Opposable Thumbs

I just had to share this (hope the embedded object works)

My good friend Justin just sent me this nice little bit of memorabilia. This was a brief lived band called Masterbuilt. Fun band but we just couldn't keep it happening for some reason. That's Kirk on the left, me in the middle, Justin on the right and Zack hidden back behind those drums.

Michael Fremer reveiws the Wavac SH-833 monoblock power amplifier. Now, granted, this is a review of a $350,000 amplifier, but this line just kills me:

There's nothing outrageous about spending a million bucks on a painting or a vintage automobile.

Pretty bold statement. Then again, this guy did try this thing out with London Calling, so I have to give him some credit. And, for that matter, the lucky bastard got to listen to this thing (these, really, it's a matched pair of amps) for two whole months. How about a quick look?

As my dear friend Paula noted over at porkmuffin, Guided By Voices cancelled their Saturday night show here in Austin. It seems that Robert Pollard, frontman for the band, suffered some form of back injury. I'm sad that I didn't get to see the show, but I understand how back pain can keep anyone from wanting to do much of anything. It ain't fun. That's for sure!

You're a True Punk. You know that punk isn't all
about studded jackets and mohawks. If you're
political, you're actually informed. Most of
the stuff you love is from before the 80s,
though you know bands like Fugazi kept the
spirit going.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by Quizilla

Ok, I know he's like the latest hunk of the day and all, however, I can't help but like Viggo Mortensen. It occured to my wife and I, while we were watching the special documentaries that come on the extended version of the Fellowship of the Rings DVD, that he's a freaking weirdo. I mean, first rate freak of nature. This guy who's already a pretty great actor, is also a poet, musician and painter, among other things. Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is because I happened to pick up the latest issue of Vanity Fair that was lying on the table at Little City and started reading an interview with Mr. Mortensen. This quote leapt out and just blew my mind:

Mortensen's circle of friends consists less of Hollywood actors than of writers, poets, artists, and musicians, although he remains close with Lord of the Rings cast members Elijah Wood and Billy Boyd, who played Pippin. The two joined him last year in a jam session with the Japanese guitarist Buckethead, who has toured with Guns N' Roses and has a cult following, but is otherwise known chiefly for wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket over his head during performances. ("He's very shy, and he doesn't want people to see him," Mortensen explains.) "I did some percussion, and Buckethead had this bag of masks, which we all wore while we were playing," Wood says. "It was wild."

Let me just mention that not only do I know who Buckethead is, but I used to be a big fan of his way back in time. This is just too much for me to digest right now. I mean all this and the revelation that Mortensen's son Henry was born of a marriage to singer Exene Cervenka. I'm currently scraping my jaw off the floor.

So, back in the mid nineties, a couple of years after dropping out of UT, I was involved with a couple of guys in a musical experiment of sorts. You might call it a band, but I'm not sure that would have been the best way to describe it. Granted, that may have been how others would have described us, but it doesn't seem to really capture the way we thought of ourselves. Truth is, I don't really know what to call it, but it was fun. Well, mostly. A lot of the fun we had was just sitting around scheming about how we were going to manipulate the minds of our listeners. Yeah, we were one of those sort of bands. Well, the whole reason I'm thinking about this is because last night I stumbled upon an interesting bit of archealogical memorabilia in the dark recesses of Google. What I found was the 1996 Austin Chronicle Musicians Register. Basically, what we discovered was that each person could submit one entry for the register. Since there were five members in the band, we submitted five entries. Only one of these reflected our then current name (which has a little bit of history of it's own, but I'm not the best person to be telling that story): Psychivore. But one of these is also a slight variation on a name that we had used in an earlier incarnation. And now... here's the list along with the descriptions we submitted. Personally, I think some of these are just crying out to be used for real. Guess I'll have to start another band one of these days. Quetzalcoatl's Cakehole & The Aztec Espionage Empire StealthyNinjasUnderSacredInfluenceStealYour-ThoughtsToReignSupreme. Household Cleansers Fat,bubblySoundsCaressing&DevouringYourBrain. Psychivore Sesquipedalian zygomatic non-feathered bipeds discombobulating simpering chanteuses. Titillating telepathic technicians: cerebellum connoisseurs devouring discomforts. Sesquicentennial celebratory sanitized stereographic selection, serendipitously serene satire. Alliteratively alleviating alienation answering anomalous query. Psychivore, with poison control Matt. Linoleum Freud ThisFullOnSpaceTripRockoutBlastWillEatYourHead. Unquestioningly Delicious Hothballs & The Supercilious Taun-Taun Riders BrainSucker.

After hearing from all my Mac using friends how much iTunes rocks, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Apple recently release a version for Windows (which is unfortunately still my main work platform). There's not a whole lot to it, but I have to say, it's quickly become my favorite interface for listening to mp3s. Among it's wonderful features that I love is the ability to mass edit the file info -- for example, I can quickly update all the mp3 files for a single album if, for instance, some of the information was missing when it was originally ripped. Also, the ability to step through the listings while editing file info is truely empowering -- this, in addition to the previous item, makes it especially easy to fix poor file meta data. There's a number of other features (sharing, streaming, smart playlists, etc.) that I haven't even begun to dig into, but what I love best about this thing is just how simple it is. There's not a lot of clutter on the interface. Contrast this with the often hard to find buttons on WinAmps interface and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Even though this article describes installing linux on a Compaq laptop, it looks like there's some good info in there for general purpose installs. For one, it describes (near the bottom) installing all of the necessary software (and the appropriate configuration mods for good hardware support) to enable DVD playback. Which is great because I just moved my DVD player into my linux box. But there's also a bit in there about setting up and configuring ACPI for power management (instead of using the outdated APM). As it turns out, I've recently upgrade my main system (well, I bought it whole hog from my friend Jeff, but it was an effective upgrade for me) and I had previously experimented with setting up APM on it. Why? Because the system uses an Athlon 1.33 chip which runs really hot if it's on for a long time. Which means that this thing has a big ass, loud fan on it. So when I'm away from the computer, I'd just as well that it goes to sleep. Maybe ACPI will be the solution I've been looking for.