Disks in Rotation:
DVD • Pulp Fiction
CD-ROM • D2X
CD Carousel
• Guns 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction
• Nirvana - Nevermind
• Marilyn Manson - Lunchbox
• Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
• Monster Magnet - God Says No

Books Lying Open
• Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Brothers Grim

Soul-Devouring Worry
• Computers do it on purpose.

When I Grow Up:
• Melting candles will be less metaphoric.

Daily Blog
I saw this icon on the Amazing Randi's site.

I suspect he got it from somewhere else, rather than having it made specially for him, but I'm crediting where I poached it, just to be a nice fellow.  At the time it seemed cute and I saved it for potential future use.  Little did I suspect...

That about two hours later, while adding a note on something or other to my 1-ideas.shtml file, which is a page I keep open most of the day and add notes to or write up the news items you see on these daily updates, my computer would crash.

No biggie, I get that about once or twice a day since I got this new computer with Win XP earlier this year.  It's never a lock up, it's always a crash, just instant black screen and restarting.  It's like someone just flicked the power switch.  In fact it's occurring to me lately that might actually be it.  Rather than some sort of lingering software problem, maybe there's a mechanical problem with the power supply, or a cable somewhere in the tower, and it trips every now and then.

Whatever the cause of my frequent crashes, this one hit just as I saved the notes page, as I do quite often, due to the crashes and my dislike of having to do the same thing over again 2 hours later.  So the computer started back up, and I went to open the notes file to see if it had saved, or I'd have to retype the bit I just added (wanted to get it while it was still fresh in my mind).  But the notes file wouldn't open.  It's an HTML file, I just type stuff there, links and images and all, and then paste it over to the main page and add some notes and upload it.  When I tried to open it in my HTML program (FrontPage 2000) it gave me a weird pop up box, asking if I wanted to open it in HTML, Notepad, or Rich Text File.  Not an option menu I'd ever seen before, or hope to see again.

As you probably guessed about two paragraphs ago, none of the text options worked. The document showed as 29k, but was just a long blank page in .txt or .shtml.  In .rtf it showed as about 4 pages of rectangles.  I could copy them, but when I'd paste to anything else, nothing would happen.

So my saving early and often ruined me, the document was corrupted, and a total loss. I had probably 15 news items I'd have posted today and tomorrow, all already written up and linked and formatted, 2 long essay things for the lower portion of the page, and those are all gone.  I can live with that; the blogging stuff always feels pretty disposable, since I just do it to post it and do it again the next day.  The thing that pisses me off is that I had at least 5k worth of notes, ideas, links to write about at some point, quotes from other people I was going to add to content pages, ideas for site features, etc.  Too many eggs in one basket, I guess, but I was really pissed at the time, for all of the cool stuff gone to a fluky computer error. I didn't quite beat my head against the monitor, but I said bad words and went in to play with the rats a bit.  That's one nice thing about having them in the cage in my bedroom; I can get away from this desk and monitor for a bit, lie down, and let them scamper about and leap on me while I'm on the bed.  Relaxing.

So anyway, with all of that lost so stupidly, I had to do more stuff from scratch for this update.  I did some quick surfing over sites where I usually find news, and oddly enough, I didn't see anything that rang a bell, other than the "Flux Says No" item I'd done, and have no redone, in abridged form.

News. 

• Now this is the funniest article of the day.

Primed by a morning session at the pub, the queens quickly decided handbags made admirable weapons, starting a cat-fight of epic proportions.

Organiser Malcolm West, who was manning the microphone, seemed momentarily lost for words at the sight of the four queens teetering in their high heels while bludgeoning each other with handbags, swung around the head like claymores. They quickly realised high heels were more effective weapons, dropping the handbags and returning to their battle with stilettos.

• A science teacher had all of the students in his 7th grade classes prick their fingers with a pin and examine the blood in his classes last year.  Not such a horrible thing, except that he used the same pin for everyone, and apparently didn't clean it in between.  Has this man heard of infectious disease? Like say, HIV?  No one can seem to believe it, and most of the article is quotes from the school board members about expected lawsuits.  It's like they don't just expect them, they are almost desiring it, by their attitude.

School Committee member J. Mark Treadup said, "We were incredulous that it happened," especially considering that the teacher, Kevin D. Cadieux, was a science teacher. He commended the School Department for its follow-up when the matter came to light in mid-June, with experts being consulted and the teacher interviewed.

As the committee's lawyer, Walter R. Smith, all day fielded media questions from across the country, the phones were very quiet both in the mayor's office and at St. Luke's Hospital, according to spokeswomen.

Few if any parents approached the media. There was much speculation, on radio talk shows and elsewhere, that the families of the students may be consulting lawyers as the certified letters arrived from the School Department.

Parents are all receiving registered mail describing it, and urging them to get their kids tested for disease.  I'd hate to be a tax-payer in that county.

• PETA anti-meat propaganda has never looked so good?  Watch the behind the scenes movie, it's got some funny stuff.  When the model shows her shoulder and says, "This is what you'd be eating if you were eating me." try not to break into nervous giggling.

• British men lack the balls to buy larger condoms.  It's a funny story, but I suspect it's bullshit, given the obviously-staged photo, and the fact that it's in a British tabloid.

The issue is interesting; I'd think men would buy large ones just to try and seem more manly.  Buy a box of large, then buy normal later and put the normal into the large box, to impress your GF?  Or if the cashier at the store is a cutey?  I of course buy Hefty bags and rolls of duct tape, but oddly enough, the girls at Home Depot don't seem all that impressed when I explain why.

• Before the notes page died, I'd written a long essay/article/report thing on a very cool webpage with pictures and info about Michelangelo.  The examination of his work was prompted by this image and the news it's created.

A rare, unsigned chalk drawing by Michelangelo, worth $10 million to $12 million, has been discovered at a New York museum where it had been stored for 60 years -- without anyone realizing it had been drawn by the Renaissance master.

From that I searched around for Michelangelo info, and ended up reading every bit of a couple of websites, and visually devouring photos of his artwork.  I had a whole long thing written up, but I don't have the motivation to recreate it.

I will content myself with just linking to the site, and strongly-suggesting that you kill an half an hour reading the three-part history of his life, and enjoying the photos.  This one is probably my favorite.  Yes, that's a thumb of it on the right.

That's marble, carved 500 years ago.  I can't even begin to imagine how that could be done.  It looks like a photo of a person with gray make up on.  I think a stone carving of the Easter Island quality is good work, I mean it sort of looks like a human face.  The ability to carve a statue that has expression, nuance, and looks like it could open its eyes and stand up at any moment is just inconceivable.

• Send your kid to fire arms safety classes, so they'll learn to be safe with guns.  That's what the NRA always says, anyway.

Two Boy Scout employees in charge of firearm safety at a popular summer camp in Boone have been fired for allegedly shooting BB guns at other Scouts. One 15-year-old counselor suffered a serious eye injury that could result in permanent partial loss of vision.

The article has quotes from people stressing they've never had a problem before with gun safety in their classes, they are closely-supervised, etc.  I'll go out on a limb and say that's utter bullshit.  I bet this sort of crap happens every week, and always has, and always will.  Just this time some kid got one in the eye and the kids couldn't cover it up since it was serious.  You can not let boys (males?) have weapons and expect them not to shoot at each other, or shoot at stupid targets, or bunnies, or birds, etc.  It just will never happen.  I had a BB gun when I was like 10, my grandparents, hunters themselves, got it for me, and about the 3rd day with it I was shooting at the side of a metal shed, which they'd specifically warned me not to shoot at, (nothing metal, since it can bounce the pellets back at you) and of course I got one bounced back which hit me in the left eyebrow, about 1/2 inch from possibly blinding me.  I had no safety glasses on (not that anyone had heard of such a thing at the time), of course.

That did, at least, teach me not to shoot at metal things.  I only remember one other near fatality from it, when I was first there one year (used to visit every summer for a month or two) I got my BB gun out and was looking it over.  Didn't occur to me it might be loaded or charged; it required a compressed gas cylinder that I had to save money up to get more of while I was there, and while I was looking at it I shot it right past my face and into the white plaster wall over their TV.  Obviously my grand dad had bought me some and loaded it before my visit, but at age 9 or 10 or whatever, that just never occurred to me.

Which is why you can't really let kids have dangerous toys, even smart kids who have been told repeatedly to be careful with them will forget, or figure they can just screw around one time, and usually they get away with it, but sometimes they don't, and if the toy is dangerous enough, their screwing around can actually be fatal.

Of course it's not just kids, you're always hearing stories about hunters shooting each other dead, or some drunk guy with a hunting bow wanting his friend to do the William Tell apple on the head thing.  Which generally leads to an X-ray that's something like this.

• The "I don't care" story of the day, (week) is about Allen Iverson fighting with his well-dressed wife, and running around with a gun looking for her afterwards. The media is reporting on this as though it's shocking, or news.  Who could believe a rapper/basketball player had a fight with his wife and has an unregistered weapon?  Oh my god!  Shocking! Next they'll break the news that he's got a lot of overpriced ugly jewelry, makes stupid "investments" with his millions of dollars, and supports a posse of low life leeches from the hood, in an effort to keep it real.

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All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.