshit. So, I'm uploading it elsewhere. But it's amazing that YouTube's servers contain algorithms that look through every movie that gets uploaded and compares it with all the known licensed songs in the world. Must be the same algorithm that the Shazam iPhone app uses to recognize a short clip of a song.

Death Bimmer

One of my favorite models I built was Rommel's Rod. I was awarded this BMW in Forza 3 and wondered what Rommel would use today for zipping along the Autobahn. I took the photo and named it Naziwagon, then went to upload it. Sorry, "nazi" must be a naughty word cuz it didn't get through their lame profanity filter. What the fuck? Do they also think "Jew" is a derogatory term? What about "Mexican"? So I named it phonetically, Notsi Wagon. Take that you bastards.

Modern Superbird

Here's an interesting modification of a new Challenger to make it sorta like an old Daytona/Superbird. I like it lots, except for the stupid smiling opening in the bottom half of the nose cone. Makes it look like some gay ass Mazda or some other Jap car that runs on unicorn farts.

New Tunes

We worked up Everybody Wants You by Billy Squire and Fox on the Run by Sweet today. Nobody can sing as high as that guy in Sweet, so Emily's doing those notes with a nice sawtooth wave, which is the same as the rest of the synth parts. They'll be welcome replacements for some of the really old shit in our song list.

Sims 3

Woohoo! Another time sink. As if Sims 2 wasn't enough, now there's even more stuff for your Sims to do in their day–to–day lives. They can go fishing, play guitar (♫Forget all about that macho shit, and learn how to play guitar♫), send the fish they catch away to have them mounted (I have a minnow on my wall), plant seeds and tend the plants, all sorts of shit.

Squirrel Lamp

I was saying to Kim just the other day—I swear to god it was just the other day—we don't have nearly enough squirrel lamps around the house. If only they weren't so danged expensive. If only there were some way to produce them ourselves… like as a hobby in the evenings, when I'm tired from doing business all day.

Good Gig

That was a lot of fun. Seems to be a bar that has lots of regulars, sorta neighborhoody. Played my ass off. It was hot in there. Had to put my fan on medium. That's how I know it's hot. Kim & I and Emily did Perkins afterward. Had 12 pancakes, 12 omelets, 12 cups of coffee, 12 waitresses. Not really, but 1 person will get that. Got to bed at 4:30. Woke at 7:30. Fuck, I hate that. Had a short nap at some point during the laying–around–watching–TV–all–day. I did manage to make my way out to the garage and drove to Famous Dave's for a couple pork sammiches for supper. Good meat. The problem with that place though, is that they felt the need to make everything hot. The mac & cheese has jalapeño. Why?? I don't consider sweating and having my nose run an enjoyable meal.

Forza Motorsport 3

Wheeee! This rocks.


Sideways in a Ram SRT–10.


Tried driving a dumb NASCAR car. Oh no! Curves! Promptly got upside down. Worthless car. But I did notice these wires and connector. So much detail in the cockpits:



The end of the long New York back straight comes up a lot quicker when you're in a Veyron. Somebody give me a push.

All-Night Movies, Some Easy Conversation

This waterbed warehouse commercial is a weird mix of '70s porn, mellow hippy laid backishness, and a little creepy sex offender. I'm not sure if he's trying to offer great deals to single women or to bait them into his store late at night.

Crappy Tech Support

We use VISE X to build our installers. VISE X was supposedly a total rewrite from the old Installer Vise that had been around for ages. Well, it really wasn't a rewrite, because the same odd UI bugs are still in it. Anyhoo, I reported a bug to them again about it not being able to remove all the compressed data from the project file. Rather than asking for the project file and saying they'd look into it to see exactly why the command was failing, they just said that nobody else has ever reported it, and then added his opinion that I should export the project to their xml format, and that we should not store the project in source control, but store the xml file instead. Bwuh?! That would mean I'd need to import the xml into a new project each time I built an installer. And you can't go through the normal open/save/close channels with the xml files, since those only support the project document. What the fuck kind of user friendliness is that?

I've never had such crappy tech support from a company that should be savvy to the way developers work. After all, developers of software are the people who buy their installer makers. I also suggest that they stop storing the compressed data (it compresses all the data that goes in the installer, like our app and its support files) in the project file. They should store it in an external file, must like the way any compiler does. The compressed data should not be part of the project, it's only part of the final product. It's ephemeral. He said they could not easily do that to solve my problem. Well of course they can't do it real quick like, but they should do it for a future major release. Maybe one where they fix all the stupid UI bugs and really old looking UIs.

Nothing pisses me off more than tech support that argues, fails to offer any real help, and gives his opinion on how I should be using their product.

The Latest

Picked up Cheap Trick's The Latest last night. Just about done with the first listen, and man, did they pick a sucky mastering engineer. It's way too compressed. Makes them sound like some no–talent pop act. To make sure I wasn't nuts, I opened it in Cacophony to look at the waveform and yup, it's mostly black—very few valleys. That's too bad. There are some great songs on it, but the overall sound is crappy. Track 2, When the Lights are Out, even has some weird synth that plays along with the lead licks that makes it sounds like there are heavy digital compression artifacts, as if they recorded it, converted it to some really low bit rate mp3, and put that on the record. It almost hurts my ears.

The good news is that the new Wolfmother album is fan–fucking–tastic! I also got a new Drive-by Truckers release called The Fine Print, which is a collection of rare stuff. And 2 older Rammstein albums that I didn't have and the brand new one. Haven't spun those yet. Heh, iTunes didn't even use the non–porno version of the album cover.

Forza Motorsport 3

Woohoo! I forgot about the release date. Ran to Best Buy to get it tonight. Fuckin' cool! I thought in cockpit view would be hard to drive, but it's very lifelike (sorta) after you get used to it. The new tracks are amazing, and a nice choice a new cars, although I still wish they'd put in some old Chaparrals and stuff like that. Driving the trucks is novel, but old CanAm cars woulda been much better. Even the 917 car from hell instead of so many variations of the 911. The physics engine seems much better. The cars don't seem to get butt–loose on a whim, easier to steer with the throttle when getting a little sideways around a curve. Taking the Bugatti Veyron out on the Le Mans track is amazing. On the long straight, you quickly hit 200mph (and you get an award thingy for that) and around 240 by the end of it. I know what I'll be doing this week.

In the Navy

Join the Navy. Be a dork with a cheesy mustache and a cool boat. I dig hydrofoils.

Well, Can You?

One of my favorite ad campaigns were these from Camel. This is from Cycle magazine, February 1975. I always like it when they have a small outline "key" illustration for a larger photo, so you can match up the people. That's good readin'!

Gerbil Vest?

More people should take their gerbils with them, and I don't mean like Richard Gere.

That's Service!

Can you imagine getting poolside TV repair service these days? I couldn't even get BP to credit me for the $29 late fee they charged me. Fuckers. Idiots. Who do they think they are, record company executives? I'm never late with a payment, but this one sat on my desk a little too long, got sent the day before they "late date". Oh, plus they tacked on the finance charges that I normally never have to pay because I always pay the full amount on all my accounts.

Looks like the part of the N. Kostner Ave. where that was delivered to is no longer a street.

Brides of Blood

This movie must've been so horrible, that the guy who made it decided to draw up his own hand–made posters and give away engagement ring sets. Must've had his 9–year old daughter help him with the lettering (see "starring") .

Ethernet Woes

The Mac mini in the stereo cabinet seems slow to make initial connections. Like if we go to a web page, it'll take 5 seconds or more before it starts loading anything. Streaming videos can sometimes be slow too. It's connected via Ethernet (along with a couple other components) to a switch that's connected to an AirPort Express. I felt the urge to connect the whole mess directly to the main router via Ethernet instead of having the AirPort in between there, which slows things down as packets are received and re–sent. And I wanted to replace all the CAT5 cabling in the house with CAT6 to help achieve the 1000baseT speeds that all my Macs and hardware is capable of using. So I went to Microcenter to get some cable. They don't seem to sell any raw cable, so I had to buy a 50' cable with ends on it. I cut off a hunk to go from the router to where the Ethernet jack is in the den. When going to wire a new end on, I noticed that the order was different than CAT5 cables. WTF? I assume that as long as the wires come out the same on each end, it shouldn't matter. I'd wired the jack like a CAT5 cable, so I had to make sure I wired the other end the same once I got it out through the wall in the family room.

Getting it there was another matter entirely. Luckily the holes I drilled through the bottom plate from the basement were big enough to get the cable through, but getting it up and into the box was turning into an ordeal. I worked for an hour from the top and the bottom with fish tape and different wires trying to hit the hole I couldn't see. I finally said fuck this and bought myself a new tool. I hadn't bought a tool in quite some time. I got that Milwaukee inspection camera I drooled over when I first saw it. That helped a bunch, although I thought it was supposed to include little hook and magnet attachments you could put on the end to retrieve things, but it didn't. It came with a 12V driver though. What, are cordless drivers so commonplace these days that you get one with everything? I ended up wrapping a piece of #12 wire around the snake, extending about 1" beyond the tip, then was able to guide that up through the hole in the box.

The other thing that bugged me is that the image you see onscreen is flipped vertically (or maybe rotated 180°, and I don't see a way to flip it right side up. I don't get that at all. Who the fuck can think upside down when it comes to moving a camera? Gotta hit the forums and see if there's a hidden setting.

And after all that, my fucking wiring job didn't work. The cable that I ran through the house is able to work in one direction (if I hook it up so it sends from the family room end), but it doesn't work at all when hooked up as planned. No green lights on the switch or anything. Arg. So I just went back to the AirPort way. At least I got a cool new tool out of the all–day job.

Tiny People

Photos of tiny people. Neat!

Who Doesn't Like Pie?

The White James Brown

I find this guy's voice pretty annoying. He can slide his feet around neat. I like how he has dual double–bass drummers, but all they do is play that straight, super boring beat in unison. I also wish the "audience" would get run over by a steam roller. Those have to be paid performers—they're just so hokey.

Dyson Bladeless Fan

Whoa. Dyson does it again with this super geeky fan. I wonder how loud it is. Good if you have dumb babies around that like to stick their faces and appendages into things (which is pretty much all of them, right?).

America's Downfall

Ugly plastic shoes and blankets you wear like a robe. They go together like puke and snot (and I don't mean the comedy team that I never saw, but seem pretty funny, because there's no way you could get me to the Reneaisisananeance Festival).

The Ladyboy

How to Find a Masculine Halloween Costume for Your Effeminate Son. The Onion hits another one out of the park, into the next county, across the ocean, and around the moon.

Pork Chops & Applesauce Brains

This totally pretty and non–insane lady went nuts when her kids ate the last pork chop. The little bastards.

And speaking of totally pretty and non–insane ladies, is Amy Winehouse still alive? How can that be? Why? Perhaps her new tits are really hiding alien beings that are using her body to conquer the world.

Reverse Trikes

I've seen a couple of these Spyder 3–wheeled trikes on the road over the past few months. One was just pulling out of a farm that's right on 163 between Des Moines and Pella, or thereabouts. I didn't know they were made by Can–Am, or that Can–Am even existed any more. I remember they at least made kick–ass motocross motorcycles back in the '70s.

Mork Radio

Rectangular radios without TV characters in them are lame. That's why we all need one of these.

Crystal Clear Electricity

Now that you've had adamantium cables run directly to your house from the 20x20 mile wide solar panel array you've installed on Mercury, you'll need new outlets that are rated for "audio grade". That's right. Ordinary outlets filter out Paiste ride cymbals and guitar solos played in cafeterias. Good thing you can spend $147 on a better one.

Be sure to read the customer reviews. Really.

Creative Marble Sculptures

Whoa, these marble sculptures are pretty cool. I like the 2 interlocked tires and the skull that looks like styrofoam.

It's Always January

We love Mad Men on AMC. If you don't watch it, maybe you just need some enticement. This is January Jones, who plays Betty Draper. She's so Nordic and hot. Plus, the show is so good.

We're All Cells

If you have about 20 minutes to kill, here's a fascinating film called Organism shot in 1975 by Hilary Harris. It shows NYC in time lapse, the people, the traffic, the boats and air traffic, and equates it to the way organisms move (hence the name). I also love the mesmerizing music. Lots of groovy vintage synth sounds played to great effect. I watched it in sections throughout the day while waiting for builds or email replies.

16G Still Not Enough

Turns out 16G of RAM still isn't enough. I just had a short swapping session going on while building Creator, while it was compiling some of the hairy C++ files that use heaps of template shit. Xcode 3.2 seems to use up more as time goes on, so if you've been building throughout the day, it's gonna use a bit more each time. Maybe it's not cleaning up after itself like it should. I guess I'll get in the habit of quitting Xcode a few times a day if it's gonna be this way about it. It's still a metric shitload better than Microsoft's lame excuse for a development environment, Visual Studio. That shit's just gross and should be put out of its misery.

Computer Sex

This is how somebody started a message to the Creator list. I don't see what he's so bummed out about.

My Mac went down on me yesterday, Bummer.

ISO 102,400!!

Nikon's new D3s has some serious light sucking capabilities. My D70 goes up to 1600, same as the Fuji film I used to use. So to even fathom ISO 6400 or 102,400 is, like, hard. But the shots are beautiful and noise–free at the lower–yet–still–ridiculously–high ISOs.

RAM Jam

We recently switched from Xcode 2.5 to 3.2. 3.0 and 3.1 sucked for large projects that used source control. They finally made it less sucky in 3.2 and fixed a bunch of other things that prevented me from wanting to go beyond 2.5. We're now also using gcc 4.2. And because of that and probably changes made in Xcode, each compiler thread now needs about half a gig of RAM. So with 16 threads compiling on my 8G Mac Pro, it quickly goes into a swapping frenzy and grinds the hard drive, bringing the entire machine to a near halt. Even simple things like clocks and Activity Monitor's CPU history icon cease moving. And 8G is still a lot of memory for a modern computer. So I bit the goddamn bullet and ordered another 8G for it. If that doesn't make it happy, I'll try painting a smiling face on its big aluminum side.

Whoa, Black Betty.

Timeless Chicken

A couple summers ago we were up in Two Harbors, just northeast of Duluth. I saw a big chicken that I just had to take a picture of. I just now saw it again on Square America, but that picture was taken in the '60s. I verified it's the same chicken because the building behind it looks the same. Even the pine tree in the back is still there, but much less full these days.

There was also this random shot of a dragster. And this bar scene where some guys took their kids along, were done up in blackface, and having one hell of a good time. Cracks me up. Ah, here's the rest of that rail. These are all in a gallery of shots mostly orphaned from the rest of their original set. I just love that site.

Magic Mouse

Apple has a new mouse that combines a multi–touch trackpad with a mouse. It doesn't do much that you can't already do with a 4–button scrollwheel mouse (although it can do horizontal scrolling without having to reach for the shift key if you don't have a Mighty Mouse). It's just sleeker. It's so flat; I wonder if that is worse on the hand and wrist. At least it no longer has those horrible side squeeze buttons like the Mighty Mouse has. Those would inevitably fire off that function if you were lifting the mouse while playing a frenzied game or something like that. And no more gunk in the tiny Mighty Mouse scrollball, although I never use mine enough to get any build–up (it's on the old G5 to my right here that only gets fired up when I need to debug on 10.4 or PPC, or to archive my MultiAd mail).

The Glory Hole

No, not that kind of glory hole. When I was on the phone with the Apple support guy for Kim's iPhone problem, we were talking about The Glory Hole, a huge pipe that's the spillway for a dam in NoCal. Here's a video of it being skated.

Luxo Jr., Murderer

Most people can recognize Luxo Jr., the Pixar lamp, by now. Fewer have seen its origin, the first project from John Lasseter at Pixar. Now see the terrifying truth behind the life and death of the squeaky little fella.

The Who

We're kicking around the idea of doing Won't Get Fooled Again. Since the organ part is so important, I've been looking for MIDI files of the song that I'll use in my drum brain to play it. I'll have to bring some headphones and play to a click. Haven't done that live since The Dial Tones. I think the hardest part would be making sure the guitar solo is always the correct length. I haven't listened to see if it's already a nice division of 4 or not.

Fiddlin' Around

Kim's wanted a violin for as long as I've known her. She's always wanted to dink around on one to see what it's like to play. Me too. So we found a cheap used one at Music Go Round today. A Karl Knilling from Germany. Actually, it's a 12" viola, so I think the size is more akin to a violin, but its sound must be warmer like a viola. I dunno. Man, the notes are really close together on that little fingerboard. Now I see why it takes so much patience and commitment to play bowed instruments. There's so much going on.

We were looking at everything else they had and wandered into the acoustic guitar room. I've been wanting one the past few months. I ended up not liking the classical guitar I got a few years ago as much as I thought I would. I always used to like playing on them, but now I'd rather have the steel string sound. So I ended up getting a used Ibanez they had there. I just wanted something cheapish and nothing fancy, although this one has lots of perks, like the electronics and built–in tuner.

Went over and helped Geoff fix their invisible fence today, which got broken when they had some yard work done. He found the 2 places where he knew the tracks of the Bobcat excavator ripped up the ground. We fixed the breaks in the wire there, but that didn't fix it. He also had a new driveway put in and was hoping it wasn't broken under there. For the helluvit, I suggested we just tug on the wires that we fixed and see if any of them pulled out. Luckily, that did the trick. The final break was only about a foot from one of the others. Yeeha!

New Music

We ate at Smashburger tonight, cuz I was craving some extremely good beef. Then we stopped over at Down in the Valley. I picked up a live Steve Vai album recorded almost exactly 2 years ago at the State Theater in Minneapolis. I was looking for Cheap Trick's Special One album, which they didn't have, but they did have Sgt. Pepper Live. Yup, they performed the entire album with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra on the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' album—2 shows. Last, but certainly not least is Apocalyptica's Worlds Collide album. That one's in the cans right now. Just finished Helden with Till Lindemann from Rammstein on vocals. It's a German version of Bowie's Heros. Go listen to that sample, and remember that it's all cellos, although there is a guitar somewhere on that track.

Speaking of Rammstein, the new album is almost out—just 3 days to go. 2 tracks on the iTunes Store already. The video for the song named Pussy has been out for a while, and you should only check that out at home when nobody else is around that. You might want to close your eyes too. It's porn. I don't know how much of it is studio trickery, like I'm pretty sure Flake, the geeky keyboardist, doesn't have tits.

Animal Lover

Sounds like this kid loves his imaginary dog a little too much. The first panel I saw was so weird that I had to read the rest (about a third of the way down).

Snow Beetle

What looks kinda like a Volkswagon that had sex with a Cessna, has skis, a big propeller, and a giant cutter from a pencil sharpener? Why, it's this weird Russian thing. There are a few movies down in the comments that are much better than the lame one they put in the post. It moved along just fine, as long as the ground was perfectly flat and had just the right kind of snow packed on it.

Microsoft Sucks; Reason 17,492,039,845

I've been working on changing how we draw text selections on Windows. I had a bunch of source windows open, trying to keep track of where stuff is. Windows decides it has an update (Really? A Windows update?). Every few minutes it would pop up an annoying window telling me that I should restart to apply the update, or wait and do it later. I guess "do it later" really means "keep annoying me every 5 minutes with your stupid window, and if I don't reply to your stupid window, go ahead and restart anyway because Bill Gates knows what's best for me." So while I'm in the kitchen heating up lunch, the fucker decided that—right in the middle of a build—my work is not very important, so it restarted. Thanks, you stupid fuckers. You couldn't design an OS if your life depended on it. Go away. Go work in a ditch. That's really all you can handle. And in the case of Steve Balmer, even that would be too much for him. He should be working at a zoo, flinging his poop at people. That's about his speed, and he already looks the part, the freak.

More Idiots with Guns

What a bunch of pussies. And not one bullet found a target. I guess it's hard to aim when you're concentrating on holding your pants up around your knees.

No Gig

Door's locked—no car chase.

So I was on my way up to Champlin for out gig last night. I was left plenty early to make sure I made it through rush hour traffic, so we could set up at 7 or earlier. Kim called before I got there and relayed a message that we couldn't set up until 7:30 because of the dinner customers. Fuck. The guy who hired us said we could set up at 7. So I got there and checked out the place, since we'd never been there before. The hostess showed me a tiny space they'd cleared out by removing a table or two. There was one outlet. I had no idea where Denny would be able to set up the board. Everybody else showed up later and we went in. They kept seating people at the tables up near the "stage", tables they said they move so we'd have more room. 7:30 rolled around and we asked if we could load in yet. Nope, but as soon as the people at that front table leave we could. That's what the little old Italian lady who's part owner said. 8 comes and goes and we say fuck it and leave. I don't know what the hell they're thinking having music there. It's a really nice looking place with good smelling food. But it's a restaurant, not a live music bar.

So we went down to Mainstreet B&G in Hopkins and saw a good band called The Pearl (whoa, their site really sucks). Chick bass player who also played a near little electric fiddle. Really good and a dynamite stage presence. She played the fiddle on The Devil Went Down to Georgia and Kashmir, which fucking rocked. They also surprised me by playing a Tool song. Nice! The lead guitarist was really good, especially when playing metal type stuff—played Les Pauls through a Mesa Boogie Rect–O–Verb. It was snowing when we left. Not much stuck, but things were a bit white this morning.

I unloaded the truck today. It was still mostly loaded from the weekend before. Drained the hoses. Was going to bring in the rain gauge, but it was already broken from the water in it freezing. The previous one broke when it hailed. Tried to find other things to do outside. It was nice and blustery and it was fun to be out trompin' around in my work boots. Got some chicken breasts and other stuff at Byerly's so we could make that chicken wild rice soup mix that we got at the apple place a while back. Damn, that was good. Nice and herby. We ate 2 servings, refrigerated 2.5, and froze 4. Root beer floats for dessert.

Did You Sniff Glue in '72?

They must've been sniffing something. Just look at these ads from the October 1972 issue of Cycle. I'm pretty sure the bellbottoms on the left chick would be instant chain food on a bike, just as the pants on the guy inspire an instant ass–whooping.



This looks more like a stock Getty image of 2 people getting high in a field.

Suzuki Rotary

I grabbed a small stack of my old Cycle magazines when I was in Keota. Why she threw out all the car magazines and kept these Cycles is beyond me. I much rather'd had those. Still, there's some cool shit in these. Like this Suzuki with a Wankel. I don't remember that. Looks like this bitch got plenty hot, judging by the size of the radiator.

Where It All Began

Decided to gather the various Black Diemond photo scans I have into iPhoto, and published it for all our screaming fans to enjoy.

Division of Sex

Boys can be President. Girls can be Miss America. It says so right here!

Fat Minibike–Riding Twins

Coop hits one out of the park. Damned good read about what we used to have and what there is now. If you remember the fat minibike–riding twins, Evel Knievel, and Jungle Pam's gigantic hooters, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Italian Horror Art

Whoa. This is some cool shit—a Flickr set of old Italian horror comic covers. NSFW if paintings of tits is against office policy. Some of it is kinda dopey, but a lot of it is pretty intense, almost equalling Basil Gogos. And just when you think you've gotten to a series of comparatively lame and safe covers, they go and blow your mind with some really twisted characters, like this one.

Doubt

We watched Doubt last night. Whoa. Meryl Streep once again shows that she can kick ass, here as the principal of a NY catholic school in 1964. From her first line (which I think was "ssstraighten up!") you fear her. Kinda of a mix of the "penguin" from The Blues Brothers and R. Lee Ermey. Those of you who went to catholic school can probably relate more than I can. I only went to church when Mom dragged me there, and I did the catechism thing. Just enough to get a feel for the place. The subject and plot are pretty heavy, but there are still many moments that made me laugh, mainly because Meryl is so good at being a nun. I really liked the movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams (still cute under the heavy habit) were also very good.

Cowboyz

I'm sorry, but they spell it with a 'z'. It's a nice bar way the hell out in Rockford where we played Saturday. It's one of those places that's split into 2 rooms; one has the bar, TVs, and games, the other has the stage. So, those regulars that don't want to go into the other room and appreciate live music won't. We sure won't get any of our friends or fans out there—way too far to drive. Not a lot of people there either. Really nice people working there though. The sound guy works at the place where we buy our PA and lighting gear. My biggest complaint; no chips! I was starving after the 2nd set. The best they could get me was a basket of tortilla chips. I put some salt on 'em for flavor. They have a green room in the basement. We hung there a little, but it's not like we were being trampled by crazed fans upstairs. We did sign the wall. I drew a sucky looking Martian. Shit, shoulda took a picture.

Keota Kids

Cross Country Team in the Keota Eagle. Heh, could the White kid look any more like Rodney? But who's the bald rapper, Cody Uphold?

Lancia Delta S4 = Screaming Satan Batshit Fast

Here's a neat little segment on the history of Lancia in rally racing. Listen carefully to what they say about the Delta S4. My god. It's full of stars.

The Tony Randall Show

I have a faint memory of this show. Maybe if I could see more episodes… They only made 2 seasons. I thought it was pretty funny. It's not hard to be funny when the star is Tony Randall. His line that comes at about 27:20 is classic Tony Randall. Note his girlfriend judge is the ever–annoying Doctor Pulaski from Star Trek, the one who always mispronounced "Data" as "Datta". The court reporter is a funny guy—played Ralph "you have my permission to marry him" Marolla in Arthur.

It was captured off of 16mm film, which is why it looks like that. It also has a bunch of commercials from that period that are fun to see. "Take the Certs breath test," Wilkinson Sword, and Aviance perfume? Those awoke some brain cells that haven't been active for a while.

Music Never Rusts

Metal audio conductors weren't good enough. Thankfully, we can now use liquid wires. I suppose now the audiophiles will be keeping their listening rooms temperature controlled as well, because there's probably some optimal temperature at which the liquid conducts electricity and sounds warmest. The good news is that as soon as their dog chews through the insulation, the conductor will leak out and the whole thing will be useless. They'll probably also sell more of those little stands that hold the wires up off the floor (ya know, because the vibrations in the floor might jostle the electrons in the wires and the whole thing would sound like shit then), because they'll need to keep the liquid even distributed. Don't want too much flowing down to one end and causing a pressure buildup. I'm sure that would make cymbals less shimmery, violins too smokey, and French horns too bitter.