Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
My Sites
[Tomorrowlands]
[The TTU Wiki]
[Photos]
View My LJ
[By Tag]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
|
12:52 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/68155561/240226) [Link] |
Let's see YOU work "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" in there :-p
Newest addition to the ticket queue, based on a phone conversation with "FROST ROBT K ":
6/20 TR - Robert Frost called in and needs some computer support.
After a long time being Acquainted With The Night, his computer went Out, Out, and now turns on with great Reluctance. Before he gives it a Home Burial, or retires it out to The Pasture, he wants to drive The Road Not Taken (from Sierra City into Nevada City) and run it by The Mending Wall.
Now, we're Stars of the internet fixing world, but the problem with The Code of his operating system is Neither Out Far Nor In Deep in our specialty. If he were to Come In to us, we might be here until October reinstalling Windows XP. I referred him to The Black Cottage across the highway and gave him Clientworks' number. They have Good Hours and the Dedication to fix his failing-to-boot problem.
--
Some say his OS will end in upgrades,
Some say in bugs.
From what I have seen of Windows
I hold with those who favor woes.
But if equipment is replaced,
I've seen enough of Plug and Play
To say that endless hardware hacks
Will make him bray
And buy a Mac.
Clearly, I am far too bored today and need to find some billing to enter into the system.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  trying to be good
Current Music: "Do It Now!," Killer Instinct soundtrack
Tags: wordplay, work
|
|
07:03 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/9758787/240226) [Link] |
Renee Decart, white courtesy phone*
Google gets closer to DWIM every day.
It all started with an innocent typo. I mistyped Lewis Carroll as "Lewi Carroll" in Google while looking for his birthday.
... And Google cheerfully returned the results for the author without so much as acknowledging the misspelling.
This struck me as unusual. After all, with most errors -- such as Nancie Kerrigan for the figure skater Nancy -- Google will pester you with a little "Did You Mean:" line at the top of your results, showing you what you probably meant to type but returning the searches best matching your exact wording.
But search for Louis Carroll, and the results go straight to Lewis' Wikipedia page and several repositories of his works. None of the results' sample text even quote "Louis" until at least halfway down the page.
A little experimentation with other writers confirmed this wasn't a fluke. For example, the immortal words of Bill Shakespeare stand atop English literature. (Note, however, that Billy Shakespeare is someone else.)
Nor is it confined to the prose disciplines. Actors? Larry Olivier. Artists? Peter Mondrian. Musicians? Axle Rose.
And of course philosophers, like the suave and enigmatic Renee Decart.
Found other interesting "canonical" misspellings? Submit your own in comments!**
--
* DEAR GOD, the PHILOSOPHICAL MONISTS. </ObInJoke>
** Rules: Name has to
1) NOT produce a "Did You Mean" message;
2) NOT contain top references to a different person;
3) return substantially similar top references as the original.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: better
Current Music: Bob Neuwirth, "Winter in Berlin"
Tags: wordplay
|
|
12:31 am
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/74210624/240226) [Link] |
This icon is strangely, wrongly appropriate
I swear, sometimes it feels like I'm writing headlines in an alternate universe much cooler than our own:
"Quake lake growing despite military action"
Yes, soldiers are in fact attacking a lake. With anti-tank weapons.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) waywind suggests via IM that "All it needs is to have a face on it like in your icon. And make aggravated Godzilla noises when they attack it."
Well, sure. But why stop there?
Clearly, this entire phenomenon is a campy monster movie come to life. Humans play god with nature; nature rises up in force; humans try ineffectually to stop the now-invincible threat; most of an Asian country gets leveled as lots of people run around screaming.
And then, giant robots. And theme songs.
Mizu-ra!
Mizu-ra!
Randa banunradan Tounjukanraa!*
--
* I am so going to hell for this.**
** The whole post, I mean. What with the joking about natural disasters and all. Although when I get there, the devil's probably going to cite that one line as the deciding factor.
Current Location: ~journal
Current Mood:  silly
Current Music: Wolfstone, "J-Time"
Tags: wordplay
|
|
11:34 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/61890961/240226) [Link] |
Doing it wrong
No no no ... You're supposed to cover breaking news events, not break newsmen covering events!
(Link is worksafe, though contains photo of javelin injury.)
Current Location: ~journal
Current Mood:  morbidly amused
Current Music: Fatboy Slim, "Rockafella Skank"
Tags: newspapers, wordplay
|
|
11:59 pm
[Link] |
Fun with headlines
Ah, the life of a paginator. I can do without the daily deadline pressure, but there are some parts I've missed.
Like laying out today's Annie's Mailbox advice column on the page. For space reasons, we just ran the final two letters -- from vampire fans who met their spouses via that corner of the Internet, a little peeved at Annie's earlier joke at vampire chat rooms' expense.
For one thing, the exchanges were remarkably cordial (at least compared to the screaming dramafests that usually occur whenever mainstream media catches wind of us oddballs). But also because I got to write the headline:
"When love bites: Vampire fans weigh in"
--
Then there was this story, on today's front page. Nickel summary: A new stretch of the American River has been opened to river rafters, who are discovering that the formerly secluded stretch of water is home to a gay nude beach.
Alternate (rejected) headline: "Boaters now penetrating gay hidey-holes"
Heh. *cough* Ahem. Anyway. Who says small-town papers don't cover hard news?
--
Current music is genuinely what's playing now, with Winamp choosing at random from most of my music library. Truth, fiction, stranger, etc.
Current Location: ~journal
Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: "Sit Down, You're Rocking The Boat," Guys and Dolls sndtrk
Tags: draconity, wordplay, work
|
|
04:33 am
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/70283732/240226) [Link] |
Well, it was funny at 4:30 AM
IM convo between roaminrob and I as we're trying to mash the last bugs out of the new mailserver. Context: At this point we're trying to manually wade through a number of user e-mail accounts on the system that didn't get transferred to the new box correctly, to determine whether they're in active use or need to be shut down.
Bax: (spoken) *snerk*
Rob: (spoken) What's so funny?
Bax: # alias eat='su -s /bin/sh -c "pine -p ~nccnuser/.pinerc"'
Bax: I did this just so I could type
Bax: # eat squid
Rob: # eat squid & die;
(Later)
Bax: # eat sent-mail
Bax: Hey, look, I'm Microsoft Exchange!
(The joke refuses to get old, but does turn off-color)
Bax: # eat cowboy
Bax: Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Rob: D-:
(Finally culminating in:)
Bax: Oh great.
Bax: The worst yet:
Bax: # eat peter
Rob: Dude.
Bax: And the worst part?
Bax: He's never used it.
Rob: Well, he has now!!
Bax: Yes, except we're about to cut it off D:
(We both bust out laughing.)
Bax: (spoken) Oh, this is so going on Livejournal.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: punchy
Current Music: Massive Attack, "Teardrop"
Tags: chat log, wordplay, work
|
|
05:23 pm
[Link] |
Or maybe it was interrupting zombies?
baxil:
Wow. I just got the weirdest tech support voicemail.
baxil:
"Hello, my name is M--- S-----, and I live in Lake Wildwood. I have a computer, and it's not -- I can't -- it's got a blue screen, and --" *suddenly hangs up*
krinndnz:
Computer ate them. :(
baxil:
"Open the drive a: doors, HAL."
"I can't do that, Dave."
-----
And speaking of Krinn, here's your tiger QOTD, from a great post (read the whole thing for context; totally sfw) about Tintin, national myths, and the landmines of history:
Rule 34 only ruins icons of your childhood if you're afraid of sex.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Warcraft II OST, "Scenario Theme 8"
Tags: tech support horror stories, wordplay, work
|
|
10:54 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/33402467/240226) [Link] |
Waffles and Terbos*
Amusing Craigslist post. Which I'm just linking because it's amusing. I have no interest in its outcome. Nope. None whatsoever.**
Meanwhile, back here in the hinterlands*** of California, the race is heating up in the primaries for the CA-04 House seat. Rep. John Doolittle, who is a venal, obsessive, science-hating, greedy shell of a man, finally threw in the towel on his lengthy congressional reign. The stink of the ongoing Abramoff-related corruption investigation was definitely a factor. Good riddance; he's been an unrepentant embarrassment since I moved here, and even replacing him with another rubber-stamp Republican would be a huge step for basic political decency.
Now the question is coming up: Who will run for his seat this year? The Democratic field is settled -- and Charlie Brown has my unqualified support in the general election -- but in the Republican primary, the horse race is just heating up.
The biggest names ready to jump into the fray -- Oller and Ose -- are carpetbaggers. Gaines, who was one of the few local Repubs willing to call Doolittle out over his scandals (and who got excoriated as a "weasel" for his efforts and nearly got censured by the county GOP), isn't running despite early speculation.
But, fortunately, there is someone in the GOP primary who I can wholeheartedly endorse.
I am not a Republican. But, while I often disagree with their principles, I respect what the GOP is supposed to stand for. One CA-04 candidate is a proud, sane Republican -- a man who knows that conservatism is about sane foreign policy rather than belligerence; that our goal is to prevent terrorism rather than simply "fight" it in the drunken bar brawl sense; that hating taxes isn't a license to run up record-breaking debt; and that the First Amendment isn't just for fundamentalist Christians who whine about oppression because they can't proselytize on government time.
At their best, conservatives rein in excess spending, ground discussions from theory into science, and slow runaway social upheaval. They serve a necessary function in government. But today's national GOP has come completely unmoored -- the party of legalized torture, endless war, soaring deficits, faith-based policy, and corruption and incompetence. George Bush's GOP is fundamentally scary; a direct threat to everything America is supposed to stand for. So, even if it meant continued GOP dominance, this liberal would much rather see sane, principled Republicans ascendant than watch the GOP drift further into fascism and/or irrelevance.
Nationally, the best candidate to reclaim the GOP is Ron Paul. And in CA-04, one candidate clearly comes from the same mold.
I am proud to offer the Nevada County dragon community's endorsement for the GOP primary to ...
Ted Terbolizard.
... In other news, a guy named Ted Terbolizard is running for political office. Which is just freakin' cool.****
--
* This would probably make an awesome song name. (Hey, it has precedent.)
** I also did not write it. Which, unlike the non-footnoted protestations, is actually true.
*** What a nifty word!
**** Not to mention ... Charlie Brown vs. Terbolizard. TUUUUUUR-BOOO-LIZARD!***** That's Pay-Per-View GOLD right there.
***** For full effect, scream "TUUUUR-BO!" in the Trogdor voice.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: TUUUUUUR-BOOO-LIZARD!
Current Music: Shpongle, "Behind Closed Eyelids"
Tags: politics, wordplay
|
|
06:06 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/70456868/240226) [Link] |
I like cascades
![[An 'I like (x)' cascade]](http://www.tomorrowlands.org/images/lj/i_like_screengrabs.jpg "This was in a friends-locked thread. My next response was 'I like strikes!'")
Giving the fun a thread of its own, so everyone can play.
Four starter words are in comments. Pick one and have at.
(Extra credit points for appropriate icons, but they're not necessary.)
Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Jupiter One, "Platform Moon" (via net radio)
Tags: wordplay
|
04:40 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/8403565/240226) [Link] |
Don't know why it took me this long
Just learned* I have an easy way to tell geeks how to pronounce my name:
Baxil, x as in TeX.
(Or, if you're more the IPA sort, /ba:xi:l/.)
--
* I have a degree in mathematics. I somehow didn't pick this information up in college. Under the Chu-Carroll Criterion, this means that I should probably be fired.
Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Music: Symbion Project, "Soft Tempest" (via net radio)
Tags: draconity, geekery, wordplay
|
|
06:29 pm
[Link] |
Friday Night Poetry Theater
Copied from a chat log earlier tonight, for your amusement and/or edification*:
tropism: Hee. "Let's make sure the world ends with a gang-bang, not a gang-whisper."
baxil: ...
tropism: ?
baxil: Some say the world will end in gang-bang,
Some say in whispers.
From chicks I've plied with yummy cake
I know the world is hard to rape.
But if that gang does really try
Then hide your mothers and your sisters
And give them guys, 'cause then you'll see
The whispers fly
And grown men flee.
--
* That's right. This poem has the power to change your name to Ed. Ha-HAH!
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: silly
Current Music: Phish, "Wolfman's Brother"
Tags: chat log, wordplay
|
|
02:13 am
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/1021922/240226) [Link] |
ClaWrite: Not just for placeholders anymore
         
This may not be news to those of you who read ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) therithere and/or saw its latest comic, but I've updated (and moved) the ClaWrite page. Permalink, for those of you who want to update your bookmarks, is now the simple and memorable http://draconity.com/clawrite.*
It still looks like crap, but it's now at least got a tutorial page up -- including full punctuation guidelines, which have been in existence but missing in action for the entire decade that the info has been online. (Happy anniversary, ClaWrite! Most people would say tin is traditional, but I got you punctuation!)
For as little attention as I've given ClaWrite -- an alternate alphabet based on a 3x3 grid of strokes easily made with, say, a dragon's claws -- it sure seems to have captured people's imaginations. Back in my college days, the URL was apparently dropped into a column in the gaming magazine InQuest, which is about the closest I've come to 15 minutes of fame. And I've heard from people over the years who have used it in one capacity or another -- including, as the comic linked above points out, writing in diaries. I really ought to give the site a facelift and commission a proper font out of it.
Which reminds me -- I don't have an informed opinion on the many alternatives-to-copyright that exist out there (copylefting, creative commons, GPL, etc). What would be the simplest way for me to preemptively tell people that $THINGY is available free of charge for non-commercial use and/or modification; as long as the original source (me) is credited and any modifications retain the same license? And hypothetically, should $THINGY gain enough popularity that people want to use it (or one of its derivations) in a for-profit scenario -- what protections would said license still offer?
--
* Yes, draconity.com is me. This has the happy side effect that the Draconity FAQ is located at the wonderfully memorable draconity.com/faq. I feel guilty sometimes about not putting the domain to better use, but at least there's that.
Current Location: ~/couch
Current Mood:  awake
Current Music: Splashdown, "Karma Slave"
Tags: draconity, requests, tlands, wordplay
|
|
03:46 pm
[Link] |
New web toy
Now you, too, can make up charts like this one* on the fly and embed them in your posts -- even if you don't have a website to host them on:
http://code.google.com/apis/chart/ has the details.
Fun contest in comments! Make up the most awesome fake chart! Winner gets official Baxil Points, redeemable for fine Baxil merchandise at fine Baxils everywhere!
--
* Venn diagram idea shamelessly reused from a floating Internet meme. I just needed something to test the API out with.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: amused
Tags: contests, geekery, technology, wordplay
|
|
01:49 pm
[Link] |
*gdr*
During a discussion of appetizers kadyg might cook as a chef:
K: I'll save that one for when I open up my S&M-themed restaurant.
B: ...
K: ...?
B: You know, if you do open that restaurant and it served Asian food ... ( Groan rating: 1300 millixanths )
Current Location: ~/bedroom
Current Mood:  mischievous
Current Music: Wolfstone, "Bonnie Ship The Diamond"
Tags: wordplay
|
|
12:41 am
[Link] |
I feel GIPped!
New usericon! You may steal with credit.
Original source pic from here, which I figure icon make something else of.
Also, it's already seen its first use. Please don't hurt me.
Current Location: ~/brainstorm
Current Mood: mischievous
Current Music: Aerosmith, "Gotta Love It"
Tags: wordplay
|
|
05:17 pm
[Link] |
Quote of the moment
G: ... And when you impose "upgrades" along the same release.
G: (Vista Business -> Ultimate)
G: (Ultimate -> Bill Gates Best Buddy Forever Edition)
B: The biggest problem with that is; where do they go next? I mean, to exceed Vista BGBFF they'd have to do something like Vista: Masters of the Universe edition.
B: "By the power of bluescreen! I am ... E-Man!"
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Music: "A Violent Encounter," Kow Otani, SOTC OST
Tags: geekery, wordplay
|
|
01:27 pm
[Link] |
throwaway mini-rant
What is it about modern consumer operating systems that has cast the perfectly useful idea of "version number" into disfavor?
I mean, it's bad enough that Windows gave it up after Y2K ... ME, XP, and now Vista (née Longhorn, aka Aero).
... But Apple? Okay, seriously, guys: Enough is enough. Yes, the cat thing was cute. But it's overstayed its welcome. There's no logic to it, just cute, and cute isn't a good enough concept for things that are supposed to be released in a specific forward progression.
When even the people providing support for your products have to look it up -- and when virtually every customer with the OS refers to it with the more useful "OS 10.X" designation -- you need to give up the pretense.
I mean. Really:
Cheetah < Puma < Jaguar < Panther < Tiger < Leopard
Is that supposed to make any sort of sense?
(... Is that a value judgment on the worth of particular cat species? Are you oppressing my cheetah brethren?)
Not to mention, you're running out of cat names. What will you do then? Are we going to see the following releases in the next few years --
10.6 Lion
10.7 Ocelot*
10.8 The OS We Were Going To Name Lynx Except The Name's Been Taken
10.9 Colocolo
10.10 Margay, And We Promise We're Not Reaching
10.11 Asian Palm Civet, Which Is A Cat, We Swear!
10.13 Lion-O
10.12 Catwoman**
10.14 Tigatron
10.15 Garfield®
Please, stop. For the sake of the children, don't let it go that far.
--
EDITED TO ADD: Now with bonus tech support griping in the comments!
--
* Insert Metal Gear pun here. (Or just go read this excellent webcomic.)
** If you clicked through from there to the image of the comic book page, here is a better scan of the first frame. Yes, that really is Batman saying "Quiet or Papa spank!"***
*** Anyone willing to make a good LJ icon of this (probably involving Photoshopping it to cram the text closer in; and/or cutting it up into an animated GIF) will earn 20 Baxil Points, redeemable for fine Baxil merchandise at Baxils everywhere.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Music: Dandy Warhols, "Bohemian Like You"
Tags: technology, wordplay
|
|
05:27 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/18137843/240226) [Link] |
Good English, bad English
The Quotable Bax: "That's like a tree of making sense in a forest of missing the point."
-- me, to roaminrob, on something brain-dead a Washington Mutual support mook told him.
(I must be really on fire today. This comes only a few hours after my previous quip, and a day after the web 2.0 pun.)
--
The writer of this news story, N. Clark Judd, really ought to win some sort of award. The story itself ("Flaming squirrel ignites car in Bayonne") is awesome enough, but the story lede made me laugh out loud in that ow-painful sort of way.
Analysis: WIN.
--
This Is Why You Never Order Custom Cakes From WalMart. Money quote:
[H]e told them to write: “best wishes Suzanne” and underneath that write “we will miss you” ... [this is] the cake that was delivered.
Analysis: FAIL.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  quotable
Current Music: Annwn, "Triad"
Tags: wordplay
|
|
01:29 am
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/62507899/240226) [Link] |
A stray thought upon reading a lengthy Wikipedia comment thread at 2 AM
Welcome to Web 2.0, where history is written by the whiners.
Current Location: ~/laptop
Current Mood:  cynical
Current Music: Papaya, "Pink Dinosaur"
Tags: quotable, wordplay
|
|
10:08 pm
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/62025399/240226) [Link] |
I'm surprised more people haven't made this connection
"What will we do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Penny ... try to help Inspector Gadget!"
(*MUSIC STARTS*)
They're Penny and the Brain
Yes, Penny and the Brain
One's kinda furry,
the other's sorta plain
While Penny's fighting crime
She's captured all the time
... Then rescued
They're Penny and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain
When Gadget's note explodes
Right in Chief Quimby's face
These two go on the road
To save him from disgrace
They're Penny and The Brain
Yes, Penny and The Brain
Her e-book's arcane
He suffers lots of pain
When MAD unveils a plot
They'll give that cat what's what
'Til "next time!"
They're Penny and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Wowsers!
--
* Blame krinndnz, who is completely innocent, but who got me searching the web in the first place for a picture of the MAD Cat from Inspector Gadget. Then this idea got stuck in my head ... and wouldn't let go.
Current Mood: silly
Current Music: guess.
Tags: filk, lyrics, my brain now hurts, wordplay
|
[<< Previous 20 entries] |
