you find yourself a eunuch for lack of trust in saccharine words
spoken bodily with quivering calculation, intuitions compelling
shuffled, careful steps to destinations unseen, distance choked
black with smoke, soot-smeared sidewalks cracked with freezing swells
of winter hopes that melt with summer’s green; illness, flush of
fever, beads of sweat lapping at the cinders swirling round about,
numberless stinging grains each of a price paid for holding fast in
faith that friendship needn’t fornicate, that proximity plays no part,
that time you fail to find for a friend is time you didn’t care–
while each of these you violate in turn, selfish, condescending,
self-condemning by your words. you return your attention to the path
to enjoy what you can: soft, warm snow, tender crackling,
loving words now forgotten, the sulfur-scent of indelible lessons.

[An attempt to capture images from a fever dream in early December 2007. And you thought ThinkBlog was down for the count.]

A1. shot in full color with minimal to zero soundtrack but with penetrating dialogue;
A2. shot in black and white with what you judge near-perfect dialogue but with, again, minimal soundtrack;
B1. shot in full color and zero intelligible utterance at all, but with a superlative, lush soundtrack;
B2. shot in black and white with the same astonishingly gorgeous and descriptive soundtrack ?

Why?

* Meaning, if your pleasure is the theater, so be it; or if at home, so be it. And if your pleasure is headphones as opposed to a 500W 7.1 Dolby digital system, so be that, too; or if accompanied by friends or only one friend or a lover or by no one at all—and so forth.

In good old times, remember my friend
Moon was so bright and so close to us, sometimes

We were still blind and deaf, what a bliss?
Painting the world of our own, for our own eyes, now?

“Can we ever have what we had then?
Friendship unbreakable
Love means nothing to me
Without blinking an eye
I’d fade, if so needed,
All those moments with you
If I had you beside me”

One cloudy day we both lost the game?
We drifted so far and away

Nothing is quite as cruel as a child
Sometimes we break the unbreakable, sometimes?

“And we’ll never have what we had then
Friendship unbroken
Love means nothing to me
Without blinking an eye
I’d fade, if so needed,
All those moments with you
If I had you beside me now”

I was unable to cope with what you said
Sometimes we need to be cruel to be kind
Child that I was, could not see the reason
Feelings I had were but sham and a lie

I have never forgotten your smile
Your eyes, oh, Shamandalie

Time went by, many memories died
I’m writing this down to ease my pain

You saw us always clearer than me
How we were never meant to be
Love denied meant the friendship would die
Now I have seen the light
These memories make me cry

“Can I ever have what I had then?
Friendship unbroken
Love means nothing to me
Without blinking an eye
I’d fade, if so needed,
All those moments with you
And see the world with my wide open eyes

Friendship got broken
There’s no other for me
Like the one of my childhood days
Can you forgive me?
The love got better off me,
On that one day back in old times”

© 2004 Sonata Arctica, Reckoning Night

I saw this with my roommate last night, and I have to admit that I agree with his assessment: it was one of the most violent movies ever put to film. The acting was superb; the casting was practically perfect; the setting was just grim enough to pull it off. In short, it was a near-perfect film—except for that nagging little fact that I now know and cannot forget exactly how it looks when a man gets shot point-blank in the face (or from the side, or from behind, or slightly at one angle and downward…).

This is the first movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t look like the delicate MTV playboy that everyone seemed to love so much in Titanic (though I still wouldn’t know, having never seen it), Matt Damon proves once again how gifted an actor he is, and Jack Nicholson is your typical sleazeball, R. P. McMurphy all over again only without the charm. Mark Wahlberg unexpectedly steals the show.

But the real question is why there’s a trend in American cinema toward violence while sexual intercourse remains (much more) taboo. Everyone from the Euros to the Aussies are laughing at us because we send nearly one million complaints to the FCC because of one flashed boob at the Super Bowl while we think nothing of prime-time stabbings, shootings, gang violence, and so forth. This movie seemed to sum up in caricature that mindset: there was one “suggestive” love scene which was by no means explicit nestled between more than two hours of highly tense scenes involving loss of identity, self-hatred, and militaristic acts of violence. Why is that? Why are we so afraid of sex but seem to have a fascination with violence?

64 Studio is a special Linux version for creating digital contents. It is a software collection based on Debian, containing many 64-bit audio and video editing applications.

Linux specialized for a 64-bit proc with applications for editing sound and video? Wait, isn’t that the Mac department?

Not anymore!

I’d just like to point out that, in Kamelot’s 2003 album Epica, during Interlude I (Opiate Soul), what is being chanted means, translated, “Thou sweetest Fortune, come to me I come/come/have come unto God.”

In Ariel’s fever dream, right after he bids us (in essence, Helena, and the world of common man) “Farewell,” he is expressing his desire that whatever must happen would come to pass. Thus, “dolcissimae, oh Fortuna, venit meos” begins with the superlative degree of the feminine form of “sweet,” so as to agree with the gender of Fortune, whom Ariel addresses. “Venit Veni” is a form of the Latin “to come,” as in, “Quis venit?—Who comes?” Meos is simply, “to me.” Sweetest, thou Fortune, come to me! I came to God!

Frankly, I’m impressed with the big K’s command of Latin—this construction is, AFAIK, not found in any ancient literature.

From The Black Halo (2005):

Track 1, “March of Mephisto”:

ASPIRAT PRIMO FORTUNA LABORI
ME DUCE TUTUS ERIS
VOX POPULI VOX DEI
AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM—
AD INFINITUM

All these phrases are strung together from external sources to make a chilling introductory speech by the character of Mephisto (whose voice is controversial guest vocalist Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir) to Ariel at the opening of this powerful album.

“Aspirat primo fortuna labori” is taken directly from the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC) and means, “Fortune smiles upon our first effort.” This is found in Book II of the Aeneid; in most free English translations that can be found online, it appears as “Thus Fortune on our first endeavor smil’d.” The idea is that the stage was properly set in the previous album/act: Ariel’s soul has been traded for carnal pleasures, and there’s no going back now—Fortune herself foreordained that it should be so, and all is falling into place.

“Me duce tutus eris” comes from Ovid’s Art of Love (Ars Amatoria), Book II, 58. It means, “Under my leadership, you will be safe.” Naturally ironic words for a fallen angel!

“Vox populi, vox Dei” is a Latin phrase coined by twelfth-century English monk William [Somerset] of Malmesbury which means, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” In other words, the public mandate rules over all. William may have been using this ironically, or he may have been expressing a view that would later be called the Divine Right of Kings, in that the Normans under William [the Conqueror, of Normandy] had in the previous century conquered the Anglo-Saxon English isle in 1066. I believe the phrase is used in a slightly different context in this song, however; Mephisto tempts Ariel by telling him what he wishes is in line with what God wishes—or that Ariel’s pact with him is as strong as the very word of God.

“Ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” often abbreviated AMDG, means “For the greater glory of God.” It is the motto of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and is believed to have been coined by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the sect’s founder, in the sixteenth century. Mephisto could be speaking this either ironically, believing that it will actually bring him glory; or he could be assenting even amidst his perceived victory in deceiving Ariel that all things will work toward the glory of God regardless of whatever else incidental happens. Following this second interpretation, then even at the point of revelation of his wickedness, Mephisto is forced by his very nature to glorify God.

“Ad infinitum” is a simple phrase meaning “unto infinity.”

LiveJournal: So, in my desperation and eternal angst, I created another piece of art to put on Deviant Art. Also, Puffy had kittens and I saw a green Volvo on my way to college. I dreamt about horseradish last night.

MySpace: OMG! T0day, me slit wrists again. i so emo! it cuz i make video for knew my chemical romance song! watch it [here]! comment me plz! thx bai!

Xanga: i scraped knee today when goig to kindergarten. dreamt about pony. hope toof fairi gives me $$ so i can bye lickorish. dreamt of ponies lsat night!

To this someone responded that, in fact, INAPPROPRIATE CAPS was the Ultimate Blog Post, with which I’m forced to agree because anything that smacks of recursion and meta-ness gets my top vote.

But however funny and/or insightful these good-natured jabs might be, what of the real backlash? A handful of my friends have expressed disdain at “Internet culture,” meaning in large part “blog culture,” insofar as that’s a meaningful designation; some while sober; and a few with such vehemence I’m asking the question here. Blogs aren’t new. “WebLogs” as such have only arisen with the advent and burgeoning popularity of the Web itself, but the ones that are personal are no newer than journals, diaries, and friends passing notes in class; and blogs that are technical are just a new take on old news feeds from manually-updated websites—and independent newspapers and esoteric magazines before them.

When e-zines hit the ‘net back before anyone would have known what “the ‘net” meant, they were the greatest thing since sliced bread for everyone who knew about them. Remember THE BOOK OF BIOC? No, probably not, because you either weren’t old enough to care—or too old to care. (My sincere apologies to those of you who were curious adolescent delinquents back in the very early ’80s learned all about phreaking from this venerable old publication which you would have downloaded from your local BBS at 300 baud and read on a green-and-black, caps-only, 40-column screen and then put into action via the supplies you picked up at your local Radio Shack.) But this was hot stuff back in the day.

Is it that the hoi polloi are in on the “blog scene”? Is there just too much rampant incredibility? What’s your gripe with the blog scene, if any? Why?

From Sjöberg’s article, as promised:

Blogs and their ultimate perfect entry:

Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.

FARK: Drunk frat boy in Florida has sex with underage donkey, sues Strong Bad for negligence. Still no cure for overused in-jokes.

Slashdot: AMD, SCO patent MP3 over TCP/IP, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft probably responsible somehow.

Kottke: Elwin Festerator is the unsung inventor of the curly telephone cord. “I looked at a straight telephone cord, and I asked myself, Elwin, why can’t that be curly? So I went out and got my brand-new curling gun, and I curled the hell out of it.” Related link: New Yorker article on the Olympic curling team.

Engadget: Samsung releases new cell phone/mp3 player/camera/web browser/GPS/game player/wireless hub. Now in gray!

Joystiq: Will Wright to design first-person Warcraft shooter for the Wii. Jack Thompson responds with aneurysm.

Groklaw: Transcript of SCO deposition on previous court order concerning applicability of evidence to last year’s motion to review earlier statements. Seriously, we love this stuff.

Daily Kos: Bush caught in three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Little Green Footballs: Bush enjoys triumphant three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Gawker: Paris Hilton does pretty much anything.

Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.

Fleshbot: Same as Cute Overload, only with coeds.

MacRumors: Apple is going to sue us for revealing that Apple is going to sue us.

MAKE blog: How to create a nuclear accelerator using a Flash drive, a Commodore 64 and a guy named Roger.

Metafilter: Unhelpful link text. Extra links added for padding that have little to do with the main topic of the entry. Are extremely loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?

Digg: Hey, cool, someone wrote an article about Digg!

Technorati Tags: blogging, Wired, Slashdot, BIOC, phreaking, humor

Technorati Tags: Qana, bombing, Lebanon, photographs, misrepresentation

It’s funny how true it is that perception is reality … some comments on the Digg post linked to this article have joked about how they thought the world itself was black and white till the 1960s, but behind the joke lies the truth that black and white photography, often formal and stilted or grainy and blurred, only serves as a wedge between the present and the past generations. These pictures help the WWII era come alive in stark color photography—the people depicted here are no more than human for having lived back then, but are also certainly no less.

In addition to the original link, see also a more vast archive (that is unfortunately somewhat more cumbersome to use).

read more | digg story

Probably the most insightful comment was by Opportunist, who said the following:

Let’s face it, though, that the computer culture is, so far, a short one. It’s a very new medium, unprecedented by anything it developed from that could be viewed as the “heritage” of it. Music developed during the ages. Even movies had their roots in theatres and plays. Computer games have nothing to draw from.

Thus they are not taken serious as a cultural element. One could argue that the junk that’s currently sold as music is at best what fast food is to cooking, but there is “good” music, maybe it’s a bit dated, but there are pieces of music that can be considered true art. And it needn’t be something along the lines of Mozart or Beethoven. A lot of “pop music” is very capable of moving people, inspiring them, it had some serious impact on our life and it even had influence on politics and the way people see the world. I’m especially thinking about music from the peace movement in the 60s, for example. Most of it can be considered pop music, but it had a “message”, it contained elements that are thought provoking, it’s not just easy listening and entertaining.

Such precedents are missing in the computer games history. And now is maybe one of the worst moments to try something like that. Making games is costy. It’s not like you can sit down in the basement with your friends and you strum your guitars ’til something with a message comes out. You need good people, with a lot of math and physics in their brains, and I do take a serious background in computer languages as granted, who spend a lot of time working out the game.

And then, nobody will buy it. It doesn’t carter the fast food generation gamers, who want a quick, fun game to rush through and then go on to the next. And, as stated before, people who are looking for entertainment with depth, meaning and message are not looking for it in computer games.

Your thoughts?

“This gun’s bullets will only pierce the flesh of your true love!” Genius; so is this.

Some are funnier than dark.

Some are both, admittedly.

Thanks, PJ.

Eat This, Not That at a Summer Picnic. Links directly to the “Printable” version, a great little list of things to eat and not to eat. Who knew potato salad was such a foul offender? (BTW—notice the fine print, amusingly enough, which points to Women’s Health as the source of the article. They can do that because they’re owned by the same company, but I wonder how many catch it.)

10GB of gorgeous wallpapers. This is page 78 of I-don’t-even-know-how-many. I’ve been using 005 as my background for months now; YMMV. Enjoy all these gorgeous shots.

Don’t watch this or this if you’re easily offended or have a weak stomach.

Ellen Feiss, of Mac: Switch ad campaigns, is in a French film. No, it’s not just you. She’s cute, end of story.

Why Geeks/Nerds make the best boyfriends. What, didn’t you know?

Soaked your cellphone? Throw it into the oven for five hours on 125°.

Educate yourself about illegal drugs; make sure you retain this knowledge by not doing them. Actually, the Lycaeum.org is better for this sort of thing.

Daily Show commentary on MySpace courtesy of Demetri Martin. Look his stand-up comedy up on YouTube.

PhoneTrick.com? Plug in your info, real or not, and call your friends. Or enemies, you know. (Also a good way to find your phone if it’s gone missing somewhere in your car or apartment!)

The Restaurant Selector! Fairly excited about this site because it actually has listings for Columbia, SC. If it has listings for one of the least-esteemed states in the union, it just might have listings for your city. Check it out; ratings and descriptions along with addresses for all.

That’s all for now; enjoy!

read more | digg story

Apparently Disturbed has done a remake of “Land of Confusion” by Genesis (feat. Phil Collins, naturally). Seriously, Genesis was creative genius. Also creative genius? Journey. Their “Separate Ways” is pure gold. But—people—gentle readers!—what could they possibly have been thinking with the hair, the clothes, the ridiculously melodramatic gesticulations? There is just nothing quite like Steve Perry, arguably the greatest male vocalist in recent—or at least rock—history, bearing a mullet and a black and pink tank top while being more emo than any emo kid on MySpace ever dreamed. Whew. One of the greatest bands ever, because of their music, and clearly not because of their videos. For more excellence, wellness, and that which is ridiculous, check out the ’80s channels over at UmmYeah.

Also. Be amused; be very amused: Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) gave a remarkable explanation about how the Internet actually works: it’s like a series of tubes. Seriously. There’s full audio [MP3] available, and the transcript follows:

There’s one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn’t going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

We aren’t earning anything by going on that internet. Now I’m not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people […]

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says “No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet”. No, I’m not finished. I want people to understand my position, I’m not going to take a lot of time. [?]

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can’t afford getting delayed by other people.

[…]

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it’s not using what consumers use every day.

It’s not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.

I’m not making this up (Wired, ZDNet, SF Chronicle).

Technorati Tags: Journey, Genesis, Steve Perry, Net Neutrality, Ted Stevens

This song was the catalyst for a revelation I had late last night. More on that later; meanwhile, enjoy the song, and the video (warning: if you haven’t seen Blade Runner, this might contain spoilers. But you HAVE, right? ).

(I’m tek1024.)