LifeBox

So, caught the opening of the new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie at the Alamo Drafthouse this afternoon. Wow. That was… yeah. Bad. Really bad. It’s like the bastard child of the Chronicles of Riddick and Highlander 2. I really should have spent those two hours doing something more productive, like jamming pieces of broken glass into my eyeballs or something. I’m still reeling from the badness. Just, wow.

Whew, just spent two days putting together a textad system from scratch (inspired by the one at mefi) for AGD. Man, that was a lot of typing and stuff. It’s something I’ve been meaning to build for a long time, and it’s not too terribly complicated, but I think it came out nice. Plus, I had an excuse to dig into the backend API stuff that PayPal provides, and finally figured out how to get it to double-check stuff back there to verify purchases, and kick off scripts to do stuff when payments go through, yadda yadda. So, yeah, fun.

( The Power of Perl Compels You! )

I also picked up an enclosure (USB2.0) for this big-ass hard drive I’ve had lying around for a couple of weeks now. I’m trying to turn it into a much-needed backup system for this here linux box, but damned if I can get the system to recognize it as anything. I had another USB drive that worked fine with pretty much the exact same setup, but I’m not getting anything but guff from this little bastard. Now I remember why I was so anxious to make the move away from system administration – groveling over all the little arbitrary brokennesses of every stupid thing, just to get some basic functionality working. Bah. One day, you’ll get yours, bitwad.

Phil just told me about Samurai Champloo, the new series by Watanabe Shinichiro, director of the super awesome Cowboy Bebop. I’ve only seen what’s on that site there, but it looks just as great as you’d expect. Torrents, torrents, who’s got the torrents?

(Oh, hey, lookit that. Now I just need one of those paycheck things…)

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

Would it be possible for Austin to secede from the state, and let the rest of those ignorant pigfuckers get themselves a new capitol? Maybe then we’d be allowed to buy booze on Sundays, or let someone be able to own a resonably sized dildo collection without the spectre of prosecution hanging over their head. Goddamn degenerate redneck fundy dickshitters. I swear, there’s so many people in this fucking country that need a motherfucking kick to the throat, it’s not even funny.

Hey! Free wireless at the Las Vegas airport! Woo!

We flew into Las Vegas this morning, and boy are my arms tired. Because, you know, I brought a lot of books and stuff to read on the plane, so my backpack is really heavy. Not that I got a lot of reading done or anything – I was up until 5am or so finishing up some work for a client, uploaded my stuff, packed, and got about two hours of sleep before getting a ride to the airport. (Woo, Dave!) I still hate flying, but I got the valium hookup, so I crashed out for a bit, caught a little bit of some movie they had playing, landed safely, made it to our room in Paris, grabbed a burger, and crashed out for a bit more.

After a couple more hours of rest, we rallied a bit, and met Bernie’s mom and her friend Pam downstairs at reception. We were a few minutes late, so Bernie’s mom played the slot machines there a little while – and won $2500. Ding! So, more food, some horse talk (we’re in town for some big horse show), walked around a bit, caught the water show across the street at Bellagio, took a ride up the eiffel tower to check out the lights from above, and then back to the room for more resting.

Television, by the way, is really weird these days. I don’t remember it being this weird before. It’s always entertaining to see what kind of completely crack-ass stuff they’ve got on cabel when we stay at a hotel or something. Oh, yeah, we got to see the hotel’s TV system crash, too. Bluescreened, rebooted, went into some diagnostic stuff, and eventually made it back to their little menu application. Got some ips and ports, but they’re on a different network than the broadband they give you in your room. Let me rephrase that – the broadband they charge you eleven bucks per day per computer for. Is this the goddamn 18th century or something? Come on, people! Running water, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and wireless internet – is that too much to ask for? I knew I should have gotten one of those little wifi detector thingers – should have remembered, nothing’s free in Vegas.

I need some canned air, too. The fans on this laptop suck, and tend to catch up and overhead if they get too dusty, which makes for a sad, sudden shutdown. Stupid computers.

In your face, Hunicke!

I cannot use english words to express how happy I am that Wigu is back. That is all.

I’d like to relay to you a bit of modern poetry that I came across on a scrap of paper lying in the street.

Jerome needs to go home,
says Hi to his brothers,
they return with Shalome.

So he packs cause his skills still lack
Hopin and prayin he’s still not wack
His thoughts stray and sway
And still he prays, that his rhyme won’t fray.

Maybe I’ll get weave
with hopes to decieve,
to make them Believe,
that I can flow for any show.

So he’s got some new kicks,
and some fresh new licks,
hopin He don’t have to dicks or tricks
to any airtime for his Rhymes.

Genius. Thank you. That is all.

Hit the Sinus Show (formerly Mr. Sinus Theater) Travoltathon last night – man, that was a fun show. I think that may be one of the best ones they’ve done so far. I really like the clip shows better than the full movies – I like it when things get mixed up some, and clips mean that only the good bits get in there. Dave (and, it turns out, Tim) disagrees – he likes the narrative of a complete film, even if it’s a bad one. Huh. Anyway, it was quite the spectacle. I got a few photos, of the usual dubious quality, and probably more video evidence than anyone really needs to see. Like I said, quite the spectacle.

Afterward, Dave and Mel headed out to see “the rock star”, who was playing nearby, and then headed out to the Longbranch for the Bloody Tears CD release party. We didn’t – Bernie and I were already kind of sleepy, with the getting up early for sculling and whatnot. (I say “whatnot” too much, don’t I? Tough.) Hanging for a bit outside the Alamo, though, we ran into about half the people we know here – Kitty Kitty Bang Bang and Nathan, my bud Kyle from BumperActive, Icky’s friend Curtis, who’s been workin’ at the Drafthouse while he hangs in Austin for a while, and so on. I actually got together with Kyle and had some coffee and a few beers at the Halcyon over there on Thursday – if I can get my shit together, it looks like I’m going to be doing some writing for him over there. Go figure. Crazy here, I tell ya.

Also, SWT is a pain in my balls. That is all.