Dusty Chalk

Had a second taste of that Catena and Alamos -- bah, must have been my allergies, it tasted fine last night. The Alamos was still better.

According to an email I got, the Halou Wiser show is almost sold out.

Yeah, but it changes the spread, and I wouldn't feel as bad about that, since the spread on a new one was more like $70.

Just discovered Left Hand is making (non-barrel-aged) Wake Up Dead a perrenial. Huzz-fucking-ah!

It bothers me because I could have paid a couple bucks more ($30, today; less during a sale), gotten a refurb, an extra charger, an extra cable...and have been able to keep the fat-case iPod, for playing with later, if I so desired. I mean, yeah, the hard drive was toast, but the electronic smarts and the LCD screen were still fine.

I know it's Transformer Mickey, but Mecha-Mickey is more fun to say.

'cause it came in a bare box, as a replacement part. I mean, it's the only reason they're going to have refurbs on hand, and if it was new, wouldn't they keep it in a new box for the more likely sale? It was packed differently. I guess my point is, the lie was there -- I was guaranteed it'd be new, and on paper, there's no such guarantee.

Yeah, then what? That's basically the same as "seller's other items".

I have a TX81Z, does that count? (Trick question: the answer is no. The TX81Z was an abortion -- they combined FM synthesis with wave table lookup. So you could frequency modulate square waves with other square waves and whatnot. Yeah, that made things...uh...better. :\ ) Eno was the grand master in FM programming. It definitely had some strengths, but being intuitive to program was not one of them. Even if you happened to know how to program them, you still didn't think, "oh, I love programming this thing". It was more like, "oh. what happens if we do this...?" and just perchanced on serendipity. (Is that a double negative? Is it not?)

I went and exchanged my iPod. I probably shouldn't have, because I'm pretty sure I got a refurb, and I explicitly asked, and was told that I would get a new one. Looking through the paperwork, it explicitly says that the replacement part (yes, a whole new iPod) could be new used or reconditioned. I should have gone with my gut instinct. Bah.

Gosh, I hope they don't sell out of Moving Pictures before I have a chance to order it this time. Srsly: thanks for that. Will use it this time.

It's a bit like a great big spirograph.

So this guy on eBay has a disc that I want, and since he's in Germany, and there are other things in Germany that I want, I want to be able to browse what he has, but he sucks and doesn't put them in categories or anything. Does anyone have any advice on how to go through his catalog without looking up every single thing he has somewhere else? It's this guy, tucu9. I got SACD's, and there's even one I want (After Forever, though no Epica), but beyond that I'm stumped. I like his electro/ebm/industrial selection (which includes the disc I want), but am insufficently familiar with compilations to know which are good ones and which are not so good (I am avidly not into the whole aggro noise/power electronics thing...er...any more...not so much). And, of course, there's very little point in getting something from over there that I can get over here, unless it's significantly cheaper. I'm tempted to write a script that goes through his selections one at a time and look them up for me.

Again, sending emails out as you doesn't require hacking into neither your computer, nor your email account, it just requires knowledge of the exact spelling of your email address. Spoofing From: addresses is kiddie stuff. Okay, this is possibly an indication that you were indeed hacked. Are you sure it was your contact list, and not someone else's with whom you share a lot of contacts? Because like I said before -- most spambots don't actually leave a trail by using the email they hacked as their from: address, they pick one from the contact list of the person hacked. It's only one indirection, but it's a good one. Especially since you didn't find anything. Oh, and now that you are on the list, they can keep producing spam emails over and over again, they don't need to hack any more. There's no way to get rid of that, that I am aware of, other than to change email addresses, and abandon this one. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Recently tried the Alamos malbec -- outstanding for $7-9, much better than the funky llama, this one can be judge without taking into account its price, nicely balanced -- and the Catena malbec -- meh, either bottle was off, or it's not very good, something nasty about it. Also revisited the Norton Reserva -- my suspicions were right, it's still one of the better ones, but that first bottle was the best. This last bottle wasn't superior to the rest of the herd by a goodly margin, like the first one was. I suspect my goddamn allergies are making my tastebuds more fickle than usual.

I want to say, also reminiscent of Sorayama. Don't remember title, but "Hanging Ukiyoe" looks similar. I want to say there was an even earlier one that was more iconic of him. Possibly a book cover. Warning: NSFW. In fact, it's pretty hardcore.

Rob Dougan's "Pause" -- shares more in spirit with Batt's piece -- I.E. as "punctuation" -- than with Cage's.

I just bought one on eBay. Of course, I haven't received it yet, so...maybe not.

I used to work with this one lady, and since I was the designated computer person, and she knew me well enough, she told me her password. It got to the point where I had to enter it again, and I turned to her and asked her to repeat it. She did. This continued. She must have told me -- and I typed -- her password a dozen times, and I could never remember it. As far as I'm concerned, that's the perfect password. She even told me the trick -- it was something like her daughter's second letter of her middle name, followed by the second digit each of her birth month, day, and (2-digit) year, followed by the second letter of her maiden name...etc. Bunch of things that meant nothing to me, so a individualized mnemonic.

What about under-ear?

Why? I mean, I know, but just want to make sure you've fully thought this through. I know some of the older Macbooks have firewire, why not just go external for that sort of thing? Also, there are hybrid drives -- another alternative.

Yeah, really liked that. Zoe's performance at the 32 minute mark is amazingly beautiful -- it only takes her about 30 seconds to set up something that stops being "looped layers of melody lines" and turns into music, proper. And yeah, the guys were interesting, too. They tread pretty closely to that line of pretentiousness without crossing it, I thought. And still very entertaining.

Thai cajun? Sounds intriguing -- two great tastes, but I've not tried them together. Me: Jalapeño Jack SunChips® -- quite possibly my second favorite flavor yet, the Peppercorn Ranch has yet to be ousted. And of course, I never see either one around here regularly.

ohraao.

Not my picture