Archive for October, 2005

Photoshop Saturday

Monday, October 31st, 2005

(21:03:24) DavTheGook: http://flickr.com/photos/mterry/57211182/
(21:03:29) DavTheGook: you wanna do a photoshop saturday?
(21:03:35) DavTheGook: cuz I think mikix needs to be a rocker
(21:07:05) JakeTwo3: yes.

The original:
To quote Mikix’s flickr account, “Nothing Says Metal Like Pink.” Indeed. As soon as I saw this picture I wondered what he would look like if he were actually metal. Fortunately, The Gimp gives me the power to see for myself.

My version:
I went for more of a rebellious punk rock angle.

Jake’s version:
He went for more of a ridiculous glam rock angle.

I’m told the inspiration for Jake’s entry was Dee Snider of Twisted Sister.
Also: Holy crap, Mikix is hot when he’s a rebel.

Posted in Photoshopping | 4 Comments »

Seven Wishes

Friday, October 28th, 2005

I am now listening to another song, Seven Wishes, by Night Ranger — best band name ever, by the way — and I am convinced the song is about nethack. Even the name Night Ranger is sort of nethackesque.

To analyze the chorus:

Rise to the sun with seven wishes
Will you turn into stone with seven wishes
And your eyes on the run with seven wishes
Seven wishes

First of all, seven is the number of wishes you get from a fully charged wand of wishing (3 to start, 3 from a blessed scroll of charging, and 1 last wish that turns the wand to dust.) The phrase “rise to the sun” is a clear reference to ascension. A somewhat popular choice for a wish in nethack is wishing for a blessed cockatrice corpse, and the inherent dangers of doing so clearly correspond to the question “Will you turn into stone with seven wishes”. I think “eyes on the run” might refer to the “run” back up the dungeon from the bottom once you have the Amulet of Yendor, always keeping an eye out for the Wizard of Yendor showing up to piss you off.

The song was released in 1985. The first version of nethack was released in 1984. Coincidence? I think not! The band members must have been addicted to the game while they were working on their latest album.

I don’t really believe any of this.

Posted in Music, Overanalyzation | No Comments »

Switchblade Serenade

Friday, October 28th, 2005

I was doing a search on the internet today to try to find lyrics to the song Switchblade Serenade by the band Spread Eagle. With numerous sites like lyrics.com, lyricsworld.com, lyricsfreak.com, azlyrics.com… (etc)… you’d think someone would have the lyrics to this song on their website. You can probably see where this is going. Suffice to say, these lyrics do not exist anywhere on the entire internet.

This is not an obscure song. If I recall correctly, it was released in 1990 and the band made a music video for it shortly after.

I did manage to find chunks of the song in one location. [ http://adultfan.nexcess.net/aff/story.php?no=544183567 ] (Update: Link broken) Yes, adult fan fiction. I didn’t really read any of the story itself, but scattered in bold throughout it, for some reason, are some of the lyrics from Switchblade Serenade. This is the best the internet had to offer.

In case you’re interested, I have the song available for download here.
( WARNING: TOTALLY AWESOME HAIR METAL )

Posted in Music | 3 Comments »

185

Thursday, October 13th, 2005
185 people have already done it!
Why haven’t you?
Join the Holloway Commons team today!

This is a sign that was on all the tables at the dining hall here at UNH today. Now, I’m no marketing genius, but it seems to me like 185 is an insufficient number to start applying peer pressure. If the logic here is “185 people have done X, therefore so should you!”… well I’m pretty sure at least 185 people have had sex with goats. Perhaps a more logical view is that they’re only considering the UNH student body, since the advertisement is only aimed at students, in which case they’re saying 185 people out of 5000(?). Which is a bit of a more reasonable percentage, even though not all of those 185 people are students themselves. Still though, 185 people have joined frats. 185 people have failed a class.

I guess the point of this post is that the fact that a group of people does something is not justification for doing it.

Posted in Random Stuff | No Comments »

Low Job Security

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

So, I’m driving to Dover today, and I pass by a construction area. They’re repaving the road or something. This process takes up one of the lanes of the (two lane) road, meaning traffic from both directions has to travel along a single lane for a while. In order to warn oncoming drivers of this, they had a man standing there holding a wooden pole with an orange “SLOW” sign on it. As I passed him by, all I could think was “This guy must feel incredibly insecure in his job, knowing that at any moment he could be replaced by the ground.” Then, as I pass out of the construction area, I see another guy holding the same sign on the other side of the area to the traffic coming in the opposite direction. Holy crap, I hope I’m not paying for these guys with my taxes.

Posted in Random Stuff | 2 Comments »