Dead Allen

Has anyone read it yet? I know we discussed it previously.

I must say, I think I have to get the audio book, it's hysterical hearing it read aloud . . .

Just a reminder that Combichrist is playing at Jaxx on Tuesday.

Many openers, including ego likeness and Aesthetic Perfection.

We'll be there, come out!!

From the Washington Post/Accuweather Weather page:

Tomorrow
A few t-storms, some severe; storms can bring downpours, large hail, damaging winds, and a tornado

wtf???

Hi there LJ.

So far today, there was a multiple shooting right in the middle of the epicenter of gentrification for Columbia Heights, and the Blue/Orange Line that caused hours of delays yesterday is having a problem in the EXACT SAME SPOT AS YESTERDAY.

Conversely, it's now rather nice outside.

How's your day?

Occasionally I make security announcements here.

This week has been kind of extraordinary. This week, if you have computery goodness at home, there has been occasion to patch Windows, Adobe Acrobat, Firefox, OS X, and Safari (if not able to do OS X, not sure about Safari for Windows).

So, take the time this weekend to run all the updates on your computer, plz. thanks!

I so don't have the time to go into it now . . . because I had an amazingly wacky weekend, and thus have a ton of stuff I was supposed to get done still to do.

But I must surface to say as much as it worries me to say it, the VNV Nation remix of Combichrist's "All Pain is Gone" has dancefloor monster written all over it.

Now I just need to get bluvampr to lay the smackdown on my CD collection of what post-Kinetik to get since I missed her set last night.

Happy Birthday to spirit_o_fire, who's got a few years on LJ . . . may you have many more!!

So a short while ago, I was bitching about ticketmaster. Shocking, I know.

However, I feel the need to mention in a positive aspect that local promoters are trying to make tickets available as cheaply as possible.

This week, on Thursday, Das Ich is playing at Exposure. Tickets can be found by going to http://www.deep6.com/shows.html and ordering through paypal. I'm assuming that they'll have a list at the door.

Later, in June, Combichrist is playing at Jaxx. You can get raped by Ticket Bastard, or you can call Jaxx (http://www.jaxxroxx.com/) and order by credit card over the phone for $2/ticket, OR you can go to Spellbound this Saturday and get the tickets at the door with NO service charge (and I believe free admission to the club night for buying the ticket!!). That is super awesome for Spellbound patrons, and really cool on the part of Lori Beth, et al.

Let me know if you are planning on going to either show, they should both be awesome.

ego_likeness just posted that there is a site listing stuff for the Combichrist tour up, including links to tickets: http://combichrist.ning.com/ (ning??? is that really the best CC could do? ah well).

This made me thing -- when I saw them in bmore a few months ago, there were a shit-ton more people there than will ever fit into Jaxx.

Which made me then think that the show will very well sell out. Which then made me think about buying tickets in advance.

An $18 ticket has a $4 (that's a 22%) service charge, and then there is the ADDITIONAL charge of $4.75 (26%) of me GETTING TO USE MY OWN PRINTER TO PRINT OUT THE TICKET USING MY PAPER AND INK.

So, Ticketmaster has managed to add almost half the cost of the ticket (literally almost 50%) in service charges. One $18 ticket to Combichrist costs $26.75 with service charges.

Yes, I could do will call, but the fact that they charge $4.75 for a service that SAVES THEM MONEY and many other online ticket services give for free galls me, and there is also the fact that they promote it as the default and best option for buying tickets.

anyhow, even at 22%, I think not.

If anyone else is interested, let me know, I may make a trip down to Jaxx just to buy freakin' tickets and skip the service charges, or stop by if I happen to be in the area. And if I don't make it down there before the show and it sells out, Jaxx just doesn't get my bar tab for that evening.

addendum -- It turns out the Jaxx will do their own credit card transactions over the phone for a $2 service charge. I think that's far more reasonable. Perhaps that is the route I will take. It's not the additional $2-$6.75, it's definitely the principle.

from my own feed, and cited by several others:

It's not really to his defense, so much as "telling it like it is" when a fanboy asks him if he thinks Martin owes something to his readers.

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/525510.html

But yes, it does have the line that "GRRM is not your bitch."

priceless, as well as so true.

Another very important may birthday.

Ladies and Germs, Mr. Lance Henriksen!!

I could kick myself for not mentioning that last year at D*Con. Ah well. If I ever see him again . . .

Apparently The Neil is appearing in Chestertown MD at a free event at 7 PM.

I'm sure if you got in your car now, you could make it.

(apparently they are doing first come first serve on tickets -- hey, it's a nice day to go for a drive!)

http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/3190/prmID/1376

This AM's xkcd fits this perfectly: http://xkcd.com/574/

I was driving around in the car this evening, and WTOP had a story about the swine flu. Today saw announcement from the White House and DHS about the subject, which to me is completely in keeping with what should be going on -- they give updates, tell folks what's going on, being done, etc.

WTOP had one of their announcers interviewing an AP reporter who had been at the DHS press conference. This is an approximation of the story

Soundbite of Secretary Napolitano: "The Department of Health and Human Services is declaring a State of Medical Emergency. There is no need to panic at this point in time, we are keeping informed of the situation. This is going to get worse before it gets better, and we want people to be aware of that.'

WTOP guy: "It sounds like she is saying that people shouldn't panic at this time. When should we panic?" (I think he actually did say that)

AP guy: "Well, I think that they are saying that there is no need to panic. They are doing what they need to do in the situation, and keeping the public aware of what they are doing."

WTOP guy: "But she's declared a state of emergency -- doesn't that mean that there might be cause for panic?"

AP guy: "some of the things that are not in your sound bite are that she said that this was to enable mobilization of resources -- military reserves, money, and release of Tamiflu from US stores to the affected areas. She said that it was more like a 'State of Preparedness for a Medical Emergency' than an actual emergency, but that's the legal step that has to be taken before resources can easily and speedily be made available. Keep in mind, this is the flu. It can be dangerous, and even deadly, but it's not SARS, it's not other diseases that are new. It's something where they've dealt with it before and they know what they are doing"

WTOP guy: (switching inflammatory topics since he is not getting what he wants) "Doesn't this announcement by Secretary Napolitano show that there are concerns about the fact that we STILL don't have a Secretary of DHHS? If the current nominee is nominated, she's going to have to hit the ground running and be in the middle of all this. Can the public feel comfortable with this?"

AP guy: "I think it shows that every day, people at DHHS are doing the things that they need to do and getting the things done that they need to get done, even if they don't have a secretary. I think the personnel in these organizations are doing just fine at dealing with this situation, regardless of whether or not a nominee has been approved."

WTOP guy: "But I want to panic. I NEED to panic. Oh please tell me we can have panic -- I want it so bad I can taste it. THERE NEEDS TO BE PANIC!!!"

Sadly, only the last line is really an exaggeration at all. I hated the WTOP asshat for constantly trying to sensationalize the situation so that he could stir up concern and titillation, and I admired the AP guy for sticking to his guns and not taking a single piece of the bait that the WTOP guy was constantly sticking out in front of him.

The answer, WTOP guy, is that really, there doesn't ever need to be a time to panic if we do things right. Panic is playing into the hands of the enemy -- in this case it's a microbe, but at other times, you're doing their work for them.

The brits have it right with the old slogan they have revived: "Keep Calm and Carry On!."

I'll tell me when to panic, thank you very much.

We just drove past the football field of the high school that is right off Tenley in NW DC.

The football scoreboard was on, flashing "uP ur aSS" in the LED's. Unfortunately, no easy way to get a picture and wasn't going to go back for it.

another hacker is born.

I'm hoping that this is one of those things that has a huge backlash, but I'm betting most people don't notice it.

LJ has changed what it serves up to you -- Now when you go to the LJ logon page, content is being served from doubleclick (one of the biggest online advertising resources in the world).

edit I figured out the logon issues that I'd written about before. I've just erased it to keep from confusing people. However, still annoyed at the introduction of doubleclick on the login page. It also seems to be using your "interests" as info it feeds to double-click, so you might want to start randomizing those.

Dunno if anyone else has spotted it, but Alien Trespass opens this weekend at E Street.

Also no idea how long it is sticking around, as I'm probably busy most of this weekend. But I'd love to go see it.

Cheesy 50's sci-fi spoof by one of the senior directors of the X-files.

Oh, and The Proposition is playing at the AFI a few days in the near future.

Google reveals previously secret server and data center architecture -- so simple it's brilliant.

Tea is the new coffee -- and the drink of the new rich and dot com millionaires -- who knew I was that cool for so long. Not only that, there is a World Tea Expo that believes that the Tea industry is going to grow THREE BILLION DOLLARS in the next two years. Start that Tea House now!!

So, to preface, this is not to be a discussion about most religious views -- e.g. Let's not talk about operating system or anything like that.

However, my existing workstation's days are numbered. It's having more and more hardware problems as time goes on, and given that this is the same shell of a PC that I've had for eight years, and the only type of upgrade that will be feasible would be a full motherboard replacement (and thus rebuilding the box), I think it will be replaced rather than upgraded again.

The question I pose to you, LJ, is whether or not I should just go to using one of my laptops as my primary workstation, and then just having a docking station for it, a la most of the designer types in the DC metro area seem to do. Or if I should replace the workstation with something new that is not so "portable."

I still feel strangely uncomfortable with this. Much as I love my laptops, I've always considered portable computers to be kind of disposable. After all, you are carrying them around, they could be lost, etc . . . who the hell wants to have their main workstation (that theoretically you depend on almost every day) be at that kind of risk?

But at the same time, let's face it. I have more laptops, and work on laptops more as time goes on. "In Theory" we're working towards being a more mobile workforce (though ignorance in the face of the recession is kind of curtailing that, as do certain lines of work). And, realistically, assuming that I have a centralized file-server architecture at the place I am going to be having my main workstation, aren't all computers that kind of disposable anyways?

Realistically, though, the main workstation tends to have my mail archive and other necessary items on it that are backed up to the file server, but not run from them. I still feel that whatever solution I go with, I will have one box that is my "primary" that more information is more readily accessible on, and that needs to be taken into account, whether it is a laptop or desktop.

Another problem is that most consumer-grade laptops don't have true docking stations, so you're going to be doing a lot of plugging and unplugging.

Thoughts? Experiences?

We caught up on Dollhouse this evening.

Watching Dollhouse has been like driving down the coastal highway and not being able to turn onto the beach. You can see where you want to be, you can imagine how good it's going to feel to be on the sand or in the surf, but you JUST CAN'T FREAKIN' GET THERE.

FINALLY with episode 6 it's good.

Whedon, I understand that you want us to be emotionally invested in the characters. But good lord man! You could probably do it in a few less, and maybe NOT GET A SHOW CANCELLED. Though it's FOX, so that's always a toss-up.

PS -- headcrashaddict Ep 6 is the one we caught a tiny bit of at poker, with Patton Oswalt. He's brilliant, and probably part of what makes the episode finally be a "good one."

Now, to see how long until it gets canceled. (e.g. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/24/dollhouse-needs-to-make-a-move-before-its-too-late/15144 )

There's a really cool pic poster who I follow on LJ who gets pix from all over.

Her user name is NSFW to some, so I won't mention it, but you can see it in the link if you mouseover or follow. She finds amazing pix all over the intarwebs and reposts them.

Tonight she broke my cute overload button with kittahz. Or perhaps I am biased due to my past acquaintances.

If you were a fan of Ms. Ike, you have to see this . . . Not her, but so typical.