If you were in the Bay Area last night, please post here and complete this sentence: "Despite your strong advice, I did not attend because _______________________________." Use both sides if necessary.
dnalounge updatelet
DNA Lounge updatelet, wherein you feast on photos of the Atomic Jungle.
dns omg wtf
We're in the process of changing registrars on the various jwz/dna domains (to Domain Direct from Verisign/Register), and rumor has it that there has been some pooch-screwage in the process. It all looks fine to me, but I'm on the inside, so who knows. Are www.jwz.org and www.dnalounge.com working for the world-at-large?
Tags: computers, dnalounge, firstperson, lazyweb
xscreensaver 4.18 out now
XScreenSaver 4.17 4.18: mostly a bug-fix release, though there are two new hacks (anemotaxis and memscroller.)
Tags: computers, firstperson, linux, xscreensaver
life imitates Neuromancer again: aquatic razorgirls
Nike permanently affixes goggles to Olympic swimmers' eyes 
Ryan Block wrote:
Ryan Block wrote: "If you're planning on swimming in the Olympics, you've got to be prepared to go the extra mile to shave off a few hundredths of a second off your time. It's not enough to have laser remove all your body hair and wear rubber band underwear anymore, now Nike wants you to use their latest drag-killing device, the strapless water goggles. How does it work? Two independent goggle lenses get afixed to your eye sockets with medical-grade adhesive (read: superglue). Say, while you're at it, why don't you just get your toes and fingers sewn together like a duck?"
Ninja Tree Rats
Evil Squirrel: "Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel."
Update: Apparently written by one Daniel Meyer, here.
DNA Lounge: Wherein photographic evidence is presented, bad behavior is ridiculed, and your Sunday plans are made clear.
Photos are up of our previous three live shows:
- Koi + Solomon;
- The Dickies + Millhouse + Second Class Citizens + Royalty;
- Fear Makes Perfect + Plastination + The Brides.
I liked The Brides a lot -- they were sort of a spooky rockabilly/deathrock number.
Originally Orgy was supposed to be the headliner of the Koi show, but pre-sales were really low, and when the promoter asked the band to charge less, they decided to cancel the show (along with, I'm told, half of their tour.) The rider they gave us was the "Stadium rider", with requests like "six private dressing rooms", so I guess they're not yet adjusted to their new reality.
At most of our live shows, we use the lounge for the bands' backstage area. There's a cage that goes in front of the bar to keep the liquor locked up. Well, at the Dickies show, someone with one of the bands broke through the cage and stole a few bottles of booze. This is extra lame, considering that we are always generous with the drink tickets. But hey, it's punk rock to "stick it to The Man", right? Still, given that only 150 people showed up, they might want to wait for a night when The Man was actually making any money. Perhaps they didn't realize that they had already stuck it to The Man by simply not being very popular.
They put on an entertaining show, though. The Dickies were a lot of fun.
In further jackassery news, we had another KMFDM show booked, but they canceled on us. We still don't actually have any idea why. As I understand it, the exchange went something like this:
| Promoter: | KMFDM says they won't play at DNA because you were so rude to Sasha last time. Apparently there was some incident where he was smoking inside and it turned into a big scene. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexis: | There was? This is the first I've heard of it! | ||
| Promoter: | Oh wait, that happened at Slim's, not at DNA. What happened at DNA is, Sasha wanted to get some friend without ID into the club and you gave him all kinds of grief about it. | ||
| Alexis: | Did not. | ||
| Promoter: | Oh wait, that's not it either. He's mad because you're selling bootlegs of the show. | ||
| Alexis: | No we're not. That's crazy talk. | ||
| Promoter: | << hangs up, purportedly calls Sasha, calls back >> Yup, it's because of the bootlegs. | ||
| Alexis: | But we didn't do anything like that! | ||
| Promoter: | Well what kind of hoops do you want me to jump through! | ||
| Alexis: | Just tell us what we did wrong, and how we can fix it... | ||
| Promoter: | What kind of hoops do you want me to jump through! |
And that's pretty much the end of that. It seems likely that all this nonsense isn't the promoter's fault, it's Sasha not giving either of us a straight answer. Oh well, whatever. It's not like I'll miss them. Their shows attracted an enthusiastic crowd, and many of my friends attended, so that was nice, but the truth is that they're an absolutely horrible live band. Both times they've played here, they've managed to make this club sound worse than anyone else ever has; it's really a good trick, especially since (at least lately) they make heavy use of backing tracks. How do you screw up so badly when you're phoning it in to begin with?
Which is just, you know, another reason for the "bootleg" fantasy to be so nonsensical. They sounded terrible in the room and even worse on the webcast.
On a more pleasant note, please to be joining us this Sunday for Spectacular Spectacular's production of Atomic Jungle! Nothing says vaudeville like south seas atomic testing, right? I saw the rehearsal, and it's going to be hilarious. This is from the mad masterminds behind Zombie DNA and Castle Spectacular.
The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh
The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh:
"This morning the authorities entered the home on Babson and found it deserted, the floors slick with mud and seaweed. On the computer was the LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh, with a notice reading `Update Successful.'"
al-Qaeda Office Space
Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive:
This was the man who that December would take $1,100 from me in exchange for two of al-Qaeda's most valuable computers -- a 40-gigabyte IBM desktop and a Compaq laptop. He had stolen them from al-Qaeda's central office in Kabul on November 12, the night before the city fell to the Northern Alliance. He wanted the money, he said, so that he could travel to the United States and meet some American girls. [...]
Messages were usually encrypted and often couched in language mimicking that of a multinational corporation; thus Osama bin Laden was sometimes "the contractor," acts of terrorism became "trade," Mullah Omar and the Taliban became "the Omar Brothers Company," the security services of the United States and Great Britain became "foreign competitors," and so on. [...]
From: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Folder: Outgoing Mail -- To Yemen
Date: February 11, 1999Noble brother Ezzat ...
Following are my comments on the summary accounting I received:
... With all due respect, this is not an accounting. It's a summary accounting. For example, you didn't write any dates, and many of the items are vague.
The analysis of the summary shows the following:
- You received a total of $22,301. Of course, you didn't mention the period over which this sum was received. Our activities only benefited from a negligible portion of the money. This means that you received and distributed the money as you please ...
Salaries amounted to $10,085 -- 45 percent of the money. I had told you in my fax that we've been receiving only half salaries for five months. What is your reaction or response to this?
Loans amounted to $2,190. Why did you give out loans? Didn't I give clear orders to Muhammad Saleh to refer any loan requests to me? We have already had long discussions on this topic...
"What's this I hear about you having trouble with your TPS reports?" he did not go on to say.
Tags: big brother, corporations, security
Current Music: Single Gun Theory -- Singing Machines ♬
