Feeblemind

Today’s random ten from the WinAmp playlist:

1. Sister Machine Gun – Burn
2. Theatre of Tragedy – Machine
3. MC Hawking – All My Shootings Be Drivebys
4. VNV Nation – Epicentre
5. Disturbed – Land of Confusion
6. Lacuna Coil – Swamped
7. Shiny Toy Guns – Le Disko
8. Weird Al Yankovic – Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White
9. Orbital – Halcyon + On + On
10. KMFDM – Juke-Joint Jezebel

I don’t get new music much.

As an aside, someone here at work seemed surprised that I was using WinAmp. Is it really that out of date? Or are these kids just too used to their fancy iTunes bullcrap?

First: “screen” is easily my favorite Linux program.

Second: This is my favorite new toy – setup a couple of home fileservers using this and it rocks.

That is all.

Because I am bored at work, and if you are reading this, you must be bored too.

The new laptop, which is indeed the black wedge of doom I was hoping for, did earn the name “Monolith”.

My wife’s desktop (previously unmentioned) has been chugging along for the past several years under the name of “Addiction”, based on her ongoing and epic capacity for games of Starcraft (although Puzzle Quest has recently absorbed a good portion of her game time). Whatever parts of Annihilatrix are deemed salvageable will be re-forged into a new (and Starcraft-II capable) machine to be known as “Overmind”.

I guess maybe I should ask her first if she has a name for it… nah.

Apropos of nothing (yet again), but brought to mind due to my pending purchase of a new laptop, it turns out that I have yet to have a consistent naming convention for my computers. The closest I have come is with this webserver, and even that was broken at the last round of hardware upgrades (although, I guess, not officially, since I was too lazy to change the name in DNS…)

Regardless, and with nothing better to post, I give you my computers:

1. Frankenserver

   The first computer I owned was a mashup of discarded parts from other systems, and therefore named Frankenputer. This machine eventually morphed into my home fileserver, and although it has had a few upgrades since then, it is still mostly made up of cast-offs from other systems.

2. Gabriel

   The official name of the webserver; I have not updated it in DNS because it isn’t worth the chances of me screwing up access to the system. This machine was originally to be named after KMFDM songs. The first, when it was part of a business plan to provide secure webhosting, was “Trust”. After a hardware upgrade (and the failure of said business plan), it became “Godlilke”, and another hardware upgrade made it “Ultra”. “Gabriel”, now on it’s fourth hardware incarnation, is named for the Penny Arcade artist/character. It is intended to match “Tycho”, which is the name of the phantom machine that might eventually also be attached directly to the ‘nets. The new convention, therefore, is any machine connected directly to the internet will be named for a Penny Arcade character.

3. Annihilatrix

   My desktop. Named for the doomsday machine in the Adult Swim cartoon “Frisky Dingo”. It was either aptly named, or I should be more superstitious; like it’s namesake, it seems to have some sort of recurring power issue.

4. Epitaph

   My tablet computer. When I mentioned that I had not thought of a good name for it, a friend suggested I use my FPS handle, which works well since it’s, well, a tablet.

5. Idoru

   My notebook, named for the Gibson novel, which at the time of purchase was fairly powerful and a sort of “idol”.

6. Electronaut

   Acer Aspire One netbook, named for the song by VNV Nation, both because it is an awesome song, and as a play on the machine’s portability.

7. Interocitor

   A desktop using a TV as it’s monitor. Named for the machine in the movie “This Island Earth”, which was the basis of the MST3K movie. Hard to explain if you haven’t seen it…

8. Cobalt

   Palm Pilot. Named for it’s shiny blue finish.

9. ?

   I have yet to decide on the name of my new laptop. I could name it for another VNV Nation song (”Legion”, “Chrome”, “Nemesis”) but, as much as I really like those songs, it would break the meta-convention of not having a consistent naming convention (at least between machines). At the moment, the short list includes “Monolith” and… well, nothing, yet. I do like “Nemesis” though.

Because I don’t manage to post much else here… and I just built a new playlist.

1. VNV Nation – Perpetual
2. MC Hawking – All My Shootings Be Drivebys
3. T.A.T.U. – How Soon is Now?
4. Urge Overkill – Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon
5. Ian Van Dahl – Castles In The Sky
6. Dire Straights – Money For Nothing
7. MC Frontalot – Special Delivery
8. Mai Yamane with the Seatbelts (?) – The Real Folk Blues
9. VNV Nation – Chrome
10. Gwen Stefani – Danger Zone

Unobtainium? Really?

1. Praga Khan – The Power of the Flower
2. Goldfrapp – Strict Machine
3. DJ Earworm – The Night of Kittin’s Messy Dream (mashup)
4. Praga Khan – Keep the Dream Alive
5. Perpetuous Dreamer – The Sound Of Goodbye
6. KMFDM – Anarchy (Fusako Remix)
7. Evanescence – Call Me When You’re Sober
8. Lacuna Coil – Swamped
9. VNV Nation – Firstlight
10. Evanescence – Sweet Sacrifice

Overheard on a crazy right-wing radio call-in program, discussing the Health Care Reform bill:

We need to stop this socialist bill. We all know, that during World War II, socialism became communism under the Nazis…

We’re all doomed.

Why is it that two Republican governors being elected – one in a heavily Republican state – means that all Americans everywhere have rejected the Obama administration, but the election of two Democrats to the House of Representatives – you know, people who actually have an effect on our laws – apparently isn’t worth mentioning?

Seriously. State governors – who I’m sure are important to the states themselves – mean pretty much dick in national politics. Unless they are Sarah Palin, who means precisely dick to national politics but for some reason gets to pretend otherwise.

Even Democrats aren’t immune to this stupidity…

I probably could have stayed home today and logged in remotely. But I had a meeting scheduled this afternoon for a new program I am helping with. So I came in. And found an email from the program manager saying he was staying home. At that the meeting was rescheduled for tomorrow. At 9 in the morning. Meaning I get to come in tomorrow during the worst of the snow and traffic.

Not the end of the world. Still kinda pisses me off.