Monthly Archives: September 2005

"Shining!"

30 Sep 2005
Meet Jack Torrance... He's a writer looking for inspiration! A trailer for The Shining as a different movie entirely. This is several shades of awesome. (NYT article.)

Not as good, but still entertaining: West Side Story as zombies.

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Current Music: Panacea -- Death is Near

Oh no, Disneyland burned down.

30 Sep 2005
I went to see the ski jump today (and if you are local and your first reaction to those words is either "what ski jump?" or "was that today?" then you might as well just go ahead and de-friend me now, because clearly I'm not benefitting you in any way.)

Anyway. Their web site said that the jumpery was from 2PM to 4PM. I got there at around 2:45, and they were already done! So basically I missed the whole thing. I was so bummed; I'd been looking forward to this for weeks! It took me longer to get over there than I thought it would, but still, I didn't think there was any chance they'd actually start on time!

There was a gigantic crowd of people who did get there on time, though:

And I got some pictures of this guy feeding snowballs to his dog. I assume the dog had never seen snow before! It was pretty cute:

Bigempty and Jef got some good pictures of the actual skiing. There are some (kinda dull) behind-the-scenes photos and video at SFgate.

Update: More photos of the skiiers at SFgate. Some good shots from Telstar Logistics; and Flickr tags icerair, icerair2005, and bigair.

Also, remember those self-involved assholes Laurie Beijen and Ben Tulchin, who got this event cancelled last time because they were rich and having a wedding? Well, another couple got married on the ski jump!

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Current Music: Supreme Beings of Leisure -- Last Girl on Earth

type harder!

30 Sep 2005
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Current Music: Front 242 -- Leitmotiv 136

smoking and drinking

30 Sep 2005
Smoking seems to increase brain damage in alcoholics
Alcoholics who smoke appear to lose more brain mass than alcoholics who don't smoke, according to a study at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

It is already well-known that the brains of long-term alcoholics atrophy and shrink, the study authors say, but the new findings are the first evidence that cigarette smoking might contribute to that atrophy, particularly in grey matter of the parietal and temporal lobes.

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Current Music: Switchblade Symphony -- Bad Trash

Scraping Foetus Off The Cross?

30 Sep 2005
Foetuses found at Bogota airport
Colombian police have found the bodies of three human foetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States. The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday. The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open.

Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals. ["I have a secret radio transmitter in my teeth", he did not add.]

Gen Varon said the foetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals. He said officials are trying to find out who sent the packages, which came from Barranquilla in Colombia and were destined for Miami in the US.

Previously: Good news on severed goat heads: Satan not involved.

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Current Music: MC 900 Ft Jesus -- Killer Inside Me (Meat Beat Manifestation #2)

I, for one, welcome our new undercover glitterbutt agents

30 Sep 2005
Deputy Sues Florida Hospital After Being Injected With Glitter
An undercover Orange County deputy says he went to Florida Hospital for a shot of pain medication, but instead the syringe was filled with glitter, the kind used in makeup.

It was cosmetic glitter, according to attorneys for the undercover deputy, injected right into muscles of the deputy's hip. The deputy had gone to Florida Hospital for sinus surgery in October of 2000. Nurses were supposed to inject him with Demerol. But one shot, he says, didn't make him feel better.

Three months later, he had a four-inch by four-inch mass near the injection site. It took another surgery to remove it. An analysis determined there was "green and red sparkling material" around the mass. In other words, glitter. "When Dr. Nawiki came to me and said we took some glitter looking stuff out of my buttock, I was shocked. I still am," the deputy said.

He continues to have health problems. He walks with a limp and has been hospitalized 12 more times. He's now suing Florida Hospital.

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Current Music: Buzzcocks -- What Do I Get?

the beatings will continue until morale improves

29 Sep 2005
I really wish I didn't have to send out an email like this every couple of months. Dear morons: stop being morons. Thanks. Also, "xscreensaver" is not a good subject line.

Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 21:55:58 -0400
From: The Latest Monkey
To: jwz@jwz.org
Subject: xscreensaver

I've been looking through all the xscreensaver documentation, but cannot seem to find a way to over-ride the checking of ~/.xscreensaver. We want to set one system-wide default for all users and not allow them to have their own custom prefs saved. We want this to ensure everyone has the screensaver enabled after x minutes with locking enabled. Do you know of a solution to this issue?

Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:10:49 -0700
From: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
To: Monkeyboy
Subject: Re: xscreensaver

> We want to set one system-wide default for all users

You can do that by editing the global app-defaults/XScreenSaver file.

> and not allow them to have their own custom prefs saved.

That's impossible. Even if you were to modify xscreensaver, you can't stop them from downloading their own copy of xscreensaver from my web site unless you only give them computers that are bolted down, locked shut, not connected to the internet, and don't have CD drives or USB ports. You also can't stop them from simply not running it in the first place.

> Do you know of a solution to this issue?

Yes. Treat your co-workers as co-workers instead of as criminals or children. Set the policy and expect your colleagues to follow it because it is their job to do so, and not because of some halfassed technical impediment.

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Current Music: The Cure -- Subway Song

why must iMovie suck so much?

29 Sep 2005
Dear Lazyweb,

I have a 45 minute MPEG file. Audio and video play fine in Quicktime Player. "Movie Info" says "MPEG1 Muxed, 29.97 FPS, 320x240".

I want to burn it onto a normal video DVD (not a data DVD that happens to have an MPEG file on it, not some DivX nonsense, a "real" DVD-R.)

I've tried importing it into iMovie in a few different ways, and each time, it imports video but leaves out the audio.

When I go into "Export" in Quicktime Player Pro, the output options that say anything about audio (e.g., MPEG-4) say "Audio: No audio track in source movie". And yet, I can hear it.

So how do I turn this into a DVD with sound?

Update: ffmpegX was able to convert it to a DV and retain the sound, and iMovie was able to import that.

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Current Music: Chemlab -- Exiled "Suck On This" Mix

I'm still waiting for Tropical Storm Rectal Fury

29 Sep 2005
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Current Music: Rasputina -- Hunter's Kiss

Katamari 2

29 Sep 2005
We Love Katamari is great fun, but it's basically the same game as the original. Pretty much it's just a new set of levels: it's more like an "expansion pack" than a sequel. But if you reached the end of the first one and didn't want it to be over yet (that's me) then it's well worth buying.

The music is not nearly as good as in the original.

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Current Music: Meg Lee Chin -- Swallowing You