jmoiron.net

Make things complete.

I've noticed recently that people have been jipping my style with an alarming frequency, the period between my creation and their theft becoming shorter and shorter with each innovation. I wish they'd steal propper punctualization and initial capitalization of sentences from me, although I can hardly claim that as my own, but alas I think that might be a dead battle.

Lorde Omlette consideres me a foe for dining with his enemies. Sometimes I wonder if he's sane or not, or if he's perfectly sane and this perceived battle actually exists. I can't see how I could win, having had my design stolen. And speaking of design, a new one is in the works. Hopefully I can stay within the "Azumanga" theme. I'm currently trying very hard to think of a domain name for myself, but I can't seem to think of anything good. If you have any suggestions, you know where to send them.

They say it designers in there shortly to make the chip not suck. If you're confused by that, click the link and search the site for "Azumanga".

Apparently, in order for me to have a "real" backend, I need to use .ars, a qualification I'm not all to sure about. Simplicity is apparently not en vogue for the scripts that run your site, but if its in your design, its damn well trendy. I wont pretend to understand.

My copy of The Streets: Origional Pirate Material has come and its presence has made me happy. I wish that the "Parental Advisory" sticker didn't mar its beautiful surface; and ironically I must admit that I have so called liberals to thank for this. But enough about Tipper Gore. Let tipper gore talk about you. And yes, reader, a shivering is in order.

Probably the best thing about my current system is that I'm able to go back and change entries very easily. This will be sorely missed. As a public service, I must warn arsjerm: Warning: mkdir(/home/jmikola/sites/www.arsjerm.net/common/cache) [function.mkdir]: Permission denied in /home/jmikola/sites/www.arsjerm.net/art/index.php on line 7.

I find myself, being a musical guru of sorts, talking about music far less than my contemporaries. To sort fabrication from fact, jerm's most recent post is fact. I highly recommend The Legend of 1900, the fable of a piano player named 1900 who never leaves the ship he was born on. Giuseppe Tornatore weaves the fabric of this film so excellently that you can't help but curl up in it like a warm blanket and exist in his story. I'm not sure if its as good as Cinema Paradiso, but it was excellent; a very good English debut. Now that I have satelite, I plan on watching an Indie film once a week or so. Care to join me?

And now, the news:

Gamespy is running an article on the "Top 10 Gaming Grails", or the top 10 rarest games or best collectors item games of all time. Most of them are pretty old. In its infinite wisdom, Gamespy included the classic "Bubble Bath Babes" for NES, which features, well, nipples. Its the precursor to new age quality games based on gameplay and good old fashioned family values. Also on the list is the excellent Radiant Silvergun, one of only two games on the list that I've played (the other being Phantasy Star 1). Two true classic rising high above the rest. To top off the list in the #1 position is the gold "World Championship" carts that Nintendo used in its 1990 tournaments. Apparently there were only ever 26. One sold on ebay for a cool $6.5k.

Lord of the rings: The Two Towers comes out today. Apparently, it might be good. Well I'll be damned. I hope I get to see that hot legolas chick kick more ass. She's almost as hot John Romero. Daikatana ruled! ok.

In more serious news, China arrested some guy who was writting a pro democracy digest online. Just when you think they're OK, the commit some civil rights violation that puts them another 100,000 McDonald's toys in debt.

In a very exciting news item, Elcomsoft was found not guiltin in their case against increasingly monopolistic Adobe Software. If you want a recap of the whole story, as told by 7 million headlines at slashdot, who am I to refuse? Elcomsoft made an ebook reader that could ignore encryption. Or did ignore encryption.. either way, encryption for the ebooks was made breakable. Then they sold it, in russia, where they are based. Adobe brought them to trial in the US under the DMCA, saying that their digital copyright on ebook and the protection was defeated by a circumvention device that Elcomsoft had created. During the trial, a survey of 100,000 cracked ebooks was taken, and not one was cracked by the Elcomsoft product. Elcomsoft said that they had not intended to sell a copyright circumvention device, and had they been aware that what they were doing was "wrong", they would not have done it. The united states government was sad at the result; they couldn't smash yet another small software company into dust under the strong arm of imperialism. But they deserved to lose because the DMCA is an evil anti-consumer rights pro-big business law whose umbrella is far too wide and not clearly defined. Way to go, Elcomsoft!

Speaking of the US, we've made the bold conclusion that Echinacea does not cure colds. Of course, since it was created by researchers at a college, they know that their findings are not the definitive answer on the subject, and all of this other humble stuff that I actually do, sarcasm aside, admire. Unfortunately, even BBC used the sensationalist headline "Echinacea 'does not cure colds'". Oh well.

News Flash: Al-Qaida is training again in Afghanistan; the shock nearly floored me like games so often did to the now defunct Daily Radar. When someone hates you with a passion and declares a holy war against you (whatever is holy in any war is beyond me), bombing them might not be the best way to earn sympathies and change minds. Perhaps we should have tried a more peaceful tactic. What does my favorite church have to say about this whole middle eastern crisis? Apparently, something actually intelligent. Color me surprised. For those of you who are pro-christianity, I present 161 problems from a reliable, world wide authority, of your largest sect.

Enjoy yourself; with the end of my finals comes the begining of a 3 or 4 week period of relaxation, rejoice, and work. And Half-life.