Category: Conspirators

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

September 29, 2005 /

Whoa, I made like thirty-five bucks off of Dreamhost referrals! Where by “made” I mean “got taken off my annual hosting bill,” but still!

Thanks, Kyle and soltaridj and procura, whoever you are. (I know who Kyle is.)

September 20, 2005 /

Okay! We have successfully bullied seven people (er, counting me) into agreeing to come see Too Much Light on Sunday at 2:30. I bet you also want to come! I BET YOU DO.

September 13, 2005 /

Lisa has invented a Euro-Japanese pastry, by which I mean that she learned how to cook nikuman dumplings and then replaced the meat with Nutella.

I am not normally a huge fan of Nutella, but damn. Damn.

No, I mean DAMN.

September 6, 2005 /

Saved from an LJ comment feed, because Will asked. I don’t think I’ve ever explained Movie Pong here before.

Movie Pong!

In Movie Pong, which is normally played in groups of three or more, one human names a movie. The human to his or her left names an actor who appeared in that movie, and the next human along names a different movie in which that actor appeared, and the next a different actor who was in the second movie, et cetera. (You can also start with an actor, it’s just simpler to explain this way.) It’s better to play with odd numbers of humans, so that each player has to name both actors and movies.

If you can’t name a movie or actor when you’re up, you can challenge the person who went before you. If he or she can’t name one either, you win and he or she gets a strike; if he or she can, you get a strike. Three strikes you’re out.

If you play Movie Pong with DC, you will lose, but you might learn something. I suspect that Scott is the same way.

Using IMDB is cheating, but permissible for resolving disputes. Using the Oracle of Bacon is always illegal.

A variation I much prefer is Team Movie Pong, in which a group of humans work collectively to try and make a Movie Pong chain from one actor to another. It’s usually easy to do in seven links (Actor 1, movie, actor, movie, actor, movie, actor, movie, Actor 2). The challenge is considered won if the group can do it in five. Doing it in three is considered a mighty feat. Obviously, the more disparate the actors, the grander the accomplishment.

September 6, 2005 /

Just Letters: a Flash game that, as Ben said when he linked it, is “like the Internet in microcosm.” It’s difficult to get anything actually spelled out; it’s easiest to find the letters you need to steal in other people’s words, and vice versa. There’s a paper to be written in there about systems and recombinant entropy. Or maybe about memes. I couldn’t finish XORPH DOT COM or NOT ENOUGH VOWELS, but when I started sorting letters by color I had a dozen people helping me within ten seconds.

Its name is Weakness. Its playlist is Fear Of The New.

August 28, 2005 /

This is the entry where I gush about my mp3 player! Pretend it’s 2002.

My messenger bag is considerably lighter now that I’m not carrying my Discman and fifty CDs in it all the time, and I never have to try to hold three things while standing up again. That’s awesome! I sneakily got a refurbished Shuffle directly from Apple, so I got the one-gig version for the 512 price, and it’s still got a year warranty. That is also awesome! I get to carry the Magic Future Perfect* Radio Mix Tape From Heaven around in my pocket and it makes me happy.

It doesn’t introduce me to new music like the radio and mix tapes are supposed to do (remember when the radio introduced you to new music? Ha ha!), but that’s what I have Lisa and Will and Maria and Ken for. Ken, move back already, dammit.

The audio quality on the Shuffle is really excellent–I’ve actually noticed instruments in the midrange I never heard before, and there are none of the audible compression artifacts I used to get with my mp3-CD player. The one thing it doesn’t have is a bass boost, which is crippling. I am a little bit addicted to my bass boost. I am addicted enough that tonight I purchased paraphernalia with which to enjoy my dependency. Having an equalizer the size of a pack of cigarettes really destroys the point of having a music player the size of a stick of gum, but man, I was getting the dee tees. I’ll probably bitch later about how it works out.

Before I knew the Koss equalizer existed, I was actually considering looking for some converters and a battery-operated guitar effects pedal that would let me change the bass, and just carrying that around instead. Then I thought “ah, but that would strip the signal to mono.” Then I thought “and would be completely insane.“

I was annoyed at first that I had to partition the areas for audio storage and file storage separately, but I fit every song I wanted in less than the 800 megs I’d reserved. There is a remedy, as it turns out, but honestly I’m only using it to listen to the second good duet in the history of pop over and over again.

(The first, and previously only, was “Under Pressure.” Bowie and Queen.)

* A grammar joke!

August 24, 2005 /

I just said goodbye to Ian. He’s going to work for a month in Utah before heading on to Los Angeles. He beat me to Louisville, and now he’s going to beat me to California. He’s been taller than me for as long as I can remember.

Ian’s got a new used truck and everything he owns is in its bed. He’s let his hair get too long because he thinks it’s rock ‘n’ roll. Last night was the biggest Tuesday Night Basketball I think we’ve ever had–everyone showed for a sendoff to its lynchpin. We ordered so much food and Lisa made a cake. We played games.

Sometimes I wonder how much I damaged Ian, growing up, by expecting him to be my peer and treating him like an inferior. Then I realize I’m assigning myself too much influence. Ian’s his own man, smart and ethical and a past master of all the social skills with which I still grapple; he didn’t need me to teach him about jokes or girls or writing code.

Ian will say his Saint Michaels. He’ll be fine.

August 12, 2005 /

Wednesday night, in the process of moving, I applied 360 foot-pounds of torque to my upside-down foot and am now on crutches. Crutches suck. I knew something like this would happen eventually; I’m just glad it happened to me.

I’m pretty sure it’s a sprain, and it already feels a lot better. It’d be nice to get it x-rayed to make sure it’s not broken, but my health insurance doesn’t kick in for another 68 days. Thanks, guys!

Maria has been taking very good care of me, and last night, Lisa and Scott picked us up and brought us to their apartment and fed us poached salmon and showed us funny DVDs and took us home. All this when Lisa was sick herself! It is impossible to have friends as good as Lisa and Scott.