Month: July 2006

I picked up Thom Yorke’s solo album “The Eraser” today (and if you downloaded the illegal copy, of course you’ve now purchased a legal copy, right?), and when I got to track 4 I discovered that this was the song that played over the end credits of “A Scanner Darkly”.

I guess I should have researched it more, after posting earlier about the songs not being on the soundtrack album, but over on At Ease they list the four songs Richard Linklater got permission to use in the movie:

“Amazing Sounds of Orgy” and . “Black Swan”
• “Fog”
• “Skttrbrain” (Four Tet RMX)
• …and “Black Swan” from The Eraser.

So now I have two of those four. Still need to find that remix and “Amazing Sounds of Orgy” somewhere.

No, no, don’t tell me. I’ll find them… eventually. I’m good at finding things out. It’s my special talent.

PS: “The Eraser” makes great running music for me. I had a great time tonight in the cooling evening air listening to Mr. Yorke’s thin reedy voice…

I love Everyday Music.

I stopped in there tonight to see if they had the “A Scanner Darkly” soundtrack. There were no less than four new (at least new to me) Radiohead songs listed in the credits, including on called “Black Swan” that played over the end credits.

Everyday Music had the soundtrack – but none of the Radiohead tracks were on it. Maybe Thom and Jonny are saving the songs for their unreleased album? I don’t know. I was just bummed about them not being easily accessible.

At any rate, I poked around in the bins while I was there. Seeing the trailer for the Leonard Cohen biopic several times now, I checked out what they had on him. One old “Best of” album, new not used. I got it because I’ll start with the “Best of” stuff and then if I like it I’ll run down some of the others.

But the bestbestbest find of the night was a “promotional copy / not for resale” of the Long Winters’ as-yet-unreleased album, “Putting The Days To Bed”. Score!

When I plunked it down on the counter, I said to the cute record-store girl, “I feel so naughty buying this!”

She just looked at it, puzzled, then back at me and shrugged. She didn’t get it. “Nah. It’s OK.”

If flirting is a test, then she failed mine. Oh, well, I’m sure she’s a very nice person.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I saw “Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest” over the weekend, also.

Was the first one as stuffed full and confusing as this one is? There’s so much going on and it seems so disjointed. But the big set-pieces are very good – I particularly liked the rolling fight on top of the water wheel. And they did a great job on making Bill Nighy look as if he’s just naturally got an octopus head. It didn’t ever look like a special effect to me.

And I think I’d pay money to watch Johnny Depp read a software licensing agreement.

Nitpick time: why is it in pulp movies like this that the monster can take just a few seconds to eat inconsequential characters, but it takes them minutes and minutes longer to eat major characters? The difference has always seemed odd to me. Any AD&D players out there, though, will recognize that the process of eating a higher-level character means reducing their hit points down to zero first… OK, I just geeked out. I’m not saying it’s right I’m just saying that’s the rationalization.

Anyway, “Pirates” is a good summer action movie and just as fun as the original.

Go see “A Scanner Darkly”. When it comes to your town, I mean. ‘Cause it’s not playing in Portland yet. I drove all the way to Seattle this weekend to see it and I’ll bet you’re jealous because you didn’t think to do that. Aren’t you?

It’s the best, most faithful film adaptation of PKD’s work ever. It made me laugh and sad in all the same places the original book did. It’s amazing.

Have you ever woken up from a dream, convinced that the dream held the secrets to the universe, that you’d had an epiphianic moment and that sharing that dream with others would lead to amazing, wonderful things?

And then, after you’d been awake, maybe you’d tried to write it down, or tell someone else about it… and as you tell, the dream fades from gold to dull, gray lead. You can’t get down on paper what made it so wonderful. Or as you try to describe it to your friend you and they realize at the same time that the dream was silly, or simple, or worse of all incoherent, and you feel that sinking sensation in your chest that tells you that there are no amazing dream-solutions to everyday problems.

Well, last night I had the most amazing, mind-blowing dream. During the dream I felt as if on the verge of an intellectual and creative breakthrough. Even during the dream I knew that this would make an amazing story, or even the jumping-off point for a story, of phildickian enormity.

I awoke and spent several minutes in bed, going over and over the details, trying not to lose them, but waiting for that moment when I would either lose the feelings of awe, or the details would fade from my mind and become part of the background noise of my life.

And another lovely thing happened. The dream stayed coherent. The idea remained amazing.

It stayed amazing even as I wrote it down on paper (tsk – two years since my last paper journal entry). Now it’s part of my story ideas collection and I can flesh it out.

I know I must seem a horrible tease but I don’t want to post it here on the internet. Sure, all my writings are protected by the Creative Commons license but I still don’t trust it.

Email me and if I like you and trust you I’ll send you the story fragment…

Sad news. I had to ship my new sexy thing off to Apple Repair today.

A couple of weeks ago, it started shutting down abruptly when on battery. First time it happened I assumed the battery was low, but then it did it with the battery well over half – might have even been over 75%.

My first thought was that it might be software-related because both times I was actively using a chat program called AdiumX at the moment it shut down. So a weekend or two ago, I backed up, wiped ‘er clean and reinstalled the OS and only those programs I absolutely needed.

But in the last couple of days it’s done it three times. One time yesterday just before I was going to see a new client. Um, oops. I poked around some online forums and they all suggested I send it off to Apple. It’s still under warranty and some thought it might be a problem with the battery that’s supposedly a silent recall.

I made an appointment at the Apple Store Pioneer Place Genius Bar, and today I talked to Brent. He poked around, reset the PMU/PRAM, and while trying to look at the system logs – it shut down on him. Total time at Genius Bar: 4 minutes, tops, and less than 2 minutes after restarting it. I did a happy dance, because, seriously, how often does it happen that the intermittent problem shows up when you’re showing it to the tech?

Brent said it’s the main logic board, not the battery. Me sad. But I knew when I bought this that I was getting a version 1.0 product and it might have some problems. It’s not like I didn’t know that in advance.

So it’s off to repair depot (I think that’s still in Austin but I could be wrong) and I’m without my laptop for a few days. Hopefully there aren’t any parts backorders or anything. Brent said typical times are 5 days (not business days but actual days) but I know they can do it faster if everything’s in alignment.

My apartment seems a colder place without my MBP here.

Literally, colder. The thing ran at 150° F under normal load…

Got this from <a href=" http://www.myspace.com/akikosakura
“>Akiko Sakura, a.k.a. Christi Lee. Ugh. Damn taggers.

1. Who are you? – Brian

2. Are we friends? – Yes.

3. When and how did we meet? – Technically, we haven’t met yet. But we talk and chat all the time, ever since you replied to a political blog Caleb and I started prior to the elections in 2004.

4. Do you talk to me a lot? – Almost every day, in one way or another, although there have been times when we’ve gone up to a week without some form of contact.

5. Am I fun to talk to? – Yes, you are smart and funny, even when you’re complaining about your boy troubles…

6. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it. – For tonight you are Princess Naggy, because you’re nagging me to do this even though I only got up and signed on because I was waking up to let Smacky in and I was plugging my computers back in because the thunderstorm I’d feared earlier hadn’t actually happened.

7. Describe me in one word. – Complicated.

8. What was your first impression? – Honestly? I wasn’t sure you were who you claimed to be. But I’m a suspicious person that way…

9. Do you still think that way about me now? – Oh, no. You’re definitely very very real.

10. What reminds you of me? – Lots of things that we like in common: Radiohead, taking pictures, how fucked up the country is…

11. If you could give me anything what would it be? – More decisiveness.

12. How well do you know me? – Personality-wise, I think I know you pretty well after two years of conversation.

13. Whats one thing that we had and was only ours? – Our short-lived political satire blog. I think it died because the Bush Administration satirizes itself.

14. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn’t? – May-be.

15. Are you going to put this on your blog and see what I say about you? – Duh. Here it is!