The Criminalization of the Internet

Looks like your american politians really *meant* it when they made statements like like "we can really learn a lot from china about how to control the internet" etc etc..
And Iran.. and any other models of democracy...

Back Again...

Well, folks..as any of you that were here in the beginning know, this started out as a music blog, to showcase my recordings done when I was still in the biz.. I (wrongly) thought there would be an interest out there for recordings featuring my not only playing all the instruments (keys gutars drums bass etc) as well as arranging and producing full studio quality albums at a cost of only 50$, on no more than a cassette deck..
Well, I know, now, nobody is at all interested as after 3 years i've had less that a dozen listens and almost no comments..
So instead, I've been just posting whatever interests me, lately, and that would be IMHO the things that really *matter*, as we'll all bite it some day, and anyways, things are never as they seem..
So another one here..
As some of you may know, the drug companies all over the world are working on taking off the shelves *all* herbnal remedies , the ones that really work, anyways.
If the Codex reg=ulation is fully implemented, anything that *works* will be banned until somebody pays the hundreds of thousands of dollars *per8 supplement to do multi year studies to prove they're both "safe and Effective"
Now they don't care about our healt.. they're just trying to rtemove the competjition,., so we have to pay for a 'pill' from THEM.
That'sa why they're only concerned with the supplements that actually WORK.. the garbage and bogus cures can stay, they're no threat..
If you ned proof.. here's the ultimate "expose" of the psychiatric pharmacy racket..
Sit back and be horrified..!!!!

Gezellig St. Nikolaas Daag!!

Almost forgot. for my Dutch friends.. (Hi Ron!)

Incidentally, my spell corrector doesn't speak dutch.. help on Gezellig? please?
OK it's the 4th on this blog, but it's the 5th in Holland

This is just unbelievably kool...

A hi-resolution tour of the planet's cities at night..
Because of blurring issues, it was previously impossible to get this kind of clarity, but the ever resourceful crew at the ISS found a way..

Meow

My kitty's NOT punkin however.. she's Puddytat Maximus.... she's black (or should i have sayed a kitty of color..) and plays guitar (hyuk!) .. if you wanna see who she is just look at my avatar...

One strange dude

But where is the passenger seat?

Readers of this blog will know that I don't just post music related items, but anything interesting i find along the way..

How's this?

Lix to listen to 2

CROSSCUT SAW



IN SCENARIO (Recorded with 'The Catch' around 09/1993)




SWING TIME




DOC"S BOSS NOVA (some latin jazz for y'all)

Just found on the 'net

New Blog

I am starting a place to upload all the collectible cassette artwork I have collercted ..
although there's nothing to see yet.. it will be here

Soo Kewl .. like.. tubular.. man...

Wow.. now if this aint the most tubular digs ever man.. It's an actual hotel in Mexico in Tepoztlan, Morelos..

and here's a different shot

All i can say is wow...

If you want to read the original article.. check HERE

Freddy and B.B are further back (previous postings..)

Or just use this link

Unbelievable!

This is a complete 1/16 scale wooden model of a Caterpiller excavator..by Michigan art studio Woodchuck and Co.

That's right.. it's all made out of wood!
I used to make 1/8 scale model Ferraris and Porsches (sometimes for dealerships), so I know how much work goes into one of these, and even though I sold them for up to $3000 it actually worked out to about $1.50 per hour (so yeah ,I only made a few!)

These guys are selling this one for $35000.. a lot of cash.. but I'd say worth it...

There's enough people these days that can afford it..what with the increasing level of wealth of the top 5%..
It used to be 1% , but what with the new 'cherry picked' version of Adam Smith's policies (y'know.. the Gordon Gekko approach) it's changed.. on the backs of the other 95%, mind you..and who said you can't draw blood from a stone?

oh..pps.. I'll have some new tunes soon.. now my harddrive transfers and new comp tweaking , is done..
Any preferences anyone?
more blues? or bootlegs?

Only out-of-print albums, and quality boots here.. always

re-post some icons for a tired desktop

music an collecting boots isnt the only things i do...
Couldn't find any icons i liked, so i made my own...

If you like any of these I'll put up a few sets.. just ask in the comments...
and if anyone is still running mac OSX 103x Panther.. i have some awesome (IMHO) themes , like the only existing OSX port of the rare OS9 theme 'HiTech'ill make available, if asked... (Pics to come)

Windows and OSX on the same desk top

Since I've had so much trouble with all these supposedly 'easy ' programs such as Parallels, and wine doesnt work right (butr wine wrapper sure does..)..
I fooled around with virtual Box.. and now with the click of an icon on the taskbar, i've either got the windows desktop icons, or the mac one.. both of the taskbars are always there in any case, transparently..

I have it in an animated GIf, but it's such a pain trying to add one to blogger, it appears you need a photobucket account and it's fu*ked.. it keeps saying my 'zipcode' is wrong.. stupid piece of shit.. we don't *have* zipcodes in Canada..
Here's my desktop.. it would be a lot easier to understand if it were an animated gif as then you'd see that the desktops are perfectly aligned...

Aint this kewl?

In case i still have readers..

I will impose on y'all..
I went and left negative feed back on an ebay form.. something i am loath to do..
I felt lousy about it..
But it was not an error that could have been resolved..
The items in question were misrepresented...

Specifically, they were compilation CD-roms, the type you get in mark down bins, or free with a video card, but portrayed as the retail items with pictures to match.. and prices in line with such..

This one seller had three items like this..
And upon receiving them..i realized i could have probably complained to the vendor.. and perhaps received a make-up.. but had i done this, since it was clearly intentional, ands not in any way a 'mistake'. the vendor would have simply continued the practice with the next person.

By leaving Feedback in this way, i likely forced his hand in making truer representations of the items for sale..
You can probably guess that he was NOT pleased, on reading the feedback..

and what's worse, he raised the 'guilt' factor as he obligingly corrected an addressing mistake during the transaction, an error all of my own making...

Waddya'll think.. is it worth the hassle to try, in some small way , to make the world a little bit better for someone else..or should i just have stayed out of his business, and just left good feedback like everybody else does, regardless of the circumstances of the transaction?

Keep in mind that if it was simply a matter of personal dissatisfaction, I would never have left this feedback, but as it was clear that it was intentional misrepresentation (perhaps the vendor didn't think it significant to mention that it was NOT, as it was portrayed, either in the description, or the picture...)..
Should I have minded my own business, as everybody does these days?

I am making a post at my pinball blog..

Which is getting more attemtion than here.. but then.. that's not saying much...;-)

A video is worth 1000 words..

Some kind of record!

1... or One..
That's around how many visitors i've had to my blog in the last month..
i have a counter at the bottom and it's one digit higher than it was last time I checked...

..................oops .. seems that was me...........

Good thing I'm not as dilsylexic (sic) as Windows Vista

Hadda try and read a windows 'Word' format 'doc' ..you'd think that would be a 'cinch' for windows..right?..
Well, here's what it looked like in Vista's wordpad...

==================================

=====================================
and here's what it looks like in 'obsolete' windows '98

good thing i got that 'obsolete' version of windowze. eh? Otherwise i'd never be able to get that app running..and.. oh..any other app more than ten years old.. like most of em..
Well who'd want an old decrepid app you say...
Being old doesn't mean decrepid, at least in software.. and a good pinball game is a good pinball game...
Although i've managed to get almost every pinball game ever released running in Vista, cuz i got 64 bit windows...i can't run any thing with *any* 16 bit code in it.. and that's like, half the windows pinball games ever made in the 1990's..
Couldn't get em to run in VMware either, on XP, Win95, win2000, and WinME..
Come Win98 to the rescue!..
I'll be going into this deeper on my pinball blog.. but for now, i'm not too impressed with the reduced functionality of Vista..
I would have thought the ability to read text would be one of the most *basic* requirements of a computer..
 or don't no boddy reed an rite in the 'cloud' no mo ;-)

I tole ya so!

WEll it's election time in canada here..
Since i've got second sight. i already know how historically radical this  election is going to be..
A real turning point in history..
the polls have only just closed, so its too early to see evidence of whethrer I'm right.. but at least now I can say it.. earlier, it would have been spoiling the cheese..
One of the oldest parties in canada is the Liberals.. the complete DECIMATION of the liberalparty will be talked about for years to come, .. a\As well as the *unthinkabl;e*
THe NDP.. is the 'official opposition!!!*
Whoi'd a thunk it???
Gonna go see the returns now....

And Don't forget my Pinball blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lotsa games on this one.. and many more coming.. All of 'em PINBALL!
and no popups, ads or bloat.. just pinball..

YES! I want to play pinball!

Move it on over....

Gonna be moving all my tech posts over to the 'tech' blog ..(HERE) woncha come visit me there.. i mesn hey, if even one
of ya goes there I'll have instantly DOUBLED my readership...

As soon as my new hardrive gets here i'll be able to get back to music..
2 Terrabytes oughta do it, at least for the moment.. I can't seriously consider moving all my data from the other drives  right now, not at usb 1.1 speeds (!)..
Last time i tried, it said 656 hours to completion (of ONE drive)..
and i've got 8...

Wow.. i .. well ..

I simply cant believe it.. i simply can't..
..
I mean.. I had a computer repair biz for ten years.. I've had all sorts of OS's on my computer , that I know inside out..
I JUST can't believe it..
Just HOW gulllible are the population anyways?

I've had several months to use Vista now.. and i'll admit it's got a pretty interface..
But under that pretty face is the biggest pile of dog sh*t it's been my misfortune to EVER have to use..
.. I DON'T hate windows....
And all in all, using the 32 bit version of Vista wasn't that bad of an experience.. once I accepted it's limitations..
and realized that, basically, it was a rush job to get out .. after five years of trying and failing to get Longhorn ready for the public, they succumbed to pressure to get SOMETHING out.. and by disabling or removing most of the advanced features of Longhorn, that were SUPPOSED to be in it, they released it, as what we now know as Vista.. true.. it's file recognition, and  secuuity improvements were so poorly implemented that they had to rely on cludges like the 'UAC'  which doesnt succeed in protecting the computer against anything except the hapless user..  (and  the super duper cludge of making all the files and folders read only by Default!.. which is why vista never keeps saving your settings (have you noticed?)..
It's a surprisingly effective  deterrent against viruses however, as thet can't write to disk if the properties keep reverting to read-only..

But the 64 bit version of Vista is much worse...much..much.. WORSE

I mean ..on a pristine install.. from the word go..
NOTHING WORKS.,. i mean NO THING..
basic functions you take for granted in any modern OS.. just dont exist. in it..
Oh the settings are there.. the functions are all there, the preference boxes are all there.. but no matter how you set them.. they just dont work..
I've got to go for now, but here's a simple test..
Change the icon for any program..
and watch what happens.. the application will either have that new icon.. as well as ANY OTHER FILE WITH THE SAME NAME.. for ever and ever.. try changing it back now ;-)
you got a blank icon..didnt you..
And suddenly all your icons for the same file type are blank..
And there is NOTHING you can do to fix it.. deleting the icon cache will strip all your files of their associations, so you don't want to do that..
Once windows vista 64 bit loses it's file type associations, you'll never get them back..
Of course you could use a sledgehammer..

you'll notice , for examnple, that the option to open text files with , say, a fictional program like 'textreader' is greyed out, or you can select it in the dialog but it won't show etcetc..
One of the most annoying things is that any time the system errs a dialog pops up suggesting that PEBKAC..and offering suggestions on how to fix what YOU did wrong..
The system can't err !

..i am amazed how many people REALLY believe this, and in today's highly technolological society this type of rabid blind belief in the infallibility of "the machine" is disturbing..especially in today's world of  diminishing civil liberties..
I watched with fear and loathing as americans tripped over themselves to dismantle their constitutional rights and freedoms after 9-11.. all in the name of 'security' by a nanny state..

Living in a true Nanny state as i do, i can tell you you DON"T wanna be there..
The tradeoff for the perception of security from cradle to grave is the loss of civil liberties and freedoms, as well as a complete lack of opportunity to suceed.. if the government regulates EVERYTHING, and controls what you buy and sell, and what you pay for everything, you have high prices and no opportunity.. see , here there's one internet provider, one cable TV provider, one land telephone provider, one insurance provider, one health provider (nanny!) .. the government regulates rent eggs milk etc etc..
If you offend someone here you're taken before a tribunal that is accountable to no-one.. while you have no right to representation.. because your 'not being arrested' .. how? ..people got apathetic and just ....let ...this kind of thing happen , and now it's here..
.. i kid you not...
One of our most respected periodicals with over a hundred years of publishing history got dragged through the mud and lost tens  of thousands of dollars in legal fees, because somebody wrote something in it that 'offended' someone..
 Excuse my digression, but the point being ,made, is it's a small step from the current state of affairs, to allowing machines, alone, to arbitrate.. and THAT is a big concern of mine...
More 2 come.........
-------------------------------------

OK .. as i was saying , Vista is a F****g DISGRACE.. after foisting this crap on an unsuspecting public, they shoud be *giving away* any upgrade that fixes the problem.. not ask for a hundred MORE bux..
OK lets put it this way..

Let's say that I manufacture a microwave oven.. and sell it for , say, a hundred bux.. the oven promptly shorts out everyones house circuits, burns their food, or turns them a deep shade brown ( ok it aint all bad ;-)..
Anyways, natch i'm gonna start getting complaints, right?
So what do I do? Give a refund? or A free repair to solve the problems (never mind that in some american states you can get sued into the poor house for messin around with folks lives that way.. and hey, mebbe sued a bit more  in Georgia for the deep brown thing ;-)

so those would be the proper consumer responses, right?
Now.. suppose, instead, i offered only a weak apology and instead said I'll fix it by SELLING YOU ANOTHER for a hundred bucks MORE...
No shit.. ya think it would wash?
No???

Well folks just swallowed up that response when M$ did it with vista.. for a hundred more they can get windows 7...
Get it now?

In this terrible time of tears.....

すべての私の日本の兄弟姉妹大きなトラブルのこの時期にして私のお悔やみ..私は言葉では言い表せない嘆いた午前

Aero on a mac? at least with Chrome...

OK this is *seriously* funky, y'all..take a look at this screenshot..

Only works on the Google Chrome browser though..
......now that the no theming apps run on OSX Snow Leopard it's hard to find GUI mods anymore..so now any little thing helps..

As i saw a ' typical 19 year old apple user type' say on a you tube video "Macs aren't really that cool to theme and all compared to Windows'


Steve are you listening? what have you done?  I think the mac guy with the jeans went and joined the army (now).... (oh god now that status quo thing's running through my head..'in the army... now')

----------
Oh pps if you wanna give it a go (i dont know if the one guy that visits this blog uses a mac, actually)
it's here

What does Snow Leopard REALLY cost?

So it's being sold for 29 bucks as an upgrade .. i don't know what a retail copy goes for, as i got a new retail copy with my mac.. as opposed to the around 120  bucks that OSX usually STARTS at.. on and up to 400 some odd bucks
But i can tell you what it REALLY costs...
Having to replace all the apps either bought and paid for that no longer work, or available as freeware..and don't have a comparable free 10.6 version...

I added up all the apps ..which were mostly either audio editing, or interface (theming) or icon utilities (such as 'finder icon' which i used fort years)..
I haven't come up with a final total yet, but it's running well over 600$..
For someone on a pension.. that's unacceptable..

Hah! People keep saying how 'inexpensive' Snow Leopard is..
I hate reinstalls.. but i better do it now.. i still have the 10.5.2 system disks for my Imac ..as  I understand that a lot of things still worked in plain ole Leopard ....

Theming theming theming

Well, while waiting for all my audio files to be transferred to a new hard drive ( on USB 1.1 !) which will likely take the rest of the week and week-end, i've been taking my new iMac thu it's paces..
I have a dual boot setup.. with Vista on one drive and Snow leopard on the other..
 first impressions..
Vista is buggy, but that's not news.. that it's blindingly fast on my system IS, at least to me. Safari runs better on vista than it's ever run on the Mac OS, and it seems faster than chrome or opera too...

Snow leopard, though, comparatively, is sloooow..
it can take upwards of ten seconds to load or start up an app.. sometimes i got to check that i did dbl click the icon, but i know i have because of the spinning beach ball that goes forever..
The apps are slow... except for the windows ones inside of a virtual box (for win2K or XP) or shapeshifter (for OS9) window..
I've never seen emulation run this fast lemme tell ya..
And OS9  in Shapeshifter emulation is waaaay faster than it is natively on my G4 mirror door..
I bought the G4 originally because i had a lot of classixc apps and games that couldn't be replaced with OSX versions - they just never ported them.. and it runs os9 at a decent clip.. but nothing NEAR what  OS9 runs in emulation on the iMac..
Used to be.. emulation was SLOWER than native...!

and Snow Leopard is darned DRAB..

When OSX first came out everyone raved aboot the 'lickable' interface.. 

with it's tastefully designed interface , and it's semi translucent look to the finder .. slowly as each version came

out it got more of a metal look

and with snow leopard it's just bland grey

All these shots are from Nathan's Toasty tech Gui Gallery, Highly recommended to visit there, I've been visiting his site for ten years now.. and you've just gotta  love his "IE is EVIL' theme music..

So unfortunately for me now, all the theming apps that used to run on OSX are broken.. not even shapeshifter (the theming app, not the OS9 emulator) has been updated for snow leopard. Considering that  Snow Leopard is already 2 years old and STILL there isn't a SINGLE theming app for it, and only ONE installable  theme (crystal clear) that at least for me, is barely usable as it slows the system down awfully bad.. i think that the days are over.. at least I've got a clear menu bar.. i had to do the hack myself as crystal clear simply couldn't do it (but at least it stayed then after i uninstalled CC) CC was able to add a white font to the menus, which i havent been able to do without it...(sigh)

Well... here's an improvement.. why is nothing ever easy though?

and below we have proof that windows is justr soo much easier to tweak.. if the folks over at Apple aren't paying attention to the ball, they're gonna drop it.. for the first time ,, well.. ever.. i have to say.. and i would never have said this 15 years ago.. the Windows OS wins out.. it'MUCH faster, more attractive, more tweakable, has more options, and it's stable.. and i have not had a single virus issue..in over a month.. not ONE.. despite being on line for HOURS all over..natch i've got an AV but even so...

O...OK ..update..

I did say just above  about windows and ...er... stable.. well, scratch that part.. 64Bit vista is buggy as hell.. It IS fast though.. compared to snow leopard.. 3 times as responsive..

on an Apple computer, Windows runs faster

Really.. so let the guy in jeans and loafers

chew on that..

So, what's the difference between an intel core 2 duo PC with nVidea graphics and 20" monitor, running windows, and an apple intel core 2 duo with identical nVidea graphics and 20' monitor, running windows..

really?

well, that apple has 20,000 colors maximum.. although you's never hear the company admit it. because 'it looks fine, so what's the difference'

And besides, the card is set to millions of colors, so even if the monitor on the imac can't display it, nobody'll notice..

......................................................................................................................................................................bollocks

Anyone know how to get OSX menus transparent?

Here's what i've got so far.. part of it is a theme called crystal clear.. but it's now time linmited shareware and has lost a LOT of features since it was free (!).. (mostly because APPLE made them impossible)
I managed to reinteghrate the full finder transparency without using the buggy slow 'alpha' method of CC, and got the mebnubar clear (one of those dropped features).. but i Can't seem t0o get the drop down menus clear like it used to be possible.. the screen shot makes it QUITE clear (pun intended!)..
Any ideas?

Grrrrrr i havent been this angry since i had to use red hat 3

Everything just works?? An attractive OS ..
Whatta pile of unqualified BULLSHIT..

IMHO

If you're a mac user Avoid Snow Leopard like the frikkin PLAGUE..
God wudda piece of useless unfriendly and everything broken innit JUNK...

IMHO

I never thought the day would arrive.. but it has..
and Apple KNEW it..all the time..
It's (Snow Leopard) their way of sayingh we dont give a shit about you desktop users anymore.. unless you get one of out mobile devices you don't count..

IMHO

Don't believe me?
Well.. how's about this..
First is the unprecedented 80% drop in price .. can you imagine what a message M$ would be sending if their new windows was 30 bucks instead of 200$..

OK so Apple 's saying that there's no new features in this version of the Mac OS..
So why release it at all?
..oh i see.. so folks can get used to the fact that nothing works anymore and buy all new apps..
to make it easier on Apple for the release of "Lion"

OK so was it a good deal?
Nope.. (IMHO)
at least not to all the developers that were left out in the cold..
I had NO IDEA that HUNDREDS of developers that had written new apps for Leopard had been locked out.. making their BRAND NEW and necessary applications, ones that REPLACED all the "not compatible with intel" apps that everybody had used before.. but making them obsolete imnmediately..
I can't believe how many developers have closed their doors due to snow leopard..
I'm too angry to list them now but they're there.. try to find a theming app for 10.6 and you'll notice all the sites are down

more later....
----------------

later.....
ya know what..? i'm just gonna sell my copy and revert to 10.5.8

I hate reinstalls but better suffer short term pain hthan...

Anybody wanna copy of SL? ;-)

Canadian co-ordination

Well as i slammed the door on my foot and knocked over the expensive glass carafe by the door.. the shop owner said not to worry.. but even he was taken aback when i tripped over my tongue as i said think you for that.. while walking into the plate glass ...
it's ok i said im Canadian and we know about Canadian coordination ...


;-)

In case you've womdered why I've posted no music...

It's all on my G4's 3 Hard drives .. until i find some kind of firewire enclosure for my drives i can't really get at 'em..
Hey it's not like an iMac has room .. (hey where did they stick the computer in em anyways
;-)..
No kidding.. the LCD monitor i've been using for my G4 and the PC, is deeper than the whole iMac..

Frankly I can't say it was a pleasant experience on the G4 Mirror door... for a 1.25 GHz chip was slow , i got the spinning beach ball ALL the frikkin time..it's supposed to have Gigabit Ethernet but you'd never know it by it's online performance... it was entirely incapable of handling heavy work loads.. it's USB bus is EMBARRASSINGLY slow .. it took me 2 DAYS to back up a 500 gig drive, on the iMac USB bus it took 2 Hours!!

And it would get kernel panics anytime it got hot.. which was ALL THE TIME.. I got so sick of spending 2 hours on a piece of photoshop work, only to lose it all (yes I know save save save, but when your deep into it.. and you end up cluttering your drive with hundreds of megs worth of temporary files..)
...and.. the piece of frikkin resistance.. it is NOISY...like a jet taking off.. all the time..
I was intitially right against the switch to the intel chip.. as it would make all the mac applications in existence worthless and unusable.. but ultimately it was the power PC itself that warmed me to the intel chip.. my imac Core 2 Duo seems to not even break a sweat even with ten apps two games and two browsers running (not my usual, incidentally.. and after it's got it's full 8 gigs of RAM i expect it should run sweet.. and it runs both Snow Leopard and Vista just fine and perky..
Later...

Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model & Doc's EASY fix!

Well aint that a bitch.. it took me TWO days to find out a ridiculously simple fix.. and while searching, i found super complicated fixes like using 'Test compatibility' mode, torrents, patched installers..YIKES!!

The solution is SIMPLICITY ITSELF

Dont! use the SETUP.EXE. that opens up in autorun after you put in the CD.. (& you DID know that Bootcamp is on a windows partition on the MacOSX install CD, didn't you.. i sure didn't ;-)
Shut down that setup program.. open up the CD in explorer and navigate to BOOTCAMP/DRIVERS/APPLE/.. Double click on the program BOOTCAMP64.MSI

and install.

that's it..
now provided you've got a machine that can run Snow Leopard in the first place , and this would be any of the Core 2 Duo machines onwards ..it should then also run 64bit windows..... (Remember, Snow Leopard itself is a 64 bit OS) then your "Cookin with Gas" ...."We are cooking" as John Lee use to love to say......
If this helped LET ME KNOW!!!
I sure don't want anyone else to stress out over this like I did... ;-)
Doc

Part 2

Well as i was saying in the last post, before i had a intelliburger (that's a cheezburger fried on a intel chip.. which, at 75 degrees celsius is just hot enough) and oh that's about 150 in real tempature degrees for y'all in the states. (hey dont knock my inglish i learned it from yer resopected president that yall use to have.. you know... the one who called them big bombs NUCULAR weapans.. i know he gave up snortin' an drinkin' before he got elected, but d'ya think it had a permanenrt effect on his perception of language..
Where I live our leader never did give up drinkin until well into his term, when he got busted for bein really impaired and driving. he's quite well spoken..and in a (state country province i aint saying) with a less corrupt * IMHO and also everybody else's HO* government, he'd have lost his job, not gotten re-elected..
instead, MADD lost their funding and had to move out of their office

can ya believe i can write this stuff
if it weren't for the fact everybody knows it's true, they'd NEVER let me I'd be Censored for sure...
Only folks that live in my country will instantly recognize what country I'm talking about when i say that it woul;d be nice for us to have someone elected that could side with folks from their own area, instead of getting kicked out of the party for siding with their constituents.

.........So what's this have to do with my computer.. er... nothing.. i just wanted to clear the air

.....OK seriously..

but i'll give all you americans a hint where it is.. gas is currently over 7$ a gallon here, a small one bedroom apartment starts at A%T LEAST 1000$ a month, a loaf of bread is 4$, milk's 5$ a gallon , and the average low paid folk makes 1200$ a month after the gov't claws all their grabbings (less for minimum wage earners)..
figured it out yet..
if you say ANYTHING here that offends ANYONE at all, your dragged before a tribunal that answers to NOONE, and guaranteed to lose your job and possibly more....

PS if yer first thought is England.. no sorry, i know it SUX there but it aint the UK...

so how can i write this at all.. well our ISPs arent being hounded for political dissent, but only forthose stepping on the toes of the entertainment industry (movies, music)m in which case google just deletes the relevant poster's blog (haven't you noticed how many blogs are 'unavailabhle' lately?)
They don't give a shit about political dissent.... yet....

OK this may be a music blog, but first and foremost it's MY blog, and the truth has always been a big part of anything i have written..
and SOMEBODY better say SOMETHING.. we're 'recognized' as a 'DEMOCRATIC' country because we have 'elections' snicker snicker....
yeah the elections are not rigged , we're too visible in the public eye, but what folks DON'T seem to know, is after the election there's a poorly defined time span of approximately 5 years, or until whenever the government feels like calling an election, where the public has NO SAY WHATSOEVER , not the judges, nor the cops (if they gave a shit anyways, instead of spending all their time Juicin' an Liftin'.. but hey the 'cop corner' at Golds is the best place to find quality juice) so i use to lift.. what of it.. it's all melted away now anyways...
and as far an a human rights 'constitution' it doesn't even have the force of law.. except if you count the right to shit and then wrap you up a hamburger at McRonny's with out washing your hands.. (ask 'macronnys' what they had to pay in 'damages' for denying someone this 'right'...

hey before i go any further i want to do the copy right thing... PLEEZ feel free to reprint this ANYWHERE.. permission is not only given but ENCOURAGED..
but DO say where ya got it..and who originally wrote it... my ONLY stipulation!!

On a less flippant note re PC vs Mac

OK ive had some time to compare the two (a Core 2Duo 2.33 GHz PC.. with upgraded video card and Ram)
and an iMac (an 1999 20" intel core 2 duo 2.66 GHz with onboard video and same RAM)

Both have 3 Gigs ram
Both have NVidea G-force graphics

Eventually I will have windows on the Mac also.. but for the moment , the hardware is the most similar thing between the two..
OK first of all.. The new 'Snow Leopard' interface is UGLEEE!


I remember when OSX first came out.. with the rendering on the screen and the gui design (and remember i'm a (sorta) acclaimed gui designer myself.. i know my stuff in other words..

When OSX first came out , with it's Scaleable vector graphics* like interface,(quartz) and translucent shading, it was a sensation..

the clarity was something to behold...
And the interface design was clean and well thought out.


and then you had Win2000 with "use high color icons' and 'use large icons' as an 'option'.. and you knew that if yuou picked the latter, all the warts of an enlarged bitmap would be there for all to see..

Now i have to say that when the 'Chicago' beta (win 95 beta) first first came out, i was (am still am ) taken by the shading of the 3d interface.. in fact the original win95 interface is still one of my all time faves...

it lost something in transition to win 2000...
And XP was uglee !! at least in its moldy green default (the silver was a bit better4)
And boy was it a scteen real estate waster..
and that start menu i just hated it!!
Luckily it had the option to go for classic style
..............And meanwhile there was the 'lickable' Mac OSX screen...

OK.... let's fast forward a decade, shall we?

So what do we have today?
Well, the MacOS has moved forward a whole 5 generations..
to 'Snow Leopard'

and Windows has hit an (admittedly attractive) bump in the road with Vista, and swiftly moved on to no.7..
OK for purposes of this tome, i will refer to Win7 and Vista both as 'Vista' , simply 'cuz that's what i got..........after all they both look the same

Well.. ok.. i got a mac.. an iMac intel Core2 Duo 1999 .. got snow leopard on it.. first thing i noticed was.. it's bland..
soo ok, i got a licence fort shapeshifter , sfter all, all my guis were also shapeshifter compatible..
But..
OOps.. no 10.6 support.. and apparently my licence for 10.3.9 woulda been no good anyways..
Themechanger aint gonna work.. and i shudder at the ungtodly amount of work updating my GUIs for 10.6 woulda been anyways, if it did....
.. soo it looks like i'm stuck with that dirty aluminum, 'needs a damp cloth' off white combo that apple seems to think has appeal (now.. Emma has a 'PEEL' , an orange has a peel, but an apple interface, today, DONT have a peal.. IMHO)

Well, OK that kewl HUGE monitor that comes as part of them '09 iMacs sure brings out the colors , don't it? they look preytty nice too, and if you just went by the 'about this mac' that tells you you're running millions of colors, heck ya'd even believe it..
unless you turn to ANY technology publication, or 'lowendmac' or any site that has the straight goods on these.. apparentreey. chinese factory that not want to roose money make screen for apple but only make 20,000 colors.. hey maybe american not notice.. apple say happy fresh with sunny choice decision.. especially if make system profirer say millions of colors!!!!
aw shit..well OK... if it runs good , so what's the hay, i say?

remember a 'star trek TNG episode' with the pakllets..
'We take things ..jordie make things work'

well apple 'make things' NVidia 'make things work'

with 'shared Ram' for video
soo OK no video games.. didn't plan on using the iMac as a hi-end gaming machine anyways (but better work for my pinballs!!)

.. but 250 megs is piss poor for VRAM anyways these days.. did they really HAVE to steal it from the system RAM instead of adding at least a tiny dedicated strip? (it's the 9400M in case anyone cares)

hey B4 i go further gonna make a grill cheese for dinner .. gotta eat.. and apparently a overclocked intel chip make a good cheez burner.. which brings me to mah PeeCee, y'all

.after ah eat.. we'll git to part 2...............
tada 4 now................

Well.. back to mac...

So, looks like, just as i was getting used to Vista, and got all the bugs ironed out (tweak tweak tweak) .. and after getting a nice 1.5 gig video card ('are you sure that's enough memory').
it looks like, after all.. i gone back...
I mean... it was a messy divorce .. with accusations flying both ways ( well actually, only one way.. but..)..
but i forgave apple their smug condescention, their high handed 'if you don't like it too bad you don't see it our way'
because .. well i found some er..(one) new
well maybe only something...

........a intel apple......
a dern nice one too
a year ole..
takes some getting used to.. especially that ..45*) _)*&BG&*OI keyboard...
and why is everything sooo ..small...
Heck i got a wallet bigger than the external half terrabyte hard drive that camre with it.. and it's got a remote that lets me choose TV.. if I could figure out how to stuff that dang cablevision in the usb slot ;-)

The Emperor Has NO CLOTHES (yes that's YOU, Mr Gates!)

So, i've had enough time now to evaluate Vista.. and i am STUNNED that a fraud like this was EVER let out into the public..
Whadya mean.. fraud?
Well this is why..
First, and foremost, is that obnoxious UAC (User Account Control)
that asks you to CLICK through OKs,  as if that were security..
Yes virginia, that's right... CLICK THROUGH.. the kind of thing that KEYLOGGERS were just MADE for.
So, is it secure? Yup, if your an administrator.. it's completely secure FROM YOU..
It doesn't seem to matter if you set all the permissions to Full Control.. try deleting a folder , even logged in as Administrator.. forget it!!!
UAC will happily download a virus though as it can't tell the difference between it and a regular file, but if it's a key mapper that can just click OK,  just like YOU are asked to do to "BE SECURE" ..your SCREWED.
On a mac you actually have to FILL OUT A PASSWORD.....(!)

But that's Ok i hear, as long as it works well..
er no... even on service pack 2.. i get errors , and crashes on 6 to 7 out of every 10 apps ( well games, actually)..
Not old ones either, although it doesn't seem to matter how old the game is.. The compatibility mode is USELESS... 90 % of my apps are Busted, and won't run.. I've installed Virtual PC to run my windows apps, because they won't run natively, JUST LIKE ON A MAC.

and it's Slooooow.. even a fresh OEM install.. i couldn't believe that a slow computer like that was acceptable to sell in the first place.... and i did a FRESH  install from the backup partition.. just like it was when it as new...


GRRRRRRRR i'm gonna go break something now children

see you when they let me out of HELL........... (Aka VISTA)..
brrr Scary children!


ps I'd like to add that I don't DARE try windows 7.. i've been so BADLY BURNED by M$ on this that i'll never believe a word they say about any of their stuff again ...

a bran new compooter

yup.. im writing this on a ..brrrr..! ..peecee ...a  Vista one too.. but so far it's not been a bad expereince.. we'll see.. maybe it's cause i'm a mac guy , but i think vista looks pretty good. and i can see my 'followers' tab again..
Later yall.......

Freudian ... err...entanglement?

I was reading this page over at popular science, on quantum teleportation and entanglement, and ran into agraph that only got one 'oy nudge nudge wink wink' comment.... it was immediately apparent to me ;-).. burt then i aint been getting any lately (sigh)..

hmmm....

Hold it.. it's... Mister.... Hee Haw?

Yup... it sho' is.. and a finer gittar picker you'll not see.
I'm of course talking about the one & only Mr. Roy Clark..

This album is a really rare Pickwick compilation that has some of his early 60's Capitol instrumentals on it..
I received a request for one of the tracks on it, so i decided to also post the whole LP..
However, i found out while doing it that I am , apparently missing a track.(Let Me Talk To You). i have no idea what happened to it.. but i no  longer have the LP as i lost a few due to fire.. so I can't replace it..
It's possible that if it wasn't an instrumental,  i didn't record it off the album ..but at any rate, its missing, so I've added a bonus track to this rip

.

A real Fireballs Curiosity...

Although this one is listed on the Fireball's website discography pages, there's no information about it.. and it will never see any kind of reissue.. seeing as it only has four lesser known Fireballs songs, and one Jimmy Gilmer curiosity.. and four tracks by an unknown band, the Sugar Shackers.
As to who the Sugar Shackers were is anybody's guess.. near as i could find out, from a friend from New Mexico who wuz there, is they were some kind of 'Pick Up' band that got used as padding on budget labels who didn't have enough rights for a whole album release..
.. This record does have one unique track though, that appears here and NOWHERE else, and that is a unique version of 'True Love Ways' by, at least, Gilmer, and possibly also the Fireballs,.. with full vocal chorus backing..
 I had all the fireballs albums on vinyl, and my copy of this was stone mint.. till it got destroyed by fire.. Glad i took a photo !

JLH on Crown Part two...

And here it is..
IMHO, the cover's better than the contents.
I once heard John Lee Hooker described as 'a bit of a con artist', and you know , i'd have to agree..at least at certain times..Admittedly, when he was on, he was 'cooking with gas' as he liked to say..
but.... well.. some of his stuff.. if you play it for someone and then tell him this was the 'King' of the boogie .. youll get that kind a look reserved for someone been dropped on their head at birth ;-) (like my mum always joked about me..!)
soo..here it is anyways

More JLH.. on Crown ..

These may not rank alongside JLH's best work, but they sure are rare.. so it's worth posting.. and frankly, i just love the covers..

Ceown records made a whole series with cover shots like this for  several of their artists.. Modern/RPM, actually, as Crown was a budget offshoot of Modern's.
Nevertheless, i have fond memories of the Crown records.. despite their exceptionally crappy sound.

Firstly, that was how you got all of B.B.. King's  early stuff on album.. and the stereo ones were even in colored vinyl..! ..Despite those being even noisier pressings.. i might add ;-(...
Other albums that used this type of cover design were at least an Elmore James one ..'All Night Blues' or something like that.. i cant exactly recall, and also a Howlin Wolf one ,.. also called 'Sings The Blues'

Also, there was a second series.. which I'll save for a future post.. that consisted of the FAZZIO art.. i think whoever 'Fazzio' was, he was a great artist, and i like his covers .. I'll post a couple i've photographed as soon as I can find the original photos.. and also one of his JLH ones.
Although i made a point of trying to photograph each album i managed to collect before I sold them, I dent get to all of them.. I did however make a point of doing all the Crown /Fazzio ones though.
 I'l post a JLH one in my next post and also put up a Fireballs cover on the side here...

 Anyways, this one is John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues.. 1960 Crown..here.

A Haw Haw Haw Haw... Boogie... Chillen

So this ones quite nice in stereo.. i have to say .. ya just get  tired of mono.. and lets face it .. if god didn't want us to listen in surround sound he wouldn't a given us 3 ears..

so prop up all a yer ears  to hear the sounds from this here

Let's Twist with B.B.

Yup.. another oddity.. and naw.... they're no more 'twist' songs than the ones on "surfing' with Freddy King are.. well.. surf music..
but .. back in the day...every label hadda get on the bandwagon.. right?
..so did Crown...
But since you'll never be able to buy it .. you can hear it here.

Warning!! Stones Bootleg Alert !! Low bitrate mp3 sourced FLACs!!!

The recent FLAC of 'Got to be worked on' that's making the rounds (originally at IORR) is ripped directly fromn a 192 kbit mp3 source.. i can accept that under certain reasons an upsample fromn 320 kb is acceptable,  but never a 192..  as the natural response for anyone upgrading with flac is to erase their mp3's.. and erasing 320 kb for 192 is NOT a good deal.
 Doc......

C'mon Baby let's do the Twang.....

Here's one that y'all probobly don't have, and certainly not in true stereo,, available here only! Not only have both the audio and art been restored to pre-production levels, many of these tracks are in true stereo for the first time..
I rather like it.. sounds really good in headphones.
Pity you cant buy it anywhere.. but you can hear it here
.