I swear I'll start writing my own entries soon.

My pirate name is:

Mad Morty Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

A mallard is trapped in an indy rock conversation.
One of the best.
Can you spot the Mark Twain reference?
Funny until you realize it's all too real. And we will be buried under ice.
Awesome  and Awesome-er.

And some real news.

Aww yeah.

    Happy Resurrection Day.  That's what they called it at services this morning.  Not Easter.  I like it, though.  It sounds more religious.  Less secular.  More creepy.  All of which is true.  And the communion?  Matzos.  I loved it!  Not that I had any.  It would have been a bit weird for me.  I'm open to learning about other religions and all, but cannibalistic idol worship practices are just something I can't seem to get into.  After that I went to check out some apartments.  The neighborhood looks pretty nice and they are the cheapest we found.  This Saturday I'll make an appointment to look around inside.  Here's hoping.  If anyone knows things, good or bad, about the Princeton Arms then please tell.

    On a different note, I found some great links today.  Here they are:

• Lord of the Rings.  It's done with Marshmallow Peeps.  Enough said, eh?  I found it linked off this site which is also interesting.
  

• Yet another way that Bush is breaking the law.  Now, with Ipods.
  

• I know I usually rant against fan-fic but this was too good to pass up.  It's McGriddle fan-fiction.  Yes, a fan-fic community based on that heathenistic, mouthwatering duke of guilty pleasures.  This one is too good to miss.
  

    That's it for now, but I will try to post more than before.  I'm also working on a gallery from my recent Disney trip.  Very fun, very eventful.

    I nearly forgot!!!  After a few months of forgetting I had a subscription, I'm back to watching my Netflix.  If you have any movie suggestions, please leave a comment.

        Well folks, it was that time again.  Yes, The PREx called and I heeded.  My tape adapter for my mp3 player has broken.  The cable jiggles channels of sound in and out so I'm stuck on CDs.  If you've sat shotgun in my car recently then you will already have seen what happens when I convert to CDs again.  I try to keep the same amount of music handy.  How many CDs on a 20 gig IRiver?  A lot.  So it's a bit of a mess.  What do I do?  I go get more CDs.

Jelousy and Diamond Autistic Daughters	III Yoshida Brothers	Rock Animals Shonen Knife
Be Careful What You Call Home Paul Duncan	Tales of the Forgotten Melodies Wax Tailor	French Cuisine Alif Tree
Radio Blackout T. Raumschmiere	Blitzkrieg Pop T. Raumschmiere	Spike Elvis Costello

    I can't give a full review right now because... I just got them.  In fact, a good number were random picks so I don't even know what the bands are like.  There is a standout among the new ones, though.  The Yoshida Brothers.  From the sampling that I've had they sound like a pop/jazz group that only performs on traditional Eastern instruments.  And it's good.  The other buys that shocked my socks was the 2 discs from T. Raumschmiere.  I heard a single off of Radio Blackout a few years back, "Monstertruckdriver", and have been dying to get my hands on it but not pay outrageous import prices.  I got these 2 for $1.99 and $3.99.  Not bad.  PREx shall provideth.  The song sounds like a mix between Kish Kash Basement Jaxx and Flood They Might Be Giants.  Having a hard time imagining that?  You should, it's a pretty screwed up combo.  But now I have that song, along with what looks to be the video and 3 or 4 more videos too.  Shiny.

    Ah, the other musical tid-bit I've been talking up: K.T. Tunstall's live performance of "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree".  There it is.  I'm not even gong to include the auto-stream that OurMedia generated because the audio is crap.  She looks a lot like Jewel, so don't be put off by that shock.  The performance is sick.  She has this loop pedal that handles like a champ.  The song sounds, well, not like the album version, but certainly not like it was performed with only her on stage.

Nutty McNut-nut

    As some of you can tell, things have been a little nuts. For instance, take work. When I'm not explaining to a customer that a compilation CD is by different artists, and that all the tracks are not the same, I'm having my car shrink-wrapped. Yeah. Shrink wrapped. For freshness. I have some Polaroids but they aren't scanned yet. I'll let you guys see them later.

    For those of you who I haven't invited yet, Allison is in The Rocky Horror Show. You people should come and see her. And other people. There's sex and cross-dressing and... well, it's Rocky. It's obvious what it has. Come and see it. It's at Villagers Theater. It plays every Friday and Saturday night at 8 pm, and Sundays at 2 pm. There's a special midnight show on the 24th, but it's already sold out. I told you guys to call for tickets. Anyway, I've been 3 times already and it's really fun. Shout-backs, props, tons of fun. So come. Just call 732-873-2710 to get tickets. To get there just take 1 north to 18 north. Take that to the Easton Ave. exit and take Easton until you get to DeMott Lane. A left onto DeMott and take that down to the Franklin Township Municipal Complex on your right. It's in there. If you want better directions, gimme a call.

    Now, onto my life. I've been re-reading Transmetropoitan recently. The first volume was put together nearly 10 years ago. I remember reading it and thinking, "My god, this city is nuts. Spider is nuts. And the technology is fucking nuts!" There's two main types of future sci-fi. There's satirical and there's prophetic. Hard science fiction tends to be prophetical, predicting the coming of tech. This is Greg Bear, Jack McDevitt and the like. Satirical parodies the present in many aspects. This is stuff like Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem and Yevgeny Zamyatin. Most of Asimov's better work falls into both.
Transmet is satirical. That's why it's so strange that a lot of the tech is spot on. The politics are disgustingly real, but that's the point of the series. There is a presidential race and both candidates turn out to be of equal evil, no lesser. There's corruption; journalism is pressured byy the government to put on a happy face. Religions and cults have turned into the same thing. Sexuality is completely marketed. The society is ours, just louder.
    The tech, though, is also really close. Feed sites, for example, are streaming sources of information. People are out on the streets taking pictures and interviews to put up on feeds. Sometimes real news stories are covered up by the media and only picked up on private feeds. Sometimes these feeds are then bought by mass media and show. Feeds sound an awful lot like blogs, with their rising acceptability in the journalist sphere. The streams are just like atom and rss. What you're reading now. People on the streets writing them and posting? Hi. Feeds picking up news and the media passing? Did anyone out there see news on the Pittsburgh riots after the Superbowl? I bet you only did if you read 'burgh blogs.
    Spider has a set of glasses that take pics. They have an incredible 2 gig storage. At the time that was like talking about a terabyte. Of course, we'll get those soon as well. Pretty much the only thing we're missing are bowel disruptors and foglet communities. The sad thing is that the politics haven't gotten any farther from their cartoonish portrayals.

    I guess I'll close with those two b-sides I promised. These comprise volumes 4 and 5 of my box set. A bit less cohesive as the soundtrack parts, these are just theme comps. Not that I'm knocking them. They're good. So, listen, love 'em and count how many of the bands you never even heard of. I'll put up a track list next time.

4 - B Sides of Off Kilter Folk

5 - B Sides of Camp Await

... And we're back.

      Like I said, my good days are few and far between.  Today consisted of putting in for bereavement time and being told that making a new drink for our "Staff Creations" menu was a firing offense.  Fun fun fun.  I just think it's fuckin' stoopid to do that.  Not they bereavement thing, the drink thing.  I got the OK from the cafe supervisor and we have a big official "Staff Creations" menu in a large 3-ring binder.  And a price sheet.  It's considered stealing?  Do me a favor!  First of all, it was a small (literally, that was the size of the cup) drink.  I don't "create" a new drink every day.  And we get free coffee to begin with.  Which I don't partake of all that much.  I stick to tea and water.  For another, it's a fucking good drink!  Ass.
      On the brighter side of life, I've finished a mix I promised Jeff for Hannukah.  Not exactly an even trade, I know, but it's something.  It started as a simple mix, evolved into a holiday gift and then grew into a 5 volume extravaganza.  It's all complete, assembled and volumized, titled as well.  There are 3 main discs.  They are each soundtracks to ideas of films.  I gave Jeff an early listen to volume one.  If someone's going to get an advanced copy, it's going to be Jeff.  Well, me, then Jeff.  Anyway.  He liked it.  A lot.  Something about having "excellent focus on constancy and flow".  Of course he also said that I'm "an introspective but to the point of mental claustrophobia".
      The first three volumes are the main event.  After that there are two b-side collections.  Tonight, I will give you the first 3.  Soon, the b sides.  These are permanent links with unlimited bandwidth.  So download whenever you want, as often as you'd like.  This ain't no crappy-ass 7 day event.  Just to let you know.
      And so, I present you with

Dory My Firned
A Soundtrack in Parts

1 - Where a Brooding Hero is Introduced

2 - A Party Takes Place

3 - A Journey of Self Involved Discovery

      To listen, simply rename the .mms to .zip.  Extract and enjoy.   The up coming b sides are entitled 4 - B Sides of Off Kilter Folk and 5 - B Sides of Camp Await.  They are less coherent, but still carefully constructed.  The choices were more random, the placement more deliberate.  When I post them I'll also include a full track list for all the discs.  I apologize, but dics one is about 20 seconds over the 80 minute mark.  I may trim a bit and repost.  Till then, that is all.

Today was (finally) a good day.

       After an incredibly trying week, today was a good day. And I damn well deserved it. It started when I woke up, slowly and comfortably in the arms of my lover, with a terrible rain. A rain that washed away the snow and ice I was supposed to shovel today. Many a w00t was said. I came downstairs to the news that my car was fine, with a new battery, and ready to be picked up. Hoorah!        What could be next? A gift of A History of Violence (which I keep wanting to call A Short History of Violence...)? Finding that the Regal on route 1 is playing Fight Club for the forseable future? How about both. But I wasn't in the mood for Fight Club. Not today. Instead Al and I headed into Princeton and found that Tristram Shandy is playing at the cozy little theatre there, where I last went to and saw Pi. The movie was great, and an extended review will come shortly, but before that we did a PREx run. And look what I got. Now, keep in mind I haven't listened to all of these, nor even heard some of the bands, but it is still quite a good haul.

Stay Awake	Satan's Circus
Who Killed....... The Zutons? by The Zutons	The Way to Salvation by King Missle
All This Useless Beauty by Elvis Costello and the Attractions	Business as Usual by Men at Work
Singles Collection by Spandau Ballet	Orson Welles at the Movies

       Stay Awake is the only album I've had a chance to listen to. It's an interesting mix though; it's A bunch of A*M artists "reinterpreting" old Disney songs. Highlights include "Stay Awake" by Suzanne Vega, "Heigh Ho" by Tom Waits and Sun Ra's version of "Pink Elephants on Parade". It's all very creepy, all a bit off. In a good way. And the two pieces in the liner notes, one by Hal Willner and the other by Leonard Maltin, are both worth a read. The close of my day? Thomas' Sweets: chocolate malt and chocolate mousse ice cream, followed by a listen to Stay Awake and a more hit or miss album, The Gershiwn Project.

A quick update from the outpost

       This will be a fragmented update as my life doesn't have much of a linear flow at the moment.  The biggest thing is that I will be going to ComicCon.  I got a free 3 day pass from work and I think that qualifies me as hot shit.  Don't worry; you the viewer are yourself justified in your envy.  Of both my ComicCon excursion and my proper use of the semicolon.  Bitches.  I 've been working on my schedule and think I may take the con solo.  My tastes differ from most going (not graphic design or game or anime or manga oriented).  I am taking the panel discussion/comic writer/film screening route.  I am more a connoisseur than a fanboy.  If you ask anyone I like or work with (wink) then you'll know that I have not been this excited over an event since the president was chocking on a pretzel.  Ah, good times those were.  

       Moving backwards in time, I recently had a lovely Valentines day.  Al and I went ahead and celebrated it on the 10th, thereby beating the rush.  It was lovely, though there were some rocky instances dealing with trains.  We went to see The Producers.  It was funny.  Most of you know how I feel about Mel Brooks, but this was still good.  Comparisons to the movie don't apply.  What does is the energy it was assembled with.  The book, music, sets and all that.  Very well done.  In my own personal universe this sets the bar for a standard.  That may sound like a backhanded compliment but it's not.  Kudos, Mel.

       I've started a new book.  Well, not exactly new.  It was published in '98 and I bought it a few months ago.,  But I just found it in an old back-pack.  So it's new to me.  Anyway, I started it tonight and came across this entry:

I tied to copy other children but lacked their tough skin.  I was a glove turned inside-out, softness showing.  I was the visceral place between mouth and bowel, the region of digestion and rumination.  No doubt it is my spleen that refuses to locate the seat of reason in the head.  No doubt it is my natural acidity that fears the milkiness of the heart.        This story is a journey through the thinking gut.

And that is just sexy.  The book is called GUT Symmetries.  It plays on both the physical gut, the emotional seat of intuition and the G.U.T. (Grand Unified Theory).  It's romance, poetic prose and quantum physics.  Just a few pages in and my review is "lick this book". 

       In other book news, Trickster Makes This World is coming along beautifully.  I'm loving it, taking notes and readying myself for a series of short stories that have been turning around on the wheel for quite some time. 

      That's about it for now.  I hope to get some writing done this week.  It's been a while since I've been able to give myself time and put things down.  Maybe a portfolio for a newspaper application...