This is a acapella music loop thing I came up with years ago, but haven’t figured out how to use yet.

hohm maow

I have no idea what to put around it; I haven’t had a lot of instrumentation experience, so I can’t get a grasp of what to put around it yet. The kind of vague concept I have for it is some kind of tragic, epic sad thing with cellos and whiny violins in it, kinda young-prince-finds-family-killed-and-seeks-revenge-to-tragic-end kinda thing. Now all I gotta do is go from that to actual notes and I’m set.

If you’re running a WordPress blog, I highly recommend getting the Akismet anti-spam blocker running. The hardest part about it, is that you have to get a login at the WordPress site (which isn’t hard). If you’re running a blog that isn’t WP, it’s possibly enough reason to switch.

Since I installed it, about 4 spam comments have gotten past it, out of the 191 it’s caught. The only unfortunate thing about the interface is that the only opportunity you have to mark missed comments as “spam” is in the comment approval screen, but if you don’t require comment approval (like myself), you can’t send the info to Akismet that this is spam it should look out for. But, the good news is that, out of all the people using WP, someone else will probably get similar spam and mark it properly, so it’ll get screened eventually.

Heh, actually, that’s kinda ironic. One problem with a publishing program (WordPress, phpBB, etc.) becoming widely used is that spammers can write automated tools to target it for a wide, low-cost audience. But the other side of that is true, as well: as a given spam becomes more prevalent, it’s widely used enough that anti-spammers can block it more easily.

I’ll let you know how it is.

Oh, the site now says his next is going to be The Fifth Element.

We picked our first cherry tomatoes yesterday. They were like tomato candy. And they were probably just a touch underripe, even; can’t wait for the full ones. Looking at all the growing buds, I may have to upgrade my yield estimate; 17,000 seems a little under.

Also, I vanquished my water problem…the basement sink wasn’t draining, and the kitchen sink drains down the same pipe so it wasn’t either, and our washer drains into the basement sink, so basically half the house facilities were down. Bought me a $30 drain router and spent about 5 disgusting hours draining and taking apart pipes, but I got lucky. The clog was apparently somewhere I was able to reach it. Yay me, since it probably would’ve cost at least $90 for a plumber to walk in the front door. But Christ that was disgusting. Not toilet-drain-problem disgusting, but pretty disgusting.

With that taken care of, combined with the fact that the head of my current freelance project is on vacation for a week, I got some breathing room to get some Scribs done. since I’m in the middle of this clipart-themed arc, it takes a fair amount of scanning and image editing, and I haven’t had the solid time to devote to it.

Oh, and the WoW playing, that got in the way, too.

Independent Sources » Blog Archive » The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs

I’ve been meaning to write about my victory last night over a clogged plumbing system, but I ran into this in Greg’s blog: a FEMA trailer park in Louisiana stands mostly vacant, doesn’t have full services when residents asked to move there said it would, other people living in tents didn’t even know FEMA had empty trailers, blah blah blah, I’m all jaded to FEMA fuckupery at this point.

The real story, in my opinion, is what happened while the journalist was interviewing a woman in her temporary trailer home:

Devall described her experience during an interview in her trailer, saying she wanted to get some help and to let others know what it’s like living there.

But during the interview, a security guard knocked on the trailer door and ordered the reporter and photographer to leave “immediately.”

“You are not allowed to be here,” the guard yelled. “Get out right now.”

As they left, the guard refused to let the reporter give Devall a business card so she could contact the newspaper later by phone.

“You will not give her a business card,” the guard said. “She’s not allowed to have that.”

When the reporter persisted, the guard ordered Devall to return to the trailer, saying the reporter was “not allowed” to talk to her.

The guard then called the police.

Kicking reporters out is a pretty typical idiot authority move, no basis in legality at all as far as I can see, but “she’s not allowed to have that”? What the hell’s that about?

Later the same day, the reporter and photographer pulled off La. 70 to talk to Pansy Ardeneaux through a chain-link fence surrounding the FEMA park. Ardeneaux said she and her boyfriend had just moved into the park.

“We had to wait about two months from the time he applied for the trailer until he got it,” she said.

As Ardeneaux talked, the same security guard pulled up.

“You are not allowed to talk to these people,” the guard yelled at Ardeneaux. “Return to your trailer now.”

A clearly flustered Ardeneaux returned to her trailer.

why are you ordering who she’s not allowed to talk to CHRIST LADY COME BACK HE’S AN IDIOT WITH A TIN BADGE MAKING WAITRESS WAGES WHERE ARE YOU GOING

from: 2theadvocate.com | News | Hundreds of FEMA trailers stand empty

RiffTrax!

I have the blog, I’m writing a little bit more, I’m starting to feel like maybe I do remember how to put words together. And then I gotta go read an article by Greg in The Independent and whoops there goes the little bit of ego I’d scraped together.

For background, the article refers to a cartoon he had in the paper, which was itself a reference to city councilman Chris Williams writing “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive” in permanent marker on city property. The councilman has been unsuccessfully trying to get a street named for Dr. King, so he thought writing it on the front of his desk in council chambers was a good way to get the point across.

Apparently Greg wrote the article for a specific person: an Ind employee who gets a number of “how can you work for these racists?”-type comments. But they decided to run it in the paper, because a non-zero number of people were calling and writing, demanding to know why the paper was insulting Dr. King.

It’s amazing to me that people are so ready to go past the sarcasm and assume racism. But they don’t know Greg, so eh, I guess they don’t know.

Got this from Bob, who doesn’t have a web site or anything, so I’m just gonna have to say it came from Bob.

I have to not read crooksandliars.com, it angries up the blood too much. But on the plus side, my brain-fuzzing sleepiness of this morning is gone now. On the minus side, the toxic rage going through my head is at dangerously low pH levels, so it’s a tradeoff.

Think Progress » Kristol Suggests People of Iran Would Embrace U.S. Attack, Triggering Regime Change

That’s Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. Bob said the “liberators” line, and I said oh no he di-in’t. I went to the article, searched for “liberators”, and the word wasn’t in the article–okay, whew, Bob was joking. But on further reading, there’s the quote:

…the Iranian people dislike their regime. I think they would be – the right use of targeted military force — but especially if political pressure before we use military force – could cause them to reconsider whether they really want to have this regime in power. There are even moderates – they are not wonderful people — but people in the government itself who are probably nervous about Ahmadinejad’s recklessness.

Even moderates? Goddamit Kristol you tell me what moderates of any country are going to be happy about your rolling tanks into their capitol. That’s like saying you think people are unhappy with the way your local county commissioner has been running the budget, so they’ll be happy that you hired a militia group to go shoot up the offices and liberate your neighborhood from fiscal oppression.

What gets me is that these people think the US can kick the world’s ass. We can’t even handle Iraq for chrissakes. If we had the awesome might and intellect that Kristol thought, why is Iraq a problem? If we had 20 times more resources to throw at it, we could get it worked our pretty easily. But we don’t. So how the hell are we gonna take on Iran?

Man do I dig the irony of Kristol’s dismissive opinion of Iran’s capabilities, and his complete inability to see how it applies much closer to home. Fun game to play: change place names and people names to “country” and “political group”, and then fill them in with more familiar versions, imagining the quote is by someone in a country that is not the US:

This is why standing up to Iran right now is so important. They’re overreached. They and Hezbollah have recklessly overreached. They got cocky. This is the moment to set them back. I think a setback to Hezbollah could trigger changes in Iran. People can say, wait a second, what is Ahmadinejad doing to us. We’re alone. The Arab world is even against us. The Muslim world is against us. Let’s reconsider this reckless path that we’re on.

I’m getting used to the indignities of my job. Mostly. I used to be worse on this point, but I’m getting around to convincing myself it’s just a required and natural part of corporate employment.

He pointed out the top story from CNN along with its “also in the news” bits:

Chris: “Bush says bad word. Also, world about to end in nightmarish chasm of fire.”

Okay, Chris wins. Here’s the forecast for where he is:

That’s a lot of icons representing the sun denoting hot weather in a row. (That better, Brennsa?)

I’m sitting at my computer, and Debb at her computer (behind me) says, “God, look at all those big orange suns.” I turn around to look at what she’s talking about, and it’s the forecast:

Nationalists need not worry…the Muslim world is being absorbed by Western culture. They’re seeing God in food! In no time at all there’s gonna be falafel-eating contests and Judge Alakhesh on TV, mark my words.

Sometimes, when spam gets through my filter, I like to read it anyway, just to see what it’s pushing on the gullible. Credit card offers are fun, because I like to see how ridiculous the interest rates are. (And if they’re not clearly published, that means it’s some kinda scam anyway.)

One I got today intrigued me–You Don’t Need Perfect Credit To Get A Perfect Credit Card! and it had an interest rate of 9.9%*. Oh, asterisk, sure. Introductory? I click on the link, helpfully providing a verified e-mail address to spammers, damnit, and go to the site…but no, it’s really a 9.9% interest rate. So what gives? I scanned down their details and found it:

Account Set-up Fee: $29.00 (one-time fee)
Program Fee: $95.00 (one-time fee)
Annual Fee: $48.00
Participation Fee: $72.00 Annually

Yeah, nice. Let’s not even count the $124 for the privilege of getting their card…yearly fees are $120, which means if you have $1000 on the card, that’s roughly like adding another 12% APR to the base rate. It’s not so bad for effective APR if you have more on the card, but 1) you shouldn’t have a lot on a credit card anyway, and 2) this is one of those “for people we assume are thieves” credit cards, so I’m sure they don’t give you a high credit limit. In fact, they even say that if you get the “minimum credit limit” of $250, all these charges will be put on your card up front, and your starting credit limit will be $72.

For bonus fun, they don’t say what will happen to the interest rate:

Changes to Rate, Fees and Terms: We may change the terms of your account, including the APR’s at any time in accordance with the Credit Card Contract that will be sent with your Card.