- GameSpot, August 15, 2006 – Boston, MA

In an unexpected press release, it was announced today that in addition to releasing the new videogame “Guitar Hero II” this Fall, Harmonix will release two companion products that it hopes will take its popular franchise to new levels.

“I loved the original Guitar Hero,” Ravi Shankar told us. “I thought it was a very novel idea, but I wasn’t very happy to have beat it on the expert level in just under 2 weeks. I thought, they should ramp up the difficulty on this bad boy with a sitar version. Before I knew it, I was on the phone with Greg over at Harmonix pitching the idea.”

“When Ravi called I actually hung up on him,” said Greg, Vice President of Product Development at Harmonix, “I thought it was IBM support playing a joke on us. When I realized that we don’t use IBM support, I was horrified and called Ravi back immediately. Luckily for us, Ravi was pretty cool about it, and I’m glad he was. Without him, Sitar Hero would be just another idea instead of the signature edition game that will inevitably return the sitar to it’s rightful place in popular music.”

“That’s right. He did hang up on me,” chuckled the 85 year old Shankar, “But he called right back and the project took off. We have been working hard to keep the whole thing quiet, but while hanging out and playing a little Guitar Hero with my buddy Herbie Hancock, I accidentally let the Sitar Hero idea slip. I remember his jaw just hit the floor, and he immediately missed like thirty notes in a row, allowing me to solidly wail him on “Cowboys From Hell.” When he snapped out of it, he wanted to know if I would mind if He called Greg with a similar idea. I told him to go for it.”

“When Ravi told me about Sitar Hero, I lost it, because if there is a forgotten instrument that needs resurrection, it’s the keytar. The sitar has been around for thousands of years, and has had plenty of popularity. The keytar, on the other hand, danced America right through the 80′s, only to get dumped like a pair neon leg warmers as soon as the 90′s rolled around. If I didn’t have to play 15 more rounds of GH with Ravi to prove that I’m the bigger hero, I would’ve called Greg sooner, but I called him as soon as I got home the next morning.”

“You’re not going to believe this, but I actually hung up on not only Ravi, but Herbie, too. I mean it’s not that often that two legends call me in the same week. This time, I thought it was Mike cranking me from the conference room. I actually said, ‘Whatever, Love Bug, call me back after your next tune up,’ and then just hung up. Before I could finish (accidentally) filling Mike’s cube with Styrofoam peanuts (Sorry, Mike!), Herbie called me back. Herbie is one serious dude when it comes to the Keytar and I have learned to respect that. After his rendition of Rockit, I wanted to be a Keytar player myself, and I had to give Keytar Hero a solid green light.”

The company is keeping quiet on the track listings for the games, but they have said that both “Rockit” and “The Final Countdown” will appear on Keytar Hero, while “(Listen To The) Flower People” and “Up, Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloon” will grace Sitar Hero.

To keep the experience uniformly great, Harmonix has stated that the current Gibson guitar controller will not be compatible with the companion games, which will require their own unique controllers. The companion products will be released in the US in November 2006.

Images from the Games:

Cubicle Wars 2006

While skimming the MSDN Flash Newsletter from Microsoft this morning, I came across the following lines (that are mysteriously missing from the online version):

“From the Editor:

A short film http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5252877 that’s a huge Internet hit has been making the rounds on the workstations… After watching these hard-working employees, you might want to learn more about robot programming…

And the link is a redirect to a non-Microsoft site featuring the video below. My questions are these:

1. Why is Microsoft masking a link to an offsite video like it resides on their site?
2. Is it just me, or does saying that a “video has been making rounds on the workstations” make the writer sound like he makes his living sweeping up for your barber rather than editing a newsletter for the largest software company in the world?
3. What in the flying fuck does the video have to do with robot programming? There are high school freshmen editing school papers that routinely make better transitions between cafeteria menu changes and who the football team has been gang raping this week.

It is a good video, with lots of great lines, just the same. And if Microsoft includes something in a newsletter, forwarding said link to one’s co-workers can’t possibly violate any corporate policies, can it? I didn’t think so, either.

Mother’s Day

From the same guys who did Cubicle Wars. Sometimes getting a simple picture taken for your Mom can be a process.

The Good Word

Again from the same guys who did Cubicle Wars. Sometimes you have to go that extra mile to spread the good word.

Oh man, don’t ask me how I came across this, but when I did, it pushed today’s regularly scheduled post to the back burner.

You go to this site, select a few personalizing options, and get a personalized message sent by Samuel L Jackson by e-mail or phone. The turnaround time between answering the last question and getting the call seems to be about three minutes.

It not only doesn’t verify the phone numbers that you put in, but it spoofs the number that you input into the caller id of the person receiving it. Remember, I have no idea if they’re collecting the phone number data, so you might want not want to send it to your grandma’s unlisted number, just to be safe.

I realize that it’s just a cheap promotional gimmick to push Samuel L. Jackson’s Snakes on a Plane, but I and everyone I showed it to seemed to say, “Best. Message. Ever.”

Personal Message From Samuel L. Jackson by E-mail or Phone.

Enjoy!

When my Nerd Party post spawned a multi-site mini-discussion on who was a geek and who was a nerd, I figured there might be some confusion about the actual definitions of the terms being argued. Today, Geek, Nerd, and Dork are used interchangeably, but there are subtle defined differences between them:

A Nerd, by definition, seeks knowledge at the expense of social skill. These people grade your papers and price your comic books.

A Geek, by definition, values technological proficiency at the expense of social skill. These people read your e-mail.

A Dork is a general term for someone who is simply socially inept. These are the people that make geeks and nerds feel cool.

A Jock, by definition, values physical fitness at the expense of matters of the mind. These people are your gym coaches and the sworn enemies of the Nerds.

So, now that we have defined the buckets, I created this quick quiz to objectively end the argument of which group we each belong to. There are no right or wrong answers. Just select what’s best for you so we can end this once and for all.

Enjoy.

Geek, Nerd, Dork, or Jock: The Quiz

This has been one of those weeks where all I’ve wanted to do when I got home is sit in front of the PS2, mindlessly punching my way through rappers. Unfortunately, the console started freezing up couple of days ago, ending with my trusty PS2 no longer loading discs.

After instantaneously looking up new and used PS2s online, I found that even a used one couldn’t be had for less than $90. It was at that point that I became aware of my inner geek who said,

“Just what the hell are you doing? A real geek wouldn’t be price shopping for a new PS2 right now. A real geek would get a screwdriver and open that fucker up to find out what’s was wrong with it. It’s dead, the warranty was over 5 years ago, and even if it catches fire, you’re no worse off than you are right now. You’ve got a whole bunch of screwdrivers, a fire extinguisher, nothing to lose, and you’re standing here comparison shopping? I’m actually feeling ashamed of you, right now.”

My inner geek was right. I closed out pricegrabber, and did a little googling on PS2 repair. Eventually, I came across an excellent article showing how to take apart the PS2 to clean and readjust the laser. After successfully performing those tasks, I realized that the disc loading issues were due to a grinding noise coming from the screw that drove the laser up and down its guide rails.

If you hear a grinding from inside a PS2, the lube that you are going to need to fix it is not red lithium grease or plain lithium grease, which you can get at Wal-Mart in the auto section. No. The stuff you need is called white lithium grease. The problem is that while a few forums might mention that this is the stuff you need, no forum or article actually tells you where you can get it. Neither does Google.

I’m here to tell you. You can get White Lithium Grease at Sears in the Tool/Automotive section for about $3 a tube.

You smear the head of a Q-tip full of grease and run it along the two laser guide rails and on snake motor screw, and put the rest back in your tool box, never to be used again. You then gently move the laser assembly up and down the rails until it moves smoothly without catching. Once it does, reassemble the console and pop in your favorite game.

By doing this, you can rid yourself of $87 if not $126 worth of shame and get back into the ring.

Concerned Parent: Do you know how dangerous myspace is?

Admiral Ackbar: Come on.

Concerned Parent: There are predators that prey on children there.

Admiral Ackbar: Oh come on. It’s media hype. Predators have been around for a thousand years. That’s why your parents told you not to talk to strangers or get in vans with clowns. Right now, the media hypes the predatory hunting ground as myspace to freak people out and get them watching the news. 20 years ago, the same stories ran about telephone chat lines for the exact same reason. And in the beginning, the news was controlled by the Church, so the story was quietly squashed so as not to choke off the supply of alter boys. Oh, and video games cause violence and Judas Priest kills children.

Concerned Parent: [stunned] But, I like Judas Priest.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that CircuitCity has a rolling, semi-secret sale on PS2, Xbox and GameCube games. There is a rotating inventory of good games under $10 on the CircuitCity website, but the inventory changes so fast that the stores don’t seem to have time to mark them down on the shelves. Last weekend, I went in to one of the local stores to troll the sale bin, and decided to have a few games that weren’t in the sale bin price checked to see if the bargains extended further than even the website indicated.

Sure enough, they did. I left the store with 3 games for me, and 2 games for other people, with a marked cost of around $200. I walked out of the store with all 5 games for a grand total of $40. While I’m not particularly fond of button-mashing fighting games, I remembered Def Jam Fight For NY getting good ratings on Gamespot. When it priced out at less than $9, I found it impossible to resist.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re the new guy in a underground fighting gang that sponsors underground fights and you climb your way to the top of the food chain. At first glance, the unique feature of this game is that the all the people that you fight are today’s Rap and Hip Hop stars. The other unique feature that I was unaware of is the game’s brazen brutality. I’m no stranger to violent video games, but after popping the disc into the console, I sat there slack-jawed and almost appalled at the absolute brutal nature of the fighting in the game. This is marked mature for a reason.

You start the game by creating your own character including height weight, build, skin tone, facial shape, nose shape, eye type, eye color, ear shape, and voice preference. In essence, if you’re a guy, you’re building a cartoonish model of yourself. From there, you have to learn one of five skills (street fighting, kick boxing, submissions, martial arts, or wrestling) from the gym master Henry Rollins. What Henry fucking Rollins has to do with hip-hop, I have no idea, but I find it both cool and corny that he actually sends text messages to me to get my ass down his gym to hone my fighting skills (the only person that I might’ve found more amusing in the role might have been Glen Danzig). Did I say my skills? I meant the skills of the 6’0, 210 pound, blue eyed, brown haired, street fighting character with the big ears and crooked nose that I created.

Once you’re “in the game”, the learning curve is a little steep, but once I got the hang of it, it’s pretty fun. There are the basic punching, kicking, and grappling moves, but game also includes specialized moves that can be purchased from Rollins. These moves are similar to finishing moves found in other fighting games, but without the complicated button mashing that is usually required to execute them. This should not imply that the game itself is simple, though. Each opponent has a unique style and takes me an average of 5-10 rounds to beat. While this type of repetition would normally have me shutting the console off in frustration, I find myself happily getting pounded round after round. What is more unusual about this is that I don’t really consider myself a fan of fighting games.

#1GF! finds it more than a little disturbing to watch her boyfriend get his ass kicked by Ice T over and over again, but I have to say that there’s something very satisfying about controlling a fighter that looks and dresses like you. And even if I felt a little bad about eventually kicking Ice T’s ass (he is the O.G., after all), I can tell you that there is immense satisfaction in watching that tiny version of me kicking the shit out of Sean Paul.

Pros:
New level of brutality
Very custom characters
Vast finishing moves with relatively simple execution
Paying back Sean Paul for his music

Cons
You have to buy clothes and jewelery
Long, long load times

Platforms
PS2, XBox, GameCube

Cost
$9 at CircuitCity

Rating
B+

1010. There are pony tails, but not enough Choppers to justify them.

1001. There’s a lot of expensive equipment, a fire pit, a lot of drunk people, and nothing gets broken.

1000. There are more technical people present than work at a CompUSA, and all of them would agree that calling CompUSA workers technical people is arguable at best.

0111. There is a ten foot by ten foot professional outdoor movie screen, which is attached to a Playstation2 that is surrounded by a driving wheel and “Guitar Nerd“.

0110. The opening movie is still in theaters.

0101. A planned Double feature turns into a quadra feature, with The Big Lebowski and Aqua Teen Hunger Force featured and quoted relentlessly.

0100. “What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?” doesn’t go over many heads.

0011. Someone asks how you “boot up” the hot tub.

0010. On at least 2 occasions “KHAAAANNNN!!! is heard screamed for no reason.

and the number 1 clue that you’re at a really good nerd party:

0001. Someone drives home at 1 AM specifically to bring back a copy of the Star Trek 2: the Wrath of Khan. And gets cheered for it.

It’s almost a constant in my work life that I get approached by The Sarge and harassed about when I’m going to step up and join my other co-nerds in their nightly games of Battlefield2. This is no casual game. This is an enlistment. These guys talk about it more than I talk about Guitar Hero, they have a home page with their game stats, and they even pay for a dedicated server to host voice chat so they can communicate with each other while playing. While it’s always nice to be asked, it’s gotten so drug pusher-like and happens so often that I’m glad Nancy Reagan ingrained “Just Say No” into my head during my formative years.

While I’m certainly not against gaming (and definitely not against gaming with co-workers), I refuse to get sucked into Battlefield2 because of the unyieldingly geriatric pace of previous versions of the game. In a game, I’m looking for “shut off brain, shoot, run, jump/shoot, taunt/shoot, shoot, run, shoot”, not “get in jeep, drive for an hour looking for some form of combat, repeatedly ask everyone where the hell they are, take Metamucil ration, and… get blown up by an artillery strike launched from the other side of the map without firing a shot”. That’s just me.

Anyway, when The Sarge came over to my desk for yesterday’s recruitment speech, he started off with, “So we were reading your blog last night…” which left me staring at him trying to figure out who the hell “we” was and what sort of damage control I would be facing. Because he gave no sign that he would surrender further information without direct engagement, I was forced to ask, “We who?”
“I was reading your blog over TeamSpeak [The in-game chat software] and we were saying how you probably needed a good game of Battlefield to clear your bad mood.”

Holy crud.

After four years of writing, the closest that I have come to syndication is having an entry read over an in-game chat session. I may not be Howard Stern, but the astronomical nerdiness of my first syndication may be impossible to duplicate, so I’ll take it.

I would’ve spent some time writing something witty or informative, but I accidentally bought Guitar Hero this weekend, and it’s eating all of my free time.

I thought this would be the dumbest game ever (especially for someone who has a real guitar), and it is, but I have to say that even at a hefty $70, it’s easily one of the most fun games I’ve owned on the PS2.

Need a second opinion? Ask non-gaming #1GF! or my non-gaming parents if it’s fun. They’re not here now, but I can assure you that they enjoyed it.

Guitar Hero 2 is due in the fall, which is about the time when I should finish this one.

Has anyone played multi-player?

I really gotta go. Virtual rock is awaits.

meedly meedly meedly

Let’s say that you check your web logs regularly to see if anyone is checking out your site. And because you’re a closet link whore, you like to visit new sites that link to you to see what you might’ve gotten the link for. Let’s also say that you happen to be scanning one particular site, and you don’t see your link under “Cool Blogs” or “Daily Reads” or even “Blogs that Don’t Suck.”

Your site is simply listed under “Reciprocal Links.”

My question is: Do you feel good because no matter what, the site owner had to take the time to at least type in your URL and give you a link (which they didn’t have to do), or do you feel bad because you didn’t get linked for any other reason than you linked to them first?

+ + || – - ?

Because I sent one of my co-workers a message from Kitt for his birthday, I was obliged to send Sneezy Pete something for his. I sent this:

I thought it was funny, but for four hours, I didn’t hear anything about it. The lack of response made me think that the thing was probably just not funny and that I was probably a big, fucking moron.

I finally had to walk over and ask about it. This is what I learned: Sending weird pictures to co-workers on their birthdays is appreciated. Saying “It would look really good in that frame you got your son in right there” is not. Follwing up with “What? It’s not like you don’t see the kid every day” will not win any bonus points.

(One thing that I put into the picture that no one seemed to notice was the slight glow around Commander Adama’s head because, well, he’s dead, Jim.)

The whole world is into RSS these days, and I’ve been very slow to get into it. When I listen to an album, I like to read the liner notes and get a feel for it. When I go to all of the “Blogs on the Radar,” I like reading each of the entries within the format and context of the host site. To me, the site’s fonts, colors and images are a part of the experience. The last time I checked out RSS readers, they would simply pull entries from the blogs, but the format would be stripped down text similar to an e-mail.

Times have changed.

Because the number of blogs that I follow is on the rise, going to each site is getting to be a little more time consuming. I didn’t want to download another program just for newsreading, so I looked into using the “live bookmarks” feature of Mozilla Firefox. I’m a big fan of Firefox, but I can say that the live bookmark interface leaves a lot to be desired.

Then, I remembered that Mozilla Thunderbird has a built in newsreading feature that I was completely ignoring. I followed the instructions to set up Thunderbird as a news reader and added all of the blogs listed under the “Blogs On the Radar” heading on the right. It took me all of five minutes.

When I log in to check my mail, Thunderbird now pulls updated pages in the format that I would see when I visit the sites directly. And I no longer have to waste any time checking sites that aren’t updated. Thunderbird only pulls sites that have been updated since I last checked in. That’s what I’m talking about: Same experience, less time.

Now, to my point: While I was trying to add all of your blogs to Thunderbird, I noticed a lot of you don’t feature a single link on your sites that point to your feed. And if the link was available, a lot of the time I had to hunt all over the place to find it. If you feature a link that reads “RSS” or “ATOM” that points to your feed, that’s a good start, but when people read on the web, they are hunting for information and tend to scan more than they read.

The information that I was hunting for was the color orange: that is the color that people are trained to look for when looking for an RSS feed. If I couldn’t find orange, I looked for “RSS” at either the top off the page, the bottom of the page, or at the top or bottom of your side column. If I still couldn’t find it, I made some educated guesses on what you’re feed might be.

Should guesswork really be a factor for someone trying to become a loyal reader of your site?

I’m a self admitted nerd, so I know that if you publish to blogspot.com, your feed is most likely “http://yoursite.blogspot.com/atom.xml”, but what about non-nerdy people like #1GF!? Are you actively making it easy for non-geeks to read your site? I might’ve done a little digging to get you into my reader, but others might just give up and move on.

If you have your own site, download a free feed icon from somewhere (I used feedicons.com) and feature it prominently next to a link that points to your feed (or feeds). If you don’t have your own site or can’t host images, put an easily identifiable “RSS” or “FEED” link on your page in prominent spot. If you’re a Blogger user and you’re still wondering what in the heck I’m talking about, check out Blogger’s Syndication Help for more information.

Why not make it easy for other people to enjoy your site as much as I do?

(If you want to set up the link and have no idea what to do, drop me a mail. I’m always glad to help.)

Exhibit #1

My beard is so out of control, that coworkers ask me when I’m going to shave it on a daily basis. Today, one actually asked me to keep it, but requested that I shave my head or go with the Mr T. connecto-hawk. While trying to take a picture of the overgrown mess for this exhibit, my camera decided to die. I will now have to panhandle for at least a month or shake down some foo’s to get it fixed or replaced. You will just have to take my word for it that it looks plain crazy.

Exhibit #2

For 2 straight days I have been listening to the same CD on the ride to and from work. The ride is about 40 minutes each way. This does not seem abnormal unless one considers that I have been listening to only 2 songs from the CD over and over. Honestly, it’s more like 1. On repeat. For 40 minutes at a time. Intentionally. I also try to sing the song as much like Johnny Cash like as I can. At full volume. (The song is “Jackson” by Johnny Cash & June Carter) When I get to work, the unfortunate bleed over is that I find myself humming the song unconsciously.

Final Exhibit

For a coworker’s birthday, I sent an e-mail with a picture of Mr. T. that read “Happy Birthday, Fool. P.S. – I pity you.” To say the least, I was pretty amused. For another coworker’s birthday the very next day, I sent an e-mail explaining that Kitt had dropped by my house and left this picture for him. I was more than amused until I realized that even though Kitt wasn’t an IROC, I really should’ve included the phrase “UROC!” somewhere in the text.

Choose Your Own Adventure

You come across a man with an insane beard who is handing out very obviously faked autographed pictures. He is also intermittently and absent-mindedly singing something to himself. What do you do?

If you avoid eye contact and cross the street turn to page 26.
If you make goo goo eyes throw your bra at him turn to page 68.
If you give the man $2 towards a new camera and/or tin foil hat turn to page 42.

You might be wondering where the daily addition to the album list is. Surprisingly, there are none today. All my time was eaten up by those new, little images at the bottom of the posts. If you’re wondering what those are, they’re part of a WordPress plugin called Sociable. What they do is allow people to bookmark posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg or del.icio.us. Then, others can share and comment on the stories as a group. (More information on Social bookmarking from Wikipedia)

You may have noticed that yesterday they were colored, but today, they blend in a little more. That’s because I can’t leave things well enough alone. I spent a good few hours trying to hack the Sociable code to do image rollovers that only light up when you put your mouse over them. And that meant creating new images, figuring out how the rollovers should work, and figuring out what needed to be added to and hacked out of the original code to actually get it going.

The way it works is that each of the images you see is only half of an image. I took the original images, and created images like this:

Essentially, the only other thing that I did was resize some of the images to a standard size of 18×36 pixels (for simplicity’s sake) and make the top half a black and white copy of the bottom half.

That way, when we hover over the image, we can use the background-image property to have CSS tell the browser to look down 18 pixels to the bottom half, making the image appear colored. 2 images in 1. Exciting stuff, right? The code for each icon looks something like this:

a#fark { display:block; padding: 0px 1px; width: 18px; height: 18px; float: left; background-image: url(fark2.png); background-position: 0 0; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin: 0 auto; } a#fark:hover { background-position: 0 -18px; }

Once an entry had been created for each bookmark on the list, I hacked out a few chunks of sociable.php to get it to work. And work it does, so I zipped up the mods for download for anyone needing it. I would highly suggest getting Sociable working before even contemplating implementing this mod because it’s late, I’m a hack, and my instructions are pretty poor.

If you have any questions other than “Did Tia Carrera have an album?” I’ll try to answer them.

#3325:
If a woman says something like, “Beards aren’t macho. Stubble is.” Just ignore it. Going into a full on rant about how stubble is a fake, Hollywood macho, while beards are the real deal is not a good idea. A worse idea is describing how macho lumberjacks are. Using the words “burly,” “man’s man,” or describing them as “slathered in grease to keep insects from burrowing into their skin,” will only make you seem creepy and possibly gay.

#3326:
Women love chocolate chip pancakes. They will never admit to wanting them, and probably will not eat them unless you create the illusion that you just happened to be making a batch for yourself, and wondered if they wanted any. After the initial faux resistance, they will truly appreciate them. They will not, however appreciate phrases like “Uhura to the Galley” or screams of “Pancakes in the hole!”

#3327:
Sequentially, it is easier to obtain a woman and then grow a beard, than it is to grow a beard then obtain a woman. This rule may not be applicable to hippy communes, lumberjack towns, or any country where whores are five dollars a dozen.

#3328:
If you have to buy a minor car part like a windshield wiper blade and the guy behind the counter asks you if you’re sure that it’s the right blade, just answer yes. If he then asks you if you need help installing it, just say no. Displaying your testicles, asking him in a whiny, sarcastic voice if he can come to your house and help you open the pickle jars, or asking if he can work the big, bad clutch for you on the ride home are not acceptable substitutes. Chances are, the man is not trying to insult your manhood. He’s probably just trying to make a sale or escape from an embarrassing stink he was leaving behind the counter while he was ringing you up.

#3329:
If you sense that a woman is wearing strong perfume that you don’t recognize, it is considered bad form to initiate the query, “Holy crap! Have you been hugging old ladies down at the Bingo parlor or something?” The woman may be trying out a new perfume, and it is best to keep conversation on the subject innocuous and limited to binary data gathering such as “Is that a new perfume that you’re wearing?” If the conversation turns to whether you like it or not, return an affirmative. This is practically the only way to validate whether the compound will smell better when combined with perspiration.

The Catastrophic Loss

When I first ripped CDs to MP3 a few years back, I had to pick and choose which tracks to rip, and rip them to radio quality 96kbps MP3′s because my state-of-the-art Pentium II-300 only had 2 4Gb SCSI drives in it. Those drives were a steal at $150 each…

A couple of years later, falling hard drive prices allowed me to lay my hands on a nice, fat 120Gb drive, which gave me the space to start ripping full discs at 192 kbps (Constant Bit rate) without having to pick and choose individual tracks. Eliminating my indecisive nature from the process might’ve shortened the process, but it did nothing to speed up things for my 2 semi-outdated PCs, which took about fifteen to twenty minutes to rip each CD. Even running 4 drives at once left me in front of a couple of PCs for a solid couple months, popping discs in and out. And in. And out…

Finally, last year, the 80+Gb of MP3′s that I had spent so much time ripping were lost in what I can only describe as a catastrophic drive failure. I can only describe it that way, because I’m a melodramatic nerd who relates better to PC’s than people. I had no backups because I had been procrastinating on buying a second drive, because my friend the PC had assured me that friends do not crash on each other. To make a long story short, the whole thing ended with me crouched over the PC’s innards yelling, “Don’t you die on me, you bastard. Don’t you DIE ON ME!”

The Road to Recovery

After building a replacement PC with nearly a half terrabyte of storage and 2.21 Gigawatts of power (2.21 GIGAWATTS! 2.21 GIGAWATTS!), I’ve finally found the initiative to investigate the various audio formats, methods, and options relating to the re-digitizing my collection.

Compressed or Lossless?

I really wanted to rip the files to a lossless audio format like FLAC for the better quality, but I couldn’t justify spending 400MB of disk space per CD when human ears generally can’t distinguish them from 192kbps files that take up one-tenth of the space. So, FLAC was out.

After reading a bunch of audio forum posts (that I can’t even begin to provide a paper trail for) with opinions ranging from “Fuck it, all codecs are the same” to “only reading the 0′s and 1′s directly from the CD with a microscope and imagining the music will provide the acceptable tonal warmth“, I decided that I’d stick with encoding the files in MP3. From what I can tell, at higher bitrates all the formats become very similar, and although MP3 is not the best codec out there, it’s still the heavyweight champ when it comes to compatibility. I also decided that I would use LAME’s V1 preset, which produces variable bit rate files in the 200-250 kbps/s range. This was a little higher quality than my original 192kbps files, but the variable bitrate keeps the file sizes about the same as the old files. Higher quality for the same size is a win-win. With headphones, these are supposedly indistinguishable from CD, and I spent 10 or 15 minutes making sure that I couldn’t hear a difference.

Testing For Speed And Accuracy

To encode the files, there was no real reason to move away from
CDex, which has been my little encoding bitch for the last 6+ years, but I wanted to try something new. I found a program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC), and gave it a shot because of its $0 price tag and reported ability to make error-free copies of CDs. After a little reading, I found that it also has a few features to help speed up the encoding process: It can queue the encoding of the files (allowing a second CD to be started while the first is still encoding in the background), it allows the user to set the number of encoding threads to spawn, and if that’s not enough, two instances of the program can be opened to rip 2 drives simultaneously.

Given the number of CDs that I’m going to have to rip and encode, I spent a little time testing which configuration would minimize the time I have to spend popping in CDs and staring at the wall. I compared ripping 2 drives simultaneously versus ripping with a single drive, and found that even though ripping 2 CDs simultaneously was about 45 seconds faster than ripping 2 CDs in one drive, the resultant files have a lot more errors than those ripped from a single drive. I also found that using any other programs in the background was possible, but produced timing errors in the resulting files. 45 seconds will definitely add more time over ripping my CDs, but the extra time involved in using the single drive is worth it to me if it cuts the number of errors that will drive me crazy later.

The Results: Exact Audio Copy

I played around with the number of threads to use, and found that two test CDs took 5:21 to rip using one thread, 4:42 with two threads, and 4:38 with four. Because the LAME encoder will eat 100% of the processing power of the box, the threads just end up dividing the processing power among themselves, making me think that the drop in encoding times may be just savings from the time that it takes EAC to close and re-open an instance of LAME. As long as I’m not using a single thread, I really don’t think it matters if I use two or four.

So, anyway. I’m going to be using EAC with the settings recommended in the EAC Tutorial and LAME 3.97 beta to encode my MP3′s from a single drive using the LAME V1 preset as recommended by Hydrogenaudio’s recommended LAME settings.

It only took me three hours and the jazz section is pretty much done. And I’m seriously happy with the speed at which the new machine is encoding. I have Microsoft’s SyncToy running to backup the MP3 files between 2 drives. The only weird thing about the whole process is that when I open some of the CDs, I can smell the cleaning solution that I used when I salvaged them from my house fire a number of years ago (I did my own salvage). Smells primitively link right up to memories in our brains, and that smell links up to a pretty lonely and miserable time for me. Then, I feel weird. Then, I feel weird about feeling weird about it.

Anywho. Hope you found something useful in there. Sorry I’m such a spaz.

Most modern music database software contains a way to lookup album cover art from sites like Amazon.com automatically. I used to display these covers full screen while my music was playing so I could see them from across the room. Unfortunately, most of the downloaded scans were not of great quality and ended up pixelated on my screen.

And this would never do.

To resolve the issue, I had written a simple Perl script to comb Walmart.com for covers because they tended to get me better scans than Amazon. For giggles, I have been meaning to rewrite the script to pull album covers from multiple sources for comparison purposes, but that has yet to materialize.

So, until I get around to upgrading it, my crappy, first draft code is up on the site for anyone to use. The code ain’t pretty, it’s probably somewhat buggy, but it should pull nice, 500×500 pixel covers for most albums.

Let me know how it goes…

WalMart Album Cover Grabber v. 0.2

Yesterday’s post led to several Firefox vs. Opera vs. IE discussions today, and one of the topics that came up was Opera’s total domination of the other two with respect to speed. While poking around a little, I found a few tweaks listed on a bunch of forums and sites that bring Firefox’s speed easily on par with Opera.

Before you start, load a page in a new tab and count how long it takes to load. This will be a loose benchmark to gauge these tweaks. For me, a good starting point was a link that took about 3 seconds to open.
Now type about:config in your address bar.

Set the following by right clicking the entries and selecting “toggle” or “modify”:
network.http.pipelining = true
network.http.proxy.pipelining = true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 8

Now, right-click a blank spot on the page, select New/Integer, and type nglayout.initialpaint.delay. Set the value of this new item to 0.

And that’s it. Load the original benchmark page in a new tab. For me, the second page load was virtually instantaneous.

For a complete reference on the about:config page, see MozillaZine’s about:config page

(Unrelated Note: You may have noticed that after your Firefox 5.01 upgrade, your Spellbound spell checker no longer works. Uninstall the old Spellbound extension and Install the SpellBound Development Version. That’s the only solution that I have found so far, which will also grace you with the added benefit of inline spell checking.)

When I built my new PC, I made a choice to expand my horizons with respect to some of the programs that I use. For a browser, I switched from the standard IE to Opera, which I ended up really, really loving. Even though Opera showed me that tabbed browsing is a necessity for me, the number of pages that actually function at 100% in it was far from desirable. Even though Opera beats IE’s current browser hands-down on speed and features, the annoyance of some pages and plug ins being incompatible forced me to use IE as a backup. If a browser requires another browser to load all the pages I want, it sort of misses the mark in functionality. I don’t want two browsers that do half the job. I want one browser that does the whole thing.

Even though I found myself needing to move on again, a major reason for sticking with Opera was that it saves sessions when you close the browser window. That means that I can leave the five or six pages that I have open and close the browser. The next time I open it, all the pages that I left behind are there exactly as I left them. They call this saving a session. I call it my own slice of heaven. And that slice was chaining me to two browsers instead of one. I’ve used versions of Mozilla in past years, and despite it’s native lack of session maintenance (and my inhibitions about getting on board with all the Firefox zealots out there), I thought I’d give their new Firefox browser a look. It was time to move on, with or without my sessions.

And after a few weeks of using Firefox, I can not only say that I use it more than Opera, but that I’ve actually uninstalled Opera. In addition to tabbed browsing, Firefox has more going for it than Opera does. Pages load normally, links work as expected, and if Firefox finds that you don’t have a plug in, it offers you a button to install it. No searching for downloads or reading instructions. Click… Installed. That’s just the basics. What really starts to impress are Firefox’s features like the find bar, search bar, and installable extensions.

In the course of normal browsing, I routinely use File/Find (CTRL-F) to quickly get to the information I need on a page. It’s a necessity for me. If regular File/Find is Gary Coleman, Firefox’s Find is Mr. Friggin T. Not only does it find the words that you’re looking for, but it will highlight them on the page as the word is typed into the find box. It can also highlight all occurrences of your search term on the page. I know, you’re thinking, “Who cares about another version of find? Whoopdy friggin’ doo.” Once you use this feature a couple of times, you too will pity the fool that uses the normal find.

Searching the net is as easy as searching pages with Firefox’s built-in search bar. The search bar is a text box that allows you to search Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and even Ebay with a single click. And because Firefox is open source, people cobble together other searches that can be added with a single click install. I’ve added searches for IMDB, WikiPedia, and the Free Dictionary to my search bar.

And because it’s open source, people have the ability to write and share more advanced functions than searches to extend the features of the browser. These are known as Firefox Extensions. For me, these were the final nails in Opera’s coffin. I’ve only played with a few of them, but they are certainly worth mentioning. The first, called DownThemAll, allows a user to right click on a page and download all links at once. It even lets you choose which files to download or to selectively download based on file attributes such as type or name. Once you have chosen which links to download, the damned thing starts multiple downloads at once, cutting your download time. You know those indie labels that post MP3′s on their site that you’ve had trouble sifting through because of the sheer volume of links? Yea. DownThemAll is beyond useful for sites like that.

Another plug in that I use is called TabMixPlus, which offers more granular control of the tabbed browsing portion of Firefox. Honestly, I don’t really care about 99% of the features in this plug in as much as one of its minor features: It allows me to do Opera-like session management. Even though I would say that Opera’s sessions management functionality outperforms this extension’s, it works well enough that I won’t complain too loudly.

There are a couple more, like Mouse Gestures and the SpellBound Spell Checker that I could spend more time expounding the virtues of, but I don’t want to look like I’ve jumped on the bandwagon with the other Firefox zealots, right? Plus, where would the mystery and excitement be when you start running Firefox for yourself? So, there you have it. I was an IE Man, I’m kinda an Opera Man, and I’m becoming a Firefox.

(Note: For those on the go who want to carry their browser with them on a thumb drive, I suggest checking out Portable Firefox for browsing, Portable Gaim for secure multi-protocol IM, or the full Portable Apps Suite from Portableapps.com)

Things I did today:

1. Went to work.
2. Went to the gym.
3. Tried to help Miss Sassy fix her template.
4. Made dinner.
5. Titled legacy posts from August 2003.
6. Wrote for at least 3 hours, counted 20 drafts in various stages of completion, and failed to find a post for today.
7. Signed up for Pandora and added 4 quick stations, 1 of which thinks I love cowbell.

Things that I wanted to get to today:

1. Download, install, and familiarize myself Blender.
2. Download, install, and re-familiarize myself with Gimp.
3. Investigating the thumb-based installations of firebox, etc.
4. Finish at least 10% of my partial posts.
5. Find my thumb drive.
6. Upgrade WordPress to fix some of these damned editor bugs.
7. Investigate and Sign up for either last.fm, Pandora, or both. (partial credit).
8. Gather some more “friends” in Netflix so that my recommendations stop sucking.
9. Help Miss Sassy fix her template. (partial credit).
10. Build clone to do my bidding.
11. Finish, test, and upload album cover art Finding script.
12. Get in some HalfLife2 time.
13. Start rebuilding the MP3 collection.
14. Pull recovered pictures off of old drive.
15. Get in some time on the battlefield.
16. Get a good night sleep (partial)

Does anyone else feel like there just isn’t enough time to fit in all the Nerding?

After completing the script below, I was pretty proud of myself. For non-Perl folks, the script involves attaching to a SQL database and doing IP to decimal to binary conversions. Not only did I have to pick apart the back end of McAfee’s EPO server to figure out the required SQL, but I had to figure out how to do binary to IP conversions and refresh myself on multidimensional hashes. Once it was complete, I felt like a kid who had made the greatest looking doody that he had ever seen. And like that kid, I found that there really wasn’t anyone around who would appreciate it.

Because of this strange need for validation, I even tried to explain it to #1GF! once I got home. She sort of glazed over and mumbled “Wow” and then something about how the things that I get excited about indicated a major point of contention between the two of us. I knew that I could count on the same reaction from most of my co-workers, so the next day, I took it to the guy who was explaining binary to IP conversions a few weeks before. He seemed pretty impressed, and didn’t have to do that fake “greeeaat” because he genuinely understood what I was talking about.

As 1 impressed geek is not enough, I had to call an engineer friend of mine. Once I finished my story with “…and once I figured out that the negative numbers required bit flipping the binary numbers before I broke them into octets, I was all set…”

The engineer on the other end of the phone said, “Nice. You get a binary high five.”

He then explained that a binary high five is when you hold up one finger, then none, then 1 finger. Once I realized that 101 is the binary representation for 5, I laughed solidly for a couple of minutes.

So, at least 10 people were impressed. It’s great being completely outgeeked.

For folks who want to do IP container checks in McAfee’s EPO server, enjoy the script below. For those of you that need to do binary< ->Decimal< ->IP conversions, recycle the parts you need.

EPO IP Check Script

Update: This post spawned discussion as to whether a proper binary high five should be executed serially as described above, or in parallel by holding up the index and ring fingers at the same time. The latter, although cooler looking, seems like something that would get a geek shot by mistake.

Co-worker: breeoooptiboop
Me: Keyop.
Co-worker: Holy Crap.

Only in a technical area can someone make a quick beeping sound and have it instantly recognized as being an imitation of Keyop from Battle of the Planets (TV, 1978-79). In a business area, beeps are met with “I think you’re overheating on your main brain processor, nerd. You probably need to pick up more gigaram at Nerd-O-Rama. Bwahaha.”

Challenge and Response are not solely applicable to network security, my friend.

Most of you have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about right now, do you?

This is one of those chain mails that I got recently. I figured posting it is easier than annoying a whole bunch of people with it. Copy and put your answers in the comments if you are so inclined.

What is your ideal amount of sleep?
8.5 hours

Diamonds or pearls?
My testicles reject said question with authority.

What was the last film you saw?
L4yer Cake

What is your favorite TV show?
How I met your mother/Jerry Springer

What did you have for breakfast?
Same as the last 20 years: A bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

What is your favorite cuisine?
Italian

What foods do you dislike?
Fucking bananas

What is your favorite footwear?
Vans.

Your favorite CD at the moment?
Lyrics Born – Later that Day

What kind of car do you drive?
A black, tinted out Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII with a big ass wing on it.

Characteristics do you despise?
Bitches, be they male or female.

Are you superstitious?
Nah.

Favorite item of clothing?
The Amoeba music T-shirt that my cousin gave me.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Hef’s Grotto. (I really wish there was an emoticon for wiggly eyebrows.)

What is the best color for a room?
Red, orange, or any color with a high saturation. Don’t be a pussy with color.

Favorite brand of clothing?
Brooks Brothers.

Where would you retire?
Someplace cheap and safe that has LAN in the rooms and naughty nurses, hopefully. Female ones.

Favorite time of day?
As an Italian, I should say dinner, but I’ll have to say lunch.

Where were you born?
Taxachusetts

Favorite sport to watch?
Motocross or X-games type stuff, maybe. Anything where people flip and twist through the air. The rest of the sports can just suck it. Seriously.

Last book you read?
It was a tie between “Early Bird” and “Bleachy Haired Honky Bitch”

What are you afraid of?
Sharks swimming underneath me.

What laundry detergent do you use?
This sounds bad, but whatever #1GF! uses (I’ve done my own laundry since the age of 12, so don’t start).

Favorite non-alcoholic drink?
Coffee Milk or coke. Maybe a strawberry shake, though.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I hit my stride from noon until three.

Do you have pets?
If people can say their fucking dogs are their children, then I can say my PCs are my pets. In that case, I have a newborn thoroughbred, 5 I can’t teach new tricks, and one that I dismembered and threw around my office before he went and died on me.

Any new and exciting news you would like to share?
No gnus is good gnus.

What (who) did you want to be when you were little?
Alex P. Keaton or a mobster.

Favorite Candy?
Turkisk Pebbar from Sweden. It tastes like battery acid dipped in salt.

Favorite childhood memory?
The day I stopped taking shit and started throwing punches. I think I was 8.

What are the different jobs you have had in your life?
Lifeguard, dishwasher, office temp, pool guy, propane guy, LAN admin, and corporate whore.

The piece of technology that you would make out with if it had lips:
my PS2. Oh the PS2. I would kiss that little bitch like it’s never been kissed. I think this question is really unhealthy.

Piercings:
2 in the ear that may be open, but I ain’t testing ‘em.

Eye color:
Bluer than you remember.

Ever been to another continent?
Ireland, Sweden, and New York City, so yea.

Ever love someone so much it made you cry?
Yep.

Ever hate someone so much it made you scream?
Afraid so.

Been in a car accident?
People ram my cars. THEY FUCKING RAM ME ALL THE TIME.

Croutons or bacon bits?
Yes.

What would you be if money didn’t matter?
Very, very good at video games, and probably really, really fat. Or an electrician, maybe.

Favorite restaurant?
Tosca. Hands Down.

Favorite flower?
Cherry Blossoms are nice I suppose (I wish could think of a stripper name for this one).

Favorite ice cream?
Brigham’s Big Dig.

I like the smell of _______ but hate the smell of _________.
homemade sauce, NYC

If they paid me to _______, I’d me a millionaire.
Take things apart

Favorite fast food restaurant?
In n Out Burger, but I just won’t touch the stuff anymore.

Do you believe in Karma?
I’ve run out of illusions.

Pay the pros or do it yourself?
RTFM & DIY

From whom did you get your last e-mail?
Probably the bank.

Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Amoeba Music in Fan Francisco

What do you do most often when you are bored?
Stare at things or flail around.

Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire?
Buxom Swedish models.

Who’s the last person you went to dinner with?
#1GF!

What are you listening to right now?
The hum of a 120 mil fan

City mouse or country mouse?
City

What is your favorite color?
Red.

Lake, Ocean or River?
Ocean.

How many tattoos do you have?
Just one big, badly thought out one.

Do you go for the best, the best deal, or the best price?
I am the eternal deal hunter.

All Time Favorite Concert?
Probably Monsters of Rock because I was a teenager and made out with this fat chick in the 3rd row. Plus one of our friends kept yelling, “YOU SUCK DAN DOKKEN!” until we told him that the guy’s name was Don. Gooood times.

What makes you smile?
Kids, Dremels, electronics, CDs, and the whooooosh of a turbo.

What puts you on edge?
Truly unpredictable people.

What soothes you?
Slayer or any tumultuous music. It’s weird.

What physical attribute attracts you to those you’re attracted to?
Make ‘em tall, short, dark, light, whatever. Just give them curves.

What personality trait does it?
They have to be nice to me for chrissakes.

What’s your best physical feature?
My eyes.

What’s your worst?
My kidneys.

What’s your best personality trait?
A tie between a sense of humor and a sense of loyalty.

What’s your worst?
Procrastination.

I’d rather be…
Fixing something.

Typical
I see a more people viewing these posts every day than I physically know in the real world, and I can’t understand who (other than #1GF!, a couple of co-workers, and maybe a few buxom Swedish models) is actually reading this site. So, do me a favor. If you read this post, leave a comment. I don’t care if you actually have anything to say. Just put your name and just say Hi or whatever just to prove to me that you were here.

Custom (For Advanced Users)
If you’re a regular reader (the stats say that you’re out there) and you haven’t already, step up and answer the call of the CD Challenge. If you take the time to make the CD, I make the time to listen to it a bunch of times to figure out what about those particular songs draws you. A lot of people seem to worry that their music is not my music, or think that I skip through these things and toss them. I don’t. I think that it’s irrelevant as to whether your songs fall within my musical taste or not, and the skip button is off limits for the first 3 listens. When someone leans in to tell me a secret, I don’t judge or cut them off. I just listen.

Let me feel like I’m getting inside your head for once.

Install Complete!
Either of the options will probably take you less time to put together than it took me to write this, and you will make a guy feel like a motherfuckin’ rock star. And everyone needs to feel like a rock star every now and again, don’t they?

Note: Just like Take a Penny / Leave a Penny, this is all optional, and only you know if you take more than you leave or leave more than you take.

Update: Thanks to all of you who posted comments and huge thanks to those folks that have taken up the CD challenge! Now to you other folks, why are you listening to a monologue when you could be creating a dialogue?

After spending 2 full days massaging SQL data that really didn’t deserve it, I came home to find that my Ghetto CD Divider Post got linked at Hack-A-Day!

Finally, a massage with a happy ending.

When I arrived at work this morning, I got a Vulcan salute and this:

“You know, technically, Kirk would never have touched a communicator on his chest. Those are from the later generations. He would say, [flips Nextel open like a communicator] ‘Kirk to Enterprise’…hey, you’re not writing this down, are you?”

Yes. Yes, I was. People need to know about this.

0. We Encourage Productive Discussion
Agreed Upon at lunch: “Death metal is categorized by vocal style rather than subject matter, making Shadows Fall death metal but Slayer plain metal. It is undetermined whether Black Sabbath is or is not be metal, but it is agreed that they shall be honorarily grandfathered in to the category. Anthrax is metal, and Metallica used to be, but is not anymore. It is agreed that Van Halen is definitely not Heavy metal: They are hard rock at best, and maybe just plain rock.”

1. We Have Productive Meetings
Said to me: “[Employee #3225582] swears he’s going to get you into our weekly battlefield 1942 game one of these days…”

10. We Share Available Resources
“What are you doing down here?”
“We’re here to play in the test forest.”
“I see. Be you in need of a cloak?”
“Of invisibility? Yes. Have you any swords that are +2 against ogres?”
“Nay”
“[Group] Awww.”

11. We Share a Common Customs
If given a bluetooth headset (example), co-workers will agree that talking on the phone without wires is theoretically cool. Unfortunately, half will, without thinking put their hands to their ears like Uhura and say, “Sir, the Romulans are attacking,” during their first use. Only 50% will come up with the correct response of immediately putting the device on their chest, tapping it, and saying “Kirk to Enterprise. 2 to beam up.”

100. We Are Courteous to Others
If I happen to abandon my usual “So long, Suckers!” by silently walking out the door giving a Vulcan salute, it is met with returned salutes and “Live long and prosper,” rather than confused looks and “Nanoo Nanoo, Mork.”

(Note: I know that you think that I should’ve written 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in binary as 1,10,11,100, 101, but any good Perl dork will tell you that the 1st element in a list is, by default, element 0. No, I’m not fucking kidding.)

These are a few of the CD’s I’ve picked up over the last month. I still have 6 or so that I haven’t included because I don’t really know what I think about them, yet. I would’ve gotten this put up a while ago, but I had a lot of trouble getting one album cover per paragraph using CSS (Yes, things like that slow me down).

Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um (jazz): This is classic 1959 jazz. With nearly 50 years of reviews available on this album there really isn’t any reason for me to add to the pile. B+

Various Artists – Divas Exotica (lounge): This is a compilation of loungy and sometimes corny songs by all the bombshells of a bygone era. Women like Jayne Mansfield, Eartha Kitt, and Brigette Bardot were fun to look at, but not always to listen to. The songs range from cute to utterly horrible, and I would venture to say that this is almost a comedy album, and I can’t help smiling when I can bear to listen to it. B

Bad Religion – The Gray Race (punk): I bought this thinking that it was “Stranger Than Fiction” which I gave to an ex-gf a long, long time ago. This is the most boring thing I think I have bought in a while. ZZZZZZ C-

Deftones – Around the Fur (metal): To me, the Deftone’s are great metal backed by an insane person. The vocals almost sound more like a confused kid talking and then screaming. I had this album, but somehow lost it. B

The Donnas – Spend the Night (rawk): Ah the Donnas. Imagine if Angus Young and Bonn Scott were born with boobies. Would they rock any less than this all girl rock band who have been on the road since the tender age of 16? It’s debatable. Like previous releases by the Donnas, the songs on “Spend the Night” are lyrically teenage, but catchy as hell. Unlike their previous releases, this album exhibits a more polished sound that keeps me tapping my foot. This was a replacement for a copy that I lost or lent out. B

Pro-Pain – Pro-Pain (metal): I have been looking for this album for a long time, my friend. A long time. It’s pure NYC metal-core with nice break downs and grunty lyrics. It’s so NYC hardcore that it’s almost a caricature of itself. It was impossibly hard to find, and I grabbed it from SecondSpin on the cheap. A-

Rise Against – Siren Song of the Counter Culture (neo-punk): Rise Against started on Fat Wreck records, who virtually created the San Francisco Punk/Pop sound (think Blink 182) through bands like Face to Face, NoFX, and the Descendants, and it’s not surprising that Rise Against sound the way they do. They stand on the backs of a sound pioneered by their predecessors without sounding like they’re trying too hard to walk among them. I was listening to this album when that stupid bitch smashed into my car, so even though I really like it, I’ve developed some sort of aversion to it. B+

The Haunted – One Kill Wonder (thrash): I have no clue what is being sung and/or grunted, but I can tell you that this is what metal is all about. I’m normally into heavy music, but this album actually startled me while I was driving. I’ve seen Slayer live more times than I can remember, I own almost everything that they’ve put out, and I would never say anything disparaging about them, but Slayer has never startled me. Can you see what I’m saying? You want the truth? You want the TRUTH? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! GRAWWWWWGGGGHHHH! Solid A.+

Rise Against – Revolutions Per Minute (punk): This album was originally put out on FatWreck Records, and exhibits that San Francisco pop/punk sound that made the label famous. I have to admit that this is a little more melodic and poppy than my normal grunty grunt fests, but it doesn’t go so far as to be that whiny EMO stuff that is made for teenage girls and the boys who want to be them. Plus, look at the grenade on the cover. How menacing. B+

Social Distortion – Social Distortion (rockabilly): Social D was on the punk scene a jillion years ago, and I think I got into them because of a friend who was into them enough to tattoo “Sick Boy” (one of their songs) on the inside of his lip. Come to think of it, that kid always claimed that he was going to eventually tattoo a zipper up his ball sack. Anyway. This was punk back in the day, but is pretty tame by today’s standards. If you like 3 chord rockabilly with a “Born to lose” angle for when you’re not feeling so great, you can’t beat Social D. I bought this as a replacement for a tape that was lost in the fire a few years back just because it was cheap. It’s hard to really review this one because I’ve heard it 4 billion times, but B+

ZTrip – Shifting Gears (hiphop): The first time I ever heard ZTrip was when he was mixing heavy metal (Pantera) to some hip hop beats. When I looked up this album, I decided against buying it based on the clips that were on the ztrip website. Fortunately, when I went to BestBuy, I forgot that I didn’t want to buy it and bought it by mistake. And man, am I glad I did. Despite the clips, this turned out to be as close to feeling like I’m at an old school hip hop party that I’m ever going to get to at my age. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was dancing around the house to this one. AND, he mixes in Jethro fucking Tull and it sounds good. Who can pull that off? ZTrip can. A

Casey Jones – The Few, The Proud, The Crucial (hardcore): When was the last time you heard straight edge hardcore? Maybe you listened to a little Minor Threat and topped it off with a dollop of Slap Shot just last week. (Or maybe you’re sitting there wondering what the hell straight edge even is. See Wikipedia: straight edge for more info). This is like the old hardcore that I used to listen to updated for today’s kids. It even followed the old school rules of putting little clips from TV between the songs, being preachy, and not taking your lyrics too seriously (One song’s main chorus is “Oh my God. Col got laid”). How can I argue with an album that starts with the sound clip from the Karate Kid (“There is no pain in this dojo. Is there? NO SENSEI…) and proceeds to use clips from the Family Guy? I can’t. B++

Slayer – Reign in Blood (thrash): Replacement for a tape lost in the fire. Slayer is my top band, and I can’t review it impartially. No need to review. C+

Slayer – South of Heaven (thrash): Replacement for a tape lost in the fire. Slayer is my top band, and I can’t review it impartially. No need to review. B++

I got this phone call from my Mom today:

[hushed serious tone] Honey, I think you might be interested in an article on page 8 of today’s Globe. There are people in Japan that are dying from playing video games. They said. That they. were addicted. They don’t eat or sleep. They said it was the same as being in an opium den. I know you eat when you play video games, but…”

My Mom is a very smart woman, so her serious tone was making me laugh so hard that I couldn’t really hear what she was saying. I was dying to play it for the gaming geek fest that I affectionately refer to as my co-workers, but it just didn’t seem right to let them laugh at my Mom.

It seems that every time the story emerges about the mysterious Korean guy named “Lee” dies from playing video games, everyone I know sends me a copy of the story. As the story gets recycled by various “reputable” news sources, I see it over and over. The fact that I’ve heard this about a thousand times over the last few years, coupled with the implausibility of the story and remoteness of the location has made me regard the story as more of an urban legend than news. It’s always a guy named Lee, it’s always in Korea, and he always dies after 48-50 hours of playing video games. What are the odds?

But, newspapers have fact checkers, right? And those fact checkers wouldn’t print rumors and urban legends, right? The newspaper isn’t the wild west style free for all of half truths that we know as the internet. It’s print for crying out loud. And if it’s in print, America knows it’s a goddamned fact. Check your bible. Somewhere near the back.

I guess Margaret and the rest of the ladies in the fact checking room of the Globe haven’t heard of google yet, because within 5 minutes I was able to locate this article that pretty much debunks the story.

Remember that the prime directive of the newspaper is to sell…then to inform/mislead. It’s not the reverse.

Thanks for looking out for me, though!

Now, if anyone needs me I’ll be in my silks pondering all the fine, doped up honeys in my opium den. Or playing on the PS2. But, that’s the same thing, though, right?

Don’t believe everything that you breathe.