I've lost myself in a daze of nostalgia over the last month, and one of the worst things I have done was digging up the journal I kept from the end of my senior year at high school to the start of my sophomore year in college. It was originally intended as a repository of story ideas, but quickly devolved into a collection of keenings about women; rereading it now, I'm glad of this, as the story ideas are often banal but the keening is top-quality. I was surprised to see, though, several mentions of a song I hadn't listened to since 1990. I discovered "Six O'Clock" on a crappy Hollywood Records compilation cassette of the Lovin' Spoonful, and I fixated on it as the perfect accompaniment for a life then composed mostly of infatuation and regret.

I'm sure the tape has long since disintegrated, but I found a torrent of what seems to be the complete discography of the Spoonful, or at least those bits of their career before John Sebastian departed. I've been known to buy CDs for a single song, but this is the first time I've ever downloaded 257 megabytes for a two-and-three-quarters minute song. Right now I think it was worth it, but I'll let you be your own judge.

The Lovin' Spoonful -- "Six O'Clock" (MegaUpload.com).
I own too many DVDs. Now when I say that I own too many DVDs, I do not mean that I have so many that there's no space for family members or oxygen, that I've spent more on DVDs than some small nations spend on defense, like some people. What I do mean is that I have managed to acquire more DVDs than I've made time to watch. I haven't even torn the shrink-wrap off of (an example I'm loathe to name in these surroundings) some of the earlier seasons of Angel. I am trying slowly to rectify this, but it's daunting, and to make sure the ladder in this hole I've dug goes up rather than down I had sworn not to buy any more new box sets until I'd watched them all, or the second season of Hill Street Blues was released, or Barnes & Noble had another buy-two-get-the-third-free sale, whichever came first. [livejournal.com profile] scrollgirl tempted me the other day when she mentioned that Amazon had Veronica Mars for thirty dollars, but I was stalwart, I was stern, I was strong. I maintained my purity in the face of that temptation. But how could I walk the narrow path of chastity when it led down the aisle of my local Target? And there it was: Veronica Mars, season one, twenty-two dollars and ninty-nine cents. I could not resist, and I snatched those DVDs like Strom Thurmond meeting the Gamecocks cheerleaders

I wasn't embarrassed by my slip of sobriety, in fact I was quite proud, and I may have crowed about it a little at checkout.

Target clerk: Eeeee! I love Veronica Mars! How much is it?
[livejournal.com profile] dherblay: Only $22.99!
Target clerk: I have to get this! Is this the first season? It is the first season. I need the second season sooooo baaaaaddd. I haven't seen it in so long. When's the second season coming out?
[livejournal.com profile] dherblay: Hey, they still have to show the final episode first Tuesday night. They'll probably bring out the DVDs on Wednesday, but they have to show the final episode on Tuesday first.
Target clerk: I have to work Tuesdays and I was so mad when they moved from Wednesdays to Tuesdays. I love Veronica!

Of course, I may not pull the shrink-wrap off these just yet -- I've still got last Tuesday's on my hard drive unwatched -- but I've started to think of my DVD collection as a hedge against a future apocalypse in which we have plenty of electricity and leisure time but no access to bit torrent.
I haven't gotten around to watching last night's Veronica Mars yet -- the torrent was so long in being uploaded that only my continued jet lag and circadian displacement woke me at the wee hour just before it was posted -- but I have watched last week's. And if you've watched last week's, you really, really must download this torrent and see the episode's breath-taking alternate ending.

Back GIPped

Aug. 9th, 2005 01:56 am
I haven't done one of those gratuitous icon posts for a while, having spent very little time making icons recently (though more time making icons than updating my LJ). Here are a few userpics I've made in the last few months.

The strange thing is I didn't even have to download this episode to get the screencap:



"Hey Sweetheart! Whatcha got in that Poodle Gun? Anything for me?"



Using VirtualDub (as opposed to ActualDub) to grab frames of animation has made me respect how much animators rely on loops of sometimes as few as four repeated frames; imitation is one of the more sincere forms of respect.



Comics are even easier to screencap than television!



(In the original it's "I'm afraid I can't understand a word you're saying . . . I don't speak Fascist" which has a devastating power I can't fit into that little word balloon.)

And, finally, a caduceus!



That leaves two slots open. Maybe I'll figure out how to make borders before I've filled my allotment.
Got it.

Marking time at 12:33 am.

Also, one seed and 185 leeches on the torrent of tonight's Battlestar Galactica. It is, I suppose, unlikely that I'll finish reading the novel before I'm done downloading the show.

(Update: BSG finished in 4 hours, 36 minutes. After 5:48 I'm on page 460.)
I like to think that I'm up on my stereotyping, but having just, due to some positive reviews and a chance link, impulsively downloaded Sunday's Simpsons, I was quite surprised to hear Lisa insinuate that Ethiopian restaurants are notorious lesbian pick-up joints. You know, in all the times I've eaten in Ethiopian restaurants, I had never noticed.

I'm having quite a lot of fun with BitTorrent. It has had one unintended consequence, though: I've been so conscientious about seeding that I haven't turned off my laptop for three days. And this sucker gets hot. Last night, I ended up taking both the battery and the CD-ROM drive out and leaving the computer upside-down so it wouldn't burn out while running all night.

(Apparently, I am the sort of person who has no compunctions about violating Time Warner's copyrights, but feels painfully guilty if I do not get my share ratios up to 1.000.)

My BitTorrent binge was occasioned, by my intent to get caught up with Justice League, and I can for once claim that I've seen every episode factored into the arc of Sunday's "The Doomsday Sanction." Watching the watchmen? It seems the government has just finally cottoned on that Superman is a dick. (Via Avedon Carol. Several of these covers have been bouncing around the internet for a while, but isolated, individual, they lack a certain cumulative force. I could not stop laughing during the run of eight classic Batmans starting here, but my absolute favorite must be this.)
I finally put my bittorrent client to the purpose for which it was downloaded and have been watching the sublime second season of Justice League. This leads me to a technical question and an impractical thought. First, for those who frequently download torrents, what download speeds are you getting? I understand that this differs from torrent to torrent, and obviously would have to directly relate to the speed of one's connection. Secondly, for those who are fans of Justice League Spoilers for "Twilight," "Only a Dream," "Starcrossed" ).
Away in Michigan, missing tabbed browsing and absolutely frustrated with the glacial loadings of Internet Explorer on my mom's cast-off old PowerBook, I decided to start using Camino, which had been installed but largely left fallow, instead. It's like Firefox for Macs! Except that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to set Camino so that my home page brings up multiple tabs. Anyone out there have any idea?

Also, while I'm obsequing, [livejournal.com profile] lynnmonster? I finally watched Full Metal Alchemist on Saturday like you asked all that time ago, and I'm afraid I might have been hooked, though lost. Any chance you could whip up some VCDs?
Can anyone tell me whether or not a new Angel will be shown on the 26th? Or is "Destiny" the last episode of the sweeps period?

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