Topics

I would just like to record for posterity, via this permanent medium that is the internet [1], that every single MP3 file residing in my iTunes library is either a legitimate rip from a CD that I physically own, or an authorized download from the artist's own site.

Does this mean I win some kind of prize?

Cheers!

Jim

[1] Little known fact: the internet is carved in stone.

Every time Google scans a page, a team of dedicated Italian artisans carve a detailed graphic representation of it onto a tablet of the finest Carrera marble. These tablets are then stored, like headstones, in a vast underground complex resembling a huge graveyard just outside the Poughkeepsie city limits.

These thousands of acres of headstones are patrolled by an army of highly trained Rhesus monkeys equipped with wi-fi laptops. Every time Google receives a page request, the monkeys locate the relevant tablet, re-code the html on the fly and upload the page for viewing in your browser.

Now, I know exactly what you're thinking, my friends. You're thinking: "Wow! Those would have to be some pretty highly trained Rhesus monkeys." To which I can only reassure you that, yes, yes they are.

Still sceptical? Ask yourself this: have you ever met a Rhesus monkey trainer? No? That's because they all work for Google.

FACT.

[not safe for work!]

Apologies if this has been posted before ...

Our own Mr Bishop has a link on his blog to upcoming Anderson artist Dave Taylor's blog, which has some Anderson samples, and a lot more besides (some it not safe for work!).

Suffice to say, it demonstrates what talented and versatile artist Mr Taylor is ...

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://d-taylor-comics-music-ford-mustangs.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Yowza!

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/943/3216/1600/2%203cwee.jpg">

So ... full of gin and watching the "100 Greatest Movies" (again) on C4 ... I have the following shameful admissions to make:

1) I don't rate Martin Scorcese (apart from his eyebrows)

2) I don't like Mafia movies (honourable exception = Miller's Crossing)

3) I've never seen Raging Bull or the Taxi Driver

4) The last 45 minutes of Apocalypse Now are complete bollocks

5) Charlie Chaplin is not, and has never been, remotely funny

6) There are only two John Wayne films that are worth watching -- True Grit and the Shootist

7) Everything Woody Allen has ever made is crap

8) True Romance is the best Tarantino movie, largely because he didn't direct it

9) Everything with subtitles is bollocks except 'Cyrano de Bergerac'

10) Mike Leigh can fuck off

My God ... I feel better for getting that off my chest!

Cheers

Jim

You gotta love those design guys at Microsoft ...

"Well, gee ... how do make our new Zune MP3 player different from the iPod, then?"

"Say, I've an idea ... the iPod is cool, right? So why don't we make the Zune, well, not cool?"

"Good thinking! We can make it in white, grey and, umm ... brown!"

Mmm. Nice.

Cheers!

Jimhttp://images.appleinsider.com/zune-official-glamour-shots.gif">

No, honestly ... I notice The Mighty Gor has been absent from this esteemed forum (and also largely from the Prog) for some time now.

Given that one of his later posts referred to a job offer he was seriously considering, I was just wondering what the status of Mr Rennie was these days.

Anyone know? Gordon, are you out there?

Cheers!

Jim

No, honestly ... I notice that The Mighty Gor has been absent from this esteemed forum (and also largely from the Prog) for some time now.

Given that one of his later posts referred to a job offer he was seriously considering, I was just wondering what the status of Mr Rennie was these days.

Anyone know? Gordon, are you out there?

Cheers!

Jim

[FUCK?]

Apropos nothing at all, other than a general sense of outrage ...

I was round at some friends' house this afternoon for a barbecue (yes -- it was cold, and it was windy, but it's the August Bank Holidy and, fuck it, we were going to bloody well have a barbecue) and as I disposed of my second can of lager, I noticed the advisory printed on the can.

This informed me that the can contained 2.2 units of alcohol and that my recommended daily limit was four units.

What. The. FUCK?

Two cans of lager and I'm over my Tony-Blair-Sanctioned-Daily-Limit ...?

Fuck off! I had a gin and tonic for fucking breakfast today, and I don't drink a quarter of what I used to! [1]

Bloody nanny state.

Cheers!

Jim

[1] Personal bests:

Volume without vomiting (pub): 13.5 Newcastle Browns (the 0.5 was someone else's that they couldn't finish).

Volume without vomiting (home): equal tie - one full bottle of 40% ABV vodka (with mixer) followed by four cans of Kestrel Super. Or: Twenty-four 330ml cans of Heineken. That was depressing, because I didn't even feel pissed at the end of it. Never touched the stuff since.

Endurance: my 25th birthday.Started at two in the afternoon. Steady consumption of mixed drinks at the rate of one pint/double every 15-20 minutes. Stopped at 4.30 the following morning. Admission: performance enhancing pharmaceuticals involved.

I have tickets to see the Fields of the Nephilim[1] in November.

I can't actually put into words how inordinately pleased this makes me ...

Cheers!

Jim

[1] Although, as far as I know, it's actually Carl McCoy and a new bunch of musicians, but what the hell.

Then what you need is one of these!

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/" target="_blank">Hell, yeah!

Keep those CIA mind control microwaves out of your brain, without sacrficing your all-important sartorial elegance ...

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://www.ericisgreat.com/tinfoilhats/index.html" target="_blank">Stylish ...

Sorry about this, folks - I know that someone posted a very similar query to this a little while ago, but I can't find the thread, and my circumstances (from memory) are a little different, so here goes:

I'm currently getting screwed on my NTL package and would actually save about ?20 a month if I switch to one of their packages including broadband.

Since broadband is uncharted territory for me, I need some help!

We currently have my venerable G4 running OS9.1, my wife's bog standard Dell box running XP and will shortly be adding a Mac Mini as a home entertainment centre, which will be running whatever flavour of OSX is current.

I need an idiot-proof solution to give all these machines access to the broadband connection - I'm assuming that I will need some kind of router for this, but none of the existing machines have wireless network capability.

Do I need to add Airport cards to the Macs? What about the XP box? How much configuration is needed, and how difficult is it to set up?

Confusion, she reigns! Assistance much appreciated ...

Cheers!

Jim

Maybe everyone already knows this, but Gibson has posting draft fragments of the novel he's currently writing on his blog.

He blogs infrequently, and the snippets are interspersed with other stuff, but it's worth checking out these, and the entries for the past few months, if you're a Gibson fan, as I am.

Regardless of whether it relates to the new book, his thoughts are usually entertaining.

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_07_01_archive.asp" target="_blank">Blog!

... My loathing of the whole user experience that is Windows XP Pro ...

Does anyone know how to stop this bastard OS from popping up a self-congratulatory little message every fucking time I send a document to the printer? Yes, I know the document has been sent to the printer! The printer is eight feet from where I'm sitting. I can hear the document come out of the printer. When I send a document to the printer, I damn well expect it to come out of the printer I sent it to. Don't announce the fact like it's something you should be proud of, you pathetic piece of shit; you never offer a helpful explanation when the document doesn't come out of the printer ...

Gaah!

Jim

... To everyone at IBM and Microsoft for doing their bit to make my working day just that little bit more frustrating than it needs to be.

Firstly, thank you to the Lotus Notes development team, for setting up the contacts system so that you can change a person's e-mail address in every one of the three places that it is immediately visible only to discover that the e-mails are STILL sent to the old address. That is, unless you think you to navigate through to a tabbed box marked "Advanced" and change it there.

And to those responsible for Microsoft Word. Thank you. Why on earth would I want the Open/Save/Insert Picture dialogue boxes to take me back to the same folder that I was JUST F*CKING USING rather than taking me to the "My Documents" directory every time?

And, given that if I want to insert multiple pictures into a Word document, the fact that I have to navigate all the way back to the folder I've saved them in from "My Documents" for each image isn't at all frustrating. No. Never mind, you've included the option to select multiple images from the Insert Picture dialogue.

Obviously, when using this feature I'll want the pictures inserting into the Document in PRECISELY THE REVERSE ORDER TO THE ORDER I SELECTED THEM IN.

Someone bring me a hammer.

Gaah!

Jim

Comedy gold, I tell you ...

Worth having a look around the whole site ... if it's a fake, it's a pretty convincing one.

Cheers!

Jim

Link: http://www.vintagepbks.com/images/satyr/ember/el367.jpg" target="_blank">Ole!

Hopefully. Thread 16000 - and it's mine! All mine!

Cheers

Jim

Me. That's who.

The Fields of the Nephilim's "Mourning Sun" finally came out today.

It's fifteen years since the last proper Fields album (no, "Fallen" does _not_ count) and the new one is excellent - it's a slightly heavier progression from  "Elizium."

It's huge, sprawling and indulgent; ; it casts a disdainful eye over any current band with aspirations to doom, gloom or gothic pretensions and just says: "Amateurs."

Admittedly, it's basically a Carl McCoy project, but, fuck, I've missed the Fields.

Cheers

Jim

... which I don't seem to be able to post to ...

"Editing 2000AD obviously isn't a piece of piss, but it seems in life there's always plenty of excuses for mediocrity. "

Not specific to 2000AD, but I was continually told "We're too busy to read your synopsis" by another publication who shall remain nameless [1].

Since, at the time, they had the same number of staff that I had, and I was responsible for producing four classified ad publications a week (including creating/amending artwork for the 200+ trade advertisers in each edition) while they were producing two titles a _month_ most of whose content was created by freelancers, I can only assume they had a different definition of "busy" to me!

"Course, then you need more money for them... but 2000AD has been on a downward spiral as far as sales go for a long time and you don't change that by clickin' yer heels together. "

I believe there has been a measurable (although possibly not dramatic) improvement in sales under Rebellion's ownership.

For my part, I think they should recruit a really hard-assed advertising sales team. The demographic of 2000AD's audience is dream for selling computer games, videos, DVDs, consoles and PC hardware. Get four pages of adverts into the f*cker and put the pagination up to accomodate it.

Cheers

Jim

... which, regrettably, I cannot store.

I'm just fishing to see if anyone might be interested in taking 'em off my hands as a job lot (provided the price is reasonable, obviously). I don't want to faff about splitting them up, and I'm not desperate to make a massive amount of cash as long as they go to a good home!

(I may consider selling the US format stuff as a separate lot to the UK mags, but I really _need_ to get rid of these, because I have _no room!_)

A detailed list will follow as soon as I get 'em here and catalogue 'em, but amongst all this stuff (off the top of my head) are:

UK

2000AD:
Progs 100 - 1200 with a gap between the late 900s and early 1100s. Most in fair condition, a few completely knackered and some pretty much mint (bought to replace ones I'd cut the covers off when I was 10). At least one Halo Jones issue signed by Alan Moore.

Megazine:
Pretty much the lot, I think, all in decent condition.

Deadline:
About the first twenty or so issues.

Eagle:
The 80s one. First year or two, #1 still with (crap) free gift!

US FORMAT

Swamp Thing: from Moore's 'American Gothic' through the whole of Veitch's run. Some issues signed by Moore.

Watchmen: complete set. #1 signed by Moore & Gibbons.

V for Vendetta (DC): complete set.

Doom Patrol: whole of Morrison's run.

Animal Man: whole of Morrison's run.

Adventures of Luther Arkwright MS (Valkyrie): complete set and I'll throw in a signed poster.

Hellblazer: first 40-odd issues.

Sandman: first 20-odd issues.

Legends of the Dark Knight: Gothic (Morrison).

X-Men: most of Claremont's post-John-Byrne run (I think ... I may have flogged these!)

Enigma: complete set (Milligan, Fegredo, utterly fab).

The Extremist: complete set (Milligan, McKeever, ditto).

Stray Toasters: complete set (Sienkiewicz ... although I may be the only person who thought this was a wonderful series).

Elektra Assassin: complete set, Miller and Siekiewicz, #1 & 8 signed by Sienkiewicz.

Sh*tloads of Dark Horse stuff: DHP, Mayhem (featuring the Mask, of Jim Carrey fame), Aliens (first three series, written by Mark 'Timecop' Verheiden), Predator, Terminator ...

Plus God-only-knows what else. Certainly some dross, but a pile of real quality stuff, too.

Anyone provisionally interested?

As I said - full list to follow, but I think that's most of the best stuff above ...

Cheers

Jim