the nuvo feature i alluded to last week has now been published. it's written by jim walker, who's a cool guy and also the executive director of the way-cool big car gallery that's hosting the big collage show.

i had thought i would simply be a part of nuvo's periodic "30 under 30", but it turns out to be a full article/interview, and it's all about me. at any rate, it's called packrat of all trades and it's basically an interview/question and answer session. let me know if i come off like a prick or a snooty artist type or anything like that.

the photo i'm posting here is "appropriated" from the nuvo article, and was taken by jim walker in the hallway of the murphy building on 8/12 (the night of the latencies opening).¶

so hurricane katrina is pretty much over. at the last minute, it veered east ever so slightly, and new orleans did not receive the brunt of the storm as some had feared. instead, chunks of mississippi and alabama were crushed like by the hand of god.

and there was much rejoicing from those who thought new orleans had been "spared" and would only face a minor catastrophe rather than the complete annihilation of the city.

then the levee broke. martial law has been declared in the area. 80% of new orleans is underwater, and the waters continue to rise. most of the city is without power, and is expected to remain so for at least a month.

the new orleans times-picayune was distributed electronically only, as presumably it was impossible for them to print an actual news "paper". and who would be around to read it anyway? those people who were foolish or unfortunate enough not to obey the mandatory evacuation are holed up in the superdome, or trapped in their attics or on rooftops, hoping that they won't drown inside their own attics as their houses fill with water.

this is the largest natural disaster ever to hit the states. and it's the largest recovery operation the red cross has ever attempted. if you want to help, the best way is to give money to the red cross. when i get paid tomorrow, i think i'll donate.

and while there is no longer such a thing as hurricane katrina, the storm rages on. it has dispersed over a large chunk of north america. it has been raining all day here in indy (some 300+ miles away from louisiana), and according to the newscast i saw last night, it is supposed to rain straight through tomorrow evening.

update: turns out they've known for some time that the levees in new orleans were not up to snuff, and they were ready & willing to do the necessary repairs. but they couldn't make the repairs in large part due to massive budget cuts by bush to make up for the huge money drain caused by bush's tax cuts and the war in iraq.¶

i feel like i've been neglecting the blog. then again i've been neglecting a lot of stuff while we get virago situated here in town, coupled with the heavy workload at the office. now that classes are starting at iupui, our schedules will start to normalize a bit and things will find a new equilibrium.

dj empirical emailed me this capitolhillblue story on friday but i didn't get around to posting it, despite its salaciousness:

While President George W. Bush travels around the country in a last-ditch effort to sell his Iraq war, White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him.

"I'm not meeting again with that goddamned bitch," Bush screamed at aides who suggested he meet again with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother whose son died in Iraq. "She can go to hell as far as I'm concerned!"

Bush, administration aides confide, frequently explodes into tirades over those who protest the war, calling them "motherfucking traitors." He reportedly was so upset over Veterans of Foreign Wars members who wore "bullshit protectors" over their ears during his speech to their annual convention that he told aides to "tell those VFW assholes that I'll never speak to them again is they can�t keep their members under control."

White House insiders say Bush is growing increasingly bitter over mounting opposition to his war in Iraq. Polls show a vast majority of Americans now believe the war was a mistake and most doubt the President's honesty.

"Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say," he screamed at a recent strategy meeting. "I'm the President and I'll do whatever I goddamned please. They don't know shit."

unfortunately it's pretty vague about sourcing... the first time through i even missed that these foul-mouthed bush quotes were attributed to "white house aides". so while it's likely to be true, it's 100% deniable.

but the part about "flipping the bird" is true: we've seen the footage:

Bush, whiles setting up for a photo op for signing the recent CAFTA bill, flipped an extended middle finger to reporters. Aides say the President often "flips the bird" to show his displeasure and tells aides who disagree with him to "go to hell" or to "go fuck yourself." His habit of giving people the finger goes back to his days as Texas governor, aides admit, and videos of him doing so before press conferences were widely circulated among TV stations during those days. A recent video showing him shooting the finger to reporters while walking also recently surfaced.

good to see that cheney isn't the only one who likes to tell people to go fuck themselves.

so i sat on it, and wondered and worried whether i'd get around to posting it at all. then someone posted this article on imn, giving me a good excuse to post as well as filling in a bit of detail about getting those aides to talk:

Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.

They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with "get out of here!"

In fact, George W. Bush's mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain "weather reports" to warn of the President's demeanor. "Calm seas" means Bush is calm while "tornado alert" is a warning that he is pissed at the world.

Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President's paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a "god-damned traitor" for opposing him on stem-cell research.

"There's real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it," a high-level aide told me recently.

positively nixonian. now all we need is to discover that he's been secretly taping all his conversations...¶

i've never been to new orleans. virago & i have discussed making a trip down there sometime, if not for mardi gras then just to check out one of the country's oldest, most culture-filled cities.

unfortunately new orleans is on the brink of disaster. hurricane katrina is poised above the city, prepared to reduce it to rubble. new orleans actually rests about 9 feet below sea level, so it's in for an especially bad time.

katrina is also having a major impact on oil prices and shipping, as much of the southeast and gulf of mexico is now feeling the effects of this massive storm

despite that, president bush is still on vacation. not that he could really do anything about it even if he weren't on vacation. after all, the louisiana national guard is in iraq! the natl guard's job is supposed to be damage control when disaster strikes, but they're too busy overseas fighting an unjust war to really protect us. the red cross has its job cut out for it.

from the national weather service:

KATRINA...NOW A CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE WITH WINDS OF 125 MPH AND HIGHER GUSTS...WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE NORTHWARD ACROSS SOUTHEAST MISSISSIPPI AND INTO EAST CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI THROUGH THE AFTERNOON AND EVENING HOURS. ALONG AND NEAR KATRINA'S PATH...EXPECT PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW POSSIBLY TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. MANY WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DE-FOLIATED.

THE HURRICANE FORCE WINDS WILL GRADUALLY DIMINISH BELOW HURRICANE STRENGTH FROM SOUTH TO NORTH THROUGH THE LATE AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING HOURS.¶

barry mentioned this story to me last night. he had never heard of fred phelps or the "god hates fags" gang (i refuse to link to their website, though if you google that phrase you will find it quickly. and you will be disgusted in a way that few websites have or will ever be able to disgust you).

this took place in smyrna TN. your girlfriend is from smyrna, though i'm sure she wasn't there and i don't expect her to blog about it.

anyway, courtesy of the washington post:

Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.

The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."
...
The church members carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates fags" and "God hates you."

About 10 church members protested near Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearly 20 stood outside the National Guard Armory in Ashland City. Members have demonstrated at other soldier funerals across the nation.

The funerals were for Staff Sgt. Asbury Fred Hawn II, 35, in Smyrna and Spc. Gary Reese Jr., 22, in Ashland City. Both were members of the Tennessee National Guard.

Hundreds of Smyrna and Ashland City residents and families of other soldiers turned out at both sites to counter the message the Westboro Baptist members brought.

So many counterdemonstrators were gathered in Ashland City that police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers were brought in to control traffic and protect the protesters.

gotta love those counterprotesters, literally running the hatemongerers out of town.

but what strikes me about this story is that they were protesting GI funerals!

phelps and his family (the bulk of his church is made up of his numerous offspring as well as his offspring's offspring... i guess god hates birth control as much as he hates gays) are notorious for protesting at the funerals of gays or people who've died of AIDS. those assholes even protested at matthew shepard's funeral, which should indicate just what type of sick fucks they are. they revel in hatred and they claim to do it in jesus's name, amen.

but these GIs weren't gay, from what i can tell (per "don't ask don't tell", how could i tell?). they're just normal GIs who were killed in iraq:

The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays.

how can anyone, even the stupidest, most despicable, most pathologically hateful people in the nation (which is probably a fairly good description of this bunch) think that it was a good idea to protest GI funerals? how could they think that would be anything but a total PR nightmare?

i guess now we know who really doesn't support the troops: the homophobes in the radical right.

update: that same weekend, a few of the haters also protested a similar funeral in martinsville IN. i'd heard about that protest, but didn't find any stories about it until now, but didn't find the actual stories until now, when i got them from media matters.

why would the stories be on media matters? well it turns out that sweet sean hannity tried to claim that the god hates fags gang are part of the "anti-war left"! apparently not only does god hate fags, but sean hates facts.¶

latencies—the big collage show at big car and galerie penumbra that includes 4 of my pieces plus tons of art by tons of other artists—has been written up in nuvo. the review is extremely positive:

If you’ve seen as many art exhibitions on a regular basis as I have over the years, you can become both jaded and numbed. And then something comes along and it’s fresh enough or strange enough to grab you by the collar. Latencies, a collaborative exhibition on view at Big Car Gallery and Galerie Penumbra, is both: It’s fresh, it’s strange and it’s over-stimulating, in a good way.

In the spirit of its founding intentions, Big Car has teemed up with Galerie Penumbra — both housed in the Murphy Art Center in Fountain Square — to present this collaborative art show as an experimental effort, thematically connected, in this case, by the medium of collage as well as the concept Latencies.

i really like the anecdotes about the stayfree maxipad ad near the end of the article... lovely.

i'm also due to be featured in one of nuvo's upcoming "30 under 30" articles... i'm not sure when that will publish (it's not on the website, which suggests it's not in the current issue), but i'll be sure to let you know when it does.¶

as some of you might know, i've gotten pretty heavily into wacky packages (unofficial fansite here). the original wacky packs were around for decades, from the '60s into the mid '80s, then topps stopped making them. recently (i want to say last year) topps started making new ones; the "all-new series 2" just came out this summer.

where garbage pail kids parodied cabbage patch kids (originally; legal problems caused them to redesign later GPKs so that they would no longer resemble cabbage patch kids, taking much of the bite out of the concept), wacky packs parody consumer products and advertising. they're still geared largely toward children, so a lot of them are boringly scatalogical (like GPKs), and the new ones no longer have alcohol or cigarette parodies like they did in the old days, some of them are pretty cool.

so i've been collecting the new series 2, generally a few packs at a time. most packs have 6 stickers, but some replace one of those stickers with something else, like a window cling or temporary tattoo. clings and temporary tattoos are pretty lame, i know, but the coolest thing about this new series is that some of the packs now include refrigerator magnets! (in fact, i think they replaced the window clings with the magnets, though the "checklist" lists clings but not magnets: i suspect that might have been an error.)

so i made a quick stop at target today to get worm medicine for the cat (they didn't have any, though i did get some flea+ treatment). while there, i intended to pick up a few packs: 4 to 6 maybe. but i saw that target had one of the boxes for sale: these boxes are intended to be sold as a unit, and contain 11 packs + 1 bonus sticker for $9.99. (the bonus stickers are extra stickers, not available in the packs.) it was more than i had intended to get today, but that bonus sticker was appealing so i grabbed it.

here's the crazy part. there are 55 stickers in the series, not counting bonus stickers, magnets, or window clings. excluding the bonus sticker, the box had 66 cards/stickers in it. of those, i got 2 magnets (actually kind of low, as i think 1 in 6 or more packs have magnets) and one tattoo, leaving 63 stickers remaining.

out of only 63 stickers, the box alone contained the whole series! only 8 doubles! and one of each of every sticker in the series!

surely that can't be intentional... a less-devoted collector might just buy one box and quit. topps wants people to keep buying lots of packs. so the probability of getting one of every sticker inside the box must be extremely slim. (i was never a statistician and have been out of school for a long time, so i won't attempt the math, but if you want to, feel free to post some math in the comments.)

now, even though i have the whole series (and lots of doubles of some stickers), i'm not done collecting series 2 just yet... when i collected series 1, i collected until i had at least 2 of every card: that way, i could actually use at least one copy of any sticker i want, and yet still have a spare copy "for the collection". i'll probably do that again. also, ideally i would like to collect all 9 of the magnets: i only have 5-6 of the magnets now.

but still... wow. the whole series in one box. i'm still reeling from the unlikelihood of it all.

p.s. if you're curious (since the unofficial site doesn't list it yet), the bonus sticker in the target box is for Easy-Burn Oven and Scortch Center. if you look closely, you can see that the timer on the oven says 666¶

utah is a crazy place... bush was in salt lake city yesterday and the mayor of SLC led an anti-war protest! the mayor! but that's not even close to the craziest thing to happen in utah recently.

black helicopters, swat teams with assault rifles dressed in camo... sounds like the worst delusions of a burnt-out raver, right? wrong:

The helicopter dipped lower and lower and started shining its lights on the crowd. I was kind of in awe and just sat and watched this thing circle us for a minute. As I looked back towards the crowd I saw a guy dressed in camoflauge walking by, toting an assault rifle. At this point, everyone was fully aware of what was going on . A few "troops" rushed the stage and cut the sound off and started yelling that everyone "get the fuck out of here or go to jail". This is where it got really sticky.

No one resisted. That's for sure. They had police dogs raiding the crowd of people and I saw a dog signal out a guy who obviously had some drugs on him. The soldiers attacked the guy (4 of them on 1), and kicked him a few times in the ribs and had their knees in his back and sides. As they were cuffing him, there was about 1000 kids trying to leave in the backdrop, peacefully. Next thing I know, A can of fucking TEAR GAS is launched into the crowd. People are running and screaming at this point. Girls are crying, guys are cussing... bad scene.

Now, this is all I saw with my own eyes, but I heard plenty of other accounts of the night. Now this isnt gossip I heard from some candy raver, these are instances cited straight out of the promoters mouth..

* One of the promoters friends (a very small female) was attacked by one of the police dogs. As she struggled to get away from it, the police tackled her. 3 grown men proceeded to KICK HER IN THE STOMACH.

* The police confiscated 3 video tapes in total. People were trying to document what was happening out there. The police saw one guy filming and ran after him, tackled him and his camera fell, and luckily.. his friend grabbed it and ran and got away. priceless footage. That's not all though. Out of 1,500 people, there's sure to be more footage.

* The police were rounding up the staff of the party and the main promoter went up to them with the permit for the show and said "here, I have the permit." The police then said, "no you don't" and ripped the permit out of his hand. Then, they put an assault rifle to his forehead and said "get the fuck out of here right now."

there's video (mirror here, and it's surreal... one second it's a normal dance party with the dj spinnin' some dnb; the next the place is swarming with soldier-looking men in camouflage beating the shit out of people.

not much attention in the corporate media (other than the usual apologists) but the blogs have started to pick it up. and of course, bulletin boards:

That was seriously one of the most fucked up things I have ever witnessed. Beating down innocent women and people who weren't doing anything illegal! I don't know what to think right now. I feel like there needs to be an uprising, legal action, and a change of governement. This is seriously fucked up.

I was there and im lucky to alive some fuckin army guy grabbed me by the neck and threw me down he said if I wasnt compliant I would goto jail but im only 16 so I wasnt scared.but alot of my friends were there and they were on e so I hope they got home safe.its some brutal shit there fucking dumb ass k-9s attacked some girls and mauled them.I was just helping a friend sell his energy drink at the fuckin thing and those pigs were being such dicks.I shoulda punched that fuckin pig in the face.they tried to arrest my sister cause she was bitchin them out for beating everyone up.

I saw a soldier tell a kid to give him his camera and the dude said no it's my camera, and the soldier through the camera, called 6 other cops and they beat him down on the ground. He was probably knocked out cause he was completely lifelessly still.

And another chick whose friend got arrested was like what am I supposed to do? and the soldier yelled at her to get a ride. And she was like I can't you took my ride. THe guy then yelled that the girl had touched her and like 5 soldiers through her to the ground and manhandled her. That should never happend especially to a women.

I saw like 4 other people getting thrown around, but I don't have the details. I'm going to protest this at bush's visit. Those fuckers probably did this to gain browny points with bush. We should have signs that say: Long live versus, and Raving is not illegal. And We have no rights, the military has removed them.

I was over at the second stage when the cops showed up. Sean says 'that looks like an ambulence' and I'm all 'I bet it's a patty wagon' little did I know it really was. A couple minutes later we see flashlights and all of a sudden have MP-5 sub-machineguns put in our faces. My hands go straight up and I freeze.. a few seconds later the helicopter starts circling the mainstage and I can only imagine the chaos there as the national guard approached the party.

After a few minutes of cops yelling at us not to move and questioning whether it was our equipment they told us to get the fuck out of dodge.. which we did immediately.

We ended up being some of the first people out of there since we were at the second stage.. The stories I heard of people being tackled, tasered and beaten for doing so much as taking pictures or questioning what was going on. I think they used this party as a training exercise for an entire fucking division about to go iraq. Seriously, that is unbelievable... they raided the place like it was a terrorist camp. What the fuck, a bunch of kids out in the mountains listening to music? The cops seemed to think everyone there was on drugs and treating people like they were escaped prisoners or something.

i only had to go as deep as page 2 (out of 31) to get these quotes...

the cops claim that the promoters were missing some kind of permit. that's the official story. of course, the cops always say that, even when it's a lie. and even if it were true, is the "crime" of a missing permit really so severe that they need to show up in riot gear with assault rifles and beat the shit out of a bunch of music lovers?¶

barry made a point of telling me about this story before i left the house for work today...

pat robertson—scion of the religious right, former presidential candidate, and host of the 700 club—likes the murder. you could even say pat ♥ murder. he ♥ the murder so much that he endorses it on the tv!

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

is there any doubt left that the american religious right and organizations like the christian coalition are functionally equivalent to the taliban? we have a prominent religious leader proudly promoting the murder of someone he disagrees with. in islam they call that a fatwa. and not just any old murder: he is in favor of assassinating the leader of a fellow "christian" nation that has not attacked us; he suggests this would be easier than going to war with venezuela, a war he presumably would also support.

and am i the only one who thinks this usa today poll sucks? what loaded, leading responses... there are basically two responses for "agreeing" with pat, though the second answer is technically "no" so you can say, well, i agree with everything pat says but i don't want to explicitly promote murder (though exactly what constitutes "toppling" chavez is unclear... these sorts of things usually include mass violence and terrorism as a matter of course). there's a third "we should leave them alone" answer, but no choice for "chavez is right and robertson is wrong". though that's not surprising, as the corporate media in the US isn't much more fair to chavez and his poor-folk-lovin' ways than the corporate media in venezuela is.¶

time to bust out some old wendy carlos records, or maybe watch a clockwork orange. or hey, i never got to see that moog documentary that came out last year... i need to check that out.

from mtv.com:

Dr. Robert Moog, known for the synthesizer that beared his name, died at his home in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday. He was 71. The inventor of the Moog synthesizer — whose variants have been used by everyone from Pink Floyd to Kraftwerk, Duran Duran, the Black Eyed Peas and the Neptunes — was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in April and had received radiation therapy and chemotherapy to combat the disease, according to a post on his official Web site.

Born on May 23, 1934 in New York, Moog began tinkering with early versions of electronic instruments as a teenager. After writing an article about them in 1954, he opened a business building and selling theremins, machines in which pitch and volume could be controlled by the wave of a musicians' hand. Moog earned degrees in physics, electrical engineering and engineering physics before staring out on a path that would turn him into an icon for generations of modern musicians.

By 1963, Moog developed the first widely used electronic instrument, a synthesizer, whose first popular appearance was on the Monkees album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.. The instrument had its breakthrough, though, in 1969 when musician Walter (now known as Wendy) Carlos had a Grammy-winning smash with Switched on Bach, an album of electronic versions of Johann Sebastian Bach pieces.

Moog's synthesizers, which came with a piano-style keyboard, quickly became popular with rock musicians, who appreciated the wide range of unique sounds they could create by adjusting the various controls. Moog synthesizers appeared on the Beatles' Abbey Road and the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange."¶

so i think i got my computer fixed (though i said that last time...)

it was as easy as booting from the cd, loading the recovery console, and typing fixmbr. it even warned me that my mbr (master boot record) looked really funky: was i sure i wanted to rewrite it?

literally a 5-minute fix. and i could have done it days ago if not for the fact that usb keyboards don't work during the boot process. which is fundamentally stupid.

some of you might recall that i had to buy this new keyboard because my old one is full of dried vomit. it said on the box that it has both ps/2 and usb connectors. but what that actually means is that it has a usb connector, and it comes with a ps/2-to-usb adapter. the adapter was so clumsy and awkward that i took the damn thing off and lost it. lovely.¶

barry managed to get his truck to start again, and virago's furniture is moved! it might not be in the right position or anything like that, but it's in her apartment, so that's something. the truck apparently died again during barry's ride home, but at least that didn't happen until the furniture was moved... and the truck was in the driveway tonight, so i suspect he was able to get it to start yet again.

anyway, that was the most intimidating thing on our "to do" list, so now that it's accomplished it's like a huge weight has been lifted. whew!

of course, my home computer still won't boot most of the time. i just haven't had time to properly troubleshoot it, but i will this weekend.

googling my error message ("DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER", though i've had a couple KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERRORs as well) has turned up a few potential problems and suggested fixes/troubleshooting methods:

it could just be a corrupted boot sector; in theory this should be super easy to fix, but windows makes it a huge pain. to do so, you basically need to use the recovery console, which is not installed by default (you have to install it or run it off the cd). theoretically, using the "r" repair option on the windows cd could also conceivably fix it, but again, you need to boot from the cd to get that option.

or it might just be a bad bios setting, and fixing it could be as simple as resetting the bios. but i kind of doubt that.

the other possibility is that my hard drive could be going bad: it's possible all those power flickers physically damaged it somehow, in which case i'll need to replace it. i've located the samsung diagnostic utility (it's important to use a tool from the HD provider; in my case samsung), but that needs to be run from a boot floppy.

or it could be a bad cable or something like that, but again i somewhat doubt it.

there are a couple other problems exacerbating this, which is partly why i've been unable to troubleshoot it yet: i need to take care of these other issues first.

one is that i never hooked up my floppy drive properly. lazy lazy, i know: i built this machine 5-6 months ago and the floppy drive has never worked, but since floppies are pretty much only used in emergencies these days (for boot problems like i'm having now), i never got around to fixing it. i believe that all i need to do is flip the cable around and it should work.

the other problem is that i use a USB keyboard. because of general shittiness with pc bioses etc, while bios USB support will allow me to use my keyboard within the bios menu, apparently USB keyboards don't work during the boot process: so i can't boot to safe mode, i can't access the boot menu, i can't "press any key to boot from cd", and i can't even press enter when it tells me to insert a system disk. fortunately, we have a couple ps/2 keyboards lying around, so i just need to hook one of those up and i should be good to go. still a pain in the ass, though; i'm lucky that i like in a geeky house and we have lots of hardware lying around.

so i guess tonight (or this afternoon) i'm going to open up that bad boy and adjust some cables, clean out all the dust with some canned air, and try a couple things to see whether i can fix the system as-is or will need to buy a new hard drive. i would really rather not have to buy a new one, as then i'll need to reinstall windows and all my software again, which is fairly time-consuming... especially considering that we are building a new computer for virago as well: in fact, all her hardware arrived yesterday, and it seems likely we will start trying to build it this weekend... assuming that i get my computer fixed first. after all, she already has one working computer (even if it's old) as well as brand-new DSL service, while i don't have a working computer, so i think she'll forgive me for wanting to fix my own computer first.

anyway, the fair was fun. the prairie home companion live show was rather enjoyable: all the storytelling/radio drama stuff was pretty good, but there were way way way too many songs, and the songs ranged from mildly amusing to aggravatingly dull. and it didn't help that we were in the very uncomfortable bench seating at the marsh grandstand. but it was a good time; we ate a lot of fair food, including some deep-friend candy. we got the "combo", which consisted of one fried candy bar, two fried oreos, and a fried reese's cup. we concluded that all of them were messy and none were really very good. we plan to go back to the fair this weekend before it ends (looks like sunday will have the best weather; it could storm tomorrow), and when we do we might have to try a deep-fried twinkie.

update: dave lindquist has a review of the prairie home companion show online and in yesterday's star.¶

is the law of entropy speeding up?

yesterday when i got back from lunch, my work computer started experiencing weird restarts. an alert would come up, complete with a 60-second timer, telling me that windows was about to shut down. this happened frequently enough that the thing was damn near useless: it would restart, then sometimes even before windows could fully load, the alert would come back up and it would restart again.

i ended up working on one of the interns' computers. but it wasn't configured for copy editing and runs a newer, harder-to-configure version of word. (i'm becoming convinced that each new release of word is an order of magnitude more sucky than the previous one.) so i was able to work, but only at about half my normal pace, because all my keyboard shortcuts and stuff like that were gone.

eventually they got my machine patched enough so it would run, but there was still one problem: it was infected with a virus! and though we didn't seem to have any info about it yesterday, this morning i know it was the W32.Zotob.E virus:

W32.Zotob.E can run on, but not infect, computers running Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/XP. Although computers running these operating systems cannot be infected, they can still be used to infect vulnerable computers that they can connect to.

this POS computer runs win2k, apparently the only version of windows that this virus actually infects. hooray. maybe that will inspire the company to actually get me a new computer. at least the outbreak seems to be under control for right now.

so last weekend barry finally got the part he needed for his truck, which has been sitting in the yard immobile for many months, maybe even a year. he had to get the part specially welded. so we were eager to use the opportunity to move some furniture to virago's place. we got the couch loaded into the truck, and he managed to drive it as far as 38th & meridian (read: not very far at all) before the truck up & died on him, then the engine wouldn't turn over. so he called AAA to come tow him back to the house, and virago didn't get any furniture. but we did at least have the couch cushions in my car, which we took to the apartment and set up as a quasi-couch, where we sat and watched donnie darko: the director's cut. it was better than sitting on the floor.

i got home around 12:45am, ready to relax for a couple minutes then hit the sack. but when i got upstairs, i saw that my boot problem had returned: it was stuck at a boot screen with the BOOT DISK ERROR at the bottom. after a few tries, i managed to get it to boot into windows long enough for me to tell it to scan drive c:, which it did after a restart... but it wouldn't book back into windows again. i was already fairly stressed from being so busy at work coupled with the virago move: i've had extremely little time to myself in the past couple weeks. and this was the last straw. i started freaking out, trying to get windows to come back despite being unable to find the actual winxp cd: either barry took it back and put it somewhere funky or it got lost in the piles of junk in the attic (i'm pretty sure it's the former).

by 2am, it still wouldn't boot to windows, so i gave up and went to bed. somehow i was able to get to sleep. this morning, after a few bad boots, it booted back into windows normally (and ran the scan on c: again). i ran windows update (once, which is probably not enough), and it restarted and went back into windows again. that's good; very promising. but i didn't have time to stick around and see if it would continue to function, because i had to leave for work. i just left it running as it was.

so maybe it's "fixed" again... maybe that scandisk worked the second time. or maybe there's some other intermittent problem. i don't know. right now, maybe it's running and sleeping normally. or maybe there's already a BOOT ERROR screen waiting there to taunt me when i get home. i'm not sure i really want to know; it's not like i could fix it from here at the office.

i probably wouldn't have time to fix it tonight, anyway: virago & i are going to the state fair, in part to see the prairie home companion live show tonight. that should be fun... though if my computer isn't working i might not be in the mood to really enjoy it.

but maybe it's already fixed! as mysteriously as the problem began, it might have also vanished inexplicably. at least, that better be the case, as i'm already overstressed as it is, and i have neither the time nor the patience to put in a bunch of hours trying to see what's wrong with my brand-new computer.¶

so the gallery opening was pretty cool. the turnout was good and a bunch of art got sold. my stuff is hanging in the hallway outside the gallery (so i guess you can go see it anytime the building is open, not just when the gallery is open on fridays & saturdays), and i don't think any of it has sold yet, but maybe it has and it just wasn't marked as sold.

there was some really cool art in the show, but most of the stuff i liked was either really expensive or really small... and i didn't want to buy one 4"x4" piece of art, for example; you need like 6-8 pieces of that size for them to be really effective. my stuff was certainly not the best in the show, but it sure wasn't the worst either, so i didn't feel self-conscious about it being my first gallery show or anything like that. (there's some discussion of the show here on imn but registration is required to read that thread.)

unfortunately, with all the other things to keep track of, they forgot to set up the projector, so i had brought video stuff to show but had no screen to show it on. fortunately, virago has one of those dvd/tv combo units and her apt is only a mile or two from the gallery, so we headed back there to test it and bring it to the gallery. unfortunately, it doesn't have JPG functionality, because it refused to play the CDROM of my databent art (which played fine in my own dvd player). but it played my burnt dvds of video stuff, including some almost-databent video that i had recorded off the satellite during thunderstorms (some of which looks a lot like bent jpegs, only in motion), so at least that was something.

when we got back to the gallery, the spontaneous sound collective was playing: several people performing using a mix of traditional instruments and found objects. it sounded like an improv jam, but i guess i don't know that for sure. it was fairly interesting, but jim wanted me to go on as soon as they were done, which left me trying to set up in a locker-sized area while surrounded by their gear and sharing a table with a bass drum. not the easiest circumstances to set up in, but i managed.

there were no monitors and i was standing behind the speakers, so the sound wasn't great but i soldiered on with my performance; at a couple points it got pretty sloppy, but i would just bring back some funny or poignant vocal samples into the mix when things got too crazy. i managed to clear a few people out of the main room, but some of them stuck around and i got a few compliments later on... after all, this is an arty crowd, and some of them actually like challenging art. that's always refreshing.

we missed most of the performance by the hoovers, which is a one-man band, but heard some of his witty banter about how his bandmates had stood him up for the evening. after that, the graves (from portland oregon) played... they were some kind of indie-folk thing and i was not feeling it, so after hanging around downstairs and determining that i wasn't going to perform a second set as originally planned (we were a bit off-schedule), we packed up the car and headed back to virago's apartment.

so yeah, lots & lots of good art, with a bit of not-so-good art. free food (though i didn't get any) and free wine! a good-zized crowd that remained pretty steady throughout the evening as people came & went. so that was a pretty good night. and it's a great exhibition at a great gallery run by cool people, so if you're in the area and get a chance, you should check it out before it ends (on sept 17). and buy some of my art while you're there.¶

tonight is the official opening of the collage show. i'm performing tonight (along with others), and the show continues through september 17.

getting to the big car gallery can be a little tricky. it's in the murphy building at 1043 virginia ave. the building looks like this when viewed from virginia ave and is easy to find:

however getting to the big car gallery, which is in suite 215, is a little trickier. if you enter from virginia ave, you might get lost in the halls.

the best door to enter through is the one at the southwest corner of the building (on the west wall, not the south wall), off of prospect st: go up the stairs and hopefully the signs will lead you the rest of the way there.

if you're driving southeast on virginia (coming from downtown), they recommend turning right on prospect, then turning right on st patrick st. you'll see a little parking lot on the right. that's a good place to park if spots are available. if you follow the "one way" road to the south from that parking lot, it will lead you to this door. (the door is clearly marked with "BIG CAR" signs)

if you can't park in that lot, you'll have to park elsewhere. but still look for that door. alternatively, galerie penumbra is also participating in the exhibition, and their entrance is right off virginia... if you enter the building there, they just might direct you where to go upstairs. but i can't vouch for that.¶

so after work last night i was driving from the office to virago's downtown apartment. my "low fuel" light came on so i stopped at the BP at 71st and college ave. the sign indicated that regular (what they used to call "unleaded") was a whopping $2.55, which was a new record for the highest gas price i've ever seen in indiana. but that's my usual on-the-way-home station because it's the most convenient and never too overpriced (relatively, anyway), so i figured i'd just get $10 to tide me over until prices go back down a bit.

the station's prepay nowadays, so i went inside and as i made my $10 transaction, the guy said something about "regular" that i couldn't make out. i figured he was just making some comment about how little regular gas $10 would buy me, so i went about my way. but when i got back to the pump, i realized that he had tried to tell me that they were out of regular! i was somewhat troubled by that, and not only because i had to pay $2.65 for "silver"... could this be a sign of looming gas shortages, rather than just ballooning prices? scary to think about.

anyway, i cut over to meridian and continued my way downtown. when i started approaching 52nd street, however, traffic slowed to a crawl: the kind of extremely slow traffic you expect when there's been an accident or something.

before i continue, some background info for non-naptowners: meridian st (also known as US-31 on the north side) is arguably the heaviest-trafficked non-freeway street in indianapolis. it runs all the way from downtown deep into the bowels of the northside suburbs. thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people drive it every day. and as is typical for commuter traffic, the bulk of the traffic heads to downtown in the morning and away from downtown in the evening. so while there are still plenty cars on the road going both ways, going toward downtown in the evening is usually pretty much a straight shot.

ranging from north of 38th st pretty much all the way to 86th st, meridian has lots of fancy, fancy houses. if you want to live in indy (rather than a suburb like geist or fishers), this is the fanciest, highest-priced, most prestigious real estate you can get. huge houses with massive yards span the street for miles. in fact, the "governor's mansion", a piece of public property ostensibly for the governor to live in (though mitch daniels is apparently too good to live there, preferring to stay at his mansion in geist), is along this stretch at 4750 n meridian.

perhaps related to this, the lanes get pretty narrow for a couple miles from 46th st or so on northward to maybe kessler (i don't recall exactly). this stretch of the road is a little more dangerous to drive, a little more scary, than anywhere else on meridian during heavy traffic. and i don't foresee the lanes ever getting widened because, like i said, some really rich bastards live there and would probably not be happy to have even inches of land taken by imminent domain.

after several minutes of not really moving, i finally made it close enough to 46th st to see what was causing the traffic jam. it wasn't a traffic accident; it was anti-abortion protesters!

by this point, with all the typical road rage of commuting added onto being stuck in gridlock for 10 minutes, this probably would've pissed me off no matter what they were protesting. even if i felt strongly in favor of the protesters, the inconvenience of them holding up commuter traffic was enough to piss me off. this isn't like protesting downtown at the circle, where smart drivers would never go during rush hour anyway. this was a major inconvenience. so the fact that i disagree with them, and that their protest was so utterly ridiculous, just pissed me off more.

the protesters held up various signs decrying how evil (oh god, how horribly evil) planned parenthood is. yawnsville. but i did see one protester holding a sign so outrageous, so fantastically absurd, that i had to write this long-ass blog entry. this is what the sign said:

PLANNED PARENTHOOD STEALS SOULS!

i desperately wished that i had my camera with me so i could photograph this woman and her sign... but then, if i took her picture, maybe i would have stolen her soul!

what the hell does that even mean? they "steal souls"? and why didn't one of the other protesters say to this woman: "hey, i may be a far-right religious conservative activist, but goddamn your sign makes you sound crazy!"?

it was completely impossible to tell why these protesters were protesting on that particular day, or why they were in front of the governor's mansion (when the gov doesn't even live there): the sign of a badly organized protest is when nobody can discern why in the hell you are protesting. i had to look it up online; lucky for them, they got coverage in the indy star:

Anti-abortion protesters picketed the Indiana governor's residence Thursday, objecting to a party for Planned Parenthood they said was an inappropriate use of the Meridian Street property.

State Sen. Jeff Drozda, R-Westfield, speaking for the 50 sign-carrying protesters, said the state attorney general's office has questioned whether Planned Parenthood has followed Indiana law in cases involving reproductive health care for young people.

"It is public property, and no one can dispute that," Drozda said of the governor's residence. "However, when you have the Medicaid Fraud Unit of the state of Indiana investigating possible criminal activity, those are very, very severe issues."

The senator is a former executive vice president of Indiana Right to Life.

In a case yet to be decided in court, Attorney General Steve Carter's office has sought records for young patients of Planned Parenthood. The law considers those younger than 14 who have sex to be victims of molestation, and a goal of the investigation is to see if the group followed state law and reported cases of suspected child abuse.

okay, that settles why they picked the gov mansion. but...

first off, this law is bullshit. when i was 13 years old, i would have fucked half the girls in my school if i'd had a chance. in fact, that half is only the girls that i actively wanted to bone: if the girls from the other half had propositioned me, i would've gladly pounced on most of them, too. fighting child molestation is a laudable goal, but these kinds of laws that declare "over this age, fuck away, but any younger is illegal" ignore the fact that young teens are overflowing with hormones and most of them would love any opportunity to ejaculate some of those hormones into or onto someone else... if only they knew how. these kinds of laws are set up primarily to make it harder to obtain abortions.

second off, this protest is not about illegaal activities or anything of the sort. quite simply, these folks hate, hate, hate abortion, and they associate planned parenthood with abortion. jesus himself could be president of planned parenthood, and these nutjobs would still be out there blocking traffic on meridian street.

Thursday's party was intended to honor Planned Parenthood's volunteers and supporters, Chief Executive Officer Betty Cockrum said.

She called Drozda's emphasis on the attorney general's investigation "clever" and invited him to "join with us in our efforts to help Hoosiers plan their families."

Gov. Mitch Daniels hasn't waded far into the abortion debate but has said he opposes abortion rights.

Brad Rateike, a spokesman for the governor, said Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization "and therefore has a right to use the residence."

Cockrum said Planned Parenthood followed the state's list of 17 policy guidelines for using the residence. Guidelines include paying a $200 fee, getting the group's invitation and agenda pre-approved by the residence director, and providing a guest list 48 hours in advance.

"It is up to the governor and the residence staff to set policy for how that facility is used," Cockrum said. "It is the people's living room."¶

tomorrow is the collage show at the big car gallery and galerie penumbra in fountain square.

in my online promotion for the show (specifically this imn thread), i started looking up websites for all the artists involved. so i'll report those links here and you can check 'em out.

when possible i tried to link to the artist's website. often i couldn't find one, but found articles about the artists in local periodicals like nuvo or the indy star, so i linked to those.

of the artists who i couldn't find any links for, many of them have an image or two up at bigcar.org/art/.

so here's the list. if anyone has links for the other, unlinked artists, i'd love to have them.

• Violet Aveline
• Lisa Barton
• Doug Calisch
• John Clark
• Jose Di Gregorio
• Penelope Dullaghan
• Elizabeth Guipe Hall
• Daniel Hook
• Anna Rae Landsman
• Jo Legner
• Mike Little
• Shauta March
• David Mattingly
• Kipp Normand
• Jason Pierce
• Eric Pohlman
• Brian Priest
• Richard Warfield Smith
• Jackie Stover
• stAllio!
• Jim Walker
• Chris Williams
• Sue Anne Zollinger

so take a look. there's some interesting stuff there... jo legner's erotic (not work safe) art gives me the vapors!¶

sheesh! i went back to work on monday, and between that and the virago move, i don't have time for anything else! i'm even falling behind on my tv shows. the horror! the horror!

but really, other than not getting to watch battlestar galactica, six feet under, or my adult swim favorites yet, it's pretty cool. all the boxes got moved over on thursday, though a couple boxes are still missing... we need to fish out the delivery confirmation info for those and see what's going on there.

there's still not much furniture in virago's place: we need to rent a truck (or find a friend with one who wants to help) in order to move a few of those things. but she bought a new bed thursday evening, and it got delivered today, so that's one down.

we've been doing a lot of unpacking and lots of shopping as well. virago refuses to step inside a wal-mart as a matter of principle (and i can't say i disagree), but we've been to meijer twice so far, and to target once, in addition to some grocery trips and a quick visit to the circle center mall, etc.

now that the bed is there, tonight we plan to officially move her cat over to the new place, and she plans to start sleeping there tonight. after that, things will start to calm down at my house, though surely virago will start getting antsy for more furniture. we have a few things for her that we don't have a large enough vehicle to move: a couch, a desk, an entertainment center, some chairs. maybe this weekend we'll somehow acquire a truck and move that stuff over.

the workday is just about over & it's almost time to drive downtown to see her again... after being in a long-distance relationship for so long, it's really nice to finally live close to each other. i'm sure i'll be able to start catching up on my tivo recordings soon.¶

saturday AUG 6th 2005
=====================
streaming & screaming all the way to your computer

*** http://radio.iddx.net/listen.pls ***

random mp3 radio action until tonight
roughly 6pm to 6am EST/US
djing & live sets all night
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no order or organization
just hours & hours of
breakcorExploitatioNoisExperimentaLoseRaggAnaloGrimElectroniCopywriteinfringement
may all you losers w/ nothing to do on a saturday tune in
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AIM: "raddestmanalive" if we're connected
(no) more info @ the urls below

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w3rd

-geoff/drbmd

--
badtastesucks.com
badtaste4life.com
animalswithinanimals.com¶

so anyway, i fixed that boot problem i was having, just in case you were wondering. system restore wouldn't do it but i ran a scan on C: (set to "fix all errors") & that seemed to do the trick.

anyway, a long time ago i told virago not to bring her crappy monitor when she moved here, and offered to give her my monitor, which i would replace by buying myself a new, bigger plasma screen. this was a compromise i made with myself when i built my new machine last winter: i wanted a new monitor, but my 5-year-old 15" CRT worked perfectly well...and i was already paying $1100-$1200 for the other hardware and printer. so i put off getting the new monitor until i could pass the "old" one on to virago.

well, she gets into town tomorrow, so tonight i went to fry's and bought myself a new 19" plasma screen: the samsung syncmaster 930B. it's a pretty black that matches my lovely coolermaster case, and it's so thin & light that the box had a handle and i could easily carry it as though it were a briefcase. plus, i really like this picture that i nicked from the samsung site: it takes typically phallic forms and creates an image that's distinctly vaginal. (or maybe i've just seen too much upskirt pr0n in my day.)

i picked up this bad boy at fry's for $399 - $40 mail-in rebate. they had several 19" plasma screens in the $350 range (some after mail-in rebate, some with no rebates). i ended up picking this one because it was black, the image quality looked pretty good, and it didn't have built-in speakers. most of them actually had the speakers built-in, but i didn't want that because i already have a stereo setup the way i like it, and if i decide to replace that, i would at least want something with a subwoofer.

unfortunately they didn't have any of the 930Bs on the floor, so i waited around for someone to help me and finally had to track someone down. he turned out to be a trainee, so he needed the manager for various things and getting my monitor from the back room etc took even longer than normal. i don't blame the trainee, though. it's not his fault, and it's not like i expected great service at a big box store like fry's. i wound my way through the checkout corral, the receipt-checker at the door complimented me on my samurai champloo dvds that i was also getting.

i hooked this baby up and i'm still wowed at its enormity. the display one at fry's didn't look that huge because it was surrounded by a good 10 or more other 19" plasma screens, with 17"ers beyond that. but now that it's on my desk where my old monitor used to be, it looks massive. especially since my tv is next to it, and that's only 13"! yikes.

the native resolution for this baby is 1280x1024. i think i've already adjusted to that, but it'll be a shock to go back to work and use 800x600 on a 13" monitor again... though i'm supposed to get a new machine at work eventually.

anyway, time for bed. virago gets here in the morning (actually around lunchtime) and we'll be all over the place, moving boxes, shopping for beds, etc. then friday is my birthday; we'll probably be fairly busy then too. saturday i turn in my collages for the show at big car (there's a big tour of the "cultural districts" that night & jim wants to get the art set up before that), then we're off to muncie for an elite party at bobby vomit's house. we'll be rocking out in his basement & there should be live streaming audio fromthe party, so stay tuned for the url for that.

time for beddy-bye.¶

still super busy, but i should be able to bust out a quick writeup of last night's movie & signing...

we arrived at 7:30 or so, bought our books & such, and made our way into the signing area. when you bought your book (or showed that you already had a copy of one), you received a number. there was a line leading to the signing area; they would call numbers in batches of 30 or so, so when your number batch was called, you got to get in line.

the book itself lists for $23.95. but they sold it to us for $25.39 ("they" being borders, who ran the signing). what's the extra $1.44? it would make sense if that were sales tax, though the handwritten receipt they gave me doesn't mention anything about tax. so did i pay sales tax on the book? or is that pure profit for bruce? profit for borders? i don't know.

the signing rules were not what was listed on the website. the site said that if you wanted bruce to sign non-book items, you needed to buy one book for each item. essentially, the site said bruce would sign one item for each book your bought: either the book itself or something else... in fact, and these are supposedly bruce's own words: "If they have purchased a book, but would rather have me sign memorabilia, I'm happy to do it on a one-for-one basis - not one-plus-one. For example, if they buy three books, I'll sign 3 pieces of memorabilia instead, no sweat."

how it actually worked was that he would sign any books you had, plus one non-book item. that was it. drbmd bought two books in hopes of getting him to sign two memorabilia items, but that was not meant to be. i think he didn't get his second book signed, so that he could return it. if we had known in advance that they would change the rules, we easily could've gotten his second item signed (by having one of the rest of us get it signed), and he wouldn't have had to buy a second book. so that was lame. but i don't blame bruce; i blame borders: they're the ones who told us he would only sign one piece of memorabilia per person.

but i'm getting ahead of myself. we arrived at 7:30 & got our numbers. my number was 341. so we had a lot of waiting to do. fortunately, the bloomington crew had staked out some seats right at the front of the theater (where the signing was taking place), in the second row, so we could overhear many of bruce's comments. he's a very funny, charming guy, much as you'd expect.

by the time we got called & i got my book signed (we also got a few non-posed photos of drbmd & i with bruce), it was about 9:50. at 10pm, bruce was scheduled to make opening remarks and take questions before starting the movie. needless to say, even though the movie was shown on both screens (and both screens were packed, which was very refreshing for a small indie cinema like key), the movie did not start on time.

but it didn't start all that late. the autographing was somehow completed by 10:15-10:20 or so, and bruce rushed off to the first screen (which had filled up while we were waiting for autographs and such) to give his opening remarks. not too much later, he returned to talk to us and answer some questions. again, he was really funny and charming. drbmd took some video during this; the video part will probably be too dark but the audio might turn out pretty well.

the movie... well, it was uber-cheesy. over-the-top cheese. i definitely enjoyed it, but it's a low-budget b-movie that was filmed in bulgaria because, as bruce told us, the sci-fi channel films all its movies in bulgaria these days (because it's so damned cheap). according to bruce's intro, the movie was originally supposed to be set in east LA, but he knew they couldn't realistically make it look like LA if filming in bulgaria, so he rewrote it for bulgaria.

it's a mind-swap movie, with stacey keach as the archetypal east-european mad scientist and ted raimi ("because he makes me look subtle," bruce said) as the assistant. bruce co-wrote, directed, and stars as an american pharmaceutical executive who ends up with half a brain from a taxi driver/former KGB agent in his head... and of course the brains battle for control. bruce's wife in the movie has a similar accident and ends up with her brain implanted inside a breakdancing robot called p-money mobo (i think).

i already knew a lot of the story from reading the comics, which are still campy (with this plot, that's a given) but not nearly as cheesy as the movie... for example, in the comics, the robot is metallic and looks like an old-school chrome robot (with a blonde wig). in the comics, the robot looks like devo's mascot, booji boy (with a blonde wig).

but like i said, i did enjoy the flick. it's a total b-movie, but it knows it is and doesn't take itself very seriously. lots of chuckles to be had.

overall, it might've been nice to show up earlier (and not have to wait so long) or to have gotten the book for less than list rather than the puzzling more than list that i paid. but whatever; i had fun, and i got bruce campbell's autograph.¶

i finally put a notice on my stAllio! mp3 page that my mp3s are available under the creative commons sampling plus license (or should i just use the attribution license?)

it's long been "understood"—at least by those who know me and are familiar with my work—that i don't give a damn if someone samples me or wants to use my stuff in their net radio show or their podcast. in fact i encourage that stuff. but the site never really had any kind of public notice or disclaimer about that fact. now it does.

the creative commons system isn't perfect, but it's a damn good start, and the only real legal framework available (that i know of) for those of us creators who don't want to fascistically lock down our content. also, the code for the notice includes extra stuff that should allow people who are looking for cc-licensed material (for example, podsafe music to play on their podcasts) to find the page using cc search tools.

soon (or eventually) i'll also add notices to the awia mp3s, pirates of the internet, this blog, etc.¶

i'm pretty crushed at work... everyone here is, but i have it particularly bad as i received massive amounts of turnover for several projects all at once, all of them having due dates in the next week or so... and i'm taking thursday and friday off this week, as virago will arrive here on thurs.

while the collage show isn't until 8/12, jim at big car wants all the art in the gallery by 8/6 (so that people who are coming by the gallery for other events will get to see all the collage). so at home i've been spending a lot of time making new collages, as well as catching up on the first season of the new battlestar galactica (thanks, bittorrent).

at one point last night i returned to my room to see a blue screen of death on my computer: extremely rare in xp. rebooting didn't work either the first couple times, and then it did. so i watched the two-part season-1 finale of battlestar galactica. but the next time i left the room long enough for my screen saver to kick in, i returned to find that BSOD again. this time, even fiddling with the bios, i couldn't get it to boot again. it didn't want to boot from cd, and i couldn't boot from floppy because i had never actually hooked up my floppy drive properly. eventually i gave up and went to bed.

this morning i started it up and it booted fine. it even told me that windows had recovered from "a serious error". so i went to take my shower, and when i got back: BSOD. ugh. but at least it boots sometimes. now i'm at work, where the computer is crap but it boots every time.

here's my theory: last night we had 2-3 power flickers right in a row. i'm thinking that's most likely what caused my system instability. if i can get it to boot again, i can run system restore or try to "repair" my windows installation, and hopefully that'll work.

but i don't know if i'll have time to do that tonight, as tonight we're supposed to go to key cinemas, and bruce campbell will be there, signing autographs and giving us a sneak preview of his new movie, the man with the screaming brain.

bruce campbell!

anyway, i don't expect to have much time for blogging and the like in the next few days... even if i get my home computer back up in working order tonight, i still have way too much crap to do at work, and lots to do at home preparing for virago's move and the collage show.¶

months ago, the senate completely derailed john bolton's nomination process. in a textbook display of bushism, bush refused to hand over the bolton-related documents that the senate demanded. the senate wouldn't allow a vote on bolton's nomination without the documents, and eventually the gop stopped even trying to railroad his nomination through the approval process. indeed, when bolton's nomination couldn't even get out of committee without an endorsement, the nomination process was pretty much dead.

any other president ever in the history of ever would have tried to be reasonable at that point and would have chosen another nominee. but not bush. he just waited until congress's session was over and made a recess appointment. all this despite the new revelation that bolton lied in paperwork he had submitted during the senate nomination process (which is akin to perjury).

once again, bush does what he wants, the rest of the world be damned. but i can't imagine how he or anyone else could think this was a good idea. bolton is a lame duck appointee before he even gets to the UN: his appointment only lasts until january 2007. and the entire world knows (for they read the news more closely than americans, it seems) that bolton is a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down kind of intelligence-twisting asshole.

more importantly, the world knows that bolton has no legitimacy: he speaks for bush, to be sure, but he wasn't approved by the senate. the US has never before had a UN ambassador who couldn't get senate approval. this is a huge mark of shame for bolton, an albatross around his neck so large and putrid that you can barely see the bushy moustache underneath.

the rest of the world knows bolton is damaged goods, and they will ignore him. why shouldn't they? he will need to be replaced in 16 months anyway. bolton was specifically chosen because he is a belligerent asshole, and republicans think his assholishness will allow him to browbeat the rest of the world into compliance with his wingnut agenda. but the world knows better. they'll just blow him off, nothing will get done, and american diplomacy will only be harmed (further, if that's even possible).¶