The Meaty Efreeti


Thursday, August 31, 2006 So it's time for a little discussion with the folks at Apple. Specifically, about the internal "random" DJ in my iTunes, and how best to fire him. Now before I get to the disparaging comments, I should mention that DJ Shuff used to drop serious knowledge on me while I was working (presumably during his young and hungry years), and often came up with strange and wonderful garanimixes* like throwing Wolfmother into some Band of Horses, or mixing As Tall as Lions with Animal Collective. (I'd really hate for you to miss all the continuity jokes in that last sentence...perhaps you'd like to go back and read it again?) But lately Shuff has grown fat and complacent behind his decks o' probability distribution, and my workday mixes (and by extension my workday), have taken the brunt of his sloth. It seems he's become obsessed with playing the exact same songs...sometimes in the exact same order. And no amount of closing the program down and re-opening it (the software equivalent of suspending him, then re-hiring in the hopes that he learned his lesson), is helping. I'm not sure if Shuff has simply stopped caring about what he plays, or if he actually prefers these songs and has taken the pretentious "I'll play what you should be listening to..." stance. Either way, if I hear "Moonchild" by M83 one more time I'm not just going to sack him, I'm going to string him up by his little Apple-shaped studio monitors. Secondly, the mixes he does come up with are just godawful, and have no business being put together. Ministry to The Weepies? The Who to Ol' Dirty Bastard? Orbital to Art Brut? Those don't even belong in the same sentence, nevermind sequentially in a valid music progression. Now some of you might think that such combinations are my own fault for stocking my iTunes with such eccentricities as the Oliver soundtrack and Death From Above 1979. And if so, you've obviously forgotten what country it is we live in. No, this audial affront isn't attributable to my own musical preferences, but by the fat-cats at Apple and their practice of hiring inexpensive mp3 jockeys that couldn't tell the difference between twee and grime on a good day. So I'm sorry little guy, but it's time for you to go... And take M83 with you. j.s. (*Garanimix - Mixing the fade out of one song to the fade in of another. So named for the Garanimals line of children's clothing where the only skill required to match the attire is to pick the right cartoon animal.)



Decemberists tickets for Oct. 24th @ Stubb's have now been purchased. Those who are willing and able to join us in a live rendition of The Craggy McSailor dance on a school night are encouraged to procure your entry missives as soon as possible. That is all. j.s.



Wednesday, August 30, 2006 Is it supra-geeky of me to be really excited about playing "Spore," a year before it's slated to be released? It is isn't it? Damn. j.s.



Tuesday, August 29, 2006 Well hello there. My you're looking dashing today. Did you do something different this morning? I thought so. So, despite it feeling like the inside of an equatorial bun warmer outside, I absolutely had to take the top off the Jeep last night. I simply couldn't deal with that roof anymore. I hate having a roof. It singlehandedly ruins everything worthwhile about driving a Jeep... Namely, playing They Might Be Giants with the volume at 11 and causing stoplight neighbors to stare confusedly up at me with a look of "what the hell is up with that guy?" It's just a little hobby of mine. Anyway I'm driving a Jeep again, rather than a 4-cylinder tent, and that's a very fine thing. Had dinner with Mom at Vincent's tonight where we talked a bit of shop, a bit more about family, but mostly about women in general and why it is that I'm not dating any. Unfortunately I wasn't able to provide answers to this inquisition in a general sense. However, given the way I was parrying the more specific of her targets, I must've somehow been channelng Le Chevalier de Saint George. Always an interesting conversation when relationships come up with parental units. Although this one was probably my own doing since I brought up the dream I'd had the night before... In it I was married, and in an state of utter histrionics about that fact. I spent the majority of the dream screaming about how my life was essentially over, how I had "no idea who that lady is!" (although in dream-logic I knew she was my new wife), and I remember desperately trying to figure out a way to get the whole thing legally annulled. Yes, I dream about marriage annulment. Anyway, Mom and I rounded out dinner with a cappucino and San Pelligrino on Vincent's brick patio, and then called it a night. Which is actually what I'm about to do right now. yawns And if my neocortex happens to be open for take-out orders this evening, I wouldn't mind it being a night in which Tina Fey and I are spending a weekend on the Mediterranean... Preferably without any unrequited proclivities toward life-long commitment. j.s.



Monday, August 28, 2006 So I think things are starting to look up, but I'm not entirely sure. (I've thought I was on the return road to normalcy several times this weekend, only to realize later that it was a despondent spur.) And though spending a quiet weekend at home hiding from the world was a side-effect of the syrupy murk I was trudging through, it turned out to be a rather good idea. It believe my depression was attributable to having a towering amount of things that I really don't feel like doing, but need to get accomplished. Like finishing the marketing packets at work, writing my October articles, cancelling my satellite radio and DSL subscriptions, doing laundry, etc. I haven't actually done any of these things yet mind you, since locating the problem required the better part of a weekend spent on the couch, eating crackers and watching terrible movies on Cinemax. But I'm working on them now, and feeling better about things in general. Thank you to everyone who called, sent emails and gave me hugs and the like. You're pioneers of awesome in a forest of suck. And I'm as tired of talking about this as I'm sure you are of hearing it, so let's move on to something else. Something like Burning Man. I cannot believe that another year is going by and I'm going to miss that thing once again. grumblegrumble See, I've wanted to go to Burning Man for about 10 years now, and for various and sundry reasons I haven't been able to make it yet. People driving around in cupcakes, a giant mechanical, fire-breathing dragon, Thunderdome, and a life-sized, mobile pirate ship in the middle of the desert? There is no way that I will miss this again. Come next August 25th I'll be packing up a week's worth of water/food/booze, and will be found dancing around in the middle of the Nevada desert with roughly 35,000 other strange and happy people, with total liminal abandon. I'm more than willing to do this alone, but it would become exponentially more awesome with each person who came along. And you're invited of course. However we've only 362 days to figure out how to build a geodesic dome using a jungle gym and an old army parachute, and how to convert the Jeep into a bantha. "Suit Night: Burning Man" sounds like a helluvan idea too. =] j.s.



Friday, August 25, 2006 Okay goddammit, even getting drunk isn't helping anymore. Went to Onion Creek tonight and had drinks with almost all of the usual suspects (Keyser Söze had a pilates class), and I still didn't feel any better. I guess that rules out this depression being alcoholism-related. Now I adore each and every person who was there tonight (yes, I think you're awesome too new stalker girl), and yet everything still somehow felt "off." For good or ill, there's something that isn't right with me currently, and apparently no amount of whitewashing it with booze is going to help. More's the pity. However it looks like this weekend is going to be relatively slow, and as such I should have plenty of time to figure out exactly what it is that's screwing me up and take steps to remedy it. That or just strangle it and bury it out in the lawn so I can get back to being me... j.s.



Thursday, August 24, 2006 With that out of the way, let's chat about my favorite subject in all the world... Me. You know, it's actually a topic of debate as to just how much I'm digging me lately. However this is a really difficult phenomenon to describe on a blog without loosing the whiny emo-kid that I keep hidden and chained under the floorboards of my psyche... But it's been bugging me, so I'll give it a shot, and apologize in advance if I come off like I've been cutting myself and coloring my hair with the "Taking Black Sunday" brand hair dye. So I've been pretty despondent for the majority of this week, and I've no idea why that is. It could be a case of the post-birthday blahs, or a side effect of repeated listening to "The City Lights" by the Umbrellas, or just plain heat exhaustion. But it's manifesting in an awful case of the "So...is this it?"s. Same job, same places, same drinks, same little apartment...and I'm left wondering, is this the best I've got? What happened to the boy who graduated from college convinced he'd lift the world into his hands, take his shot, and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to win? The boy who'd honed his ambition, appearance and wit into a vicious knifepoint which he held threateningly against the egos and self-images of nearly everyone he met. The boy that assumed things would always go his way, simply because they wouldn't dare to do otherwise? Now he's losing daylights sealed in this cubicle, performing meaningless tasks in the few moments that he isn't staring out the reinforced, double-paned, black-tinted office window...wishing he were somewhere, anywhere, else. Re-defining our "selves" is always difficult. And maybe this one is harder since I'm not all that thrilled with the guy I'm becoming. sigh But, regardless of the source of this depression, I really need to straighten it out as I'm beginning to get in my way. (Sleeping almost 11 hours a night simply isn't conducive to living at a run the way I do.) I realize this is probably a surprise to those of you that I've been around this week. That under my typical bravado and smirking indifference I've been rather unhappy. Sorry I hadn't mentioned it earlier. But I'm trying to work it out. And this isn't helping. j.s.



Hey. Just dropping in to send congratulations and well-wishings toward Las Vegas, where Ed and his new wife, Angela, are being married as I write this. The two of them met a year ago at one of the most romantic venues imaginable...an ENVY party. And they've been inseparable ever since. So here's the digital toast to you guys. When you look back on today, years from now, I hope you find that this was the day you loved one another the least. clink j.s.



Tuesday, August 22, 2006 Hi there, It's way beyond birthday recappin' time, so I'll merely set the stage by telling you that my landlady threw a party for me at my place, and let the pictures of such speak for themselves. [People singing "Happy Birthday" to me makes me blush.] [Have I mentioned lately that I love these people?] [No clue what he was talking about.] [Hooray!] [Cake, or DIE!] ["REEEE-joice! CAVEMAN REJOICE!"] [Rocking to "Total Eclipse of the Heart"] [Not sure what I said to cause them to make the same face at me...] [Kara & Rezki al patio.] [Rez & me during rock-time. Which is just before nap-time.] [Luis taking pictures of...himself.] [My uncle and me.] ["Don't stop! Believin'!] [Luis and I have chosen you for help with these ladies.] [Dixie looking supa-hot.] [Rosanne doing the same.] ["I'm Craggy McSailor, I'm thick as a whaler. Strong as an oxen, 'bout 4 times as mean."] [I even smoke on birthday cakes.] [The pants! The pants!] [I can hear all you gasping in horror that I would allow someone to take such a picture of me... ["I think it's time for you to go."] Good times...thanks to everyone who came by. (And super-hyper-mecha thanks to the omnipresent M.E. staff photographer Dixie for providing the pictures once again.) Okay, let's recap a bit. Wednesday of last week I went to the River Oaks theatre to see "Little Miss Sunshine" with Luis and Hebert. Cute movie. Think "Napoleon Dynamite Family Values" and you'll be on the right track. Thursday we hung out with my Canadian brothers and sisters at The Maple Leaf, which is an awesome bar in that classic "let's pull up a barstool and toss back a few Labatt's" kind of way. Just add a twist of indie rock. And speaking of furniture for drunkards, I also noticed that Jen the Ludicrously Hot Bartender has a write-up in Barstool Magazine. Which was a kind of "Angel in the Centerfold" moment for me...except that she was wearing clothes of course. (And a Red Sox hat...shivers.) The rest of the weekend progressed much like the last one did, since it was Rachel's turn on the vertiginous B-Day Wheel o' Sauce. (Ixion has nothing on us.) As a result, I skipped the magazine Issue Release Party at Crome on Friday to hang out at Dave & Buster's...the highlight of which was sitting in the "Shocker" machine and paying good money to have our forearms vibrate like tuning forks. I was taking the pictures, so there isn't one of me partaking in The Shocker. This isn't exactly unfortunate however, since on my turn I convulsed and spasmed madly in an effort to feign electrocution. I'm not sure how amusing the rest of the D&B patrons found this, but I assure you that I found it to be very, very funny. So after playing games for an hour or so we take off and make our way over to The Dirt for a couple drinks. Along the way, I decide that a pair of goggles found in Danny's back seat would make the perfect accessory to my ensemble, and wore them around the bar for a while. Strangely, several young ladies in the establishment seemed quite delighted to see someone looking so ridiculous, and I turned out to be quite popular. One of them explained, at great length, how she was not "with" the guys she was sitting by and how she hoped I understood that they were "just friends" and "you know, you're really cute under those goggles..." Too drunk to care, I merely grinned and responded with something along the lines of "Hey! That's great!" and wandered off. Went home around 1:30, and called it a night. On Saturday I was dealt a very serious blow. It turned out that my laptop didn't care much for its stay at Danny's place the night before (I forgot it there), and completely stopped booting up, opting to focus on a problem with some media file rather than running Windows. In the end, I had to format C: and lose everything I'd been saving on it for the past 2 1/2 years. Pictures. Published and unpublished articles. Website designs. IM conversation records. Even the novel I'd been working on... Gone. I think I took this setback in stride (all things considered), and managed to press on with only a slight amount of whining about what I'd lost. Okay maybe a middling amount of whining... It's up and running now though, and I've started the slow and painful process of rebuilding everything I lost. sigh Anyway, Saturday night we went over to Dixie's place for a joint "Rachel's-B-Day/Dixie's-MCAT" gathering. Various board games threatened, yet never quite materialized, and we simply hung out and watched random videos on the computer instead. We also dropped by La Tapatia for some late-night blood sugar replenishment. And I'll tell you this: there are some strange people in there on the weekends. A completely sauced girl that looked like a female version of Peter Lorre argued with her boyfriend at one table, another girl behind us was explaining how she'd lost 20 pounds yet somehow gained 2 cup sizes, and we were served by a waitress with a short-term memory like a koi on 3 bongloads of Humboldt County. My advice to anyone considering dining there on a weekend evening is to either make sure you're good and drunk prior to ever wandering in, or simply view the experience as more of a sociological experiment than a meal. Sunday Dixie and I went to the Body Worlds III exhibit at the Museum of Natural Science. Pretty amazing stuff, but I feel bad for you poor bastards who actually have organs. You've serious troubles ahead of you... (I, of course, have no internal organs to speak of, and am instead powered by a ball of blue-white light that spins slowly on its axis within my solar plexus.) After the museum we headed back to her place and watched the first 30 minutes of "13 Conversations About One Thing" before it was time to catch up with Rachel and her parents at Pappadeaux's for an early dinner. We didn't finish "13 Conversations" until after work yesterday, then just lounged about her place for a bit talking shop about novels and novelists (DixieNote: I thought about that epistolary C.S. Lewis book for a while last night and I think I need to borrow it), then headed to Poison Girl for a beer with Danny and Luis before going home. And now, worktime! j.s.



Thursday, August 17, 2006 "I never understood why another judge of equal stature of a contrary opinion could not just get up and nullify such an insane decree of another judge. Can't we get another judge to invalidate her ruling?" --- "If a nuke goes off in NYC it will be the result of liberal hatred for Bush and America... " --- "[Liberals] are simply trying to even the score, hoping that the next big attack will take out disproportionate numbers of conservatives. Bad news for them: All of the good targets are in the blue zones." --- The spiteful neo-cons over at LGF are working themselves into a lather over a Detroit court ruling today that the NSA's wiretapping program is unconstitutional. And in the interest of rebuffing their ad nauseam argument about how these programs "target terrorists," AT&T gave the NSA direct access to their database, which has the recordings of most, if not every, phone call that we make over their lines. That isn't "targetting terrorists" guys. It's monitoring an entire populace. And the rest of that hateful rhetoric is nothing more the last angry gasps of a political stance that has worn out its welcome. Good riddance to you, and bravo Judge Anna. j.s.



Wednesday, August 16, 2006 Still not much in the mood for writing anything I'm afraid. But that doesn't mean I can't drop in and post some pretty pictures, just for you. [Pre-Party: "That's some fine material..."] [Pre-Party: This is Dave, just before he strangles you.] [Pre-Party: Hawt.] [Pre-Party: Drinks all around.] [Pre-Party: E.T. longs for a Jager shot of his own.] [Pre-Party: That rum & Coke is the last thing I have a clear memory of.] [Ang, my upstairs neighbor, dancing w/ Dixie while throwing you a "pinky wave."] ["I'm afraid you're not on the list..."] [I've no idea what we were looking at, but it was obviously awesome.] [Derek & Dave, tappin' a toe.] ["Miserable time in'nit?"] [When pimps occlude.] [Strangely, these people are not* on drugs.] [I love this picture.] ["the water on stone the water on concrete the water on sand the water on glass..."] [Fedoras have an adverse effect on headshots.] [Brilliant shot of Derek & Dixie] [Something must've happened between this one and the above picture...] [Obviously it's time to rock.] ["Lean back, lean back, lean back..."] [Nice shot. (And that's about as glazed an expression as I'm capable of.)] [Hawt x 3] ["Fine, but just one. And make it quick. We're busy."]* ["Okay...now hold that pose."] ["I give him a 9.2 on the dismount."] [K. and Dixie, obviously enthralled with me.] [The girls.] [The boys. [The group.] Next time it could be you... j.s.



Oh, and I've added a "MeatySearch" feature at the bottom of my links on the left. (Shamelessly reverse-engineered from that hideous "Blogger NavBar" thing.) So now you can ego-surf The Meaty and find all the posts that I've written about lil' old you. You're welcome. j.s.



Monday, August 14, 2006 I know you're anxiously anticipating tales of my birthday debauchery and of Suit Night II, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait just a bit longer. I've just finished the second round of tech write-ups, as well as my review of the Bloc Party show on Wed, and I have a writers' meeting tonight to divvy up responsibilities for October's issue. And when I leave there I'm not writing another goddamn thing for the next 24 hours. Sorry. I'll be back soon. j.s. p.s. - I can, however, safely advise that you stay away from "tamarindo" flavored sno-cones. I'm pretty sure they're flavored with real tamarins.



Friday, August 11, 2006 does a little birthday dance Thanks to everyone who emailed/posted. I love you guys. j.s.



Tuesday, August 08, 2006 And, just in case any of you are interested in such a thing, something's been clogging Joe Lieberman's political site's tubes since yesterday afternoon. Lieberman's peeps are busy crying "hacker!" to CNN, citing the site's crash as a "Rovian tactic" and demanding that Lamont (his competition in today's election) supporters stop their DoS attack. Sure thing. There's just one lil' hiccup though pumpkin'. And that's the pre-set limits placed on your $15-a-month hosting plan. Just a thought, but perhaps before calling out one's opposition as being supported by hackers, you ought instead to hire a sysadmin who knows better than to sign you up for a 10GB limit, shared hosting account. slaps forehead* j.s. [[via DailyKos]] *I would've said "next time," but it sure doesn't look like there's going to be one, does there Joey?



Hi. I'm very tired. This is because I went to bed at 1:30 last night and woke up 4 1/2 hours later...partly due to too much caffeine intake while writing my September articles, and partly because of a very loud television being turned on upstairs at 6am. And I don't have the time to be tired, since I'm staring down the barrel of an incredibly busy week. Today I had to turn in my articles and then met with my editor for a bit. Tonight I need to go with D. to pick out his suit, then go home and clean the house for Dave's arrival tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to pick him up at the airport after work, then rocket over to Warehouse Live to cover the Bloc Party show. (And I'll be catching up with someone else there, but that's another story. smiles) Thursday some clients are coming to the office early in the morning and want to go over our network infrastructure, security hardware and SFTP server. Which means I have to dance like a monkey for people who aren't going to know what the hell I'm talking about anyway. And there's been some discussion of catching up with people who will be unable to attend Friday/Saturday's festivities over at Onion Creek that evening. Friday I need to help prep the house for my b-day party, and afterward there's Crystal Method at M Bar. (I haven't figured out how I'm going to swing both of those yet, but remain confident in my abilities to pull such things off.) Saturday I have a breakfast appointment with Mom. The afternoon I'm reserving for doing the Bloc Party write-up. Then there's Suit Night later in the evening... Sunday I have to somehow get Dave to the airport by 7am, then get out to Katy in the afternoon to catch up with my Dad. There's a very distant flickering of light where I'll be able simply rest for a while...but it certainly isn't visible with the naked eye. j.s.



Friday, August 04, 2006 Heya. I've had a rather intimate relationship with alcohol for most of this week. And I can say that while she's lovely to be around in the evening hours, she's not nearly as much fun to wake up with the following morning. As a result of this, I think the order of the weekend will be to take it easy. Tuesday night I went out to The Dirt where I had a few drinks and chatted with HeBeDiGi until I was eventually tossed out of the bar. (In their defense, it was almost 3.) Turns out she's both quite nice and heartbreakingly beautiful. Made tentative plans to go rock climbing with her next week. smile Wednesday I caught up with The Dixie at Agora, then went to La Dolce Vita for ridiculously overpriced drinks and a quite good pizza. Capped off the evening watching/laughing at "Batman Begins" back at her place until roughly midnight. Last night I had dinner plans with my landlady and upstairs neighbor at "Cantina Laredo" out on the west side, where we drank way too much and ended up salsa dancing in their little bar area. Good time though. But one that made for a rough morning today since it's End-of-Monthiness at work. I am most certainly not the most productive version of me right now... Coincidentally, the magazine deadline is this Monday, so perhaps it's a good thing that I'm taking it slow for the next couple days. After all, I might actually write my columns without the brain-numbing hangover that I typically sport while doing so. And I can't help but wonder if that will be a help or hindrance to the creative process... Guess we'll see. K, I'm going to lunch with D. now. Talk to you later. j.s.



Thursday, August 03, 2006 growls j.s.



Wednesday, August 02, 2006



Tuesday, August 01, 2006 WOW! I mean...wow! I'm curious just how scalable that interface is... j.s. [[via Boing Boing]]



So I'm at the grocery store last night, picking up a few essentials, one of which was a new toothbrush. (I brush my teeth with the force and fury of a wolverine on growth hormones, so I tend to go through quite a few scrubbing devices.) Poring over the plastic forest of "different" brushes, I eventually settle on a white one with a blue thumbpad, and toss it absently into the basket. Alas, when I get home and remove the toothbrush from the packaging, my jaw drops open with shock and horror. The only white and blue parts were those that were displayed in the little cellophane "window." The rest of it is bright fucking pink. j.s.