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Sunday, March 25, 2007

The Song Remains The Same

Buckethead recently sent me a link to an interesting article in The Consumerist on how one regular innocent music fan found himself driven to desperate piracy by the perversity of the record industry.

In short, this music fan, who has given in his estimate about $20,000 to the various labels in revenues over the years, found himself stymied by the DRM on the most recent Luna album.

Last week while I was busy importing my CD’s into iTunes so I could listen to them on my iPod (a most tedious task), I hopped on the internet. iTunes was busy importing a Luna CD, one of my favorite bands, so I decided to see what they were up to since they disbanded a few years back. After a few clicks in Google, I found a blog site describing a posthumous, internet-only release of a collection of covers the band had recorded throughout their career. While I already had many of the songs (they were often featured on b-sides and imported singles, etc.), I couldn’t resist tracking down this compilation. As I read further on the blog site I encountered a link to a .zip file containing the entire collection ripped as 128kbps mp3’s.

While I must admit being tempted to simply click away and download the collection, I though to myself, “Well, if I buy the music it’s only $10, and this way I will get high quality .WAV files. Besides, it’s not like Luna were getting rich off of their careers, they could use the money...”

So I headed to Rhino’s online store, purchased the music, and downloaded the files.

A little later that evening, I tried to move the .WMA files into iTunes, when I received an error message telling me that iTunes could not import them because they were copy protected. I downloaded the files again (which took another 12 minutes) and again, the same message.

So I called Rhino customer support and after an 8 minute wait spoke with a representative. She informed me that the files were indeed copy protected so that I could only play them on specific music players, most notably not iTunes.

“You don’t understand,” I said, “These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them.”

“Well” she responded, “You didn’t actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to.”

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Pointless, yet remarkable

So this guy visited 21 states in one day, in his car.  He drove 1706 miles in one day.  Technically, that’s cheating a bit - he did his trip on the third Sunday in October, which gave him an extra hour with the time change, and he ended his trip in another time zone, to the west, which gave him yet another hour.  Still, an impressive achievement for any day, even one that has 26 hours in it.  Just counting the first 24 hours, he drove 1571 miles.  I had thought that my single day driving record of 1288 miles was good, and he’s got me beat by almost 300 miles.

It would be pretty hard to top that record – perhaps you could edge him a bit on miles, but I find it hard to imagine how you could squeeze in any more states.  I think I might be playing with googlemaps a little, later on…

[Wik] He also did all fifty states in a week’s vacation.  This isn’t as good as the Mongolian trip that Sortapundit was talking about before he sold out and started writing ads on his blog, but quite an adventure.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

From the Perfidy Mailbag

Here at Perfidy, we love to hear from our dear readers.  Your comments are without exception brilliant, incisive, charming and to the point.  For example, this guy, , writes:

Buckethead you are the shit! You know this already, though. Hallelleezy praise Jeezy for dem Japanese technicians for programming your musical genius. I was at your concert at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale, AZ(where I live) and it was amazing. Mr. Head I must warn you not to exclude Arizona in future tours, or I’ll send my own robot army to your residence. They will force you to play a private show for me & my associates. Anyway, I don’t expect a response, of course. Keep on kickin’ ass! Peace out...

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

Friday, February 16, 2007

Stupid is as stupid does

Here I sit, watching (several years after the fact) the film Jackass, after the MTV show of the same name. Currently on the screen, Steve-O is attempting to cross a tightrope over an alligator pit wearing nothing but a helmet, shoes, and a jock strap with several pounds of meat stuffed in the waistband.

Recently, I watched the new Mike Judge movie Idiocracy, which I highly recommend to all. Some of you know Mike Judge from Beavis and Butthead. Others from King of the Hill. Still others may have seen Office Space a dozen times. The common thread through all these movies is an abiding contempt of the deeply stupid and pointless things and people that make life a little poorer for having encountered them. People mistook Beavis and Butthead for a mere celebration of dimwitted hijinks - I swear to you there’s some anger in there also. How else do you explain the Halloween special where Butthead meets a farmer who dismembers people and helps the farmer, in a sequence what actually manages to be a little chilling despite the lo-rent animation, capture and dismember Beavis? King of the Hill features an endless parade of do-gooding dipshits who wreak havoc in the name of ‘helping.’ Office Space goes after the pettiness of managerial power and the deadening, soul-sapping routines that office life can draw one into.

Anyway, what was I saying before I disappeared up my own anus… O yeah. Idiocracy. Good movie. Not as good as Office Space but pretty great nonetheless, about an average man of today who wakes up 500 years in the future to find he’s the smartest man on the planet. The President is a professional wrestler. Garbage is piled up everywhere. La-Z-Boys come with plumbing and a nice comfy toilet seat. The #1 show in the USA is called “Ow! My Balls!” and the biggest Oscar winner is titled Ass. Our hero, because he speaks in complete sentences, is told he “talks like a fag.”

So.

Thesis A: Steve-O hanging from a rope as crocodiles lunge at him from below, attracted to the chicken carcass stuffed into his jockstrap, is comic genius of the first water.

Thesis B: Steve-O hanging from that rope not that different from “Ow! My Balls!,” the type of comedy which Mike Judge holds in total contempt as the lowest common denominator of culture, a baseless, graceless, debasing parade of farting ass cheeks and nut-shots that not only lacks in any intellectual content, but which actually is hostile to the very idea of intellect, and which as a consequence impoverishes the culture that enjoys it.

So I ask you: as I sit here laughing my ass off, how can both A and B possibly be simultaneously true? They sure as hell seem to be.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Fuckdouchery?

Shitdippery?

Douchefuckery?

Suckassery?

Fucknuttery?

As a proud resident of the Bay State, I have studiously tried to avoid commenting on the recent, um, asssuckery surrounding the doucheshittery arrest of two hippie dudes for putting up lite-brites around the city. But now the fuckdippy masters of Boston, the so-called hub of Teh Univerts, have actually claimed a prize, head of the Cartoon Network Jim Samples. Samples has resigned for his part in commissioning the commission of the recent act of, of… terror… that gripped Teh Hub because of the lite brites that… gripped our Hub with… um… terror…

Working as I do in Boston for one of the pre-eminent cut-rate educational institutions that litter the Hub like glitter on a transvestite’s silicone cleavage, I am outraged, yes, outraged, that Samples is a goner yet the two suckdouchely nutass douchefuckers who perpetrated this, this.... terrorism, are not yet swinging by their, yeah, ooooh, right there.... ooooh, by their, what was I.... justice feels so RIGHT, uhhh, ooh,

I’m just so glad they got a scapegoat. I feel so much safer, and sleepy, now that someone got shafted because of those scary-ass lite brite terror things.

Unghhhhngh.

Justice feels soooo goood.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Not that anyone’s necessarily a Dallas fan

But if so, here’s your explanation for why Dallas’ next game will be in the late summer, 2007:

Tony Romo Regrets Eating Greasy Fried Chicken During Crucial Field-Goal Attempt

DALLAS—Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, whose bobbling of the snap on a crucial fourth-quarter field goal ended the season for Dallas, took...

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Whack-a-german

Moles are annoying, conniving and vile creatures.  They hate our freedom.  But is it worth risking your life to fight the growing mole menace?  Uwe Werner felt so, and managed to eliminate himself in attempting to exterminate the moles infesting his yard.  His innovative mole electrocution system worked so well in its first test, that it killed a human.  Uwe himself. 

[Wik] No moles were harmed in the writing of this post.

[Alsø wik] My apologies to any family or friends of Uwe Werner who may by some freak of the internets have read this story.  UWE IS NOT DEAD.  IT’S OKAY.  Uwe is the police spokesgerman who announced that the retiree is dead.  HE IS NOT DEAD HIMSELF.  The name of the retiree has not, to my knowledge, been released.  Which is frustrating, because I was imagining an old guy, puttering around the lawn, about to plug in his super-turbo-mole-zapper2000; his wife calls out, “UUUweee noooooo!” and then he goes all lightning and special effects.  Without the name, my mental picture is less satisfying. 

Friday, January 05, 2007

A word to the terribly unwise

To the little shit who stole my credit card number:

You should have gone for the big bucks while you could, you unimaginative mouthbreather. $11.99 to Paypal? $100 to DirectTV? One… fercryin… dollar to YahooWallet? Skype?!? Too bad I check my balances every couple days, and here you thought you’d nickel and dime me along to finance your crabbed little scriptkiddie lifestyle. You Skype-using unclefucker. Chances are slim that our paths will ever cross, but if they do, you better pray it’s a day on which I’m suffering an excess of mercy.

That is all.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Merry Christmas

For you, dear reader, a Christmas present.  Thanks to the ever-watchful eye of Slashdot, we have this heartwarming story of cruelty, cupidity and shortsightedness.  A textbook example of how not to attempt to get people to commit crimes for you.  If this had resulted in death or sterility rather than embarrassment, this guy would be a shoe-in for a Darwin Award.  Sheer, perverse, anti-genius. 

Monday, December 11, 2006

Can we please, please, please be your customers?

Let me invite you into a magical world of incompetence, omnigorence, and thumb-fingered cluelessness.  One of the joys of moving is the task of navigating the treacherous waters of utility company bureaucracy.  Before leaving the old house, the Casa de Buckethead, we had to cancel the water, electric, gas, phone and broadband services to the house.  This we accomplished with a minimum of fuss, and as we approached closing day on Festung Buckethead, we began the process of scheduling services for the new place. 

The first of two services that we needed was electricity, and in a matter of minutes on the phone Mrs. Buckethead successfully set that up, and they – as an added bonus – didn’t even ask for a security deposit.  The missus, perhaps foolishly, began to feel a sense of optimism.  Water at the new place is from a well, so we don’t need the water utility.  There’s no gas, so no more Washington Gas, or any other.  We’d decided to forego the landline phone since we both had cell phones, and it seemed an unnecessary expense, especially considering the fact that our Vonage service had gone pear-shaped, and begun connecting our incoming calls to someone in Germany with frightening regularity.

So, with a light heart and brimming with confidence, Mrs. Buckethead began calling local broadband providers to see who amongst them would like to have us as a paying customer.  After some time spent waiting on hold, she determined that the local phone companies did not provide DSL service to the area.  So be it, we thought!  There’s always cable!  Then began a parade of staggering ignorance, muddle-headedness and obtusity on a scale I have seldom witnessed. 

Week before last, the missus began calling Adelphia.  The first yahoo she talked to seemed constitutionally unable to realize that we were not calling for technical assistance. 

Idiot:  “I’ll have a technician return your call.”
Mrs. B:  “We don’t have a technical issue.  We want to set up service.”
Idiot:  “Oh.  Let me see.  Okay.  I’ll have a technician return your call.”
Mrs. B:  “We are not customers.  We wish to become customers.  Do you provide service to our address?”
Idiot:  “Let me transfer your call.”

So she waited on hold for a while.  Then called again, and got another idiot.

Idiot #2:  “I’ll have a service representative return your call, thank you.”
Mrs. B: “Don’t you need my phone number?”
Idiot #2:  “Oh, yeah, that would help.”

That person told us that Adelphia didn’t provide service to our location.  Given the paucity of intelligence evident in the Adelphia customer service department, I recommended to my wife that she call again, and see if she couldn’t talk to someone with somewhere north of a small ganglion.  Which she did, and no joy.  She even called the county planning office, and those people said that yes, sadly, there was no cable service in our area.

So, we resigned ourselves to getting satellite broadband.  This was mildly disheartening – while the monthly charges for satellite are about on par with other services, it’s a smaller pipe, and you get horrific latencies, which makes using VoIP or VPNs over satellite connections problematic at best.  And, as a special bonus, you get to pay $300 or more upfront to have the satellite installed.

There matters stood as we went into our closing.  After we had signed away for an hour, the seller’s agent handed us a sheet of paper that listed some of the information for our property.  Among the items listed was, “Adelphia cable installed.”

Homos say, “What?”

Well, if cable was already installed at that address, why hadn’t the tireless and dedicated staff at Adelphia been able to determine that they did, in fact, provide service to that address?  We figured, based on the behavior of the seller, that perhaps she was exaggerating, or at best mistaken.  It was an investment property for her, after all, and not a place she had ever lived.

So, the next day we moved in.  And my mom found a cable outlet in the wall of the master bedroom suite.  (I love that phrase.) Well, shit, says I.  There is cable.  So this morning, I head off to work, and the missus vowed to sort it out.  She calls Adelphia, and they reluctantly admit that yes, maybe they provide service to our address.  And if you want service, you have to show us a copy of your contract on the house to prove that you aren’t the deadbeats who lived in that house two years ago.

Well, okay.  That actually never occurred to me.  Run up the utilities, file a change of address, then sign up in a new name.  Not a bad idea.  Regardless, Mrs. B, the kids, and Grandma B. all pile in the car and head down to Front Royal in search of the Adelphia office.  Why?  Because no one in the office would admit to having a fax number to which we might fax the contract.  Curse this modern era of lightning communications and enhanced productivity!

Of course, it was only fitting and proper that the office should prove to be one of those stealth offices that isn’t actually located on the street they said it was on.  But after in excess of five hours on the phone, and one confusing drive into the big city, we are now scheduled to have our broadband hooked up Wednesday afternoon between the hours of noon and two.  Given past performance, I am not exactly holding my breath.

You’d think that a cable company – any company, really - would actually like to have customers, rather than setting up near insuperable obstacles for potential clients.  But then, I’m just a blogger and not some hot shot cable company owner, so what do I know?

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Finally, someone has a plan

Not a good plan, to be sure.  But certainly too much time on their hands:

The objective of eScrew.com is to destroy Capitalist system of governance. Many people tried to destroy Capitalist system before but all of them failed. The reason for that is their luck of understanding of Capitalist system. If you can find the heart of Capitalist system, you can find a way to destroy it.

Cheap energy is the heart of Capitalist system. Expansion and conquest is the direct result of cheap energy. If we can destroy cheap energy we can destroy Capitalism. In order to destroy cheap energy we must increase the demand for cheap energy to a point where supply will not be able to deliver the goods. As a result energy will become expensive.  Expensive energy will decrease the stability of Capitalist system and launch a fatal chain of events which eventually will destroy Capitalism.

Read the whole thing here.  I checked out the address, but it only says “Under Construction,” with a note that, “I created new religion but I will not tell you anything about it because it is my secret.”

[Wik] Believe it or not, I happened upon this drivel (entertaining drivel, but still drivel) whilst I was looking for information on gmail.  I shouldn’t have been surprised, seeing as how the two are so intimately connected.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

An invitation

What is this?? Three football-related posts in a row? Johno must dig sports or something.

Today during the noon hour, my local CBS affiliate went on the air with the CBS football pregame extravaganza show. I was thrilled - nay, elated - to find that the first matchup of the day was Kansas City at Cleveland.

Cleveland! My beloved Browns on national television!

I never get to see a Browns game. I’m a cheap man and refuse to shell out for NFL cable packages. I’m also a lazy man, and no matter how much I’d like to, I really don’t want to trek twenty-five miles into Jamaica Plain, Boston, to the “local” Sunday Browns club at some jackass bar. So when the meatheads on CBS started talking about the Browns-Chiefs [edited for clarity] matchup, I immediately cleared my calendar for the next three hours and sat down to watch what for me is at best a biennial event.

Come game time, the NFL pregame show went off the air, and was replaced by two solid hours of children’s programming followed up by an hour of infomercials as the Browns beat the Chiefs 31-28 in an overtime nailbiter.

FUCK! Oh, come now. Is it really true, really true, that more people in the Boston area are going to turn the television over to their children at 1:00 on a Sunday, while the Patriots play a game over on FOX, than would appreciate seeing either the Chiefs or the Browns play?

Fucking really?

The Columbia Broadcasting System and the employees of its local Boston affiliate WBZ are hereby cordially invited to suck my ass.

Dickheads.

Monday, November 13, 2006

No, THIS May Be The Start of Something Very, Very Bad

The body of the former Republican Majority hasn’t even assumed ambient temperature yet, and the Democratic leadership are already grabbing the wheel and steering the ship of state right off the cliff (way to mix your metaphors!!!). The Democrats are clearly so confident about their chances in ‘08 that they feel they can spend their first days after the election fucking with us.

Or… wait. No. They are trying to set the bar of success as low as possible, so even moderate gains seem monumental in retrospect. That’s the ticket!!

Or, um.... They… shit. I don’t know. What the damn hell could Nancy Pelosi be thinking nominating that half-senescent gasbag John Murtha for House Majority Leader? Rambling speeches, more funding for polka and peirogies, but most of all having the troops home in time for Wapner, come hell or high water!

There must be at least two or three people better suited for the job than Murtha, including both myself and the retarded guy who sells balloons outside the Farragut West Metro stop… what in the world is the strategy here? 

Monday, November 06, 2006

What is this “land contract” you speak of?

This last Saturday, the Buckethead clan once again traveled up to the Shenandoah Valley to examine the property I discussed in my last post.  This time, through careful advance planning, we got to see the interior of the house, and got a much better idea of the lay of the land.  The short answer is that the lot suits our needs, and we will be making an offer on it directly.  The plan, therefore, is about to kick into gear.

There are some issues, though, as might be expected.  The house is on the small side, and has very low ceilings.  There are power lines running through the field on the other side of the road, which will limit the number of places that we can site the new house that we plan on building.  There are some concerns about septic and water.  And the length of the commute will, frankly, fucking suck.

None of those problems are insuperable, though.  Since we are planning already on making a (very large) addition to the house, the size is not an issue.  The height of the ceilings is harder to get around, but if there are other parts of the house that are more vertically spacious, it might just seem charming.  The power lines are a potential problem, but since the part of the lot that is on the other side of the road is still pretty big, we feel that we’ll be able to work around that one.  The commute, though - I’m just going to have to take the hit on that one.  All of that, along with some information from the county zoning officer (a very nice lady) to the effect that getting a three or four bedroom PERC (percolation test, which determines how many bedrooms you can build) should not be difficult and that we can divide up the property the way we wanted (either through a rezoning, or just by means of clever surveying) means that the house and land side of the deal is all in place.

Which means that something else must be screwed up.  And, lo, it is.  We are running into some financing issues.  This is very frustrating, seeing as I was under the understanding that we were already approved.  When the loan guy said bad news, my paranoid mind immediately began obsessing about credit ratings the phrase “you’ll never get a loan, you loser” began echoing in my skull.  As a distant murmur, I heard him saying something or other about “land contracts” and “house value.” I almost interrupted him with, “Good Christ, man!  What does this blather have to do with my insufficient credit?” But then I slowly realized that he was saying that I had been approved, he’d cut us a check – if we were buying a house.

Which it seems we aren’t.  We are now told that when you’re buying a lot of land along with your house, it isn’t the same as a normal house contract.  It is instead a land contract, and the mortgage company that had already approved us doesn’t handle those.  There are two factors which go into deciding which category a property falls into – one, the proportion of the values of house and land, and the total acreage.  We’re about fifty-fifty on the value question, which may allow us to proceed – maybe.  However, 20 acres is probably over the line into land contract.  We may have to start the financing process all over again with a lender that does do land contracts.  We can get it expedited, in which case it won’t affect our timetable, but we may no longer have access to all the nifty options you can get with a normal house loan.  Which may or may not suck. 

At the very least, though, we were assured that getting a loan isn’t a problem, which is a relief.  So, we will likely make an offer in the next day or so, and the plan will be off and running.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Casa de Novo de Buckethead

At some point in the next few weeks, Casa de Buckethead will undergo a change in venue.  The current CdB is a modest but comfortable split-level suburban home south of Alexandria, with a nice big yard and a friendly neighborhood.  It has been a pleasant place to live these last three years.  While my parents have been extraordinarily kind to let us live there (the house was once the home of my stepgrandfather) they need the money that the house represents to more fully retire.  Mrs. Buckethead and I considered purchasing the house ourselves – not least because it would mean dodging a move – but as we pondered what it is, exactly, that we want – we realized that in most respects suburban life is deeply unsatisfying to us.

Suburban life is at best an awkward compromise.  You have most of the crowding of living in a city, yet none of the convenience of being able to walk to restaurants, shops and, dare I say, cultural activities.  A big yard may be nice, but if you’re going to have to drive everywhere anyway, why not live in the country and have a really, really big yard?  City life is fast-paced, exciting, and even mildly dangerous.  I’ve done that, and liked it, even if it was a relatively small Midwestern city.  Yet now, I have a wife, two kids, a dog and between one and three cats.  I am arguably in my mid thirties, but just barely.  I have little desire to live in the city myself, and none whatsoever to subject my children to that.

One of the biggest objections to the country is the commute if you still work in the city.  But for the last year, I have found myself in the ridiculous position of commuting over an hour completely across the Washington Metro area twice a day.  Since my commute is that long, why not use that hour to get out into the country?  Further, I’ve been able to work at home more and more, which would ease the commuting burden.

So, the country.  Having made the decision to get out of the city, and not to buy another suburban house, we were still left with many questions to answer.  How far out?  What kind of house?  And then Mrs. Buckethead asked one more question.  A Zen kind of question, the sort that when answered rearranges your whole outlook.  She asked, “You know that dream house you’ve talked about – is there anyway we can build it?”

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