music manager

What's the best music manager out there, folks?

I use Musicmatch Jukebox, but I just lost everything on my machine due to a virus, and reinstalled, and before I pay the registration for the new Musicmatch, I just wanted to know if there's anything else out there I should be looking at.

Now, I have thousands and thousands of mp3s. I want a program that can handle that many songs and more, and it can organize them in intelligent ways, and preferably even burn them to CD, and rip them from CD. I don't want your favorite open source thing that doesn't have many features, but you think is really cool. I need something rock solid.

Is there any amazingly powerful, cool new music organizing program out there? I don't mind paying a couple bucks for it, Jukebox is gonna cost me $20, and it's worth it to me.

Portugal bans Dutch abortion ship

I love the fact that there's a such thing as an "abortion ship".

"Avast! Fetus at 12 o'clock, cap'n!"

"Ah, my sworn enemy! Secure the sails! Prepare for deployment of ye old rusty hanger!"

Portugal bans Dutch abortion ship

use the force

This is a picture taken from a cell phone from the back seat of a car.

The car was on a road, on the way to northern California.

The car was going 85 mph.

Ph34r my driving, beyotch. I'm gunning for you on the open road.

t-minus 10... 9... 8...

I just finished re-watching Alien, and the end of it made me start thinking...

Why do all the engineers in the future assume that it would be a good idea to put a self destruct in a space ship? I don't have one in my car. They don't have them on boats, or planes.

I'd like to know the root of this sci-fi disease, this god in the machine throwaway ending. I've read a lot of 1950's sci fi, and I don't recall seeing any self-destruct ships. I think it was started in the movies.

Alien is from 1979. Has anyone seen any self-destruct sequences from before 1979?

tire help

Okay, after 52k miles, the tires on my Mustang are shot.

I don't know dick about tires, and if any of you are car enthusiasts, or know car enthusiasts, and can answer this question for me, please do.

I'm shopping for tires right now that are rated for my car. They range from $130 each for a Dunlop FM901, to $293 each for a Goodyear Eagle F1 GS EMT.

Every description I read for these tires talks about the great handling they provide, none of them give an estimated mileage, they all just say "great handling and traction", blah blah blah.

They all seem to have 1-10 ratings for "dry traction", "wet traction", "snow traction", etc. However, the more expensive ones don't necessarily have better ratings on these numbers. Some of the cheaper ones have better ratings. But these are all "performance" tires, they all have pretty high numbers.

So my question is this. What's going to happen if I pick the Dunlop tires? Are they going to wear out faster? They have good ratings for traction and everything, but I don't want to make a stupid choice that will cost me later on. I just can't imagine paying $1200 for a new set of tires, when I could get them for $520. But I'm very happy that my current Goodyear Eagle tires have lasted 52k miles, too.

How the hell do I pick a tire? Help.

big ass bowl of stuff

Most of you who read this blog aren't from the midwest, and probably don't have any family there.

That means you're unaware of our cooking habits. I've lived all over the country, but my family is from the midwest, and our food is separated from any nationality or ethnicity. It involves taking things that we think will taste good, and mixing them together.

So generally, what I call food, other people will call "Oh my god, what is that? No, seriously. It looks like a bowl of dog food. No, I won't try any, you freak." Some of the dishes I've made that people have reacted that way to include corned beef hash with nacho cheese, ketchup and egg. I've also been known to eat cottage cheese with ketchup, or pour sweetened condensed milk on toast. I've also made a spaghetti burrito.

I endure much mockery for my eating habits, but you're all so very wrong. Within reason, if the ingredients taste good, they taste even better all mushed up in a bowl. What do you think your stomach does with them?

Anyway, tonight I went overboard and made a very midwest dish, and I thought I'd share it with you, since I apparently made enough to feed myself for about a week, it will be on my mind until I digitally vomit it at you. And until you try it, you can't dismiss it, because I assure you it is DELICIOUS.

I picked up a roasted chicken from the store, and brought it home, pulled all the meat off of it in small chunks, and tossed them in a pot. Then I cut up green peppers, onion, and tomato. All seems pretty normal so far. Then I made a big pot of mac and cheese, and poured that into what I can only call a food bucket at this point. Sensing that something was missing, I was inspired to add half a jar of salsa. Ah yes, the consistency is becoming very nice. I followed this with a large can of pinto beans. And a bit of garlic. And a dash of tapatio.

I was now left with a vat of fine midwest cuisine. Of course, this sort of thing is only truly midwest once you serve it over toast, but I didn't have any, so I munched on it out of a bowl. Nectar of the gods, I tell you.

Asimov

I'll be god damned. I just read how Asimov died, I had no idea.

Did you all realize that Issac Asimov died of AIDS? He had heart surgery and got tainted blood transfusions. That's fucked. I'm pretty knowledgable about the world of sci-fi, and I read other things by authors who mention Asimov all the time, and up to this point, I'd never heard anyone really talking about his cause of death.

P2P Services in the Clear

Most of you know my viewpoint on music theft. I do it, but I know it's wrong. Sometimes I buy music, but sometimes I'm lazy, or sometimes I'm cheap. But I never defend the act of theft, I'm well aware that it's not a moral action, or a defendable one.

However, I don't understand why people are surprised about this ruling, where an appeals court ruled that P2P file sharing software is legal:

Wired News P2P Services in the Clear

Facilitating transfer of things isn't illegal, and should NEVER be illegal. Doing something illegal, sure. But not providing the medium that it happens IN.

Imagine this. My son dies from a drug overdose. I sue the state of California for providing the roads that the drugs came in on.

Does that sound absurd? Of course, but that's what suing P2P companies is like. They provide the roads, they're not responsible for what goes over them.

It's like suing AT&T after terrorists arrange a bombing over their phone lines.

I could come up with analogies all day, but you get the point. Thank god the courts do too.

like a jackhammer to my brain

I just sat through Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. It could be shown in film schools across the country as the perfect role model of what not to do in a movie. Seriously, it was perfect. I've never in my life more strongly wanted the last two hours back. I want to drive to the director's home and retrieve my time from him.

It's like he went through a checklist. Inappropriate music during action sequences? Check. Confusing and overly frequent use of slow motion? Check. People using a new gun every ten seconds instead of reloading. Inadequate martial arts training in all the main actors, and hits that miss by about ten feet. Empty world syndrome with absolutely no consequences for doing things like blowing up three tons of explosives in a trainyard. Completely meaningless storyline. Utter lack of any sort of climax. Stilted and painful dialogue. Bad use of bluescreen.

The main female lived in an abandonded warehouse, full of maintained buckets of boiling acid, and dramatic sparks falling from nowhere to strike the ground. The main male character set a trap for his enemy, set it off, and it left the enemy almost unaffected while knocking a pile of pipes onto himself.

I realized the movie was bad ten minutes in (well, I knew it was bad when I Netflixed it, but sometimes, bad is good. Armageddon is a good example) but I couldn't stop. It was too perfectly bad, not in a way that makes you smile or laugh, but in a way that causes almost physical discomfort. The DVD even had a built-in rock-paper-scissors "game" that looked like it was thrown together by monkeys. It was the perfect storm of bad movies.

I went to check IMDB to see what this terrible director had done previously... apparently one movie in Thailand. And nothing since. It made $14 million, with a budget of $70 million (I'd like to know where that budget was used)

I'm going to go give my brain an enema now.

cell phone blocking

Does anyone know how or if cell phone jammers work?

I found a page that sells them:

http://www.globalgadgetuk.com/cell-phone-jammers.htm

What's cool is they sell not only industrial strength ones, so movie theaters and churches and restuarants can block cell calls, but hand held ones that theoretically work out to 15 meters or so.

If they were a little cheaper (the hand held is $250), I'd like to buy one and try it out. I was once in a movie theater in Maryland where someone answered their cell phone FOUR times during the film. That's absolutely absurd. I'm not one of those people who is anti-cell phone, I love my cell and carry it everywhere, but I turn it off in places where it's inappropriate. I'd like to carry around a cloud of silence with me that I could activate at will.

kontraband

For the love of god, someone tell me if this was a real show aired in Japan.

bizarre porno japanese tv show

I thought it might just be some porn movie, but there's just too many people in the audience, and they look too normal.

JUCCI Contemporary Leather Furniture

Bwaahaha. This company made the mistake of putting their item descriptions in the URLs for their items.

What do I mean? Allow me to show you.

JUCCI Contemporary Leather Furniture

Click on that link. She sweats me.

Pwn.

Earth to disappear from alien radar

Now that's something I've never thought of before. As we advance, we make less "leaky" technology, and we get harder to see. It's very possible that alien cultures, as they advance, have a short window where they're very audible, and then they quiet down, like we're beginning to.

That will make it a lot harder for us all to find each other.

Earth to disappear from alien radar | The Register

Clinton on the Daily Show

Bill Clinton was on the Daily Show last night, and even though I don't agree with the man's politics at all, and wouldn't want him in office right now, it was stunning the relief I felt watching a politician who has so many qualities that are lacking in our current choices.

The man is personable, witty, at ease, and real. He's also intelligent, well spoken, versed in current events and history, and speaks in relevant and modern prose. Of these eight or so criteria, Bush and Kerry each fall short in four or five, at least. Right or wrong, Clinton is what politicians were meant to be. An election debate between Clinton and McCain, for example, would blow my freaking mind.

One strange thing was that he wore a feminine beaded bracelet on his right wrist, which I wonder if it was some sort of gift or inside joke or something. It looked bizarre and out of place.

But yeah, if you missed it, the interview was pretty standard and not particularly interesting, but the Stephen Colbert report before it was hiliarious. He went and picked a representative of every possible minority group, calling them by their labels (gay guy, black dude, jew, lesbian, etc), and asked them about their Democratic beliefs, both mocking them and setting them against each other. He got the labor rep to say that he wanted to drill for oil in ANWAR, and then said "What do you think about that, hippie?" The man is brilliant.

Daily Show is the best damn news on television.

Rick James is dead, bitch.

That sucks.

jesus will put money in your pocket

Staying up way too late drinking will show you some very strange things.

Tonight, I've witnessed a new get rich scheme that I've never seen before, and never imagined that anyone would buy into.

A pyramid scheme where the peak leads straight to God. I'm watching a white man named Robert Tilton on BET, screaming that you can get rich quick by giving money to God.

Normally, these guys call upon your faith, or your charity, or your pity. This guy is saying that once you give money to him, God will reward you with riches. They're showing stories that make absolutely no sense. A woman who called in and gave him money suddenly had more money to save in her bank account.

"Did you get a raise?"
"No, I was just able to save more money. I earned the same amount, but there was more money left at the end of the month."
"Don't you know that's impossible?"
"No, it's the power of Jesus."
"Praise the lord!"

The claims he's making are astounding. If you give money to Robert Tilton, God will help you find a better job, pick the right investments, win the lottery, you name it.

He's actually calling out people specifically. "I see a woman who is having problems with her marriage and is afraid to leave her man, because she can't support herself. God is calling you right now to give us a thousand dollars, and God will provide for you when you leave your man!"

Not only is he trying to sell the get rich quick line, but he's also claiming to be a mystic, completely in touch with God's predictive pipeline. He can see the future, you filthy savages! Reach into your pocket! It's a no lose investment!

My favorite part is after each story, he looks deep into the camera and says "How can anyone doubt the facts of faith? This man's story PROVES that God is there to provide you with wealth and rewards for your faith!"

The facts of faith. You heard me right. It's been proven that something that is DEFINED as a belief that doesn't rest on logical proof or material evidence is a stone cold fact.

Good god, people are stupid.

holy fuck the zombies

Doom 3 is the scariest freaking game.

It makes me want to cry like a little girl.

It also makes my video card beg for mercy, and I'm forcibly restraining myself from going out and buying a new machine.

That happens when Half Life 2 comes out, of course.

Also, I'm trying to learn how to juggle, but it's surprisingly hard.

That is all.