Dept. of Wholly Unsurprising News

Posted on by

Rush Limbaugh, in addition to being an evil fuck, a drug addict, a hypocrit, and a useless blowhard is now also the worst person in the world:

But the winner — oh, it’s the irrepressible Rush Limbaugh. On the radio, he said, quote, “Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There’s nothing about it that’s real.” I guess she made up that dead-son-in-Iraq business! He also referred to her supporters as “dope-smoking FM types.” I guess the painkillers wipe out your memory along with your ethics. Rush Limbaugh, today’s worst person in the world!

Congrats, Rush!

More on why DRM is stupid and useless

Posted on by

The new Dave Matthews Band CD has that ridiculous Sunncomm non-DRM DRM on it — you know, the one that (a) has no effect on non-Windows machines and (b) can be bypassed by disabling Autoplay even on Windows machines. The idea is that the disk ships with a “data layer” containing special, crippled digital music files that work with Microsoft players (but not, of course, the most popular music player). To access them, you’re supposed to let the CD install special software on your PC, which we’re sure won’t cause any problems at all.

Of course, even if you play by these rules, you still can’t get the digital files into iTunes or onto your iPod, so DMB have actually posted instructions — fundamentally stupid, absurdly complex, around-your-ass-to-get-to-your-elbow instructions — for getting Mp3 files off the disk. Why they don’t just tell their fans what everyone in the tech world already knows — again, that the Sunncomm solution is absurdly broken and trivial to bypass is beyond me.

One more time: We at Heathen will not buy any CD shipped with Sunncomm’s bullshit plan. We expect we’re not the only ones. We further expect that adding DRM like this to CDs — which makes it harder for uninitiated buyers to move legally purchased music from CDs to iPods to whatever for personal use — makes it MORE likely, not less, that said buyers will simply resort to illegal downloading or copying from friends.

Remember, RIAA: your failed business model is not our problem. Give us something we want, and we’ll pay you for it. Keep fucking with us, and you’ll get wholly disintermediated.

(Mostly via MeFi.)

A hero for the ages

Posted on by

Steve Carell: One Funny Motherfucker.

In his years on “The Daily Show” Mr. Carell became known as the guy who was willing to do almost anything for a laugh, a marked contrast to his low-key demeanor when not performing. He once ate an entire tablespoon of Crisco — both in rehearsal and on the show — when ice cream or frosting would have worked just as well, just so he could enjoy Jon Stewart’s horrified on-camera reaction. He also famously did a takeoff on news correspondents who demonstrate the negative effects of alcohol. Instead of just pretending to get drunk, he consumed cocktail after cocktail and ended up screaming, howling and, eventually, throwing up in Mr. Colbert’s car. It’s a tradition he continued in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” in a chest-waxing scene that has audiences alternately wincing and laughing as chunks are ripped from his heavily-forested torso, leaving him red and, inevitably, bleeding.

Who needs Leisure Learning?

Posted on by

Especially when you have The Learning Abscess. Sample:

An Evening With
Mariel Hemmingway Beautiful, talented, intelligent and spiritually evolved, Mariel Hemingway is an amazing, independent woman who has truly succeeded on her own terms. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get lonely, or have needs like any other woman. And let’s face it, the acting offers aren’t exactly pouring in anymore. Taken together, these circumstances have given rise to a unique opportunity for you to enjoy the intimate company of the Academy Award-nominated granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, in your own home, or in a nice hotel, or in a not-so-nice motel, or in a reasonably comfortable van. A serious practitioner of Yoga for 20 years who has studied Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyengar, Kundalini and Kriya, Mariel can not only discuss these various philosophies and methodologies but can perform elaborate contortions to allow serious Cirque de Sole-style fucking that will blow your nuts clean off. Whether you would like to enjoy this amazing opportunity one-on-one or with a few buddies, Mariel is a non-judgmental woman of the world, and is game for anything life throws at her. Course 2293 August 2 or whenever’s good for you 8pm-Late

Don’t miss “An evening throwing things at Sidney Sheldon,” either.

Some of this makes sense, but keep reading

Posted on by

The AP is reporting that the TSA may relax restrictions on razorblades, scissors, small knives, etc., which makes huge amounts of sense. We’re pretty sure hijacking a plane is no longer possible, so frankly we’re comfortable with passengers carrying pocketknives and boxcutters and other nonweapon “weapons” all they want. Making the list of in-flight contraband saner would return air travel to a less-irritating level of ritual, and would allow the TSA to focus on finding actually dangerous items instead of knitting needles and Swiss Army knives.

But then there’s this paragraph:

Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require [new TSA head Edmund] Hawley’s approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision. [emph. added.]

Frankly, we wonder if this is some sort of giveaway to Ted Nugent, bowhunters in general, or them Duke Boys (though they’d have to buy their dynamite locally, as you can’t even have that in checked luggage).

We can’t decide which is worse

Posted on by

Ah, our government at work. From this CNet story:

  1. The Copyright Office wants to know if it would be okay if parts of their site became Internet Explorer-only — despite the facts that (a) only absurdly incompetant or biased developers create software only compatibile with a single browser and (b) the Department of Homeland Security stated some time ago that users should avoid IE due to its absurdly poor security record.
  2. They’ve invited comments on the subject that must be submitted on paper.

Things that piss us off

Posted on by

That this restaurant — widely hailed as the finest in the country — is closed for a private party on October 10 and 11. Mrs-Heathen-to-Be and I had planned to dine there 10/10 as the kickoff event of our California honeymoon.

Fuck.

Comment Warning

Posted on by

Certain other Heathen have been bitten by the comment-scrubber in overnight processing, so we want to take this chance to remind you all that certain words will get your comments automatically removed by a job that runs every night at midnight or so.

The forbidden words are (case-insensitive):

<

p style=”margin-left: 4%”> incest viagra cialis rape href beastiality cum phentermine hydrocodone vicodin best-xp-software.biz anti-spyware.ws replica-watch.ws spyware-removal.net rolex-replica.org spyware-removal.biz green-card-lottery buy-rolex spy-deleter.net rolex-replica poker-room

N.B. that “href” is among the forbidden terms. This means you cannot put a link in your comments. Sorry. However, you CAN put in a bare URL, and rely on the above-average population of Heathen to figure out how to copy and paste it into their browsers.

Bacon anyone?

Posted on by

Jon Stewart pokes fun at the absurd, pork-full appropriations bill by noting it includes, among other things:

…and $1.6 million for something called the American Tobacco Trail in North Carolina. Here’s all you need to know about the American Tobacco Trail: It starts at “slaves” and ends at “cancer”.

From tonight’s show. Excellent.

Um, wow.

Posted on by

So, this aquarium moved a large octopus into a bigger tank, assuming that its strength and stealth would keep it safe from the other critters in the new environment — a population that included sharks in the 3 to 4 foot range.

Something weird happened. They kept discovering shark carcasses at the tank bottom each morning, so they stayed up to see what happened (link to embedded RealVideo at PBS). As it happens, the shark turns out not to be the indisputed food chain king in this particular tank. (Link via MeFi.)

Why you shouldn’t buy “locked” online music

Posted on by

Read this; the gist:

I have CDs that I have owned for nearly twenty years. I have made back-ups of those CDs. I have converted those CDs into mp3s and more recently into AAC files. I can play them on any device that I want simply by changing the format. If my hard drive dies I still have my CDs. If my portable player dies I still have my CDs. If I decide to run MacOS, Linux, BSD, Windows or any other operating system I will still have my CDs and my CDs will still sound better than the files I downloaded. I have some serious doubts that if music purchased online today will be playable three years from now without breaking the DRM.

He speaks Truth. (More on this issue here — same blog, different author.)

Top Ten Tech We Miss at CNet

Posted on by

Spot on, particularly number 10, but not for the reasons they cite. It’s only with the Treo that Palm devices approach the intelligence of the Newton 10 years ago, and even now they fall short of some of its abilities. Of course, the market moved toward “small and cheap” and away from “big and expensive,” and Steve wasn’t about to keep a Sculley product around, but the Newt was (and is) seamless and friendly in a way that Palms still aren’t.

Happy 30, buddy

Posted on by

frank in a mortarboard Today, my brother turns 30. We observed said event on Wednesday night with a trip to Philip M’s via booze-filled limo — I flew over to attend as a surprise, orchestrated by my sister-in-law — but today’s the actual day.

Happy birthday, Frank. I love you. See you soon.

“The street finds its own use for things.”

Posted on by

Lately, we’ve heard a lot about some sort of Euro-craze for a song/ringtone called Crazy Frog. We had no idea until moments ago that this track is little more than a remix/mashup of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” (from Beverly Hills Cop) and this loop we blogged in 2001 clearly (originally) intended to be an imitation of an F1/Indy car (or, as some suggest, a two-stroke motorcycle engine).

Holy Shit: What the Hell is Wrong with Wisconsin?

Posted on by

It is now illegal to prescribe, dispense, or advertise any form of birth control on any University of Wisconsin campus. From the linked story:

Wisconsin State Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, introduced this bill based on the belief that “dispensing birth control and emergency contraceptives leads to promiscuity.”

What. The. Fuck?

(Of course, our other reaction is “thank God it’s not a Southern state.”)

Bachelor Team, are you listening?

Posted on by

We believe the following quote from Dr Thompson adequately captures the Proper Breakfast for sometime during the festivities:

The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newpapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music…All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked. Hunter S. Thompson on breakfast [from “Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’76”]

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Posted on by

Hundreds of years ago, scientists were branded (sometimes literally) as heretics and thrown in prison for discovering facts those in power found inconvenient (for example, heliocentrism).

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX-Jackass) presumably wishes he was in power then instead of now. Barton is using his committee chairmanship to harrass scientists whose work supports a conclusion with which he disagrees, namely that climate change exists. He’s demanding they turn over not just data but also personal and financial informationMore information available at the American Institute of Physics. Even some Republicans are calling the move “misguided and illegitimate.” This, of course, matters little to Barton.

Near as we can tell, this is not a joke

Posted on by

From CNN comes this, under the headline “New Mel Gibson film to be in Mayan”:

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — Actor-director Mel Gibson is well on his way to cornering a new niche market in Hollywood — movies written in exotic languages. A year after breaking box-office records with “The Passion of the Christ,” which was shot in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew, Gibson has struck a deal with the Walt Disney Co. to release his next picture in a Mayan dialect.

Things We Get Asked, or Cool Things We May Have Forgotten About, Albeit Briefly

Posted on by

“So, have you ever seen Sting live?”

Yeah, we’ve seen Gordon. Twice, really. Once, years ago, at what we still think of as the best venue for large scale live music in the southeast (RedOak Mountain Ampitheater in Birmingham, Alabama). Earlier than that — spring 1991 — at UNO Lakefront in New Orleans, though, was the definitive sighting.

Back then, before Sting became the punch line for Jaguar commercials, he was still interesting. He was touring in support of his last good record (The Soul Cages), and had fer-crying-out-loud Concrete Blonde opening for him. In that pre-Internet-as-we-know-it era, nobody in Tuscaloosa knew it was happening until I went back to Hattiesburg for spring break — and discovered, via a local record shop, what was happening the following evening in the Big Easy. My little brother and I quickly signed on, and then we called certain other Heathen at their ancestral home, and consequently he and a couple others (J.B. and M.E.) were screaming down I-10 from Florida to Louisiana.

They missed the true opener — a damned shame, since in all honestly we were bigger Concrete Blonde fans than Sting fans — but they got there in time to see something extraordinary. After the CB set and the requisite period of silence, the lights went down, followed by a simple follow-spot and two guys walking out on stage: a tall pale blonde dude, and a black guy with short dreads and a big-ass drum.

Sting started talking. He told us about how he’d wandered into a bar in Santa Monica or someplace months before, caught by the rain, and heard this guy. He went backstage. He, being Sting, got him a slot on his tour. He informed us that in half an hour or so, he’d be out to play his set; in the meantime, we were to listen to the dreadlock guy.

Dreadlock guy was Vinx. Nobody, mostly, knows who the hell he is even now, but at that moment in 1991, it was easy to believe he was about to be a big-ass star. He held the arena in his hand with an ease I’ve not yet seen again. The material he did was incredible and solid and true. I immediately bought his record, and then the follow up, and then. . .

. . . he vanished. Of course, he was still there. He just didn’t have major label support, or the exposure the comes with it. He’s still out there, but the records I know are now, criminally, out of print. This guy’s the real deal. See him if you have the chance. Buy what recordings you can. He’s real. I sit here, nearly 15 years after the first time I heard his voice at UNO Lakefront, and I still can’t believe how few people know how awesome he is.

So that’s what we’re telling you about this evening, shifting POV and all. Go. Buy. Listen.

Today’s amusing AIM conversation

Posted on by

[SomeoneWeKnow]: It's official, I've got a new entertainment-industry-whore contract. Sean "Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, relentless hack" Combs.
[Heathen]: Gonna bling-out his servers, fo shizzle?
[SomeoneWeKnow]: I'm gonna pimp him some Catalyst, nizzle.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: And some linaaaaxxxxx!
[Heathen]: I can't believe you just said that.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: Since I'm only moderately certain I said what I intended, I can believe that.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: Of course, as Snoop said, "Nizzle does not mean neighbor."

What to do this summer

Posted on by

Go see the final Tamalalia. Don’t believe me? Ask Everett.

Ok, sure: I am the president of IBP. But I have that role because I’ve been a volunteer and supporter for years; I like what they do, and think you might, too. This isn’t pure boosterism. It’s worth your time. Tamarie has created Houston’s only original musical series, and she’s done it for ten years. Check it out.

This weekend is all sold out, but remaining dates are: 8pm on July 28, 29, 30; August 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, September 1, 2, 3; also late-night 10:30 shows on July 30 and August 6, 20, and 27. Tickets are $10 to $17. For an additional ten bucks, on Fridays at 10:30 you can pick up on Miss Lily’s Drunken Lodge Hall Revue on the cabaret stage and make an evening of it. All performaces at the Axiom, 2524 McKinney, +713 522 8443.