every word of it.

It’s so drab

Also, I hate the close/minimize/zoom buttons

I finally finished Microserfs. It’s been on my “To Read” list for years. It’s a terribly sad book. But then I found this after the last page, and it made me happy.

And on the back of that receipt, Jessica’s phone number

I love finding little pieces of history like this.

This weekend was QuakeCon. I usually go every year to get free stuff. Never to play in the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) LAN. But this year, I decided to give it a go. I have a laptop that can play TF2 and Starcraft 2. I’m tooled up and ready to play.

But if only QuakeCon was tooled up and ready to play.

I was planning to go Thursday – Saturday. Thursday was going to be my Carmack keynote and get free stuff day. Friday and Saturday were going to be for LAN.

On Thursday, things started off poorly. I missed Carmack’s videogame keynote, because I was in line to get my stuff checked in. But I was able to catch his rocket keynote. John Carmack and Richard Garriott talking about rockets for 2.5 hours. It was fascinating. This year, the free swag wasn’t overflowing. Compared to ComicCon, QuakeCon was a barren wasteland. There was some cool stuff, but only in very limited quantities. Nvidia were giving away a snuggie that I really wanted, but failed to grab. In the end, I got nothing. Kian got a free hat. I had also previewed the LAN and found out that there was no internet connection. This was going to be a problem. But the staff did say that they were working on it. And after all, it was the first day. On Friday it should be fixed.

On Friday, it wasn’t fixed. But luckily, I had made sure offline mode in Steam was working before I left the house. I have all my games on Steam. Steam is wonderful. But if you can’t login or get into offline mode, you can’t play anything. But during the course of events, I messed up my offline mode in Windows. So I had to switch over to MacOS Steam. Where really the only games I can play are Altitude and Civ IV. TF2, DOD, CS are all too slow on MacOS. And did I mention that the BYOC was packed? I had trouble finding a seat. In fact, I had inadvertently stolen a guy’s spot. But, he didn’t mark it, so it was his own fault. I offered to give it back, but he was nice enough to acknowledge that I got his spot fairly. My first BYOC was not going well.

On Saturday, I didn’t bother going. The network problems and the crowding were the big issues. Long and Surren were planning to go as well. And if we couldn’t sit together, it would be kind of pointless. So instead, Long came over, and we played Starcraft 2. Long will tell you he’s no good. But that’s the Long Con.

So what did I learn from this QuakeCon?

1. Not having a LAN mode in your game is frustrating. Depending on an internet connection to authenticate is a nice way to deter piracy, but it really sucks when you’re in a LAN and have no internet access.
2. Those 4G Hotspots are pretty awesome. They were the only way you could get a reliable internet connection.
3. Picking up chicks on IRC is easy

Starcraft 2 came out last week on both the Mac and Windows simultaneously. Great news! (If you don’t know, I hate rebooting into Windows for the games I barely play.)

Aside from the performance disparity between platforms, Blizzard needs to polish off the rough edges on the MacOS version.

If you got the game from Battle.net, you’ll have found that the Installer for Mac doesn’t work, unless you chmod a few files. That is pretty sloppy. And I didn’t find the solution to why I couldn’t get the installer working on the known issues list, a giant oversight.

Also, they didn’t include proper strings for their Updater program

And the window controls on the launcher is kind of a joke. (The little chiclets on the middle top left of the window)

But the good news is that they’re using Growl. Steam doesn’t use Growl. Instead it’s some terrible Growl-like notification system.

Earlier this week, I needed to make an animated gif. Needed. If you have ImageReady, it is pretty easy to do. But what do you do if you don’t have ImageReady?

Well I’m here for you and Future Raishad

First things

1. Get a Mac. (This is for the next step)
2. Install MacPorts
3. Install gifsicle (Really, you don’t need a Mac for gifsicle. But since you already got one, let’s continue and you can thank me later.)
4. Gather your source images. It will be helpful to name them sequentially
5. Use gifsicle to create your animated gif
   gifsicle image*.gif > animated.gif
6. Adjust the looping
   gifsicle -l animated.gif > looping.gif
7. Adjust the delay
   gifsicle -d 30 looping.gif > finished.gif

After all that hard work, you’ll have something as brilliant as this

This last week I was out in Sunny California for Comic-Con 2010. I created 2 playlists. One sort of about California and a more general road trip mix.

The first playlist, I put some thought in to it. I imagined I was a guest on Adam Buxton’s Big Mixtape and I would have to talk about/justify my tracks. For the second playlist, I just threw some stuff together out of the cast offs from the first playlist and stuff that would be fun to listen to while driving.

Playlist 1: reLAX

1. Phantom Planet – California: There is no other way to start a playlist about California. “Welcome to the O.C., bitch”
2. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing: Doesn’t everyone surf in California?
3. Beck – Burro: Beck’s a twofer, a famous LA musician and a famous Scientologist. This is the mariachi version of “Jackass”
4. Morrissey – First of the Gang to Die: I’ve always heard that Morrissey has a large Hispanic fanbase. I believe this song was for them.
5. Bran Van 3000 – Drinking in L.A.: This is a terrible song, but it is sorta catchy and the title fits.
6. Green Day – Burnout: Green Day’s Dookie was my first CD and my first exposure to the early 90s Californian punk-pop
7. N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton: N.W.A. is part of Southern California musical history.
8. Thomas Rusiak – Hiphopper: And as a result of their success, you had the appropriation of hip hop culture by pretty much everyone.
9. Public Enemy – Burn Hollywood Burn: These next set of songs are about Hollywood.
10. Hole – Celebrity Skin
11. The Boo Radleys – Wish I Was Skinny
12. The Rentals – California: Before it was recorded as “Barcelona”, it was known as “California” in demo form
13. Katy Perry – California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg): Someone had to do it. And it helps date this compilation. I could’ve only put these tracks together in the Summer of 2010
14. The Beach Boys – California Girls: Along with the “inspiration”
15. Tullycraft – Wild Bikini
16. Scala – Under the Bridge (the Red Hot Chili Peppers)
17. Young MC – Know How
18. Art Brut – Moving to L.A.: I would suggest re-recording this song as “Moving to San Diego”. San Diego is perfect.
19. Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – California Soul
20. Ice Cube – It Was a Good Day
21. Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet – Having an Average Weekend: As well as being the title song for Kids in the Hall, this track is an example of surf rock.
22. The Fall – L.A.: The first time I’ve ever used The Fall in a compilation. Remember this moment.
23. Vangelis – Tears in Rain: From the greatest movie about LA, Blade Runner. The 2nd greatest movie about LA, is of course LA Story.

Playlist 2: Calilocomotion

1. The Kinks – Drivin’
2. The Clash – Train in Vain
3. Bow Wow Wow – I Want Candy (Kevin Shields Remix)
4. Jamie T – Chaka Demus
5. Denim – American Rock
6. The Beta Band – Smiling
7. 달파란, 장영규 – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
8. Slow Club – Giving Up on Love
9. Matt & Kim – Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare
10. The Associates – Party Fears Two
11. Blink 182 – Josie
12. Bush – Machinehead
13. Ozma – Natalie Portman
14. The Teenagers – Starlett Johansson<
15. Girls – Lust for Life
16. Archie Bell & the Drells – Tighten Up
17. Delphic – Counterpoint
18. Blondie – Dreaming: For a couple of days last month, this was the greatest song in the world.
19. The Research – Lonely Hearts Still Beat the Same
20. Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer
21. Kenickie – Punka
22. Afroman – Because I Got High

On October 19th, Frightened Rabbit will be playing The Loft in Dallas.

Great news, right?

Well, for you. But not for me. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class this fall. So I’ll be missing Frightened Rabbit again.

For those keeping track at home, this will be the fourth time this year I’ll be missing Frightened Rabbit.

I don’t think it was ever meant to be. Surely, me seeing Frightened Rabbit live will trigger an extinction level event.

Here’s some tour video to keep myself warm

Joachim Low played Glastonbury on Friday and defeated England on Sunday. It’s been a busy weekend.

Now that England is out, I’m putting all my support behind Germany. I only supported England because they were my team in the World Cup Sweepstakes at work and also I’m an Anglophile (there I said it).

I want Germany to go all the way now. And with the full support of 2D, Noodle, and Russel, they cannot lose.

…but that’s okay, I’m famous.

Famous-ish…

Internet Famous?

________ly known

My name was mentioned on BBC 6 Music by Andrew Collins you see.

The back story: Andrew Collins, 6 Music DJ Sub extraordinaire, announced via Twitter that he was going to play an LCD Soundsystem block.

Excited, because I had missed them yesterday, I reply.

Next thing you know, my name is being pronounced on 6 Music and I’m over the moon. And it was a valiant attempt by Andrew Collins. He noticed the “i” and gave it his best shot. Appreciated.

(aside: I had gotten the dates mixed up. LCD Soundsystem were actually playing the next week. But that’s okay, it still made for great radio)