The Reverend

Rest in peace, Roy Scheider.



I always had a soft spot for Chief Brody. He was one of my heroes.

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. And God said: "Let there be light." And there was light. And God saw the light; and it was good.
And God divided the light from the darkness.

( Bandwidth gobbling pics behind cut. )

So 2007 is on its way out the door... good riddance I say.

Looking back, '07 is best summarized by a ST:VOY episode title: "Year Of Hell".

Oh well. Part of me is trying to believe that it can only get better...

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it." "If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?" "It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words "Gam zeh ya'avor" -- "This too shall pass."

So pass already, bitch,

1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
I'm not going to name the name, but I'm guessing he knows damn well I would.

2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?
Ooohhh, tough choice. As Rorschach said, "there are so many deserving of retribution..."
For efficiency's sake I'd have to choose the Spice Girls, simple because erasing them also takes care of five B-list celebrity has-beens in one swoop.

3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face?
See #1

4. What is your favorite cheese?
I don't like cheese.

5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient in the world is possible what do you choose?
Probably tuna, some nice salad, tons of mayonnaise.

6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of your choice?
Is Lucy Liu still as hot as she was on Ally McBeal?

7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music celebrity of your choice?
Kylie :o)

8. Now that you’ve slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Wow, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?
Save up for a DSLR... or, if I get the new flat I have my eyes on, blow it at Ikea.

9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
I would have said NY, but not under the current administration :-/
So... London? Nah... Cairo. Any airstrip in Egypt, actually. I wanna see the great pyramids.

10. An angel appears out of heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the beverage of your choice. It is?
Absolut Ruby Red Vodka with Red Bull.

12. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anywhere in the PAST. Where do you go?
Is this a return ticket? If so, any Rat Pack performance at Vegas.

13. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
Copyright is obsolete.

14. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called?
Sermons from the Ward.

15. What is your favorite curse word?
FUCK!!!

16. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, what do you do?
Scream "FUCK!!!"

17. Your house is on fire! What do you do?
Scream "FUCK!!!"

18. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?
Scream "FUCK!!!" then try to attempt some basic reconciliation with certain people.

19. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What super-power is it?
Teleportation.

20. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
I'm not telling, but it involves a certain someone who's out of my life...

21. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
Heh. Every fucking thing?

22. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check this out… you can move to anywhere else in the world. Where do you go?
I'd try Switzerland.

23. This question still counts, even for those of you who are under age, if you were banned from every bar in the world except one, which one would it be?
Well, Millennium Club technically isn't a bar, so... Tiefenrausch?

24. Hopefully you didn’t mention this in the super-powers question... If you did, then we’ll just expand on that. Check it out… Suddenly, you have gained the ability to fly! Whose house are you going to fly to first, and be like "check it out, i can fly!"?
Nobody's. I'd keep it a secret until the fateful party when I start drunkenly levitating around...

25. The constant absorption of magical moon beans mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
Easiest question ever. Johnny Cash of course.

"If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

Model rocket enthusiasts cum Star Wars geeks build self-propelled, flight-capable half-scale X-Wing fighter and launch it at a rocketry con resulting in disastrous loss of the vehicle.


X Wing Rocket - Watch more free videos

Even if the whole thing was a spectacular failure (witness the trajectory the X-Wing was on before disintegration), you can't help rooting for these guys. May their next attempt be more successful.

German electro/industrial project EISENFUNK celebrated their first CD release with a live performance last Wednesday. I was there and took some pics. They are now online at the label's website, so kindly go and have a look.

A little gem I found years ago that shezan's recent comment reminded me of:

www.khaaan.com

Truly, this is what teh intarwebs have been invented for.

Those of you who have been following the major shitstorm that has been seriously fuxx0ring up my life lately might wonder "so what ever became of the court date?"

I'll tell you as soon as I feel up to it, which right now I don't, having discussed the results at length with Uncle Jack. For now suffice it to say that the saga continues...

In the meantime, post something witty. Make me smile.

A fashion designer I never heard of has come up with a line of Star Wars-themed designs, practically all of which are totally meh, except for this absolutely bitchin' Boba Fett hoodie, which is seriously made of win:



(via boing boing)

So the NYT has a piece online about the upcoming release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Which is to be commended because Blade Runner is a great film that everybody should see. However, the article contains one of the biggest WTF! moments I ever encountered when discussing Blade Runner...

( Contains spoilers for those who have never seen Blade Runner before. )

So let me get this straight: Mr. Kaplan, who covers the release of The Final Cut for a major newspaper, and as such should be somewhat knowledgeable about movies, has never heard of the Director's Cut released fifteen fucking years ago? This is ridiculous. Okay, so the actual footage of the dream sequence that is used in The Final Cut has indeed been recovered only recently... but that does not make its implications in any way new. All of this has been known and confirmed since 1992.

According to this CBS story, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional.

[Judge Aiken] said that by asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney General's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation what would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

First of all, hurrah for Judge Aiken.

Second, I am not sure whether this will have any effect at all. Since the administration is probably not going to take this lying down, what happens next? I suppose that as the decision was made by a federal court, the whole thing now escalates to the Supreme Court? Someone knowledgeable about the US legal system (surreptitiously winks at zoethe and dreagoddess) enlighten me here, please.

Yes, I know, Talk Like A Pirate Day is over, but still, this little piece of news makes me want to put on an eyepatch and break out the grog:

After leaked emails from MediaDefender seem to confirm that the company has been using computer sabotage and DDoS attacks against The PirateBay's trackers, TPB has filed criminal charges against a list of prominent media companies.

Arrr matey!

Don't let the German talking put you off if you don't understand it. It stops after about 1.5 minutes.

It's things like this that make me realize the true awesomeness of teh intarwebs.

Please let it not suck. The trailer actually looks cool.

I love Infacted Recordings!

Not only are they one of the best electro labels around (their roster includes Frozen Plasma, Reaper, Heimataerde, Soman, etc), but I also won the Infacted Forum Contest. Meaning I'll have VIP tickets for the Extended Electronics Festival in Berlin on 09/20. Go me!

Now I'll just have to do some really careful planning to afford the fare to Berlin... :-/

Here is how it works.
Copy this list.
Leave in the bands you've seen perform live.
Delete the ones you haven't and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25.
An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list.
Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.


1. VNV Nation**
2. Mesh**
3. The Sisters Of Mercy**
4. Apoptygma Berzerk**
5. Covenant**
6. Deine Lakaien*
7. Rotersand*
8. Client
9. Suicide Commando
10. Frozen Plasma
11. Reaper
12. NamNamBulu
13. [:SITD:]
14. Anne Clark
15. Camouflage
16. Dive
17. The Klinik
18. Diary Of Dreams
19. Diorama
20. Soman
21. Combichrist
22. Nitzer Ebb
23. Project Pitchfork
24. De/Vision
25. Eisbrecher


I saw this in kmg_365's journal first, but I definitely had more bands in common with dj_steve_rbn ;)