The Thing - as envisioned by Zombie Zombie

Cool, but...

Seriously? Worst sounds you'll ever hear?

Maybe that explains my commute anxiety. Justified!

seraphs and more

Nothing exceptional. Felt like playing with words, fonts.

Whatever, Dave.

Song running through my head all afternoon:

Gang of Four - Armalite Rifle

Bang, bang

Went shooting with Snow and our friend today. It was quite exciting. Started out with kudzu hair (due to a convertable) and ended with gunpowder (due to a gun).



I didn't do too badly for my second time in 10 years, I think.

One of our friend's rounds was defective, and blew up while I was shooting. The blowback was kind of weird - burning feeling on my face and hand, and lots of gunpowder all over my fingers. I didn't know what happened, except that it wasn't right. I looked to my friend and shouted through the earmuffs, "IT SPLATTERED". Not a good thing to yell in a shooting range, seriously.

It destroyed his gun. Extremely upsetting. Used a rented gun for the remainder of our time.

All in all though, it was a great time. I think I could make a happy habit of going to a range. It was very meditative. Also, I want to see a nice cluster around that X sometime.

Well we possess mind vents

How can I not love a song that namechecks both Chuck D and hydrogen? The element. Not some rapper.

Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Development


Note: The whole album is fucking excellent.

The red isn't the red we painted : it's just - rust

Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song) - Fiona Apple


The way she sings that one rust line gets in my head.

Simulcast in GMT

Previously recorded, from Whitechapel open mic thread:

I used to take photos of empty places - parking lots and garages, night-time buildings and streetlights. Dark streets don't seem to hold my eye anymore : this bothers me, sometimes. When I cross the bridge in late evening and I see the slanting sun strobing between the beams, I think, this should be moving me.

The SPCA was a big green pet park in the middle of an industrial zone. Directly across, there was some kind of building rubbish processing place - mountains of rebar and concrete, big earth moving machines kicking them around in great clouds of dust. I stood and stared but didn't wonder where my camera was.

I wax and wane among the verbal and the visual. Sometimes I hang suspended in between, trying to diagram sentences, dance about architecture. Sometimes afternoon becomes too early, sometimes midnight becomes late. The in-betweenings are so strange for me. I know my states, like valences. The indeterminate has that unfinished feeling, between freeway exits, stitches, channels in the dim hours. The uncertainty of not just where I am but a doubtfulness about where I was, and a lack of confidence about where to go next.

I am annoyed by my own posturing, but I crave validation. I crawl in and out of my shell like a creature not long from the sea. I forget to drink; I rarely drink to forget.

It's not so much that I'm a seeker of wisdom and meaning, it's just that you can only play so many video games before you wonder - wasn't there something else I was going to do? I want to make art - I want to write - I want to invent - I want to leave a footprint on the world larger than my tired calcium and my flung dna. I want my spirit to rise and agitate the future.

I want the sound of insects and electronic devices to ring in the heads of people I've never met and for them to thrill at it, confounded.

Quality Cat Song Entertainment + Dancing

The cat doesn't sing or dance, but the song and dance is still quality.

Poor Sparta.

The Mean Kitty Song

Laibach covers Queen, check

Laibach - Geburt Einer Nation



I forgot how great Laibach is.

unternet do not fail my tired eyes

I'm getting some new glasses, for computer and close work, due to being blind as a bat who doesn't have echolocation. I can't find a picture of them online, but they're something like these:



Yesssss. Real pictures in a week or two, par usual.

Aha!! Further searching yielded success. Leaving prior search results for others trying to find these damned things. But these are the ones:

An intervention might be in order.

[UN] We've brought you all together here today so you can see how much your fellow first world countries love you.
[Canada] Hi, Sam.
[US] *sulks*
[UN] We're each going to read something we've prepared for you, and then you can talk, and then we'll be done. ok?
[UK] I'll go first. US, you were once our beautiful little colony - a rebel to be sure, but proud of your freedom...
[US] YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD. I'M OUTTA HERE.

Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.

Happy Trinity Day

comics :: i has them

and now, i celebrates

comicsgasm

local having a clearance of their back room.
hundreds of boxes of stuff, $1 each, except for people who got there at 10 (me) for which they were .50.

i dug through boxes for an hour and a half and came up with 38 comics, four of which are going to the kid and one to my sister

i'm going back later, fortified with caffeine

there was also a wonderful camaraderie of the seeker of the arcane and dusty and lost in the room. and a smell of old paper and ink.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk

Well, no. But cucpcakes and books.

xkcd: living my life since... well, whatever

xkcd gets it right. Again.

Things that are good

The Umbrella Academy

So entertaining. Go read it, right now.

What is awesome

Telling your 8 year old daughter that you got tickets to a football game - and she knows that it is European football, not American football.

Footie!!!!

I fought the law

Nothing like a little air guitar to start your day.

Long live The Clash.

2nd gig

authenticity. or is it?

1/365

xkcd: making me happy since, well, forever

Review: Today's emergency warning siren test

The test of the emergency alarm system on the Cal campus Wednesday, July 2, was utterly sub-par. With an initial long ramp up and tone with no warning, it didn't even begin to rival the subtle intonations of previous sirens. Indeed, it completed without fanfare, only to be duplicated a few minutes later with announcement.

The announcement was also sub-par. While adequately robotic, the pacing was completely wrong and unbelievable. It could very well be a Commie up there, pretending to be a human initiating a test.

The second test siren was also truly a disappointment. One solid tone, with no undulation whatsoever.

The only redeeming feature of this entire performance were the three chirps leading up to and after the human (or robot) announcement - perfect pitch, pace, and intonation, as always.

Overall, this was the worst civil defense warning system test I've ever born witness to. Only time will tell if the operators can return to their previous stellar level of craftsmanship - for siren operation is not just a job, it's a passion.

correlations

Correlation:

I spent all day on Telegraph Ave
I can't get the smell of hippie incense off of me

I woke up at around 6:30 - early, for me. I had breakfast, watched some Tivo, did some exercises. Took a nap from 9:00 to 10:00. I can't really remember what I did then - paid some bills, fucked around. Around noon or one, headed to Telegraph to sell some CDs.

I traded in a bunch of cds at Amoeba - the guy there was kind of a dick. I don't know what his problem was, but I'm pretty sure he underestimated my stuff. I had about 60 cds, about 1/3 of which were compilations and stuff I can understand being worth a quarter. But most of the rest were IDM/electronica stuff that is always in demand, some of it collectible. But they had swooped off my CDs and put the cash in my hand, so what the fuck. I'm not selling to them again. I'd rather give it away than sell it for pennies to people who act like jerks.

Went by Industrial Tattoo to look at portfolios and talk to someone about a prospective tattoo. Talked to a super nice guy who is an apprentice there. I like the shop a lot - clean, friendly. Totally unlike the crowded and dark Zebra across the way. I've seen nice work from Industrial, and I really like one artist's style... so when/if I decide to get it, they seem like a good option.

Bought a few books : Book of Leonard Cohen poems, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, a Ghost in the Shell novelization, and a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - which I'd lost my copy of a long time ago.

I also bought a big bag of spearmint. Seriously, to drink. Now everything that doesn't smell like hippie incense smells like mint. Yum. I actually put sachets of it in my closets.

Snow and I had lunch at a pretty decent taqueria. I had a gigantic pile of nachos, which tried to kill me. We headed back to Snow's - I took a shower, and we alternately napped.

We watched more MI:5 streamed from Netflix, and it is just fucking awesome. I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't pull punches, and it does things US tv would never do.

So yeah. I still smell like hippie incense, after all of that. go figure.