…and so it winds to a close. Though this series has ended up in a completely different place from where it began, the ending is quite satisfying. Looking back over it, this was far more ambitious than the initial episodes seemed to suggest.
Massive spoilers to follow.
Several years ago, I corresponded with Marek Fetlinski, who ported a few of my WindowMaker themes to Blackbox.
I recently received word from John at Damn Small Linux that he'd like to use one in his distribution, but I've been unable to reach Marek for approval. His site also appears to have atrophied.
Since no license was specified or implied, I've gone ahead and given the greenlight. DSL will be using the Envane theme. I doubt Marek will mind, since he made the themes for recreation, but I'd like him to …
My local high-school football team is called the Wolverines. The high-school football team and guerilla patriot squad from Red Dawn is also called the Wolverines. Yet, whenever I see someone in a letter jacket and scream, "Wolverines!" with a rifle in my hand, people just don't seem to get it.
Why? Because one of the great classics of Reagan-era American cinema languishes in near-obscurity. This is truly unfortunate, especially since we just haven't had enough flag-waving jingoistic fervor in this country lately. Every red-blooded American should go out and watch this movie immediately.
If you don't, then the terrorists have already won.
I've got a WinXP partition on my laptop that I have to keep to use SonicStage. Oh, how I hate SonicStage, and Sony for forcing me to use it…but that's a different topic.
Anyhow, I've hued and cried about Internet Explorer's shoddy rendering of CSS before. Now that version 7 is out, I figured I'd give it a run and see if the codemonkeys at Microsoft had gotten things right. I mean, it's only been ten years since the CSS standards have been introduced, right? You'd think they could have gotten it fixed by now.
Guess again.
The Ring of Fire is a phrase coined to describe a group of now (mostly) defunct gun manufacturers in California. The original companies were Bryco, Jennings, Lorcin, Raven and Phoenix. They specialized in cheap, poorly made pistols in sub-service (less than 9mm) calibers.
The idea was (ostensibly) to make small, easily concealed pistols that could be sold in the $100-175 price range. They were marketed as "affordable," but the quality was such that nobody versed in firearms would even consider trusting one for self-defense.
I just can't get worked up about Sony's new console. I own both of the previous incarnations, and I still spend about six hours or so with the PS2 every week, but for some reason, the PS3 doesn't arouse much interest for me.
It could be the $600 (or more) price tag. Or the fact that games (of which there aren't many at launch) are around $60 each (with rumors of higher prices in the future). Or the fact that there are already some serious backwards-compatibility issues already popping up.
I suppose the main thing is that slightly-better graphics and faster hardware just don't cut it anymore.
If there's one thing Tim Hecker has mastered, it's consistency. He's been mining the same formula for four albums now, and although they may seem very similar on the surface, closer attention reveals a certain glacial progress.
Hecker's sound is similar to what I'd expect if Kevin Shields collaborated with the Hafler Trio. It's a dense, swirling buzz of feedback, static and distant shortwave effluvia organized into something resembling music. At first, it seems random and homogenous, but listen deeper and you'll find a wealth of carefully wrought detail. The washes of tempered noise and obfuscation hide the fact that all the underlying elements are carefully arranged and structured. This isn't ambient music in that it demands close listening and scrutiny to resolve the fine details.
This month's theme was "soundtracks." Finally, a chance to put Ennio Morricone and Yoko Kanno on one disc!
If you'd like a copy, let me know.
First off, if you braved the rain to vote today, thank you. If you couldn't be bothered, don't regale me with your opinions: they're worthless, and I don't want to hear them.
The 2006 race has been one of the ugliest and most petty I've ever seen, and it's gotten national attention. I've been bombarded with political attack advertisements on every media possible for the last few weeks, including the most offensive, on my home phone.
Hear me now: if you stoop to this, I will make a point of not voting for you. All it says is that …
Are we clear on this yet? Typing in all-caps makes you look like an idiot. Please stop doing it. Think of the children.
