amerrykan

I know you don’t necessarily NEED to reinstall that often anymore..

Still, nothing feels as good as a clean installation of Windows.

Today, I went to both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.co.jp and attempted to import some foreign releases, but was told that none of my purchases could be sent to my address.

Well, that really sucks — For years, I’ve saved a good deal of money by importing directly from the localized Amazon site (sometimes, a simple CD single will be $20 used here, but it’s a buck plus shipping from the UK). I never had problems with overseas Amazon Marketplace vendors shipping internationally (though I have waited a month to receive my product — it did get here).

Does anyone know of any similar sites in other countries that deal with used items (preferrably, letting the users sell their items) and are friendly to foreign buyers? In particular, I’m interested in buying from the UK and Japan, but Australia would be good as well.

I spent the better part of the day getting my nVidia nForce RAID5 recognized under Ubuntu 8.04. I’m posting it here hoping it will help someone else (and for my own reference should I need to rebuild this thing), though it sounds like it will be resolved in an updated LiveCD..?:

Bug #220493 in linux (Ubuntu): [Hardy][Regression] dmraid45 target missing in latest kernel
..and also Bug #97655 in linux-source-2.6.20 (Ubuntu): dmraid45 target please

Giving up on the music industry, Trent Reznor has decided to release his latest album, The Slip, for free, without the support of a label. Lucky for you, it’s not as shit as Year Zero. Don’t expect it to be The Downward Spiral, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the handful of decent tracks, and better yet, you didn’t have to break any laws to get your grubby hands on it. Neat.

After some goofiness with the registration of the domain name, we are back. I’m sure you were worried.

Lately, I’ve been becoming increasingly forgetful. I attribute this to my sinus stuffiness that seems to agitate my ability to focus on things — I will very often open a new web browser with the intent of looking at something that popped into mind, and by the time the browser loads, I’ve completely forgotten what it was that I was going to do. To counter this, I try to recall what things I was just thinking about and in what order. This has a fairly low success rate.

Other times, I will know exactly what it is that I’m looking for, but I cannot for the life of me remember what its insipid ‘Web 2.0′ name is. I know what its purpose is, I can even remember the general look of its user interface. I’ll even remember the glossy, vector artwork and the large, smooth font that it uses for its logo, but the name is some nonsense ‘flowy’-type word that has nothing to do with anything.

Google gets away with it because “Google” is the second-most commonly used word in the American household, right behind “fuck”.

Today, I downloaded this amazing, ‘next-generation’ screenshot capture utility. It will not just take screenshots, it will let you add to them (you can add arrows, highlight details or add text boxes with your comments), even create screencasts. It will take your finished product and save it to a file, upload it to a designated FTP server, or even post it to free web hosting (even for screencasts). That’s pretty cool.

Its name is Jing. I installed it a few hours ago and just spent three minutes digging through my Start menu trying to remember what the hell it was called.

I guess it goes without saying that I much prefer names like, Launchy. Once I make the connection mentally, I know exactly what I’m getting and tend not to forget it.

I wonder why we’ve gone this route.. Have all the good names been taken?

For fun: Web 2.0 Name Generator.
For comments: Post the names that always give you problems.

7:33:03 PM headman_in_co_m – hi, hows it going

7:34:00 PM jason – what
*I look up headman’s profile*

7:34:33 PM headman_in_co_m – just sayin hi man

7:35:14 PM jason – wow, that sucks. i had no idea that i looked gay.

7:35:45 PM headman_in_co_m – you don’t man

7:35:57 PM jason – thanks for that. talk to you never again.

7:36:12 PM headman_in_co_m – =))

jennifer_johnsmith 8:51:06 PM BUZZ!!!
jennifer_johnsmith 8:51:09 PM hello

jennifer_johnsmith 9:17:05 PM BUZZ!!!
jennifer_johnsmith 9:17:07 PM hi

jason 4:36:27 PM god what
jason 4:38:14 PM oh man, i’ve been sick all week.
jason 4:39:03 PM was out of work tues-fri, and slept most of the day saturday. but last night, my girlfriend and I went to a friend’s birthday party.
jason 4:39:37 PM we were only there for like two and a half hours before she was drunk and I was about to throw up.
jason 4:40:38 PM when we got back to her place, i retched in her bathroom a little bit, but managed to keep it down. we slept, then woke up this morning and had some breakfast and hung out all day. her work started at 4PM, so I left, got home, walked into the bathroom and threw up right into the toilet.
jason 4:40:45 PM it was violent, too. almost otherworldy.
jason 4:41:48 PM anyway, you know how immediately after vomiting, you feel invincible? the adrenaline’s coursing through your veins, and your brain is sending those ‘ALL CLEAR — ALL CLEAR’ signals?
jason 4:42:42 PM i’m afraid that I’m going to walk off and do something, then have to face that followup puke that occurs twenty minutes afterwards.
jason 4:42:58 PM ok bye

I’ve been buying Japanese releases of some of my favorite new albums. It’s an expensive endeavor, but it’s the little things that make it worth it, really.

Most importantly, the content. Japanese releases often include bonus tracks, usually non-album tracks featured on singles, splits, or EPs. For example, the Japanese release of Red Sparowes “At the Soundless Dawn” album includes their contribution to their split with Gregor Samsa, a seven minute epic. The Japanese release of jesu’s “Conqueror” comes in a unique two-disc case. The first disc is “Conqueror”, while the second disc is the “Sun Down / Sun Rise EP”. This is notable because that EP was intended to be a vinyl-only release that wasn’t released for another three months.

Other spiffs include extra printed goodies, like an insert which includes a band bio and track listing translated into Japanese. There’s also the spinecard — usually, the album artwork is completely unchanged from the source, spinecards are wrapped around the left side of the jewel case, which include the band name, album title and any other short blurbs in Japanese. These are often tasteful and sometimes include extensions of the cover artwork when correctly overlaid on the case.

Also, disc manufacturing in Japan is no joke. While things are finally turning around here in the US and even the smaller labels are catching on, there’s clearly something special about it. Print quality on the disc surface is often improved. Most Japanese disc manufacturing plants are also nice enough not to brand each disc with their name or website (but now I’m nitpicking).

Today, these arrived –

Three Japanese CDs — Pelican “City of Echoes” (top), Big Business “Here Come the Waterworks” (bottom left), and Red Sparowes “Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun” (bottom right).

Notice that none of these packages include the dreaded top-seal. Remember those huge plastic, clamshell fuckers retailers used to encase their discs in, and their poor checkout girl would roll her eyes at you every time you brought one to the counter? Well, nobody else liked them either, and most American retailers began insisting labels include top-seals to help deter shoplifting while reducing costly bulk. Also, it’s a nice trade-off that you can look at the top edge of the jewel case and visually sort through the discs when shopping at a store.

Once outside the store, the love affair ends as you attempt to remove the seal to get into your rightfully purchased media. (For what it’s worth, I’ve found the best way to do this is to unhinge the bottom hook of the jewel case, lift it up over the top of the case, then carefully pull the sticker off.) Some manufacturers have even committed atrocities involving these, including slapping them directly on digipacks.

Does anyone else remember buying any DVDs with three of these fuckers slapped over all opening ends of the case? Whoever did that needs to be shot in the face.

Well, I guess the Japanese have greater faith in their customers, because even the plastic wrap has a sort-of pull tab that allows you to lift and tear the plastic away.

Digipacks get special treatment and are sealed in ‘baggies’ with some sticky goop on the cellophane.

Here, I’ve scanned the covers and laid the front portion of the spinecard over top:

Here’s what extras are included in each of these versions:

Pelican “City of Echoes” — This is a unique two-disc version. The first disc is identical to the US version, the second disc is a DVD of a live performance in Los Angeles from 9/26/2006.

Big Business “Here Comes the Waterworks” — This includes the full content of the “Tour II EP” as bonus tracks at the end of the disc.

Red Sparowes “Every Red Hearts Shines Toward the Red Sun” — This includes “As the Black Wind Withers in the Sky, We are Graced Dimly in our Dreams”, their 14-minute contribution to their 12″ split with Grails.

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I have a point for bringing this up. There’s a lot of talk today about the digital music revolution, how people are moving away from owning physical media to digital downloads or subscription services. My personal opinion is that people would be more interested in owning or collecting albums if we didn’t treat them like thieves, and that a $16 CD purchase should give you a little more than a disc with two sheets of paper in a plastic casing. There has to be a REASON to prefer one format over another. Discs are (by today’s ever-shrinking standards) bulky and prone to failure, but people can be coerced into taking care of them if they believe they have value. That value is determined by the sum of its parts, not completely and entirely by the content of the disc.

As digital music beings to take over, will we see the end of the ‘product’? By that, I mean, will anyone bother to create innovative, thought-provoking album artwork, or write liner notes? This is a tradition as old as the concept of “the album”. Will physical distribution of music still be with us in ten years?

jennymoon3333 1:41:04 PM BUZZ!!!
jennymoon3333 1:41:06 PM you there
jennymoon3333 1:41:09 PM hello
jennymoon3333 1:41:22 PM am trying to send you and email but it does not work out hun
jennymoon3333 1:41:23 PM BUZZ!!!
jennymoon3333 1:41:27 PM you there now
jennymoon3333 1:41:29 PM hello
jennymoon3333 1:41:45 PM am sure the payment has deliver to you there now hun

jennymoon3333 3:00:57 PM By now you must have gotten the check so whats up, you havent get back to me
jennymoon3333 3:00:58 PM BUZZ!!!
jennymoon3333 3:00:58 PM hi

jennymoon3333 5:23:03 PM BUZZ!!!
jennymoon3333 5:23:05 PM hello
jennymoon3333 5:23:14 PM the payment has deliver to you
jennymoon3333 5:23:18 PM please get back to me
jennymoon3333 5:23:19 PM ok

jason 7:55:56 PM MY FORTUNE COOKIE READS “LUCK WILL VISIT YOU ON THE NEXT FULL MOON”
jason 7:56:19 PM WE HAVE A FUNNY JOKE WHERE WE SAY “IN BED” AT THE END OF EVERY FORTUNE!
jason 7:56:21 PM HAHAHAHA
jason 7:56:47 PM BUZZ!!!
jason 7:57:11 PM BUZZ!!! YOU STUPID TWAT