We’re at our third bar of the evening. I take a small sip of my seventh Sprite.

“You said everyone gets a code name.”

“I didn’t say you get to pick.”

“Come on.”

“What makes you think I’m going to write about you anyway?”

“Because I’m interesting. I bet this is the most interesting conversation you’ve had all night.”

“Perhaps it is. But that doesn’t guarantee you posterity on the Internet.”

“I love when you use big words. That’s so cool. See, we’re both literary!”

“Wanting a code name from a piece of poetry does not make you literary.”

“Come on.”

“It’s not like you’ll get to read it anyway.”*

“Please?”

“Shut up, Frank.”

Across the room, Captain raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug.

“You have a top for that thing?” The barely-past-puberty valet gestures at my Jeep, where KK, her boyfriend, and Captain are jumping out by drunkenly swinging off the roll bars.

“It’s got the safari top on,” I say. “Besides, it’s not going to rain.”

“Not rain. If you’ve got the top you should, like, put it on.”

“Do I look like I have it on me?” I ask, holding up my purse. “What’s the problem here?”

“Well, it goes in an unattended parking lot.”

“And?”

“It’s like, open. And no one will be watching it. You should really put the top on it.”

I speak very slowly. “I am not going home to put the top on my car. Anywhere, any time I park it and walk away, it is unattended. Trust me, the poor thing is used to this treatment. It does not have a nanny. This is why I have insurance and you have a no-liability clause.” I force my keys into his hand. “Park. The. Damn. Car.”

He hands me a paper ticket and practically runs for the driver’s seat. God, I’m bitchy when I’m sober.

“Wheeee!” The blonde girl crashes into KK and knocks both of them off the chair, almost but not quite spilling her champagne as they tumble to the ground laughing. Captain and I watch incredulously from our seat on a neighboring couch as the waiter brings yet another round of shots and they grab for them from the floor.

“To the bride!” the blonde girl yells, knocking one back in honor of the girl I don’t know and whose bachelorette party I am attending for reasons I have yet to ascertain.

“Yay!” “Bride!” “Woo!” All the girls join in, picking up glasses from the tray. There is one left.

The blonde girl snatches it up and lurches toward me. “’Have it!” she slurs. “All th’ girls are ‘aving one!”

“Thanks, I’m good.” I sip my eleventh Sprite of the evening.

“No, a toast to Angie! The bride!”

“That’s all right.”

“You sober driving?” She gets close to my face. “Cuz one’ll be fiiiine.”

“I’m pregnant,” I say dryly.

Her mouth opens in a wide “o” and she plops down on the couch next to me – on TOP of Captain, who had leaned behind me to say something to a friend and is now unfortunately pinned sideways by the blonde girl’s hip.

“I got a great boyfriend and I love him sooo much and I’m not after your boyfriend, I promise,” she whispers, gesturing at Captain in his awkward horizontal position.

“Oh, he’s not my—"

“He’s NOT? But does he know you’re… you know?”

Captain is trying to wriggle free. The blonde girl, I may have forgotten to mention, is not especially tiny. I help him out by giving her a friendly shove and he manages to sit up, and the blonde girl is now perched unsteadily on his lap.

“Hey there,” he says wearily.

“YOU drink this!” the blonde girl says, handing him the shot. He obliges. “Did YOU know that she’s----“

“Not a big fan of cherry bombs, yeah," I finish for her.** I turn to Captain. “Are we leaving soon?”

The Jeep, of course, was perfectly fine.

After that bar there was another, and two more Sprites before last call. I drove the drunks home and stopped at Jack in the Box for a chocolate milkshake before heading to my house.

It sure would have tasted better with a shot of Bailey’s.

-----------------
* I learned something in Chicago.
** Yes I am.

Des Moines, IA

(Vaudeville Mews,9/5/08)

Today was our CD release show for our first album, A Sense Of Urgency. Two shows, an early all-ages and a late 21 +. Support for the early show came from Adam Robert Haug and The Poison Control Center, while Ross Moffat and Maxilla Blue played with us at the second. For these two shows, we played the entire album. It was kind of a "listen before you buy" thing. All and all, we all think it was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came out, whether it was to see us, one of the other bands or both. We greatly, greatly appreciate it and it got our tour off to a good start.

SET:

1.) Rabble Rouse
2.) A Sense Of Urgency
3.) Girl Friday
4.) Lovely To Someone
5.) Vulgarity Drifting Diary
6.) Maggie
7.) Every Day, An Elegy
8.) While We're Young (Sing Me Something New)
9.) You Are My Megalodon
10.) If The Mood Should Strike...

DAY 1

Omaha, NE

(Hotel Frank - East Wing, 9/6/08)
The real first day of the tour, though going to Omaha was downright leisurely compared to some of our other first-tour-date drives. Wanted to leave at 2, ended up leaving around 6:30. This is pretty typical. Spent short Omaha drive getting acquianted with Guitar Hero: On Tour for DS (Verdict: pretty fun, but don't play for more than 15 minutes at a time or you'll get carpal tunnel) and watching the first three episodes of Xavier: Renegade Angel, an Adult Swim show created by the guys who did Wonder Showzen. Even though I've lost touch/become disenchanted with Adult Swim's penchant for randomness for randomness' sake, I liked Wonder Showzen a lot and this was in the same vein. So funny, basically. We were supposed to play at another venue in town for this date but that fell through, so Adam was nice enough to let us play at his house, The Hotel Frank. It's basically two large, old houses connected by a thruway where apparently, under various different names, it's hosted tons of shows throughout the years. This show was played in the east wing of the house in a living room with Adam and a band called Honeybee. Honeybee was pretty good, they're suited for this kind of show. I don't think we are, though. It was ok, but I felt a bit awkward stripped down and I'm not sure if the kids took to us much. Oh well. Adam was really fun, as always. After the show, most of the crowd went on to another house show. I'm lame though, so I went to sleep instead. Oops!

SET:

1.) Girl Friday
2.) Lovely To Someone
3.) Vulgarity Drifting Diary
4.) Belgian Congo
5.) Every Day, An Elegy
6.) You Are My Megalodon

DAY 2

Lincoln, NE

(Box Awesome, 9/7/08)
Woke up, played with cats aroud the house. We went a couple houses down to McFoster's, an awesome natural foods restaurant. I got the Mexican omlette with pineapple papaya salsa. Excellent. Afterwards, we made the rounds to the local record shops in an attempt to get our album stocked. Succeeding in stocking one; have to call the other ones to make special arrangements. The one that let us put records in, The Antiquarium, had a "Box of Jandek" on the counter though, tons of assorted Jandek albums for $6. Weird. Bought some windshield wipers!!! Picked up Adam from the Hotel Frank and headed out for tonight's show in Lincoln. After getting stupidly lost, finally found the venue, Box Awesome. Tonight we played with an interesting instrumental act named Mwumbles and Adam again, marking the end of the brief BP/ARH tour. Darren Keen, who basically is The Show Is The Rainbow, was supposed to play with us, but didn't show. After we played our set to virtually no one, we had to clear the stage for the late show, some reggae nerd named Jah Roots. As we were loading up, Darren came up and apologized. He had thought it was a late show, and was watching an episode of The Shield when he realized. Oops! But he was a nice guy, honest mistake. It was only as we were leaving that Adam mentioned that Darren is the bass player in a band on Saddle Creek called Beep Beep. Mandy and I both think Beep Beep is awesome, so I would have liked to ask him about their new album and stuff. Oh well, maybe next time. This show was also notable as George, Scott's uncle joined up with us. He'll be coming along with us on the road until the 20th, or until he gets bored. Which will probably be tomorrow! Oh well, on to Wichita....

SET

1.) Lovely To Someone
2.) A Sense Of Urgency
3.) E As In X-Ray
4.) Belgian Congo
5.) Girl Friday
6.) You Are My Megalodon

G.

miloprometheus

I use MP3FS a lot for transparently transcoding flac files to mp3s when for instance adding songs to my iPod. This has mostly worked fine. Mp3fs transcodes my flac files and uses the comment section in them to make the id3 tags in the mp3 files. The problem is that I have a lot of flac files that are tagged using id3 tags themselves - not the usual vorbis comment.This causes these files to be transcoded without tags at all. Currently I am looking into adding this feature to mp3fs to enable it to show my flac files with correct tags. The source isn't exactly plain old C, but uses code from PyFlag to use some object orientated techniques (classes, methods, and all). Frankly, I think it looks butt ugly, and it makes it even harder to read (as if C was not hard enough to read already). In addition I have had to dig through tons of source level documentation in header files to get to grips with libid3tag from the MAD project. "Fun". But if I make it, it will at least make my music collection easier to organize.

mp3fs: Adding provisions for transcoding higher quality flac files

The second thing I need to look into is adding capabilities to Mp3fs for it to be able to transcode FLAC vinyl rips - a new super high quality format (96kHz/24bit) distributed on sites for music lovers. As of today it only accepts "normal" cd-quality flacs (44.1kHz/16bit). This involves using the LAME library, which is pretty much undocumented (I never thought I would miss javadoc). Looks like this might be a tad bit more complex than the first task.

xml parser for rhythmboxdb.xml files

Third task on my TODO list is finally looking into xml-parsing, in order to be able to some changes to the database that Rhythmbox uses. Intentionally or unintentionally flac files are sometimes added to the database. I would then like to be able to just remove these files. Sometimes I change the bitrate settings of mp3fs, rendering the RB database outdated. Since rebuilding it is too time-consuming (adding 15000 file entries to my library over a DSL line takes many hours), I would like to be able to just select the files that are transcoded, and changing the recorded bitrate.

If you haven't seen show The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I have to fill you in for some background to this story...  In the beginning of every episode Mickey comes walking up and asks if you want  to go inside the clubhouse (cut to an empty hill) oh he almost forgot - to make the clubhouse appear you have to say the magic words.  Meeska, mooska Mickey Mouse, say it with him - meeska, mooska Mickey Mouse (cue song).

Now that we're all caught up - a few weeks ago, Ren and I were hanging out and she wanted me to open her play doh for her.  She handed me the container and said "Mommy open", to which I replied, "Open, what?  What's the magic word?"  The wheels in her brain spun for about 10 seconds then out comes... Mooska, Mickey Mouse (arm movements and all)  I was hysterical while responding that yes, in a way she was right.  That now seems to be an alternate to please when she wants something. 

 She has also become very vocal to people in public now.  If someone she doesn"t know approaches her, she's a big ol' "Mommy!" mess, but she likes to initiate conversation.  Two weeks ago, her and I were at dinner with my parents.  We got up to leave, she grabbed her beloved cat, then waved and said "bye, bye" to EVERY table we passed walking out the door.  Most responded back so I'm sure that built up her confidence a little more.

Now imagine you're standing at the grocery store with your daughter with her new-found, uninhibited vocal ability.  You're waiting patiently to get to the meat counter while some lady is standing there with her cart blocking everything.  You calmly wait, another person walks up and is now waiting as well.  The lady finally realizes there are other people in HER world and says "Oh, am I in your way?" only to turn back around and take the same position.  Then your daughter, very loudly, starts saying "beep, beep" over and over again.

I hope I never get to the point where that embarrasses me.  I couldn't help but laugh and try to teach her about patience (haha, that sounds funny - me trying to teach someone about patience!) Any whoo, I love how completely raw and unfiltered little kids minds are.  I love that they haven't got to the point where it matters what other people think.  And while I'm sure I may not like to hear some of the stuff she may soon be saying, at least I know it's real. 

What makes up for it, is when I have my bangs in my face and she comes over to me and says "Messy hair. Miss R fix. (takes her hand and moves the hair out of my face) Better. Mommy pretty."  Because according to her mind that's real too.

6am. Beep. Beep beep. Beep beep beep.
Huh? What? Time to get up already? Nooo, it can't be! *snooze*
6:05am. Beep. Beep beep. Beep beep beep.
Groooan. Still... too early. *snooze*
6:10am. Beep. Beep beep. Beep beep beep....

This continues until
6:25am. Beep. Beep beep. Beep beep beep.
*hit snooze* *check time* Oh, 6:25. Hmm, should really be getting up. Ohh, just 5 more minutes.

At 7:30 I usually manage to actually get up.
The are variations on this theme, of course. Some mornings I manage to drag myself from the bed at 6:20. Those are the days I actually have time to shave my legs. This morning was a 7:30 day, but then instead of going for a shower I just sat there staring into space for 5 minutes trying to summon up the energy to walk all the way to the end of the corridor.

I never used to have this miuch trouble getting up in the morning. As a teenager I was expected to get myself up for school in the morning. And I did it. Because the alternative would have been my dad waking me up before he went to work... over an hour earlier than I actually needed to get up. I even managed to get myself up for 9am lectures at uni. Most mornings at least. But now it seems no matter how early I go to bed I wake up still tired and find myself totally incapable of getting out of bed on time. Which leads me to believe it's not my fault. Some external force is at work here which means that while I'm getting enough sleep at night it's lacking in quality. There's only one explanation for it. It has to be... the mattress. The crappy student residence mattress that causes me to wake up with a sore back every single Saturday.

Either that or I'm just crap at getting up for work in the morning.
I prefer to blame the mattress.

We'd an early start this morning, anyway, out northwards for a birthday party. The fella's neck had seized up overnight, so I had to take the wheel. That was all fine and dandy (and I was even managing coherent conversation while driving) until we got to Santry village, where a massive "Road Closed, Divert Onto M1" sign appeared in front of us. Cue the following exchange:

Me: "Shit!"
Him: "Turn right for the motorway"
Me: "But I'm not supposed to drive on the motorway!"
Him: "Well, there's no other way"
Me: "OK, well I'll go on it as far as the airport"
Me: "Should I take my L-plates down?"
Me: "Well, I'll be fined if I'm caught, so I'll leave them up"
Him: "OK, well turn left up ahead"
Me: "Oh shit, I've stalled"

But I carried on, and down the slip road on to the M1, and was building up speed nicely when a maroon car appeared beside me in the fast lane. And blue lights started flashing inside the car. And I got waved in to the hard shoulder. Cue the following exchange:

Snitty Female Garda: "Can I see your licence please?"
Me (producing my 12-year learner's permit): "Here you go... I know I'm not supposed to drive on the motorway but it's the only route I could take, there are roads closed everywhere"
SFG: "Well I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, take the next exit"

She then stopped addressing me completely and told the fella to get me moving and off the motorway - and then sat in her car with her colleague while I fumbled for the ignition with shaky hands and revved the bejesus out of our poor little car. And on I drove to the next exit, which didn't take us anywhere near where we wanted to go, but we got there eventually.

I'm delighted to know that, on a weekend where half the city was in bits, our police force prioritises random unnecessary acts of individual law enforcement over public information. I just hope I've passed my driving test by the time the next rainstorm hits.

Ci perdonino i lettori per le dosi massicce di astio e turpiloquio gratuito che seguirà, ma si tratta di uno sfogo che ci siamo ripromessi di esplicitare dopo anni di frustrazioni televisive ed elucubrative (perché alla fine sono cose su cui si rimugina, per cui non si dorme la notte).

Si parta con l'odio, e bile a mille

Il piccione Yankee Doodle, Titti, Beep-Beep, Woody Woodpecker, volgarmente detto Picchiarello. Cosa accomuna questi quattro dannati pennuti del cazzo?

• la hanno sempre vinta
• appaiono teneri ma sono stronzi al cubo
• non appaiono granché intelligenti (specie Yankee Doodle, che non sa manco suonare la tromba)
• combattono alcuni dei nostri mentori (Klunk, Muttley e lo squadrone Avvoltoi tutto; il Gatto Silvestro, Will Coyote, affettuosamente ribattezzato Will Cojone, l'intero genere umano per Picchiarello, peste lo colga)
• sono un pretesto narrativo insulso e idiota per permetterci di ridere delle nostre debolezze, riflesse nei nostri mentori!

Minchia, sono veramente delle MERDE!

La breve galleria che vi illustriamo, con relativo profilo professionale di ciascuna di queste sciagure chiarirà i motivi del nostro odio profondo e disperatissimo.

Yankee Doodle

Posto che lo si vorrebbe arrosto e / o infilato in quel suo cazzo di trombetta (sicuramente suonerebbe meglio), non si capisce, fra le altre cose:

• cosa diavolo portasse in quella sua minuscola borsetta D&G
• dove diavolo la portasse
• da dove venisse (dove mandarlo lo sapremmo noi)
• perché dovesse fare SEMPRE quel tragitto

Noi si ha un sospetto: in realtà non portava una beneamata mazza, da nessuna parte, venendo da solo il diavolo sa dove. Scopo unico della sua attività era la sistematica vessazione / frustrazione del glorioso ed eroico Squadrone Avvoltoi (ci vorrebbe qualcosa di Wagner, adesso).

Come risultato collaterale delle sue scorribande si è riscontrato:

• creazione dei mezzi volanti (più mezzi che volanti) più incredibili di tutti i tempi
• caduta frenata per Muttley e Zilly
• caduta sfrenata per Dick Dastardly
• nessuna caduta per Klunk, almeno apparentemente (non abbiamo riscontrato danni al suo eloquio)
• stratosferico e giustificato incazzo del generale (che non si capisce perché perdesse tanto tempo con questo stracazzo di piccione), di cui riportiamo un tipico cazziatone:

wawagliu uaua gliu wawa deeee wawawa gliu wa!!!

(Parole sante)

Beep-beep

Noto anche come Road-runner, per tutti noi strenui sostenitori di Will Coyote è una vera sciagura. Nonostante le straordinarie pensate del Nostro, l'antagonista pseudo-struzzo (anche un po' stronzo) con uno sguardo venato di stoltezza, senza fare apparentemente nulla, se non correre, era capace di devastare nell'ordine:

• le leggi della fisica (rottici i coglioni di vedere il coyote precipitare dallo spuntone, vorremmo rammentare che NON SI PASSA ATTRAVERSO UNA PARETE DIPINTA, checcé ne dica Schroedinger)
• le leggi del buonsenso
• il bon-ton
• il manuale delle giovani marmotte
• il manuale delle giovani sparlotte
• la libertà di impresa, della ACME, in particolare, che ha creato una quantità straordinaria di oggetti (che avremmo voluto anche noi almeno sotto il letto), e che, a causa del fallimentare collaudo operato dal coyote non sono mai stati messi in commercio
• la liberta di presa da parte del coyote
• la nostra speranza che prima o poi la serie finisse con un bell'arrosto
• l'autostima dell'unico e ineffabile coyote simpatico dei cartoni animati

Titti

Già il nome fa girare tutto l'armamentario, e nemmeno la versione inglese migliora la situazione (Tweety, "Tuìtti": puah!).

Esempio fulgido di parassita / approfittatore, che senza l'intervento della nonna (vecchia stronza), del cane Ettore (il solito servo cagasotto) e di quant'altri capitassero a tiro, non se la sarebbe mai potuta cavare nei confronti del Prode Silvestro, vista anche la clamorosa sua dabbenaggine che, fatte le debite proporzioni, per un essere umano equivarrebbe a:

"oh oh, mi è sembLato di vedeLe un TIR a 100 all'ora", stando al centro della carreggiata, contromano rispetto al TIR

oppure

"oh oh, mi è sembLato di esseLmi leggermente cagato sotto", veleggiando nei propri escrementi dopo un attacco di diarrea da piaga d'Egitto

oppure

"oh oh, mi è sembLato di vedeLe un asteroide schiantarsi sull'oceano", una cosuccia come un'altra

Inoltre, dulcis in fundo (si fa per dire), non si capisce "peLché cacchio pallasse senza le R". E' perché era giallo, quindi orientale, quindi gli autori sono anche razzisti?!?!! ODIO PROFONDO!!!!

Picchiarello

Allo slogan "Indovina chi è?" l'ovvia risposta è: E chi CAZZO può essere???? L'unico volatile con la rara capacità di frantumare gli zebedei all'intero genere umano con potenza distruttiva tale che i numerosi suoi antagonisti avrebbero preferito fare da cavie per le esplosioni atomiche sull'atollo di bikini.

Brillava, il maledetto, per la straordinaria capacità di violare una regola aurea in natura: davanti ad un uomo un picchio scappa (e fa bene!).

Lui no, no. Lui è DIVERSO! Lui INSEGUE i malcapitati, e gli devasta il cervello facendoli diventare come lui: cioé totalmente dementi. Tale destino è riservato anche a coloro i quali vadano in overdose dei suoi idiotissimi cartoni animati; da cui si scopre il senso di tutto questo post.

Prossimamente su questi scherni

Seguirà analogo pamphlet contro i roditori: Jerry, Speedy Gonzales, Mototopo e ovviamente Mickey Mouse.

They were waving and leering and the driver was revving the engine, nodding toward the stoplight.

I confess: even at the wise old age of twenty-seven, I bit. I cranked up Miranda's "Gunpowder and Lead" and blasted the hell out of the soundbar. That stuff CARRIES when the whole top is off the Jeep. Their bass? Psshht, couldn't hear it over Miranda growling about loading her shotgun. Then the red turned green and I SMOKED those kids down Kingshighway.

Maybe I'm a little petty. But Trans Am, schmans am. That might have been cool when I was about four. I bit because I knew they'd bite it. You don't screw with my Jeep.

To set the scene: Tim drunk-dialed me at 1:30 am on Friday morning, wanting to come over. I told him he couldn't, I was kinda hanging out with his buddy Fireman, it would be a bad thing for both of us, etc. He didn't like this answer, but in the morning I received a text from him: "Thanks for being a good girl last night." Well, that was nice.

And then it was Gin Bucket night at JB's Bar. I went with some friends, and Tim and his group trickled in. I'd texted Fireman earlier in the day to see if he was coming, and he'd said yes. He'd been a little standoff-ish during the week, but I was looking forward to seeing him. When he got there, it was hi-hello-what's-up and off he went with the boys. Okay then. I don't own him, no big thing.

I talked with some of the guys for awhile, with Mel and others, drinking from the Gin Bucket and getting a little bit ridiculous. Then I became aware that my cell phone was gone. I freaked, went around asking everyone, checking floors and barstools and the bathroom. Gone gone gone. Someone took it right off the counter in my friendly neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name.

I went into the bathroom and stumbled, hitting my head on the wall.

I was PISSED. Mad about my missing Sidekick (do you know how much those cost when you're not upgrading? GAAH!), I asked Fireman - who had avoided another attempt at casual conversation earlier - if he was going to be taking me home that night.

"Well, I could," he said, "but you're all mad now and Ben and Mel are going so maybe you should just ride with them."

Bastard. Fine. That's me, drunk and mad, and no begging here. Off I went.

Once home, I lay on my bed for about ten minutes, chugging water, sobering up a bit, and crying because I was mad at Fireman for suddenly becoming such a jerk, mad about my cell phone, mad because I didn't let Tim come over the night before because then haha, Fireman, the joke's on you. Then I did a stupid thing. Unable to drunk-dial anyone sans cell phone, I got in the Jeep and headed back up there.

This was not smart. The Gin Bucket buzz was wearing off but the emotional wreckage was kicking in. All the events of the week - work, cat, school, family, everything going wrong - got tangled up in the fact that Fireman was a jerk and my phone was gone and I wanted to talk to Tim, my good old drunk-dial standby. I got back to JB's - Tim looked surprised to see me, Fireman looked downright pissed - and I didn't even walk toward him but cocked my head at Tim to come talk to me. We stood on the patio for a little bit as I calmed down, and Fireman walked up and tapped me on the shoulder.

"Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" he asked roughly.

Tim wisely made himself scarce.

"I can't believe you drove yourself back up here." He leaned forward, inches from my face. "That's fucking dangerous and it's just a stupid cell phone."

"I know."

"What did you DO that for, then?"

"All right, I'm not as drunk as I was when I left here all stupid," I said, stepping back. "I just came back to talk to - "

"God, you've been all possessive all week, we only went out twice, and now you're going fucking crazy on me!"

In our short time together, I may have failed to point out that I actually am crazy and this should not be news to him.

"What have I done that's so possessive?" I sneered. "You're the one who called me last night and said 'why haven't you texted me today?' like it was a bad thing that I was giving you space."

"You've been trying to cling to me all night, and now you drove back up here to do this! I was hanging out with the guys, I'm not just gonna stand around and hold your hand!"

"First and foremost," I said, narrowing my eyes. "You have ignored me all night. If my attempts to just TALK to you were so 'clingy' of me, then we have a serious issue here. You want your space, I'll give you your space, SO SORRY I was looking forward to hanging out with you for a bit before you go on vacation next week."

"You're just-"

"And secondly, I did not drive up here to see you."

"Yes you did! You were all pissed and came back to tell me about it."

"I am pissed. But I came back up here to give Mel's cell number to Jamie the bartender in case someone finds my phone. And I came to talk to Tim. Not you. Why would I even TRY to talk to you when you're being such a dick to me?"

"This is ridiculous. I'm done," he said, throwing up his hands. "You're fucking crazy, you shouldn't have driven, and you're going all clingy and possessive on me after like, a week!"

"Look, I said I'm sorry for driving back here to NOT talk to you, and I'm sorry that I gave the impression that I'm clingy. Give me a freaking break, we hardly know each other, how the hell am I supposed to know what bugs you?"

"I'm done, we're done, okay?" He was practically yelling.

Hold up your head, rack brain quickly to come up with witty and stinging retort, searchsearchsearch...

"Well," I said, "I hope your right hand doesn't mind." I turned on my heel and congratulated myself as I walked back to Tim and Fireman stomped off.

"You need to get home." He took my arm. "He's being a dick, everyone's drunk or buzzed, you're all emotional, there's no reason to stay."

We got in the Jeep to drive to his house, and my brave facade started to crumble. The tears came again, the questions, the why, why, why of everything I had done wrong. He tried to calm me down, pointing out that it wasn't just me and my expectations, it was Fireman and his too, and it's best to get that over and done sooner rather than later. I nodded as we pulled up in front of the house and saw Fireman and some of the guys sitting on the front porch. Tim stayed in the car with me.

"Look," he said, taking my hand, "I'm your friend and I don't like to see you like this. Drive safely, go home, sleep it off. He should mean nothing to you, and you'll get a new phone tomorrow and everything will be cool."

I sniffle. "He's gonna tell all the guys there that I'm some sort of clingy, crazy whore."

"You and I went out for months. They know you're not like that, they think you're cool. And I know you're not that kind of girl."

"I just don't want to be alone tonight. I really don't want to be by myself like this." I don't even bother with the bedroom eyes and seductive eyelash batting since I suspect that would only worsen the mascara situation. "Please come with me. Just sleep by me, that's all."

"I can't. You know we won't just sleep."

"That's what you wanted last night."

"And that's not what you need tonight."

"I need to not be alone tonight."

He shook his head, and we look at Fireman and the guys on the porch looking at us and wondering what we're doing for so long. Tim leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek. "Drive safely," he said firmly. "I know you can't call me when you get home safe, but you'd better get home."

"Okay."

But I didn't want to be alone. I really didn't, not now. The buzz was completely gone and the emotional state was getting worse. If I'd had a Klonopin I would have taken it to calm down, but I didn't and I had to find somewhere to go. I drove, aimlessly I thought, until I noticed that my turns took me to the street where Navy lives. He hadn't wanted to come out with us tonight, and as I drove by I saw that his lights were on.

Navy is like me. He's been cut to the core by relationships and he too hates to be alone some nights. Hoping this was one of those nights, I impetuously knocked on his door.

He came down the steps, took one look at my face and said "Oh God, what's wrong?"

"Everything," I said, crumpling into his arms. "Can I come in for a little bit?"

"Yeah, yeah of course." He led me up the stairs and settled me on the couch, then brought me a glass of water and sat down next to me. I laid down and rolled my head onto his lap and looked up at him while he petted my hair. "What happened?" he asked.

"Boys are dumb." I wiped away a tear.

"That we are," he said wryly.

"I'm so sorry to come over and just show up at midnight, but my cell phone was stolen so I couldn't call and I didn't want to be alone tonight...and I saw your light on."

"I didn't want to be alone either. I'm glad you're here. What's going on?"

"Well, it's all over with me and Fireman," I began. "He apparently thinks its okay to spend hours on the phone with a girl one week, then blow her off the next week... I was pissed. And my cell phone got stolen, so that sucks, and Fireman apparently thinks I'm a raging bitch and is going to tell everyone, we made a scene at JB's on the patio and everyone's going to think I'm..." I pause and look up at him. "Starting up again is so hard."

He snorts a little. "Tell me about it. It's been 2 years and I haven't been able to." We talk on and on, about how his crazy ex-wife left him and took primary custody of their little girl, about my marriage that didn't happen and all the what-ifs, would I have been like his ex, would I have stayed in my marriage and been miserable, would I have even been miserable at all. What if it had been perfect? We talked about being alone, fear of being alone without a partner and sometimes just the intolerable feeling of being alone at a certain time. I told him about my illness and what I have to do to keep it under control; we talked about his depression and about filling your life with activity so you don't have time to be depressed until you go home at night and sleep alone.

"Can I just crash here tonight?"

"Sure."

He gave me a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and politely went into the kitchen while I changed; I put them on and wriggled under the covers. He crawled in next to me and for a moment we hugged, breathing into each other's necks and silently still wondering our what-ifs. We rolled over to our respective sides of the bed and fell asleep.

To explain this cryptic headline, I have to clear some terms with you first:

• Rhythmbox - the default music player on Ubuntu. Can be used to transfer mp3s to my iPod
• MP3FS - a user-space file system that allows you mount a directory containing flac onto some other mount point, and then lets other programs looking into this directory see the flac files as mp3s. /myMusicDir/elvis.flac then becomes /myMp3s/elvis.mp3.
• iPod - mp3 player that can be used under Linux

Actually there is a fourth component to the mix I use to listen to my music; sshfs, which is a program that allows me to access remote directories over Secure Shell (ssh) as if they were local. But I don't think this part is too vital in my problem. Which I finally come to now:

When transferring songs from my Rhythmbox library to my iPod player only 2/3 of each song gets transferred! I first noticed this with a Dolly Parton album where each some only played until approximately one minute remained. Never exactly one minute, so I didn't really see the logic.

Not until I noticed this on lots of other files as well, where up to three minutes of each song was lost! I then checked on my iPod the number of seconds left, and calculated the percentage of the total. In every case it turned out to be more or less 33.3%. Why is this so?

I will try to look into this a bit further. Right now, the number of potential error sources are too high (sshfs, mp3fs, rhythmbox).

Will be back with more info. edit: Case solved!

---

Solution to the mystery

After conducting some very stringent tests, where I basically wiped the whole Rhythmbox library, and tried out various scenarios, I was not able to reproduce the bug! That was strange, I thought, and tried using the old library again. Yes, the bug reappeared! Then by coincidence I glimpsed a part of the details tab that I had ignored so far. Bitrate.

For this track, it clearly says it has a bitrate of 128k, but I knew that on my server I had chosen to up the bitrate to 192 k. As it happens to be, 128 is exactly two-thirds of 192. The solution was at hand. I remounted the mp3fs directory (server-side), and tried uploading the songs to the iPod again. It worked! They played the full length.

The answer was that at the time Rhythmbox searches through the file system, adding songs to the library as it goes, it also records a lot of data about each song (the following is not a complete entry):

<entry type="song">
    <title>Headless Cross - 06 - Call Of The Wild</title>
    <genre>Heavy Metal</genre>
    <artist>Black Sabbath</artist>
    <album>Headless Cross</album>
    <duration>319</duration>
    <location>file:///mnt/timbuktu_mp3/black_sabbath06.mp3</location>
    <bitrate>320</bitrate>
    ...
</entry type="song">

This information is then used when updating the iPod database. The iPod does get the whole file, but it does not use the metainfo contained in the file, but rather the information in its database. Which in my case was not valid, since I had changed the bitrate since adding the song ...
So to transfer my mp3s now, I just choose the "old" 128kbps setting on the server, but in a while I hope I will be able to write a little program to update the information, so that I can use higher quality setting without needing to add all the songs again (which is a lengthy process).

HOW HARD IS IT TO COPY A PICTURE?

I don't usually post in rage, but I am very upset. I know I have thick hair and I know you need to thin and texturize it to keep it from getting puffy, but that does NOT mean you cut it 3 inches shorter than THE PICTURES I GAVE YOU! If I could have seen what Mr. Fabulous (replacement of my old stylist) was doing to the back of my head I would have stopped him, but the front looked okay - how was I to know he was doing stacked layers back there? After all, THEY WEREN'T IN THE PICTURES! Yes, that is a plural. I gave him two pictures, one front and one side. Nowhere in the pictures were there stacked layers like this. Nowhere in the pictures did the hair on the back of the head end up three inches above jawline.

All the time I was sitting in the chair I was so happy because the front looked nice and the color is fantastic, all smiles. When he was done and spun me around with a hand mirror, I think my jaw landed in my lap. I made some sort of comment along the lines of:

"Wow, the color looks great. And the shape of the back will look really nice when it grows out."

And then I got attacked with something called an anti-humectant. It turns out to be a glue-like substance called a pomade, and it was fluffed through my hair - roots too - before I could run. I HATE having product in my hair. It is sticky and yucky and if Mr. Fabulous would have asked before further violating my head I would have defended my butchered hair from the onslaught. But no. Of course not.

I go to the front to pay and everyone gathers round to see what lovely color I have and how the stylist has solved the problem of my too-thick hair that gets very puffy when it dries. There are ooohs and aaahhhs as I paste on a smile and turn around.

"Call me if you have any questions!" he says cheerfully. "You look fabulous!"

"Yeah, I think that back part will grow out nicely," I say. "And then it will look like the picture."

My Silent Prayer: Grow hair, grow!

I toss the cash on the counter and head out with a wave to Mr. Fabulous. I still left a decent tip because I do love the color, and the haircut might be called cute despite the fact that IT WASN'T LIKE THE PICTURE. Driving in the open Jeep with glue - er, anti-humectant - in my hair is awful because every time I run my hand through my hair to pull it out of my face, it feels sticky and disgusting.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to hop in the shower and wash away my lovely salon blow-dry just to get this gunk out of my too-short hair.

I dinged our car this evening. Arg.

Oran was on the phone as I was leaving for my driving lesson so I had to get the car out of our teeny tiny winding basement car park by myself - by no means an easy feat for a learner driver. I got the first part bang on and lined myself up (or so I thought) to round two big concrete pillars. Trouble was, what with watching the front of the car and the side of the car, controlling my speed and watching my steering, my brain went into complete overload and next thing my wing mirror was scraping along one of the concrete pillars before I could slam on the brakes. The car stopped pretty quickly but the front bumper grazed off the other concrete pillar. It's a wonder I didn't hit the shiny VW Golf parked centimetres away.

I've no idea how but I managed to reverse round and get out of the car park without inflicting any further damage... and then went and drove round the city for an hour! I'm placating myself now with a bottle of Riesling, a phone call to my dad (who knows a panel beater who'll fix the whole thing up for next to nowt), the knowledge that it could've been so much worse, and the assurance that I will never, ever do something so freaking stupid ever again.

I do seem to have to learn the hard way, sometimes.

Ladies, is it even the slightest bit irrational for me to be pissed off that my boyfriend does not answer a call, immediately texts me that he has been offered a free ticket to the ballgame (of a team he does not like) and wants to go (instead of hang out with me as discussed earlier), then immediately fails to answer another call? Obviously, if he just texted me, HIS PHONE IS IN HIS HANDS. It is not broken or lost or left at home. And there have been no calls back, not even a text back (despite 2 more attempts on my part) for about 6 hours now.

That is ridiculous behavior and it is rude. So of course now I cannot sleep.

Is there a dealership someplace where I can just go and trade up? When I ordered my Scion a few years ago, it was so nice to be able to pick out exactly which options I wanted - not to have to pick Package A or B or C and get lots of things I didn't want to pay for (alloy wheels) in order to get the things I did want (keyless entry). It was glorious to know that I was able to get the amped-up stereo without paying $120 for logo-branded floor mats as well. When I got the Jeep, of course it came with package choices instead. I have a Wrangler X, which has various things standard, and because I wanted fog lights I had to get a whole tow package that I really don't anticipate ever using, and although it looks kind of badass, I wish I didn't have to pay for it.

Sometimes I feel like there are certain traits in the men I date that always go together. No matter what car you want, you're always going to get power windows if you want power locks. If I could order "Package E" with the spontaneity option but without the lack of courtesy that said spontaneity often brings, how happy I might be. If I could order him with his go-for-the-gold attitude but without the sore-loserness that accompanies it, that would save a lot of trouble. But it's like not wanting to pay for alloy wheels when you order any car but a Scion. It's always a package deal. When people say that when you really love someone, you love them for their faults as well as their virtues, what does that really mean? If you don't love all the things that come on "Package E," for example, does that mean you don't really love the car? I wouldn't hate having alloy wheels and an engine block heater and 17 extra cupholders, but I'd sure resent having to pay for them every month when I only wanted keyless entry.

I know I'll never be able to order anything - a car, a man, a cheeseburger - with exactly what I want and absolutely nothing that I don't. But right now it's really jumping out at me that I don't need fucking alloy wheels, and I am about ready to throw these logo-branded floor mats under a truck.

I realize that rising gas prices are nothing new, but sweet cracker sandwich – I got a measly five gallons off that twenty. That’s it. And as I watched the fuel gauge arrow crawl anemically up to the quarter-fill mark and stop, I saw bank and credit card statements flashing before my eyes. I felt physically sick for a minute.

Driving home past the string of car dealerships on the highway, I impulsively spun onto a side street when I saw a late-model Toyota parked in front of a used-car dealership and marked ridiculously low. It was seafoam green… Prius green? It had to be! And marked so low? I parked the Jeep around the corner where I couldn’t see it crying and trotted over. Too good to be true, as always – what had looked from the front like an older Prius was actually a 2007 Corolla with 24,000 miles on it and marked at $12995. It seemed like a good deal, so I inspected the sticker.

You know the rest. I was spotted by the sales staff and accosted. I should have done the brush-off, but couldn’t help telling the truth about the Jeep and the gas prices and why I had stopped to look at the Toyota. He was sympathetic, of course, and explained that the Corolla was so low because they had bought three fleet vehicles, all exactly the same, and they had to mark them down to get rid of them. It sounded reasonable. I inspected the inside: LE trim with all the bells and whistles the Jeep lacked. Power everything, wood trim, leather. I agreed to a test drive.

Now, I don’t wish to offend any Corolla owners, but honestly. It is just a Very Boring Car. I was completely put off by the fact that I was so low to the ground. Even my 2006 Scion xA (my last pre-Jeep car) sat me up higher - like the world’s tiniest SUV, as one friend put it. I felt short and helpless. The windshield curved up over my head and I didn’t like it. The vents were the rectangle sort where you move two knobs and still don’t get the air where you want it. And although the thing had good pickup and I had to stare through window paint reminding me that I was getting 35mpg, I was underwhelmed. I thought it would feel good to be thrifty and eco-conscious but it was almost as depressing as the gas pump.

I drove down the street and pulled into the Toyota/Scion dealer where I used to get the ‘06 serviced. That xA was a great car for gas mileage, comfort, cuteness, space, you name it. I’d wanted another Wrangler ever since my ex-fiance claimed custody of the ’01 we’d shared, but I don’t think I’d have gotten rid of the Scion and gone into the Jeep lease if I hadn’t had such a wretched breakup with Tim last year… my best friend refers to the Jeep as my rebound romance and she’s not incorrect.

So I started thinking about that Scion. The company stopped making xAs and replaced them with a model called the xD, which is stupidly less fuel-efficient than its predecessor – brilliant, at a time like this, isn’t it? I asked the salesman about pre-owned and they didn’t have anything. They get snapped up FAST – usually going for about $12500 right now, same as the Very Boring Car and in my price range. I’d have to flip the lease on the Jeep so money would be tight.

I wandered the lot and inspected the new Toyota Yaris, the 4-door version (infinitely practical) and the little 2-door. The 2-door looked like it could fly in space. The one in front of me was white and looked like a cereal marshmallow. I liked it. I like cute cars and I like having a hatchback and I generally do not care for sedans. But it was new, it was $13500 base (stick shift), and so on. I was offered 1.9% financing (which I know I will not qualify for) and given the list of practical reasons to go from my Jeep lease to a Yaris purchase. Gas being obvious, there’s also the fact that I’d actually be putting the money toward something I can keep and pay off. This is also tempting, as I grow ever-so-slightly more practical in my old age.

I left without driving it. When I got home, I took the top off the Jeep and went to pick up E. It’s a hell of a sunroof I’ve got right now.

What you need is to start up your computer without Windows (and thus the viruses) being loaded into memory. There are various ways you can do this, among those are a Windows Live CD with anti-virus (which I would like to write about later), but my solution to the problem is Linux and Frisk's mailserver/workstation package, F-PROT Antivirus.

Why not any other virus scanner, like AVG for Linux, Avira, Avast!, or Clam-AV? Because all they do is scan. They don't disinfect anything at the time of this writing.

At the time being, the only graphical user interface (gui) for f-prot's linux version is for the old version 4. Version 6 find almost twice the amount of viruses compared to version 4, and is therefore what I use. Therefore I assume you know your way around the command line and have used some form of Unix before. I might make a GUI myself in the future (let me know if you have a need for this!), in which case I will make an updated posting.

Anyway, divertions aside, what you need is a Linux distribution. For our purposes no hard drive install is necessary (as would be the case with Ubuntu, for instance), and thus you could download one of the many Linux distributions that are installable on a usb stick. Search around for either PuppyLinux, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix (big!), or my personal favorite; SLAX. Go their respective sites to learn how to install these. In SLAX case you should be able to simply download und uncompress to your usb stick, and then run the script \boot\bootinst.bat as someone with Administrator rights. Your mileage may vary, so try asking around for help in the forums for the different distros if things don't work as planned either when it comes to installation, configuration, or something else.

After rebooting, starting up Linux from the usb stick, and configuring your internet connection, go to the download page for F-Prot. Download the Linux version and unpack it your home drive. Using SLAX, this would mean the /root directory.

Using the command line, go into the f-prot directory, run the ./install-f-prot.pl script, register (for this you need to be online, or otherwise the install will fail), and answer the questions.

If all is good, the anti-virus daemon program (fpscand) should be running, and you can now try scanning for viruses using the fpscan command. fpscan --help will bring up an array of options you can use. I assume you just want to scan and disenfect (that means deleting!) all infected files on your local drives. I then issue the following command from the console:
fpscan --disinfect --adware --applications --all
If you want a little more control of what you are deleting, leaving out the "--disinfect" option will prompt you in each case. You can then choose to delete (Y), keep (N), delete all (A), or quit (Q).
fpscan --adware --applications --all

The output will be something like this

root@slax:~/f-prot# fpscan --report  --adware --applications --local

F-PROT Antivirus version 6.2.1.4252 (built: 2008-04-28T16-44-10)
FRISK Software International (C) Copyright 1989-2007

Engine version: 4.4.4.56
Virus signatures: 200805081637f6efa427cfaf0a586fa821a351621cde
                  (/root/f-prot/antivir.def)

[Unscannable]  /mnt/sda1/D2D/PATCH/FINGER/INSTALL/DRIVERS/SETUP.EXE->(CAB)->WindowsInstaller-KB893803-v2-x86.exe->(CAB)
Scanning: /

Happy hunting :)

I took the shuttle with this guy again. This time there were four of us in the van, and the topic of choice was how kids today are rotten prats and it's all their parents' fault. Maybe he should light a candle for them.

I am taking a taxi back to the dealership after work.

After going through the list of drivers of problematic drivers, I found at that I needed to update some of the drivers for the hardware on my Acer Travelmate 6292. Acer has generally lousy customer support in most areas, including driver updates - they put the (often good and cheap) notebook together, and after that it is your problem.

So I had to find it myself. The Intel display driver was already updated through Windows update, but the fingerprint reader was not. After downloading it from UPEK, rebooting, starting Windows Update again, and looking for updates, it still wasn't giving me the option of downloading.

Most probably I had somehow forgot about some driver, and so I looked over the list once again. No, everything good, but people are fallable, so I thought the list might not be complete.

Realtek AC'97
• For x86-based computers: Alcxwdm.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier

Travelmate 6292 is shipped with the newer HD Audio, not the ancient AC'97 chip, but after checking the driver details I realised they used the same version numbering. And mine was below ...1.6242. After venturing to Realtek Taiwan, I finally found the piece I was missing, and SP1 was available for download!

By my driving instructor.

After five lessons in his stabiliser-enhanced car, I thought things were going really well. I'd stopped stalling the car in traffic, I'd negotiated the quays during rush hour... hell, I'd even managed the M50 interchange in Finglas without freaking out (much). It was hard not to stay calm and relaxed when my instructor was such a relaxed individual himself. At the end of lesson five, I proclaimed myself ready to have a go in my own car. Yer man agreed and said he'd call me with a time for my next lesson.

That was over two three! weeks ago now and I haven't seen him since. There've been a couple of text exchanges where he's offered stupid times for lessons that I couldn't possibly manage, and he didn't even bother replying to my last message. So, I'm considering myself dumped (a costly exercise for him, mind). I now find myself in a sort-of limbo - not yet good enough to drive my car in the city, and yet not a beginner. But I guess it's back to the drawing board all the same. Onward and upward, as they say...

The difference in this recipe, when compared to Dave's version, is that I make sure to load all the 32 bit libraries in /lib32, thus avoiding overwriting any libraries in /usr/lib that might be needed for 64 bit programs (such as KDE).
The latest version of Skype uses QT4, not QT3 as in the original article.

This is what you do:

1. You have to have the ia32-lib libraries and related packages installed. For many they will already be installed because they are automatically installed when you install the Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox. But if not, do this in a terminal:

   sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2 \
   lib32ncurses5 ia32-libs-sdl ia32-libs-gtk \
   lib32stdc++6 linux32

2. Download Skype
3. Download 32bit version of libqt from http://packages.ubuntu.com.
   Remember to get the right version of QT for skype (if you try to install skype by dpkg -i skype.deb it will spit out error messages saying what version of QT it needs (libqt3 or libqt4). For us, we would choose hardy, Libraries, libqt4-core and libqt4-gui, and i386.
4. Open a command shell and go to the directory where you downloaded the files, and tell dpkg to unpack the libraries, and then move the library files to /lib32. If I downloaded to "~/Desktop" I would type this:

   cd ~/Desktop
   for deb in libqt*.deb; do
       dpkg -X $deb tmproot;
   done
   sudo mv tmproot/usr/lib/* /lib32

5. Now we can safely install the true 64 bit libraries without messing anything up, and also install skype

   sudo apt-get install libqt4-gui
   sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i skype-debian*.deb

That should be it. You will now find Skype in your menu. Otherwise just start it from a terminal by typing skype

edit (April 19 2008):
There is a (supposedly) better/more robust way of doing it than my recipe below, although I haven't tried it myself. I was made aware of getlib, which is an app that will get any missing libraries for you 32 bit applications running on 64 bit hardware in Ubuntu, on the Ubuntu Forums by its author. His recipe uses getlib to install Skype on 64 bit Hardy as well. Basically does the same as what I just wrote, but getlib will also help you with all other 64 bit apps! I see someone having problems in that thread, so without getting into details, I can't vouch for it.

Highlights of the road trip down and back included remembering that there's a town called Emo in Laois and laughing a lot about this, eating lots of chocolate and having a bit of a boogie to some very cheesy 80s and 90s pop.

Lowlights: just one. Far too many frigging coffee Revels.

Given that I'm still taking driving lessons in the equivalent of a car with stabilisers, I'll be co-piloting the whole way, which means I get to choose the music. I've got the new Elbow and new-ish Helio Sequence albums lined up, plus a bit of MGMT and Bon Iver for good measure. That should take us about half of the way there...

Back on Tuesday, although there'll be twittering in the meantime, no doubt.

- Met the two boyos again on Friday night and managed to resist their very tempting offer of a trip on the Ghost Bus in favour of staying in Peter's all night for a skinful of pints and no dinner
- Fell into Burdock's for a mountain of chips afterwards and, on leaving with a giant bag of grease, ran straight into a colleague. Whoops
- Spent €96 in five minutes in Topshop
- Missed most of the rugby as expected, thank goodness for Sky+
- Practised driving the new motorcar round an industrial estate car park. I managed to not freak Oran out (I think) and only stalled once
- Saw The Escapist at the Dublin International Film Festival. Really well acted but the storyline was overegged somewhat and the sound mixing is just plain awful, even for a film that's trying to be all 1970s retro
- Cleaned the bejaysus out of the bedroom. And oh, it needed it!

And now to twelve straight days at work. Oh joy.

extra bonus points if you can guess Fred Sanford's first name!