Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

The IT Crowd

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Cory’s right — The IT Crowd is great.

Creator Graham Linehan has produced a cast of characters who exemplify everything I loved about Father Ted: complete, over-the-top silliness, likable villainy, and great comic foolishness. The setup for the show is as silly as Father Ted’s: two IT geeks in the basement of a large, abusive corporation get a new boss, a woman who lied about her IT experience on her resume. What follows isn’t funny because of its intricate plotting, but because of its willingness to lard absurdity on absurdity, so that each episode gets progressively weirder as it progresses (for example, in episode two, there’s a screamingly funny running gag about a fire that’s broken out in the basement, which has to be hidden from the abusive CEO when he comes down to check on everyone’s morale).

British humor and geek jokes (lots of ’em, too, from Flying Spaghetti Monster posters to RTFM t-shirts to EFF ‘Fair Use Has a Posse‘ stickers…essentially the entire set dressing) combined. Bonus points for basing the theme song off of Gary Numan‘s ‘Are Friends Electric?“, too. Fire up your bittorrent clients and enjoy!

iTunes “Are Friends Electric?” by Information Society from the album Darkest Hour, The (1997, 4:27).

The Ciccones: Lies

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Here’s a mashup worth listening to: The Ciccones‘ “Lies” (6.5Mb .mp3). While most of the all-Madonna mashup album is fairly hit-and-miss, this is by far the standout track. Over the music for “Live to Tell“, audio quotes from the justifications for the Iraq war are juxtaposed with the song’s original chorus:

A man can tell a thousand lies,
I’ve learned my lesson well,
Hope I live to tell the secret I have learned,
’till then, it will burn inside of me.

Cute and clever.

iTunes “Lies” by Ciccones, The from the album Immaculate Concoction, The (2005, 5:45).

Gored for Women!

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Another example of organizations that should check their web site addresses a little more carefully.

Today’s case in point: The American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women site, promoting heart disease awareness.

Unfortunately, ‘go red for women’, when written as a single phrase for the website — www.goredforwomen.org — looks a lot like ‘Gored for Women’.

This made me laugh.

(It’s still a good cause, though, and if I had any red in my wardrobe, I might wear it today.)

GLTerminal

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Best. Terminal. Evar.: GLTerminal.

GLterminal

Complete with green or amber text, spots of variable brightness, screen curvature warping, and even baud selection (set it to 300 baud and watch the characters pop up on your screen)!

Incredibly old-school geeky. I love it.

Portfolio 2: KidsQuest Childrens Museum

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Every so often, someone contacts me after finding one of my photos and asks permission to use it for one project or another. Here’s another: exhibit design firm PPI Design and Fabrication used this photo as part of an exhibit at the newly-opened KidsQuest Childrens Museum in Bellevue.

Prairie and I were able to stop by the museum this morning to find my photo…

KidsQuest Childrens Museum, Factoria, WA KidsQuest Childrens Museum, Factoria, WA

My Picture, KidsQuest Childrens Museum, Factoria, WA Me with my picture, KidsQuest Childrens Museum, Factoria, WA

iTunes “Trust (Never)” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Glory (1994, 4:36).

Ultraviolet

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UltravioletI’m trying to figure out what this movie‘s about, or why it’s been made. I can only come up with a few possibilities:

So: Leeloo + Trinity + Selene = Violet?

Or, to put it another way: Milla Jovovich + tight outfits + promising effects + promising action = my ass is in the theatre. ;)

(Random, only semi-related trivia: In The Fifth Element, Leeloo’s full name is Leelouminai Lakatari Bali Minouchai Ekbat de Sabat [the spelling may not be precise, but I’ve done my best]. I actually took the time to learn that, so that at any given moment, I can let Leeloo’s full name come rolling off my tongue. Why? Why not?)

iTunes Ratings

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Following in the footsteps of jwz, Tim Bray, AKMA, and Paul, here’s the rating system I use in iTunes:

  • All songs start at ✭✭✭ when I import them.
  • As I listen, they’re adjusted up and down according to the following:
    • ✭ — Bad import (dirty/scratched CD or other issue), needs to be re-imported or otherwise replaced.
    • ✭✭ — I don’t like it, and don’t particularly want to listen to it.
    • ✭✭✭ — Good general listening. Won’t complain if/when it comes up in random rotation.
    • ✭✭✭✭ — A favorite. Better than most. Don’t mind hearing it more often.
    • ✭✭✭✭✭ — Almost impossible to get tired of. Also almost impossible to resist singing along to or dancing to when it pops up.

From there, the custom playlists I use (which have been updated and tweaked a bit since that post, but the basics are still good) work for daily listening.

iTunes “Work It! Dance = Life (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Work It! Dance = Life (full mix) (1996, 1:09:44).