Fnord Incorporated

more from the archive

Man, I have been finding more and more stuff hiding out in random folders and backup cds. I meant to post these images back in December.

End of November, I was in Utah for some family stuff. Late one night, i was in the back yard of my Dad’s house and was pretty surprised when I saw a strange silhouette on his back door.

At first I thought “Hey you, you need to stop drinking tonight.” Waving my hand back and forth in the light, I found that the shadow changed with movement, but that the light source was always the same. Realizing that I had not been drinking, I stared at it and stared some more.

It looks somewhat like a person standing on a hill looking up toward a house.

Who would have thought a cool shadow like that could be made by a Bug Zapper and a phallic looking Dolphin ring toss game of my nieces.

That’s all.. Just getting this posted before I forgot again.

Parasite Positive / Crooked Little Vein

Parasite Positive by Scott Westerfeld

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (Import - June 30, 2007)

and

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

Publisher: William Morrow/HarperCollins (Hardback - July24, 2007)

~~

Enjoyed two books in the last couple days. one definitively more than the other.

I picked up a brand new discount bin copy of Scott Westerfeld’s Parasite Positive. It is an imported book. The US Title is Peeps. The name of the book from the UK is far better. Peeps is fine for slang but is a lame name for the book itself in my opinion. But that is a Strike against the publisher not the Westerfeld. The last thing i want to do when I pick up a book is look at the binding and wonder why there is not a yellow marshmallow Easter chick on it instead of humans

Peeps look like yellow fluffy sugar coated dog turds, and thus make me feel funny.. inside.. my stomach.. .

This book is pretty enjoyable, a little bit frustrating. Set in the current times, imagine a world where vampires exist. They are not as we describe in mythology and urban legend, similar but not the same. In Parasite Positive (peeps for short), people can be infected by a parasite through kissing or sexual activity.

Cal, a first year NYC college student from Texas, hooks up with a woman in a bar and loses his virginity. He does not see her again. Soon after, every girl he kisses or is other wise physically intimate with goes bat-shit insane. They have contracted a virus from him.

The virus rewires your brain slightly, give the typical super human strength, yadda, yadda. Cal is brought into a secret organization to hunt down Peeps, Starting with his ex-girlfriends.

It played out in a faster paced story line than I prefer. the ending seemed far too cut and paste, and main characters became too forgiving. It was frustrating to see a good set of characters get a cleansing white wash treatment for no apparent reason, other than a need to close out the storyline. I was pleased to read that there is a sequel, but i am unsure if i will be picking it up. maybe i will read the first chapter at Powells and see if Scott give people back their written vitality. otherwise.. meh.

Best part of the book, every other chapter is a short information package on different parasites in our world, their effects, habits, and horrors. personally, these little segments were my favorite parts.

~~

Crooked Little Vein - Warren Ellis, “awesome” in a box… ready to be mixed, baked, and eaten while youa re stoned and listening your records.

Now, do not confuse your Warren Ellises here. The Ellis who wrote this book is not the phenomenal composer who works with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman (with nick cave and a bunch of the seeds), and Dirty Three.

No, this Ellis is of comic series Transmetropolitan, among other comics, books, tv shows, etc.. He puts forward one hell of a book here.

hm.. i dont know where to start here. I guess with a quick thank you.. THANK YOU JARET AND JENN. i rean through this book in a few hours time while i was riding the max train to work and back.

No spoiler here, the description given here will happen in the first five-10 pages.

Apparently, back in the day, founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote a book when he was in france for a few days. The book was written when his nights sleep was interrupted 6 nights in a row by an alien being. On the seventh night, he punchs the alien in the face and kills it instantly. Ben Franklin then takes the aliens skin and binds his book.

What exactly is this book? It is an alternate and secondary constitution to the united staed. it is the fix for everything bad that every happened to our country and our people… only problem is that Nixon gave the book away back in the ’50s and no one knows where it is.

again, this is in the first few pages. the main character, Mike McGill, wakes up  to find a giant rat taking a piss into his coffee cup and then appears to be laughing at him. before he can adjust to the zoological ramifications of a rat taking pleasure in his pain, he is approached by a high power politician. The politician would like to pay him $500,000 to find the book and return it. its not that he is the best detective in America, they want him because he is a “shit magnet” and as such, the book will likely just come to him directly.

Not sold on Crooked Little Vein yet? Two words:

Godzilla Bukkake… (if you do not know what bukkake is, look it up first. it will help you determine if this book is a good match for you)

Buy this book. borrow it. steal it (then give it back with foot notes)…

One last thing, Listening to Grinderman while reading this book is fantastic.. so you could actually ahve both Warren Eliis parts at once.. i wold highly suggest it actually. Grinderman is a nice cooperative sound to the hilarious and surprise of the books scenes…

oh yeah.. i wanna holler out to spider jerusalem. props. love you man,… even if you are fiction.

something i ran across

i was in a Plaid Pantry recently. For those not living in Oregon, the Plaid is a convenience store not too different than a 7-11. They are open all night long and attract creepy people.

Regardless, their porn magazine rack had a hilarious sign attached to it. I thought i should share.

The Cult - Maxim Hotel (Farmer’s Daughter) 08-10-2000

Knowing the people that come here, I think this will be a well read post.
The attached video is nearly 100 megs streamed, so i may need to move it to youtube if my bandwidth takes too much of a hit.

It is a far cry from perfect, but read below and get the details, then enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~

Back before I moved to Oregon, I had some crappy Qwest DSL that i never signed up for, but didnt complain too much about at the time.  i was able to download at a whopping 14 kb per second. Real player was suddenly usable crap instead of just crappy crap. My Napster usage increased significantly (the real Napster, not the joke it s now). I could stream radio and still read the news!!

In the computer world, most people do not learn how to do something until they have enough drive or interest. Capturing streaming media was one of these things for me. If I heard music I liked, I would just find it elsewhere (Napster / Ratio driven FTPs), buy the cd, or dub it off someone else.

Cue the point already Jason.

One afternoon, I ran across a small news blurb advising that The Cult was on tour again. Giddy with Joy, I broad banded my ass out onto yahoo and dogpile, and started digging. Tickets were on sale, and before you could snap your fingers twice and say “The billionth living person in India is born on May 11th this new millennium”, I had a couple of those tickets into my sweaty hands and was headed back home from the local rapemaster (ticketmaster) outlet.

A couple weeks later, after the show was over and the rock n roll was beginning to leave my bones again, I ran across another news article. It read something along the lines of “Police cut Cult concert short due to riots”. What the fuck does that mean?

Apparently, Maxim Magazine had a big ol’ party on August 10th 2000. They held it at the Farmer’s Daughter Hotel in LA. There were a bunch of bands, lots of celebs, and a short guest list of 1000 people. Per Salon.com others in attendance were police in riot gear, a fire department task force and helicopters circling overhead.

Apparently, outside the event, some DJ had let the public know the location, and a throng of 2000+ people all showed up uninvited. They stopped traffic, raised hell, and pretty much got the whole event shut down 2 hours after it started. I don’t blame them, sounds like it would have been a fun night. Why keep it to the guest list when you could push the door.

Inside, there was no chaos. The only reported issue that occurred was Billy Morrison (not to be confused with Billy Duffy) getting into a scuffle with someone who worked for the magazine. As listed in Maxim’s “100 Greatest Moments”:

#73 At a Maxim party in L.A., Cult [should read ‘part-time’] bassist Billy Morrison starts throwing hay­makers when a very senior Maxim staffer makes some quip about the rocker’s fiancée being a Love Removal Machine groupie.

Again, back to the point.

Per Ian Astbury, before they played In the Clouds, Maxim chose them as the Ambassadors of the Masculine Spirit, “Fuck knows why”.. I have no idea what other bands played that night, but The Cult was able to get at least 5 songs in before being shut down. Maxim Online had just launched and they were streaming video for the Cult portion of the 2 hour party. i spent 2 days learning how to scrape streaming video off websites in order to get a copy of the show. I actually thought i had lost the mpg i made, but recently found a back up CD with it burnt. decided now i should get it out on the web again before i lose it again :)

VIDEO:

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

this video is just under 20 minutes long

Video set-list:
1- The tail end of Lil’ Devil
This is where Maxim started their stream, There was no way to view the whole song.
2- Sweet Soul Sister
3- In the clouds
4- The Witch
5- Rain

~~

The video has been improved on over the years and cleaned up. I am pretty sure it was originally RealVideo, so there were a ton of artifacts. I cleaned up the audio a bit as it was full of static. ran de-noise filters and other stuff to make ti watchable. i have gotten it to a point where it is enjoyable, hell, there are even point when it looks clear :)

the only horrendous part is when you see the drummer. the color and block noise that occurs each time you see him was completely out of my hands. You can blame the poor quality on Real Networks and other shitty technology companies of the early 2000’s.

I was not going to post this at all, but realized after a little research that NO ONE HAS THIS ONLINE.., I seriously have to ask, what the fuck happened there? I highly doubt I was the only person to scrape this and hold onto it…. If anyone has a better copy, let me know and I will work a trade.

Band line-up at the time:

Vocals: Ian Astbury
Guitar: Billy Duffy
Bass: Billy Morrison
Drums: Matt Sorum
Bass: Martyn LeNoble

Special thanks to Jon Taylor over at http://www.cultcentral.com/ for keeping his page updated. Ever since I found his site, I never have to wonder whats going on with the band. he always knows before I do :)

per Jon “One minor correction, the bass player at that show was Martyn LeNoble, blonde dude usually has a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Morrison came on later, probably early 2001 if I recall correctly.”