It's Been A Long, Long Time

OK, not that long.

Let me begin by getting some geeky stuff out of the way first. To wit:

His Highness, George Lucas, has released the opening crawl for Revenge of the Sith. For those too lazy to follow the link, here it is:

War! The Republic is crumbling under the attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere.

In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous, has swept into the republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate.

As the Separatist Droid Army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage, two Jedi Knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive Chancellor...

Firefox has surpassed 20 million downloads! I highly recommend that all Internet Exploder users go grab a copy. Not only will it make browsing easier, but it also goes a long way in avoiding spyware. Plus you can avoid being arrested for making a donation to a tsunami relief fund.

In geeky news closer to home, I’ve finally got my PC up and running again after having bought a new motherboard and CPU. The mobo has SATA if I should ever decide to go in that direction plus two USB 2.0 heads. It took me hours and hours but it’s all back to normal. Before I left for work, I had DC++ up and running with a couple shows downloading. One is a David Bowie gig recorded here in Madtown in October ’74 and some outtakes of Nirvana down at Smart Studios as they readied the material for Nevermind. I have also jumped on a couple weeks recently so I’ve got BURP29 on its way as well as Tull’s complete performance of Aqualung recorded in November in the studios of XM Radio. BURP is a remastering group for Genesis bootlegs. 29 is an audience recording from Leiden, Holland on May 20, 1978. The boys do “Down and Out” so I’m looking forward to eharing it. Thanks to Usenet, I now have the latest Doctor Who audio adventure, The Juggernauts. Haven’t listened to it yet, though. On a related note, BF (Big Finish – the folks who make the DW audio dramas) have started a series about the adventures of UNIT. They’re an earthbound organization in Doctor Who with the venerable Brigadier. The first of the series is Time Heals. Now I’m on the lookout for Her Final Flight and A Storm of Angles.

I’m all fired up because I got front row tickets for the Tempest show in Stoughton come April. I saw them in 1996 at The Chamber which is now the Opus Club or something similar. It went from a place where the gals at Pachinko shows could kick my ass to a place where the womyn can’t get through life without a cell phone and credit card. Progress! Why the band decided to play in Stoughton is beyond me. Yeah, the lead singer is Norwegian and Stoughton is populated by a bunch of Norwegians on LSD, but can one really expect buncha hicks to flock to the Stoughton Opera House for this? There had better be some publicity for this show soon. I'd swear that there’s a gig coming up next month that I wanna see but can’t remember what the hell it is. I do know that Porcupine Tree returns to the States in May in support of Deadwing and I’m psyched to see them again.

Things with The Dulcinea and I had been going alright until last night when she got all liquored up and wanted to see me. I, however, was ensconced in paperwork and drew her ire. It’s been a while since either of us had boy/girlfriend that we’re a bit rusty on the whole deal. Outside of this, it’s been good. Lots of sex, of course, which seems to get kinkier by the day. It’s ironic that, upon beginning to date earlier this month, we resolved to try to have a real relationship which involved more than sex yet sex has been the focus of our time together. Well, we’ll get used to the situation sooner or later.

I read a post up at the Isthmus forum about a new radio station in one of the Twin Cities that A) is not owned by Clear Channel and B) plays “real” “alternative” rock all the time. The author of the post pondered as to whether such an idea would fly here in Madison. Perhaps. But why the fuck would we want one? Between WORT and WSUM, I’m thinking we’ve got more than enough alternative rock on the airwaves to satisfy all the cynical hipsters in town. Some people in this city need to understand that there’s more good music in this world than rock and that just because some someone can play 3 chords and her band is on an independent label doesn’t automatically make the band any good.

Right now I’m listening to Meek’s Genesis Café. Meek is a guy in New York with a huge collection of Genesis boots and he webcasts on Friday evenings/nights. I requested “The Lady Lies” and it’s playing right now. I’d like to give it a try. I suppose I’ll have to check out Shoutcast. If I don’t go to Andy’s tonight to lose money playing poker, I may download it and see what it can do. Otherwise I’ve got to redo Severus and get ready for gaming tomorrow. The plot has unfolded and it’s quite a predicament we find ourselves in at the moment. We killed a priest of Shar named Keshaba so a couple priests were sent out to find us and avenge his death. Along the way, they ran into some illithids and came under their control. The priests were used by the illithids as they pillaged the land. Then they found the lair of a white dragon. One of the priests found a potent magic item and the minions of Shar escaped. Meanwhile we killed some, if not all, of the dragon's progeny. And so we have these priests after us to avenge the death of one of their own, a dragon wanting to avenge the death of its children, and some angry illithids who want us as we double-crossed them. We have to escape death from folks out for revenge, recover the magic object, and, as always, avoid orcs coming in from the north. It’ll be amusing.