Babble Archives (1Q00)

March 26, 2000 8:01 AM

Why are there so many, songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side
rainbows are visions, but only illusions
and rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong wait and see
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me


Who said that every wish, would be heard and answered
when wished on a morning star
somebody thought of it, and someone believed it
look what its done so far
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me


All of us under its spell
We know that its probably magic


Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices
I've heard them calling my name
Is this the sweet song, that calls the young sailors
the voice might be one and the same


i've heard it too many times to ignore it
it's something I'm supposed to be
someday we'll find it
the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers and me


Weird....that we had a whole bunch of people who grew up with that song...

March 25, 2000 5:03 PM

Finally found it...some non-LP singles that Po tagged on the end of "Unsupervised" for me (still not 100% sure if its "Oddballs" or "Eyeballs"...:)...not the first time Po's unwittingly screwed with my head ;). BTW, founf and interesting tidbit while looking through discographies....looks like John Linnel also finally put out something on his own. Samples here.

March 25, 2000 3:40 PM

Woke up this morning with TMBG's "Oddball" stuck in my head....least I think its TMBG...might be Mono Puff....and that's the damn problems...can't remember what album its on and I need to listen to Oddball....(whimper).

Been taking a slight Sims break lately (yes). Definitely not bored yet...just break time. Been doing a lot of reading since going to the library's book sale. Currently reading "A guide to the religions of america" from around 1957, a collection of articles from Look magazine. Pretty well written and interesting stuph. Nice refresher on orgs like the christian scientist, witnesses, and mormons...plus deals with some of the differences in the more mainstream orgs that we never really seemed to cover back in my religion classes...like the baptists, episcopalians and protestants. Quote of the day: John Locke: "The baptists were the first propounders of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty." Hrm...things change I guess.
Boss Hogg show tonight.....woohoo!!!
BTW....today's bastards going on my list: the US Customs Agency. Just found out that the lazy bastards have shut down all west coast postal ports of entry except for LA. So anything coming into the US on the west coast has to pass through LA first, which has created a major backlog and adds 3-4 weeks to shipping times. Phht. Wouldn't gripe so much except I have a shipment of chemicals and sacred roots (NO....they're legal, you nosey one-track minded shmoos) coming in from New Zealand. "Join the US Customs Agency...we're lazy, lazy men."
March 14, 2000 5:51 PM

So....just bought a new keyboard...woohoo! Feel the excitement. One of the keys popped off my old board and I got to have a gander at all the crud that had built up on that thing. So I had the option of popping off all the keys and giving it a good cleaning, or adding it to the giant hardware pile and buying a new one....I'm a lazy, lazy man. So I dropped $15 on Staple's cheapest board, and probably the most practical anyway, most of them had all kinds of useless retard buttons that added an extra $30-$60. Even though this one's a "space saver" (I really tend to prefer the big hulking IBM/Digital keyboards) its k00l cause its *black*...ooooo. Actually, being black, not only does it sorta have the same *look* as the old TI-99/4a, but its got the same *feel*! Sorta spongey cramped keys and one of those space bars that makes a good cheap *spong* sound. Still getting used to it so excuse any tyopos.

I'm starting to come to the realization that the "personal hygiene" industry ("beauty industry" or whatever you call it) hates men. The one damning bit of evidence? After Shave. I have one bottle haunting my medicine cabinent that I've never used before. I checked the ingrediants on it....2 types of alcohol and ether (ether.....hmmmmm). I challenge anyone to find a women's magazine that makes the recommendation "after shaving legs, slather on two palmfuls of alcohol." Doesn't happen. Alcohol severely dries the skin. Sure, but we're a culture who likes our guys faces to look good and weathered and rough-guy lookin'. Wake up kids....that's *damaged* skin. And for guys who need that manly sting in the mornings, try some alpha-hydroxy acid for a really serious macho burn that's actually *good* for your skin (just follow it with a good moisterizer).
March 7, 2000 5:43 PM

Ran across this article on Salon today. They decided to do an expose on the life of game designers and picked, for some reason, to focus on Ion Storm. Why not write about a company that has actually produced a game?? I'll admit that I had pretty high hopes for Daikatana once upon a time, and held out hope longer than most people. At this point, though, its slipped worse than Unreal ever did. Frankly, I hate to say it, but I'm starting to believe that deathmatch is dead. Quake2 was the peak, and I really don't see even Q3 or Unreal: Tournament being able to pull in the ferver that happened between the ages of Q2 through Half-Life. Since then gamers seem to be moving on and spreading out...maybe its just me, but I see people heading toward stuph like Alpha Centauri, Rainbow Six, Ultima:Online, The Sims, and even NHL2000. Honestly, I suspect Half-Life was fairly instrumental in helping to kill deathmatch....being a cool and top-selling game, but, frankly, pretty much sucking in terms of online play. Undoubtedly its a cyclical trend but I seriously doubt that Daikatana is going to be the game that causes the come back...if it even comes out at all. Frankly I'll be stunned if it comes anywhere close to Sin or Shogo's sales figures. For the record....I am still holding out a little hope for Tom Hill's "Anachronix"....only because it shows at least a little promise of enough difference from the standard FPS to be interesting, though, like every other Ion title, it just keeps slipping...

The obsession continues unabated. Octavia Formika (Nina's older sister) has taken over 1 Sim Lane and is doing well, despite some problems with the hired help. I've actually finally found a use for mp3s. Before I really didn't have any use for them....I thought the tech was cool and all, but since my speakers kinda suck, each download is about 3 megs, and my stereo is right at my right hand, I really didn't see any use to 'em. But NOWWWWWW.....well, if my sims can use em, then I love em. I've been going through a download frenzy and currently have Octavia listening to everything from Simon & Garfunkle to the Beastie Boys to the Artist Formally known as The Fresh Prince (Octavia just gotta get jiggy with it). Fun fun.
Random Sims picture of the day.....thought this was sort of a sad situation....yeah, I know we all start out on a pretty low budget, sims and people alike, but this just sorta struck me as pathetic...

March 3, 2000 2:16 PM

Still not too much interesting to report from this venue. As most people know, I've become horribly addicted to the Sims...just can't help it....must play Sims.....I'm still waiting for that Maxis flavored tedium to take over, but it just hasn't happened yet. Started playing around a bit with Sims skins, since all of the stuph I've found out there in terms of custom skins has really kinda blown. Granted, making a good looking skin can be difficult, but Jebus, there are some pathetic attempts out there...a big handful of ones that attempt to create a figure wearing shorts over the long pants model...c'mon people...this is basic. Looks like they've got the early stages of elephantiasis fer Jebus' sake. Also, be careful of a lot of the wall and floor textures out there...there's a lot of good looking ones, but the designers apparently couldn't be bothered to take the time to add a name, description and price to the damn things....takes 2 minutes at most. So everything ends up costing $1, which can be nice when money's tight, but it just throws the economy all off. Sorry, just not impressed by lazy fucking designers. Oh, BTW, for some extra Sims entertainment, I recently noticed that Redhead has been chronicalling her own little Sim version of Melrose Place on her journal pages....oh, that wacky Bob Newbie...

Other than that, just been fighting off a cold and the landlord. Succesful on the landlord side, not so succesful on the cold side yet. Gettin' better but its one of those colds that gives ya the achey joints and oversensitive skin feeling...which doesn't help when you're already taking medication that gives you that feeling enough as it is.
Oh, one cool thing....got to go shootin' last weekend with Badbill, Gigi, and Tyrone which was a blast. The only shootin' I'd ever really done before involved rifles, so it was interesting to get to fire off some handguns for the first time. Very nice stress relief. I definitely had to place my vote for the Walther PPK as the cool kid's gun of choice. :) Thanks again, Bill.
Going Shootin' also reminded me that hey, I used to have a standard instrument of stress relief that I haven't broken out in awhile. So, got out a rag and the Never Dull and cleaned off the old electric. Nothing quite as good for stress relief than putting on the headphones and cranking the amp up all the way. Unfortunately I seem to have acquired all kinds of loose connections in both the guitar and the amp....so, eh. Definitely worth it. Didn't realize that I'd let my fingers go so much....
February 17, 2000 4:14 PM

Dealing with Feebs and Dimbulbs
So I get a call from a recruiter today (all of a sudden been getting a lot of job calls...which is cool) who tells me she wants to talk about some exciting opportunities with Company X. She puts me through the standard interview stuph (for the record this is about the fourth person I've talked to at this firm...they keep asking the same exact damn questions, you think they'd write something down from time to time). Anyway she spends about 15 minutes talking to me about my skills etc (she mentioned that she had my resume right in front of her, BTW), at the end of which she says "well, what Company X is really looking for right now is someone with a few years solid experience in ASP and Visual J++".....................NOWHERE on my damn resume does it mention anything about ASP and J++....why would she just waste 15 minutes of both our time when she knew I didn't have the skills?? Secondly, I really don't know how much I'd want to really work for a company that's relying on ASP and J++ of all things....two of the more cruddy server/client languages out there currently. Its still absolutely beyond me why so many web design houses continue to look for ASP coders so much, when every time I check, the grand majority continue to run UNIX servers. Frankly, you see far less desire for perl and awk coders than you do for ASP and J++...languages that will most likely be dead in another 3-4 years anyway. Feh!!! I say!!! Stop wasting my fucking time....at this point I'm just going back to working at McDonald's.

February 11, 2000 3:49 PM

Haven't really had much to say letely becuase I seem to have become completely addicted to Thief: the Dark Project. Its a game I've actually had for awhile, but previously kept getting jammed up on the third level with all the damn zombies and burricks. There are aspects to Thief that are just damn annoying. The zombies just get way over-used and are just a bitch. But I do have to say that most of the level design in the game borders on the brilliant. Constantine's mansion will probably go down as one of the best level designs ever in my opinion. Brought back memories of the old D&D module "Chateau d'Amberville"...nothing quite as fun as letting crazies getting their hands on building supplies.

Finally got a copy of Simon and Garfunkle's "Bookends" for the first time in, like, 8 years. I haven't heard this album in a good age and a half. Brought back total memories of being about 16 (yeah, while all the kool kidz were listening to REM and the Smiths I was listening to S&G and the Monkees). Though some of the orchestration is a little weird to a more current ear, still remains one of the coolest albums, IMHO.
Jigglypuff has now been running for...11 days. Woohoo! (Just doesn't take much to amuse me)
Oh yeah, Nut scored for me one of the coolest objects d'art. A 10" tall Pikachu sport bottle. Just rip off pikachu's head to add liquid. Very bizarre and definitely one of the cooler additions to my collection of pop culture stuph...right up there with Pokemon monopoly and my 6' cardboard Xena.
February 5, 2000 12:21 PM

Been noticing that I'm in a pretty heavy misanthropic mood lately...not towards everyone, my friends are ok and all, the general public is just striking me as stupid lately. Went to Galaxy Hut on Thursday and the movies last night (never really liked Skyline theatres anyway, too many fresh suburban Virginia home boys, too cool for school, too dumb for the real world) but people were just coming off as icky plastic like to me. Theorizing that its sort of like TV...if you give it up for a few months, then watch it again for a night, it just comes across as insipid. Probably just need to get out more...

Going through another period of flat-out bizarre dreams lately. The other night everyone was getting turned into these vampire/zombie things. Found a shotgun and plugged a few of them that were chasing me around and then decided to go shopping (I mean....wouldn't you??). Been noticing that there continues to be some settings that are reacurring. One is some hybrid of New York/Washington DC/Gettysburg PA (to the direct north of which is a tropical version of Cape Cod (shurg)). This area's become so prevalent in fact, that I actually had a dream that I was there in an undeveloped version in the early 18th century...huh. The other one is the USDA building...no clue about that one, but its just usually represented by being just a *huge* building. Most of the dreams involve the basement, which is a labyrinth of dark tunnels (though with a huge underground garden in the center(??)), though there was one dream where I went to the upper levels and it was all big glass ceilings like a giant mall or something. I dunno...I'm not gonna try and tackle any translations.
The News will rise again.
January 29, 2000 1:33 PM

Yeah, another revamp. Seems to be more common lately for me to do a complete rewrite than to actually do an update. Jeez, is my life really that uninspired?? (probably) Anyway....for better or worse, I'm back in black. (*shurg*)

Hackers unite!
Pretty cool article on good ol' Nethack on Salon here. Features some cool insight and interviews witht the original DevTeam. Inspired me to not only fire up the game for the first time in several months, but to go out and grab the new 3.3.0 version. Pretty cool....if you haven't grabbed it yet, go git. Features some kinda cool new features like character races, new monsters and other goodies. Fun!



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