The second half. Now with 200% more Zappas!
corporate-sellout.com
If You Can Read This, You Can Read This
corporate-sellout.com
If You Can Read This, You Can Read This
Hi, I'm Thad. I build websites.
This blog's been up in one form or another since 1999. In that time I've written about topics ranging from comic books to video games to copyright law to creators' rights to Frank Zappa.
I also write eBooks and narrate audiobooks. Here's where you can find them:
To my friends, and to my family:
I may not remember the details of this evening. Because, to be perfectly honest, you convinced me to drink rather a lot of beer.
But I will never forget that you were here.
Thank you. And I'll see you at the wedding.
Nite Life, David Brenner's talk show, 1986.
The reference to the Crusades is interesting -- there's an old Simpsons where Roger Myers Sr., defending Itchy & Scratchy and cartoon violence, points out that the Crusades happened before animation was even invented. Knowing what a Zappa fan Groening is, I wonder if he picked up that comparison here.
By the time this posts I should be well into an evening of drunken revels. My good friends Brad and Felipe are furnishing homebrew for this, the party before my wedding. (Not really a bachelor party per se, as we've got ladies and children coming along as well.)
Maybe I'll have pictures to share later. In the meantime, here's my favorite drinking song:
BBC documentary, 2003. As the subtitle implies, it's about the contradiction between Frank's lack of enthusiasm for jazz and its clear influence on everything he did.
I suppose that I should say a few words about the lady I'm marrying.
Longtime readers of this site have seen me bounce around -- I was still in high school when I put the original version up. In the years since, I've gone from school to school and job to job. Generally, I've been pretty happy (even during my "I hate you all" phase). But a lot of the time I was pretty lonely, and, at least since finishing college, I pretty consistently haven't known what was coming up next in my life.
I suppose that last is still true to some extent. At the moment I'm between temp jobs and don't know what the future may bring.
But I know who'll be there with me.
It's not just that I'm not lonely anymore. It's not just that I met a lady, or that I met a lady who's smart and kind and laughs at (most of) the same things I do. Or that we clicked pretty much immediately and have made it four years so far.
It's all of that. All of it together. It's that we make each other better. It's that whatever happens, we'll face it together, we'll be stronger for it and for each other, and it'll all come out in the end.
El Paso, 1975; soundboard recording uploaded by MyNameIsKojak.
Well, maybe not your dad. But mine, at least.
My dad's in town -- I'm getting married, you see -- and asked me if I could get him a computer to use while he's here.
All I had lying around was an ancient Dell Dimension 8230. I suck Win7/32 on it.
And then found out that the audio didn't work. For Dad that was a deal-breaker.
I opened up the box (and was surprised not to get a cloud of dust to the face -- I don't remember blowing it out, but I must have, and fairly recently) and determined that the sound card is a Creative SB Live, model number CT4780. And that there's no Windows Vista/7 support for it.
I found a third party driver at kxproject.com, but it hadn't been updated since 2009 -- and didn't work either.
So at this point I asked my dad if he wanted me to install Windows XP on his computer, and probably wait the better part of 2 days for all the patches to download and install, or if he'd rather I put Linux on it. He said to give Linux a shot. (He'd used it for a little while at home when his Win7 installation was giving him trouble and a friend installed it for him.)
I settled on Xubuntu for a machine of that vintage. The install was quick, it had a checkbox for non-free software (including Flash and MP3 support), and it seems to support all the hardware out of the box -- including the sound card. And it runs faster than Win7 did.
Now, my dad's not a gamer. He doesn't even use Office. All he needs is a browser and Flash.
Which is of course true of an increasing number of users -- hell, Google's selling a $1300 laptop that just runs a browser. So it's not like this is a major bombshell or anything -- but it's still an interesting shift, no?
Per uploader zappainfrance:
Seal Call Fusion Music 3:14
"We Don't Mess Around" Circus Krone, Munich/Sept. 8, 1978
includes quotes from "Day By Day" (Stordahl/Weston/Cahn)
and "Penguin In Bondage" (Frank Zappa)
(And yes, you may have seen this briefly posted last night and then promptly yanked when I realized I'd accidentally posted two Zappa videos on the same day. I am trying to get them scheduled in advance given my busy schedule this week, and I managed to confuse my sleep-deprived self.)
Today I vacuumed up the spiderwebs on my back porch and hosed down the block and tile. Then I went to the barber, and then the dentist.
Tomorrow I hope to get the front side of the house done. And then I need to do the inside. And learn to tie a bowtie.