Preference Personnelle
Friday, May 31
 
wow. these satellite tv smart cards sure make an interesting story. favorite tidbits: in italy at one point, 75% of 4 million satellite tv users were using hacked smart cards. for years, using hacked cards in canada was, uh, not quite illegal. itv digital chief executive tony ball to investors: "itv digital/dtt is completely pirated, a joke. for seven dollars you can buy a card for all channels."

it's old news, but who is this idiot? he's from 'business 2.0,' a magazine which i'd always thought was, like, some sick hybrid of 'wired,' 'money' and that cnbc show, 'news.com.' their front page has something like forty images on it, nested tables, and the not-amazingly shocking information that 'business 2.0' is somehow connected to 'fortune,' 'money,' and cnet. it so figures. they also have a story about wendy's marketing post-dave thomas' death. (the 'formatted for printing' version of the article still features two big sidebars and color pictures. why bother?) and did somebody tell me that there is beef fat in the wendy's frosty? i wasn't able to find confimation online. on the other hand, i didn't find it on the snopes urban legends page either.
 
 
i think gallagher is among the least funny people who ever lived. comedy central, however, disagrees. it's too bad cc's so lowbrow. if only the world could support more than one basic cable comedy channel.
 
 
things to quit: cigarettes, soda.
 
Thursday, May 30
 
adrianne and i went for a walk on the towpath today. we saw, like, eleven frogs. it was astonishing. update: okay, at this point the walk was yesterday. freaking blogger. update, pt 2: okay, posting from the blogger page worked just fine. i don't know why blogbot and blogbuddy haven't been working. goddammit. update, pt 3: my best guess, i suppose, is that the blogger people changed something, thus making blogbot/blogbuddy not quite work. i ought to look into that possibility some more.
 
Tuesday, May 28
 
the grammies, just after whitney houston got arrested with that half-ounce in hawaii? rosie o'donnell was hosting. apparently whitney had been a repeated no-show on rosie. rosie made a joke along the lines of 'the doobie brothers are here tonight. whitney houston's a big fan of the doobies.' whitney, in the audience, flipped her off. the gesture didn't make the telecast.
 
 
it's not like i'm the sort of weblogger who has lots of fans who want to buy me expensive stuff, but, just in case, i sure want this keyboard.
 
Monday, May 27
 
sounds in space--narrated by ken nordine.  that's right, an 'alt' tag behind an image.i desperately want this album.
 
 
my neighbors are barbecuing (with charcoal) and listening to 'get your freak on.'
 
 
this law & order has janeane garofalo in it. i didn't know she was in a l&o episode. hmm.
 
 
DSL is the only real option for broadband, unless you live in the ghetto, then TW would probably be able to deliver on there promises, because you will be the only one on the network.

this slashdot poster can sum up the dsl vs cable question in one sentence, but he can't use the right their/there/they're.
 
Sunday, May 26
 
(taken directly from aretha, who found it on somebody's bme page. i have a filter for multi-recipient emails, so sending one out myself seems hypocritical. too bad, though, as i really dig these things.)
Hey everyone... here's one of those questionnaires that I found myself compelled to fill out.

What facial feature do you find the most attractive on others?
eyes, by far.

Would you vote for a woman candidate for president?
of course. i would've voted for victoria woodhull.

Would you marry for money?
in, like, a green card situation? sure. in, like, an anna nicole smith one? nope.

Have you had braces?
i still have some, even. i kinda quit going to the orthodontist, and none of the dentists i've gone to since seem too inclined to remove 'em.

Do you pluck your eyebrows?
no.

Do you ever cut or hurt yourself?
like o.j. simpson, i'm always getting unexplainable cuts on my hands.

When was the last time you had a hickey?
i don't remember. i can safely say it was a good while ago.

Could you live without a computer?
well, my job depends on 'em, and without my job i would eventually starve to death. or just get a different job.

Do you use ICQ, AOL Buddy list etc...?
52483482/kookbox/dzhos--but no, i use trillian. i'd encourage other windoze users to do the same.

If so, how many people are on your list(s)?
not counting doubles, alter egos, bots and whatnot, about twenty.

If you could live in any past time period, which would it be?
uh, the late 1990s? i like the present.

Do you drink enough water?
i come close.

Do you wear shoes in the house or take them off?
off, generally.

What is your favorite fruit?
blackberries

Do you eat wheat bread or white?
yes. i prefer rye though, or pumpernickel, or a nice sourdough.

What is your favourite place to visit?
i like moving water.

What is the last movie you saw?
never too young to die

Do you kiss on the first date?
sometimes.

Are you photogenic?
far from it.

Do you dream in color or black and white?
yes.

Are you wearing fingernail polish?
certainly not. i'm a grown man.

Is it chipped or fresh?
is what? and again with the two choices presented as mutually exclusive when, in fact, they're not.

Do you have any dimples?
no.

Do you remember being born?
of course not. i'm not convinced it's possible to do so. putting the phrase 'remember your own birth' into google produced 24 results, the vast majority of them either related to futurama or, uh, new-agey. oh, and krishnamurti agreed with me.

Why do you take surveys?
why, to contribute to the world's body of knowledge, of course.

Do you drink alcohol?
i do.

Did you like or do you like high school?
not much.

When you are asleep do you like being kissed awake?
sure.

Do you like sunrises or sunsets the most?
sunsets.

Do you want to live to be 100?
i don't have a very strong opinion one way or the other.

Do you think women should be expected to shave their body hair?
should be? like it's a moral issue.

Do you like salty food or sugary food the most?
aren't there, like, at least three other tastes? maybe i like umami food the most. of the two, i'd say sweet.

Is a flat stomach important to you?
no.

Do you or have you played with a ouija board?
yes, 'played.' i wasn't trying to contact the spirit world, i was playing one of the worst board games i've ever encountered.

Are you loyal?
i have my limits.

Are you tolerant of other people's beliefs?
hmm. i'm polite.

When you watch movies at home, do you like the lights on or off?
off's better for that faux-theatrical experience.

Do you believe in magic?
of course not. i've seen the fox specials.

Do you have nightmares frequently?
i'd say infrequently.

Do you like your nose?
it's okay. my favorite part is the scars from old nostril piercings.

Do you like abstract art?
like anything else, most of it is crap. the good stuff's wonderful, though.

Do you think you can draw well?
no.

Do you listen to music daily?
yes. lee perry, right this minute.

Do you like to watch cartoons?
i love 'em. my favorite is worker and parasite.

How many pairs of shoes do [you] have in your closet?
in my closet? one.

Do you like to wear the same shoes everyday or do you like a variety?
i like a little variety. mostly weather-dependent, though i have a few pairs of activity-specific shoes. cycling, hiking, looking like a tourist.

Do you write poetry?
yes.

Do you snore?
not to the best of my knowledge.

Do you sleep more on your back, front, or sides?
sides.

Would you rather have a poodle or a rottweiler?
hmm. i guess the rott.

Do you lick stamps?
i buy the self-stick kind.

Do you use an electric can opener?
no.

Have you ridden in a hot air balloon?
no.

Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain?
emotional.

Do you think balding men should shave their heads?
'should' is just as weird a word choice as it is in the armpit question. at any rate, they're not fooling anybody.

Do you know anyone who is clinically depressed?
yes.

Do you prefer a piano or a violin?
piano. unless we're talking about the world's smallest violin. or 'the piano.'

Are you a sex addict?
i'd say no.

Do you know someone who has cancer?
quite a few people.

Do you hunt?
i have. much like fishing, the killing's the least amusing part.

Do you like fast food joints, or expensive ?
yes.

Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum?
ah, 'would you rather.' that's the way to phrase a question that's a choice between two non-mutually-exclusive options. oh, an art museum.

Do you have a middle name?
marshall bean mcinnes

Are you basically a happy person?
i go back and forth a lot.

Are you tired?
i wouldn't mind a nap.

Did you drink anything with caffeine in it today?
every day.

Have you ever met anyone off the internet?
and how.

How many phones do you have in your house?
four. three aren't plugged in, and the other's disconnected.

How long is your hair?
maybe an inch and a half.

Do you get along with your parents?
now that i don't live with them, i do.

What color of eyes do you prefer?
hmm. it might depend on the person.

Are you a virgin?
no.

What medications do you take?
none.

What does your bedroom look like?
white walls, wooden bed, library books and board games and dirty clothes and computer parts on the floor, simpsons bedsheets over the windows.
 
 
the love song of j. alfred prufrock. i love it. eliot, incidentally, was a big anti-semite. not in this particular poem though.

i was going to apply for this job until i found out how much it paid. "the ideal candidate will possess... a good sense of humor." i'm getting a master's degree so that i can earn fourteen bucks an hour? that's not funny.
 
Saturday, May 25
 
wow, do i loathe these video countdowns that don't involve, like, playing the whole damn video. like this stupid vh-1 '80s one. emilio estevez just pronounced salvador dali's last name as if it rhymes with, uh, muhammad ali's. "the clash defined political punk rock in the '70s." dumb jock. and, like, christ, vh1, are you too cheap for second takes? "i've always been a visual artist first and a recording artist second."--tina turner. which would seem to suggest that tina turner would rather you hung her records on the wall than listen to 'em.
"when i go to a disco, and they put 'rockit' on, the music sounds old to me."--herbie hancock. that rockit remix on the scratch soundtrack, incidentally, is pretty disposable, while hancock's newish 'future 2 future' is wonderful.
i read a little 'rolling stone' at the grocery store today. there was an article about the entrepreneur behind those 'girls gone wild' videos. there was also a cover story about nirvana. now, is there nothing more interesting going on in popular music? or is it that nirvana's about the last big thing that the people at 'rolling stone' were even remotely comfortable with? raves, rap-rock, djs, emo, britney, napster--rolling stone hasn't exactly gotten more relevant in the last ten years or so. and the way they've embraced things like alt-country and at the drive in, to say nothing of their efforts to prop up dinosaurs like madonna and hunter thompson, isn't helping matters any.
 
 
there's a house with the same address as mine for sale in east orange, new jersey. i think that's where naughty by nature are from.
 
 
i got one of these at the thrift store today. ridiculous.
 
Friday, May 24
 
why are kermit and miss piggy doing advertisements for denny's? the amphibian who sang 'being green' shilling for the most famously-discriminatory restaurant this side of cracker barrel? yuck.
 
Thursday, May 23
 
who makes the more effective deodorant pitchman--tom green, or meth and redman? that harvard movie kinda disappeared off the face of the earth, but not as quickly as 'freddy got fingered.' tom green--i miss him about as much as drew barrymore does.
 
 
suddenly i really want to do research that involves asking librarians for advice about circumventing copyright measures.
 
 
holy shit, this seinfeld plot hinges on phone sex. well, maybe 'hinges' is too strong a word. but there's phone sex in it.
 
 
michael moriarty--i love him on law & order, but what a goddamn nut.
 
 
a while ago, like in the '60s or '70s, a librarian did a research project on librarians' commitment to intellectual freedom: he dressed up like a hippie, then went to various libraries and asked for information on the quantities of explosives needed to blow up a house. In the '80s, another researcher performed a similar study: he put on sunglasses, then asked librarians for information on how to freebase cocaine. i could be repeating these studies. but instead, i'm writing a survey about open-source software. i am really not very bright.
 
Wednesday, May 22
 
mountain dew code red celebrity endorser: macy gray.
 
 
the online hip-hop lyric archive is such a bizarre resource. and people are so stupid. take this guy, for example--he's able to pick out, and spell correctly, the word 'quannum,' (a record label, more or less) but mishears 'i did it without plaques' as 'i do without blacks.' yeah, that's a common sentiment in the world of hip-hop music.
 
Thursday, May 16
 
abc, not shockingly, is getting ready for a fall season filled with crap. now, i'm a big fan of drew carey, mainly because he gives charity money to libraries, and i enjoy both his programs. but, like, that doesn't make them hip and cool. and monday night football? dennis miller. besides carey and miller, other abc personalities include jim belushi, damon wayans, barbara walters, camryn manheim, dennis franz and the well-known george lopez. they're bringing back 'america's funniest home videos,' though maybe it just never went away. 20/20? primetime thursday? and the new programs. one offers john ritter and katey segal. they also have a program set in an hmo. it's from the person who did 'legally blonde.' abc compares it to m*a*s*h. they offer 'push, nevada,' which is basically 'twin peaks' done by ben affleck. they hype a david blaine special. and there's a sitcom with andy dick, which ought to be clear enough a sign. abc's going down in flames.
 
 
title of a mary-kate and ashley movie: holiday in the sun. it's about the sex pistols. also, 'straight to hell' is out on dvd now.
 
 
rachel's definitely in the middle of moving. i offered to help. but, like, i don't think people always feel very comfortable accepting someone's offer of moving help. i offer to help a lot, and yet never seem to end up helping. (yeah, other people being uncomfortable, that's got to be the reason.) so i also try to offer, separately, to let people borrow my car (it's a pickup truck). there might be some ambivalence about helping, but there's none whatsoever about borrowing the car. i love driving other people's cars. it's the only time i like driving.
 
 
ooh, this comp for kat and brad is getting pretty close to ready to go. it rocks. i made a geoshell color set that matches the numark winamp skin.
 
Tuesday, May 14
 
In Heaven.
You're mysterious, picky, and a bit aloof. Some people say you have a very cheery personality, but it's hard to say because you mask your emotions behind dark pretenses. You enjoy watching obscure movies and going to plays, but by the end of the day you're usually too wound-up by the ironies of your life to relax.
Which Pixies song are you?

 
 
ooh, and it's tuesday. cult of personality.
 
 
wow, the video for 'open letter (to a landlord),' a song that's a lot funkier than its name would suggest. 'for a profit you will take control/ where will all the older people go?' is corey glover suing somebody or other, or am i imagining that?
 
 
i only today returned from columbus. i played a lot of 'rock 'n' roll odyssey,' which, while plagued with the usual errors and occasional mispunctuation and whatnot, is a really good popular music trivia game. also ate a lot of a really impressive cake that kat made for laura's birthday.
 
Friday, May 10
 
here i go, yo.
 
 
another reason i'm not a very healthy eater: short-term enthusiasms. i'll suddenly become obsessed with citrus fruit, or frozen pretzels, or taquitos, or imported swiss cheese melted on french bread in the toaster oven, and i will eat almost nothing but until the craze wanes. when i go to visit my parents, my mother often says, like, 'oh, i bought fruit roll-ups for you , do you still like those?' and, like, not only do i not still like those, i only liked them for about half an hour at the time. but i liked them so strongly, apparently, that the memory remains, ten or twenty years later.

i used to blame moms for this, and feel upset that she didn't know me very well and whatnot. this is entirely unfair, considering that i sometimes, like, buy something at the grocery without considering that i'm not really too into it lately. examples that litter my kitchen as we speak: organic instant mashed potatoes, arak, iced-tea-and-lemonade mix.

(fruit roll-ups are definitely just an example--i liked those for a minute, probably mainly becuase i'm a sort of early adopter type. but they're vile. even thinking of 'em now kinda disgusts me. and i'm confident that moms was never thrilled to buy me that crap.)
 
 
prianka warned me about a virus she may have sent me through aim:

23:02:03 prianka: my friend just told me that a virus was sent to him and passed on to everyone on his buddy list and that you all may have it too... YAY!!! I had it, i just deleted it, So here's the deal... you have to search your computer files to see if you have it. Go to start... click search... all files and folders. type in jdbgmgr.exe and search. the icon looks like a little bear. when and if the file comes up... delete it and then go delete it from your recycle bin. now for the bad part. you have to send a warning to every person on your buddy list and have them do this because if someone on your buddy list still has it then it, then you will get it every time you sign on.

the thing is, it's a hoax. the program in question is a standard windoze component, the java debugger.
 
Wednesday, May 8
 
i gave away a present today, and bought one. gabrielle seemed fairly happy with the '70s-vintage build-your-own-slr kit i'd bought at the thrift the other day. she asked me if all the parts were in it. i'm hoping she'll actually build the thing. the asking is a good sign, i think.
 
 
"do you mean 'indisposed,' sir?"
 
Tuesday, May 7
 
i took my exam for 'public library' earlier this evening. it was all right, except for the bonus questions. they included a lot of "_______ _______ is the head of the Stark Country Public Library." now, granted, _______ _______ was a guest speaker, but i still didn't see 'em coming. had i given this much thought, i'd've remembered from the midterm. i'm less than thrilled with bonus questions anyway.
 
Monday, May 6
 
shaun's hipping me to these russian ekranoplans, weird part-plane-part-hovercraft kinda vehicles. they just boggle my mind.
 
 
cool copy editor types whose blogs i enjoy: jennifer balderama, bill walsh (not this bill walsh).
 
 
rachel and i watched a compilation of award-winning food commercials last night. it was astonishing. the thing that really sticks out in my mind: this french spot for equal, the carcinogenic sweetener. equal was marketing itself as, like, the official sweetener of hot sex. this ad consisted largely of people licking equal off of one another's bodies.

someone in the information architecture and knowledge management class, which meets in the computer lab, designed this site.

maira kalman did a leature and slide show at the new york public library. the topic was 'how to conquer stupidity'. as one might expect from the title, it's worth reading.
 
Sunday, May 5
 
it's great to see a grifter fleece a few pigeons, especially big fat ones like wayne huizenga.
 
 
what am i doing still awake? damn you, tony hawk!
 
 
if i lived in france, i wouldn't use pricewatch, i'd use monsieur prix. just look at his expression.
 
 
boomer organ rolling stone just named their 50 uncoolest records. they did the coolest too, a fairly mediocre list all in all. hard to walk that tightrope between too predictable and too contrary, i suppose. records (from either list) that i feel like i want to buy (if you own one of these, will you please let me borrow it?): dusty springfield--dusty in memphis; aretha franklin--spirit in the dark; the otis redding dictionary of soul; eric b and rakim--paid in full; miles davis--in a silent way; biz markie--the biz never sleeps. i have something, often several things, by all of the people in question, but, alas, i don't have the coolest examples thereof. marketing works.
 
Saturday, May 4
 
i think i want to go on a radical getting-rid-of-books binge. i'll stick with the usual if-it's-readily-available-and-i-don't-love-it criteria, but i also want to get rid of some of the books that i own but never intend to read (e.g., 'gorbachev? has the real antichrist come?' or 'vaginal politics'). further, i want to get rid of anything i bought off a remainder table and have yet to open. more of those than you'd think. criminy.
 
 
jamie kellner calls skipping channels stealing. people started coming up with the top ten new copyright crimes. highlights include 'changing radio stations in the car when a commercial comes on' and 'inviting friends over to watch pay-per-view.' and, i'm happy to note, the number one new kind of copyright crime: libraries and librarians. "This is why we have the RICO act."

 
Friday, May 3
 
During the week or so I was with him, his average daily consumption was a case or so of beer; a total of two bottles of wine, generally French, with his meals; six or eight shots of brandy, usually Courvoisier or Napol�on, though sometimes Calvados; half a dozen standard mixed drinks, such as Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers; and the odd glass of Pernod. He drinks as many Frenchman drink - throughout the day - and he takes genuine comfort in his drinking, seemingly in agreement with the line from Housman that "Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to man."--from an article about andre the giant
 
 
domo-kun. wow.
 
 
"The simple austerity of black-and-white 8-bit videogame graphics predominant in the mid to late seventies often exudes an elegance that rivals even the most sophisticated 128-bit modern masterpiece. The graphic elements of the gameplay, now reduced to their most basic forms of repeated geometric patterns and binary abstract shapes, assume a timelessness that is betrayed only by a thin faded layer of once colorful transparent film or the worn paint of a now ancient cabinet."--from 'Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age, 1971-1984.'

that text makes me want to fire up an emulator, hook up one of my 2600s and pony up fifty bucks for a coffee-table book about video games.
 
 
"meet the lesbian who wants to be prom king."--local news teaser. the reporter will not mention that people at the same basic attractiveness level as this girl, regardless of gender or orientation, are going to have a tough time getting elected to formal-dance-related office.


i hadn't realized it before, but the three private-school bullies in the canada simpsons from this season sound not only like affected versions of dolph, jimbo and kearney, but also a lot like clark peters, that bizarrely dennis-hopper-in-blue-velvet-esque bad kid on 'king of the hill.'
 
 
a terrible thing though- well, not terrible, but just ughhhhh, is that i have a crush on one of my friends. it's lame because
a. this person will probably never feel the same way about me. i just can't see it.
b. i'm truly satisfied in like, the "love department" right now and really am not interested in anything relationship-y.
c. everytime i hang with this person, i want to tell them how much i totally, really adore them. it's overwhelming.
d. i think when i first met this person, i may have had a chance, but now that we're "pals" it's ruined.
e. they're probably going to read this. so yea, if you think it may be you and you want to say something to me just so i can get it off my chest, even though it's not like we'll hook up or anything, just say something. i'm dying here. grr.

--posted to rachel's weblog. i am in awe.
 
 
weird. i'm pretty sure i didn't intend to send all those messages to bloggerbot. but i can't remember to whom i intended to send 'em.
 
 
nighty-night, dearie.
 
 
yup yup.
 
 
let's talk about stress, baby.
 
 
though these bill nye parodies are appealing.
 
 
maybe bedtime for me.
 
 
ooh, mad people are linking to this article about britney spears smoking a cigarette. "I don't believe in drugs or even smoking. I believe in God."--britney
 
Thursday, May 2
 
i had forgotten that conan o'brien went to harvard. and i doubt i ever knew that he once gave a commencement address.
 
 
slashdot reader provides guidelines for dealing with telephone company personnel: Also check to see if the local telco dude did sometime to effect the lines in the neighborhood. It's best not to call, but wait until you see the van ot ask the guy personally. I've found that they're usally no further than one hour away from getting stoned. If you have good timing and play your cards right, and a bag of Herbal Essence, you can usally get anything you want and it'll be done faster, better and cheaper.
 
 
the door's open, and it's raining. the sound, and the cool night air, is very relaxing. ooh, and thundering, hot damn.

The show jumped when the second cast of people came in and they edited the show to look like there was a conventional good guy bad guy and a linear narrative. With the help of the cast and creative editing they made the comedian guy look like a crazed sex pervert. And it only keeps sucking worse!--from jump the shark, a site dedicated to the moment that a teevee show starts to go bad.
 
Wednesday, May 1
 
ads.com? compelling. or i think it would be if their servers could handle the load.
 
 
this nova about wtc is the jam. i wish i were less tired.
 
A lagniappe of cultural kitsch and B-movie claptrap

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