Sdtrk: ‘An eye for optical theory’ by Michael Nyman

I’m back on the Internets! After browbeating two SBC Amerifuck tech ‘support’ monkeys, who I daresay were calling from India, we now have better speeds than last time. Going back and forth with some tosser named Sam, we assessed that the problem was their fault, not ours, and it’d be seen to before 6pm that Tuesday eve. So after still having hideous non-speeds at 11pm, I called a second time, this time speaking with a different churl, and telling him that nothing had improved. The connection speed was ramped up about twenty minutes after my call. Results!
Just so you have an idea of what I was dealing with, I took a screenshot of the speed our connection was at at its slowest point, after visiting the SBC Americunt speed test site. (It’s kinda helpful to know the URL if you happen to be cursed with their DSL service, so I’ve reproduced the link here.) Anyway, the screenshot is kinda dodgy, but you have to see it. Yeah. Now wouldn’t you agree that’s a reason to be angry?

On the lighter side of things, I have finally found the name of the style of shades/glasses that I love. If you’re a mate of mine that’s actually seen me in person on more than one occasion, you already know that I own four or five pairs of shades. All of them have the same frame, but they’re all slightly different — one is transparent with mirror lenses, one is black with blue mirror lenses, etc. I’ve always wanted to find more variations of those shades, and eventually buy a pair of (fake) glasses with those frames, as they’re the only kind that look good on my face, but I never knew what they were called. Well, now I know — they style is called the browline, and the models are called either the ronsir, or the clubman.

Classically ace! They’re fine frames, fine frames. Now I need to scour online stores and estate sales for those bad boys..

Gonna try to catch Death from above 1979 at the Lager house this Saturday. The more I hear them, the more I like them, even though the cover for their latest Cd kinda scares me

Sdtrk: none

Short and sweet: Both of the computers here are having difficulties getting a decent internet connection. Everything is moving very very slowly. I was online with a so-called SBC technical assistant for an hour last night, whereupon he had me go to their test page to assess how fast my connection was (or wasn’t). According to the test, my current speed is slower than dial-up.

Back later. Angry now. So there you have it

Sdtrk: ‘Me and my ding dong’ by Pankow

Good going, Blogger. Down for almost an entire day. Refuckingmarkable.

Anyway, here’s this thing:

My Mormon name is Darvell Friends Forsaken !
What’s yours?

Shi-chan’s is worse, if you can believe that. Hers is Andoorie Traudi Treasure Cocaine. *confused stare*
Thanx Veach, for Mormonising us! Now we must eschew all sinful things such as technology. Goody Andoorie will proceed to churn some butter, and I shall go raise a barn

Sdtrk: ‘Swinging bachelor pad’ by Vitesse

Last night, I voluntarily watched the pilot episode of the american version of ‘The office’. I don’t normally watch broadcast television, in fact, I really haven’t watched telly since ‘Seinfeld’ went off the air, and I wasn’t even aware there was a bastardised version of ‘The office’ due to air over here; I was helping my mother with her computer, and I saw it mentioned on the TV listings, so I decided, why not?

Yep, it was shite. I mean, I knew it was going to be shite, but I suppose I had to confirm it. Over the course of 22min, I audibly laughed three times. That’s cos, gee, I’d already seen the first episode before. Seriously, it was the same damn episode as the original pilot — same gags and everything — only with americans in place of the British cast.
Turns out Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are executive producers of it as well. Did you guys need rent money or something?? Why did you feel it was necessary to take a brilliant show, and essentially cut off its balls? I mean, there’s no way they’re gonna be able to come up with something equal to the gag featuring Tim and the dildo over here. And I’m thinking the Finchy character isn’t going to be nearly as funny, since 98% of his speech pattern is really horrible sexual innuendo.

O well. I’ve seen it, so now I can forget it exists. I had to watch the entire first disk of the boxset to wash the bad taste off my brain, so the evening wasn’t a total disaster.
I think later on at some point, I’m going to have to explain to you, the casual viewer of ‘Shouting etc etc’, why I despise most remakes, but right now I have to leave my house. Wish me luck!

Sdtrk: ‘Emaciator’ by Ramleh

Just watched the trailer for ‘Star wars: Episode Three’. My reaction? I don’t know what the hell’s going on! No, seriously, I don’t. Do I care? No! No, seriously, I don’t.

Picture a young, guileless, and innocent Davecat, seeing ‘Star wars’ (‘Episode Four’, for you rabid purists) for the very first time, back in 1977, at what was known back then as the Northland Theatre. My excitement level was, like most kids at that time, running desperately into the red. Robots! Spaceships! Aliens! Laser guns! Etc! That excitement level went up a little higher with ‘The Empire strikes back’, cos everyone likes ‘The Empire strikes back’, and leveled off with the third movie with the Ewoks, whose title, for the life of me, I cannot honestly recall.

Years passed, and not only did I get older, I got wiser, and various avenues opened up. Around the early Eighties, I started watching this quirky British scifi show called Doctor Who, and suddenly, straightforward American-made scifi seemed less and less ‘cool’. Sure, I saw the Star trek movies in the theatres like everyone else, but they were holding less of my interest with each passing year. (Except for ‘Wrath of Khan’. Everyone likes ‘Wrath of Khan‘.) Every weekday, I’d sit goggle-eyed watching the latest installment of Doctor Who, and of course, the coolest thing in the world would be to be a Timelord, tumbling headlong through Time and Space with a TARDIS (and a sexy companion) of my own. And when I wasn’t watching that, I was watching Ultraman.
I don’t know when it really dawned on me, but I think what drew me to such shows is yes, they had a high kitsch factor, but the writers got as much as they could with the limited special effects they had available. Sure, the special effects in ‘Star wars’ looked great at the time, but to me, the story was just boring. And Star trek was just very bleh straightforward. Part of the charm of the Doctor was his eccentricities — the viewers sometimes had no idea what he’d do next, not to mention his enemies or his companions. That alone was so much more fascinating to me than what was more or less a Western in space.

Then in 1987, the local channel that had been previously showing Ultraman started airing this brand-new show that was animated in Japan, and had these really sweet jet fighters that transformed into robots!!1! That show was called Robotech, and it was the Silver Key to the Gateway of New and Different Television Entertainment, or Something. I could go on about how Carl Macek, the producer, Frankensteined together three almost-totally unrelated shows in order to create Robotech, but that’s another post altogether. In any event, Star wars, Star trek and the like were completely dead to me from that point on.

But yeah, back to Lucas and his excretions! I saw Episodes One and Two, and my brain has such a resistance to anything bearing the conjunction of the words ‘Star’ and ‘Wars’, that both films were almost completely unmemorable. Here’s what I recall:
+ Darth Maul looked like a badass, but actually wasn’t a badass
+ Episode One contained Space Negroes (Jar-jar and his race), Space Arabs (that flying bug guy), and Space Chinese (the aliens in that giant round space station thing)
+ Yoda knew kung-fu
+ That Clone trooper battle at the end of Episode two was probably the best part of both movies
+ One of my old coworkers at Quest used to go out of his way to pronounce it ‘Palapaptine’, cos it was funnier
+ Ewan McGregor, Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson stuck in a shitty franchise
+ Jango Fett is a really stupid fucking name
+ Not enough naked Natalie Portman

I’m sorry, I have no respect for a film director who can barely direct his actors, and insists on constantly sodomising his own back catalogue, for the sake of ‘perfection’. I gave both Lucas and his goiter money for the ‘THX 1138’ DVD, and that was only reluctantly, as it was a new version with unnecessary CG scenes shoehorned in. Unless he starts a fund to request money to publically kill himself, that’s the last cent he’ll ever see from me.
Having said that, however, I would like to see what I hope is the final Star wars movie, and I intend on seeing it in much the same fashion as I saw Episode One: sitting over at Mike‘s, watching a second-gen VHS copy that someone filmed with a videocamera at the back of a theatre. That way, I’ll be paying exactly what it’s worth!

Sdtrk: ‘Warner’s reverie’ by Mount Vernon astral temple

Right, so I see that I’ve wasted yet another hour desperately looking for interesting blogs by other people. And once again, I’ve come up trumps. So far, from what I’ve seen, the ‘Bloggerverse’ is 95% shite, plain and simple. Here, then, would be a small list of pet peeves regarding my blog surfing experiences:

+ Political blogs: I don’t give a steamy white toss if you think all Democrats are hippies, or all Republicans are Nazis. I honestly don’t fucking care. The more of these types of blogs that I see, the less I like people as a whole. People who write these aren’t going to convince a person who sits on one side of the political fence to switch to the other. You’re not just wasting your time; more importantly, you’re wasting mine

+ Religious blogs: see above

+ Adverts cleverly disguised as blogs: You’ve seen ’em. ‘Go Home Leukemia Newsletter Archives Leukemia Links Advertise on this site Add URL LeukemiaLeukemiaFeline LeukemiaLeukemia SymptomsLeukemia SymptomsChronic Lymphocytic LeukemiaAcute LeukemiaSymptoms Of Leukemia’ ad infinitum ad nauseam. Blogger needs to do what BlogExplosion does, and have humans check these sites, and verify that they aren’t just big adverts. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes

+ Blogs in a Foreign Tongue: I know this can’t be helped, and I hate to even mention it, as it sounds really bigoted/xenophobic. But if I’m madly clicking the ‘Next Blog’ button atop my site in a single-minded masochistic pursuit, I find that a good portion of sites are in either Spanish, Portugese or Italian. (Never French. I can handle French, but there’s never any French ones..) There should be a set of selection boxes you can check off, to indicate if you wish to view Blogs written in other languages

+ People who don’t fill in their profile: So you’re typing away, publicising your most private secrets, or even your day-to-day existence (such as it is) for the InfoBahn to scrutinise. Why have you not filled in your profile? Maybe it’s just me, but I view the profile question section as another opportunity to be witty (such as it is). Also, I like to know a wee bit about the author. Call me crazy, I know, but hey.
Besides, if you maintain that you’re so dreadfully boring that no-one wants to know about your boring details, then why did you start your boring blog in the first place?

+ That goddamned spelling ‘style’, where eVErY OtHeR leTTeR iS TypEd liKe tHiS: I swear, if I ever meet someone who admits to doing that, I will tie them down, break their hands, and make them watch as I set their Ashlee Simpson and/or Good Charlotte Cds on fire. Who started this bullshit, and why?? Furthermore, I should bloody well hope they have some sort of programme that mixes up the cases for them, cos if they’re actually typing like that, then they are irredeemably retarded. It took me thirty seconds to type ‘eVErY OtHeR leTTeR iS TypEd liKe tHiS’, and these people have their whole blog written like that. Do they start a post on Monday, and finish it Wednesday afternoon??

+ Blogs that have to have some sound file instantly load: I’m gonna hazard a guess, but if you have one of these, chances are very verrrry slim that it’s going to be something I want to hear. Do yourself and your intended audience a favour — get rid of your soundfiles. They slow the load time, and in any case, your taste in music is repellent

+ JavaScript abuse: Just before the site loads, some insipid dialogue box pops up, that you have to click on to enter the site. What in shit is that all about? You’re not clever, you know. And usually it’s something wRiTtEN LikE tHIs. If you’re doing stuff like that, you have just confirmed that your Blog is the equivalent to a Scandinavian black metal band: all ‘style’, no substance.
Even worse is when you leave the site, and another dialogue box pops up. I’m leaving your site. Let go of my hand now, and fuck off.

Lastly, my personal fave,
+ Spelling, grammar, and a lack thereof:

*exhales* Ahhh, all better now!
So send me links to blogs that don’t make me want to disconnect my Internet! Cos at this point, it really can’t get much worse

Los Angeles Times, I salute you for your forward thinking.

‘L.A. Times’ Drops Daily ‘Garfield’ as the Comic Is Blasted and Praised
By Dave Astor | Published: January 05, 2005 12:50 PM ET

NEW YORK The Los Angeles Times dropped the daily version of “Garfield,” the most widely distributed comic in syndication.

“Garfield” has received mixed reviews in recent years, but the Times is one of the few papers to ever dare pull it. Reader reaction? “We are getting complaints,” said Jennifer James, a Times editorial aide, but she declined to reveal how many.

The Times dropped the daily “Garfield” effective two days ago — while keeping the Sunday “Garfield” — to make room for “Brevity,” a new comic by Guy Endore-Kaiser and Rodd Perry of United Media (E&P Online, Dec. 9).

“We’re always trying to get some new talent in the comics pages,” said James, who did not make the “Garfield” decision.

Gene Weingarten, a humor columnist for The Washington Post and Washington Post Writers Group, praised the Times decision during his weekly washingtonpost.com chat yesterday. He said the paper displayed “the kind of cojones missing in too many places” and described “Garfield” as “a strip produced by a committee, devoid of originality, devoid of guts, a strip cynically DESIGNED to be inoffensive and bad, on the theory that public tastes are insipid. [emphasis mine] Now we need others to follow suit. Like the Post.”

When asked for a response to Weingarten’s comments and the Times action, Universal Press Syndicate Director of Communications Kathie Kerr said today: “Our understanding is that ‘Garfield’ ran in a children’s section of the Los Angeles Times. When a feature is dropped on pages which are predominantly read by children, those young readers are less likely to complain or demand its return.”

She added that Jim Davis is “hands on” with his comic, and concluded: “‘Garfield’ is the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world, and that speaks volumes to its popularity. More than 2,700 newspapers worldwide publish it, and, in the last year, more than 50 newspaper clients were added. It’s an easy-to-get laugh a day and that endears it to millions of children and adults worldwide.”

I can remember when Garfield was actually funny. That was for a couple of weeks, back during the fucking Reagan administration. I can understand wanting to milk a ca$h cow dry, but I mean, jesus christ already. How many times can you do a variation on the ‘fat lazy Monday-hatin’ lasagna-lovin’ cat oversleeps’ four-panel strip? Apparently, several thousand times.

If I had limitless sums of monies at my disposal, I would bestow a grant to some programmers, so that they could create a programme that would take every single Garfield strip and variant thereof (i.e, calendar installments, greeting cards, etc) made, and see exactly how many times Jim Davis has done the same three or four ‘jokes’ over & over. Then, I would give another grant to a group of scientists, so they can run a battery of tests to see how much more raw Banality has entered the Universe since Garfield’s inception. Finally, upon receiving and analysing the results from both groups, I would write another sizeable cheque, and give it to some bloodthirsty contract killers, and immediately dispatch them to Jim Davis Estates.

Good christ. For that matter, why is Bil ‘The Family Circus’ Keane still alive? Does no-one else see that as being a problem??