Zod, give us Int+2 to accept the fanboys we cannot change, Cha+5 to change the ones we can, and the Wis+1d4 to tell them apart online.

It made me feel better.

What caught my eye is that one of the remix entries on the official site is by Toronto pseuper-group, Holy Fuck. I saw them open at Richard’s on Richards and they are a sight to behold. Drums, bass guitar, and tables filled with random electronics, which are plugged into other electronics, and not a single laptop to be seen. They find old Casio keyboards and wah-wah pedals and fuzz boxes, wire them up, and play them manually. The result is the most organic electronic music you’ll ever hear.

Now, granted, they wear their artistic credibility on their sleeves (you don’t pick Holy Fuck as a band name if you’re looking for typical fame and fortune in the music world), but that’s ok - they’ve got a good thing going, letting various musicians from other bands cycle in and out, sometimes for a single show, just to see what happens - the beep-boop version of a Grateful Dead jam session.

Thanks to a plug-in for Firefox making it impossible to play their entry on the official website, I’m going to have to embed it here - which is fine, I would have done that anyhow, but it means that I’m listening to this for the first time here. I have no feedback to write in this space.

So, fingers crossed that they don’t suck…

For starters, this very blog has been upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, and it didn’t explode. Yet.

Alert Nerd got a much needed overhaul, design-wise, thanks to yours truely - everybody seems pretty happy with it. Plus, we got our first magazine issue out - Grok #1, taking a look at all things Pon Farr. The second one is in the works, called Secret Origins. We’re looking for writers and artists. Hint hint.

I made a bunch of buttons - more on them later. Handled merch at a thickets show (early prep for the Penny Arcade Expo - getting close now.)

I got Twitter up and running for myself and for Proton Charging. And along the way, I got interviewed on the radi-adi-o.

I think part of the problem is that what constitutes strong, if not outright classic literature is well laid out, and by comparison to those standards, new fiction and non-fiction can be measured. TV isn’t as well defined, so nobody knows what it means if you’ve watched every episode of LA Law. In the long run, is LA Law important, or even good TV? It was probably at least good TV, but it takes decades before an academic stamp is given to anything creative, so…

In the meantime, I think I’m going to start listing my TV chops the same as my reading chops. But that list will have to wait, for tonight, I must sleep (that’s when I’m a viking.)

For a time I ran a network cable from the office to the living room (just around the corner), but it was annoying and in the way. Tripping hazard was high. I could have gotten a wireless router, but then that’s an additional cost of the router and the recievers for the two computers in the house. Not an economical solution.

Then a friend introduced me to a website out of Hong Kong that deals in cheap electronics and accessories. THE place to get cheap light guns for your Wii or HDTV sets and cables or little sticker skins for your DS that has dogs on it. Everything. And shipping is free. Whee!

So, I bought myself the EDUP wireless USB adapter - it looks like a sizable USB thumbstick with an antennae. Under $30. It can do two things - you can plug it into a PC or laptop and use it as a method of connecting to existing wireless networks.

OR

You can plug it into a PC already plugged into the net, and it will act as an access point. And it worked like a charm, or at least 3/4 of a charm, last night. Within 15 minutes of installing, I was able to connect my Wii, my Xbox, and my DS, no problems. The only hold out was the PSP. Bummer.

Then a quick read tonight and I had the solution (thank you infinite internet monkeys doing infinite combinations of fuck-ups with the same equipment I own.) The adapter is an 802.11b&g whatchamawhoozit. Pretty standard, except that the oldest of the four systems is my PSP, which is one of the earlier models (not one of the newer, thin models) and it only accepts 802.11b, whereas the access point was set to mixed. By setting it to b only, it worked. I’m assuming that the other three will be alright with the b only - if not, it’ll mean a little switching now and then, but not often. The PSP isn’t the main surfer system these days.

I totally don’t, but writing and graphical tinkering continues to be my sanity saver of choice. In this case, some super-talented pals in the States and myself, the sole Canadian, put together a PDF zine. The theme was Pon farr (the Vulcan urge to hump ever seven years, for those of you not familiar with Star Trek.) I’m very happy with the results, even if the style-guide needs some work (which would be my fault.)

Check it out, won’t you?

However, every once and awhile it needs a rescue. Here’s a little something I just learned today (the hard way.)

1) When the iPod says do not disconnect, really. Don’t. I thought I had “ejected” the pod and yanked out the cord, only to discover it was still thinking about it. End result? All my music data was now regarded as “other” (I have my pod set to act like a removable drive - more manual control… oh, and it can then act like a removable drive.) This means that all .mp4 tracks appear, but won’t play. Sucktastic.

2) When this happens, you’re not screwed yet. Plug it in and explore to the pod - open the iPod_Control directory and then open Music. Inside are all your music folders - Apple randomly scatters your music in these folders (and gives them generic file names to boot) BUT that’s not important. What is important is that you can copy all these off your pod. Then, use iTunes to restore the pod to its factory settings (it resets the pod, but the firmware updates will remain.)

Once you’ve done that, just copy all the files back into iTunes, then back onto your iPod. It’s like they never had a problem.

Whew.

This happened to me before, and I thought I had to reformat and lose all my music, which was a pain to dig up and replace (stuff was scattered over a couple of machines.)

Don’t let this happen to you!

(For the purposes of this quiz, I’m using my iPod Nano 1st gen, a 4GB edition (3.74GB in truth), with 2.6 GB of its memory full.)

Instructions: Open up your iTunes and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

How many songs total: 534

How many hours or days of music: 2.5 days

Most recently played: No Luck Club, “Rock Guitar”

Most played: Daft Punk, “Robot Rock/Oh Yeah”

Most recently added: Justice, “D.A.N.C.E (MSTRKRFT Remix)”

Sort by song title:

First Song: a-dee-puss complex (a mix tape I made for a buddy in University - years later he ripped the tapes I’d made and gave the copies back to me for my birthday - awesome.)

Last Song: Joe Rogan, “72 Virgins”

Sort by time:

Shortest Song: Limerick, by Anonymous, read by Hugh Grant

Longest Song: “The Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music (03 of 23) - 1551”, Stephen Fry

Sort by album:

First album: Escape from the Pigeon Hole, Abdominal

Last album: Wolfmother, Wolfmother

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Billy Talent, “Fallen Leaves”

Search the following and state how many songs come up:

Death - 1
Life - 2
Love - 8
Hate - 0 (yeaaaaah)
You - 37
Sex - 1

Then it was home Friday (missing WonderCon, which was right after GDC - booo!), turn around and fly to Calgary. Spent the day doing last minute prep for Andy’s stag party, which included a struggle to get my Xbox talking to Live via a Telus ADSL line, printing and laminating a dozen fake backstage passes, setting up a full Rock Band rig, and then keeping everything running smooth while consuming more and more Strongbow.

Overall, it was a success, though Andy was a little worse for wear the next day. Which could also be regarded as a sign of success.