deviantART: by:rokujolady

deviantART: by:rokujolady http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:rokujolady&section=today deviantART RSS for by:rokujolady en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:12:26 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png Long Time No See http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/17725070/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/17725070/ Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:33:15 PDT
]]> ~rokujolady Holy Crap. I'm ALIVE http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/12712302/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/12712302/ Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:16:53 PDT And it's been like a year since I posted on here.
In fact, I just got through doing my taxes...Again. Not much has happened in the last year. Oh yeah. I got a boyfriend. That's why I've been neglecting my former concubines...the internets and art projects. And I'm still working on Expansion packs. I work on a game that's actually good. I can say that.
Anyway, now for some random links to wierdness.
Anyway, I'm listening to the new Harvey Danger album, which kicks ASS, and can be obtained at their site for free.
Harvey Danger!
[link]
My favourite band for snarky smartass lyrics. They had a hit which was popular when I was in high school called Flagpole Sitta...."Paranoia, paranoia everyone is comming to get me, just say you never have met me..." Yeah. You know it.
Tudor Bonnets!
[link]
OOOH. I'm going to make my own tudor gabled headdress so I can dress up like Catherine of Aragon! I'm not even into rennaisance faires. Does the fact that I think this is awesome mark me as a dork?
Sadism
[link]
The most sadistic mario level ever. I like the part where he goes down the pipe.
MEATS!
[link]
I'm in this group where we eat cheap vietnamese food and japanese candies with provocative names and then draw pictures that don't make all that much sense. I'm one of two people who doesn't do anime here. Although everyone who does do anime in this group does it really well. Prepare to be bewildered and frightened. Some of this is NSFW.
And last but not least:
Regular Gonzales
[link]
One of my coworkers made this album in a month. I think that every single nerd can relate to the song "Everything I know about Vikings." Instant classic.

PS. It occurred to me that either there's a bug on this page or my HTML knowledge is horribly outdated. Maybe both. So I've given the full urls above if the links don't work.

]]> ~rokujolady In-Jokes Among Geeks http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/9032913/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/9032913/ Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:01:02 PDT [link])) I was sitting at my desk when one of the programmers sitting next to me found a stupid mistake and started singing "I am so smart. S-M-R-T"
Being a smartass, I piped up with: "You spelled that wrong!"
The entire row of cubes went silent. The guy on my right was looking at me like I was from Mars.
The first guy finally says: "That was from the Simpsons."
"Well, EXCUSE ME. I've only seen about 800 of the million Simpsons episodes."
And it has occured to me that even though nerds come in all shapes, colours and backgrounds, they are united by a base of common knowledge which is expressed via In-Jokes. If you make a joke on one of these topics, you can be part of the club.
So, In the spirit of Sei Shonagon ([link]) who liked to write lists of trivial but entertaining things (her list of "things that are cute" is pretty universal, even today), I present to you: List of In-Joke topics among geeks. Specifically, the species found in the game industry.

-Simpsons
-Star Wars
-Ninjas vs Pirates.
-Corrolary to pirates: Monkey Island
(Am I the ONLY person out there who thought this game was stupid? ANYBODY? ANYBODY ELSE?)
-The Big Lebowski
-Linux
-Programming Jokes (obviously)
-Cthulhu (Cthulhu is pretty sweet. I'll admit)
-Monty Python. Monty Python & the Holy Grail seems to be the fave.
-Tongue in Cheek Fantasy Movies:
-----Princess Bride
-----Labyrinth
-Internet Phenomena Jokes
-----"I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!"
-----Snakes on a Plane
-----Strongbad. (See Monkey Island Comment)
-Fight Club
-Lord of the Rings (See programming jokes comment.)
-Wrath of Khan ("Khaaaannnnn")
-Superheroes, but only some:
-----Spiderman
-----X Men
-Family Guy*
-Star Trek, more specifically the quote "Make it So"*
-The occasional l33tspeak. (My all time fave is "WTFPWN")
-Southpark ("They took eer jahbs!")

Expect this list to get longer as I think about it.

*Yay, hot community lovin'! ]]> ~rokujolady Complaint du Jour http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/8484943/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/8484943/ Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:25:49 PDT So...isn't our big misslve against (sorta)socialist economies (ie. a lot of europe) that they pay a through the nose in income tax?
I don't even get universal healthcare or the prospect of a decent social security cheque when I'm a geriatric! What's the deal with that?
I guess all this money goes towards neat, expensive things, which only indirectly benefit myself.
Eh, I can't complain too much. You get used to getting the money taken out of your paycheck, so when you get your tax return it's like WOW! FREE MONEY!
Maybe I'll invest that in a car so I can take advantage of the roads that apparently soak up a good percent of my income.
Speaking of things that my tax dollars are paying for instead of universal healthcare...

***VOTING in the CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL (Based entirely on two campaign ads, one of which pisses me off slightly less)***

I used to think Californians were the zenith of stupid for electing Arnie. He never has acted like he has much of a clue in politics (or anything, really, though part of that might just be the accent), and for God's sake...he played CONAN.
But, God help me, I'm going to vote for him in the next election if it comes down to Arnie versus Westley. Westley suffers from the same overload of liberal saccharine that John Edwards did. "Oooooh. I taught at stanford, and touched was touched by my students through education."
Yeah. I know Ivy League Professors. He lectured a room of 300 students twice a week and looked like he'd rather be smeared with honey and burried in an anthill.
His ads claim he sued dubya over offshore drilling. All this says to me is that Westley is yet another litigation-happy Californian. Californians like suing more than people in third-world countries like soccer. Pointless litigation is the state passtime, but that's another rave.
Also, from his TV ads, his platform seems to be "I'll deliver the moon for free." Always a bad sign.
So, in the end, you have the choice of an a) proven bastard with lovable accent or b) tree-hugging-litigation-loving bastard pretending not to be a bastard.
Who would you choose? ]]> ~rokujolady Confessions of an Ex-Pirate http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/8212603/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/8212603/ Mon, 20 Mar 2006 01:41:06 PST About a month ago, I was cleaning out my closet when I found a folder full of movies that I'd burnt to CD in college. And I thought: "You know what? I don't need this anymore." And I threw the whole thing away. Looking through it, I realized that I owned most of the movies on DVD now, and the ones I didn't I'd just watched once and never intended to watch again, anyway. Slowly, surely, I've started to become an upstanding member of the digital community. When my ipod decided that it hated me and wanted to delete all my songs, I didn't bother finding them again on bit torrent. I just popped up itunes and bought the ones I'd enjoyed the most.
Don't get me wrong. I've been pirating since I owned a computer. My first experience was in sixth grade, trying to copy "Lemmings" from a disk that my friend had loaned me to my hard drive. I looked over my shoulder nervously for the rest of the day, just knowing that the FBI knew what I was doing and was going to break down the door and drag me off in chains like the dirty pirate I was. I remember furiously trying to drag audio file icons off of a cd onto my parents' Windows 3.1 desktop.
"Why the hell isn't this copying!"
"Maybe I should try it again. Drag. Drop."
"DAMMIT, I still have to have the cd in to listen!"
But, I've started to notice a trend in my own piracy: the pirated media somehow feels cheap. I didn't do anything to get it, so what should I care if I accidentally delete it? I didn't pay anything for this game...why should I bother to spend a lot of time playing it. These movies are silver CDs that say "Staples". It's not like I can display them proudly on my shelf or anything.
I also noticed that the sort of movies I downloaded were, for the most part, not movies that were really worth owning. I knew they were poor quality, and they weren't good enough for me to care that they were poor quality. I pirated stuff like "Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke" and "Event Horizon". I didn't pirate anything that would have been amazing and worth the money to be seen in the theatre, and stuff I pirated that I liked, I ended up buying.
This all leads to the conclusion that if there are other people like me, there are plenty of casual pirates who would be willing to buy movies, music, and games, if media was produced that was compelling enough to warrant being seen on the big-screen, played in surround sound, or displaying proudly in the box on your shelf. People buy stuff that is original, that stands out in their minds. They pirate things they view as "easy come, easy go."
People pirate media that they think is disposable. Stop creating disposable media, cookie cutter games, movies that lose nothing in low res (because there's nothing to lose), cds with one good song, and people will fork over their fifteen, thirty or fifty dollars for your product.

So now that I've confessed to my former life of sin, I'm sure that there is a record exec slinking in the shadows like Snideley Whiplash, ready to sue me for all I'm worth, and all the time, sermonizing about the set-hand who died from starvation last year because of my filthy ways, and of the orphan boom-boy who died, cold in the street because he couldn't afford a coat. Because of piracy.
I have no sympathy for Music, Film, and Game Companies when it comes to piracy. Sure, my views have changed a little because I've grown up, and also because I know how much work goes into producing even the crappiest of media But companies need to stop treating the symptoms and treat the cause of piracy, which is high prices, and content that people view as disposable.
The year there are no sequels of dramatizations of seventies tv shows is the year piracy gets blown out of the water.
And it'll also be a cold day in hell. ]]> ~rokujolady What the Hell, Man? http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7939005/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7939005/ Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:05:53 PST Both are probably true.
And it is really mind boggling that people are dying in these riots. People are dying for cartoons. Sure, the cartoons are of Mohammed, but they're CARTOONS. With all the things that are drastically wrong with life in the middle east: the fact that you can't pull into a parking lot without getting a mirror shoved under your car to look for bombs, the fact that every fifth car on the street is a wagonload of military personnel, the fact that people live in houses without roofs because a tax loophole made it so you don't have to pay property tax on a roofless building, the fact that 2% of the population lives in palaces and everyone else lives in said roofless houses and or sends their men to work in some other country's palaces to send home a few extra dollars a month, that if you were hot to die for a cause, you could find something more worthwhile to die for than FRIKIN' CARTOONS. Rioting in the streets because the US just dropped a bomb on your sister's wedding? Sure. That's an east/west clash that might merit rioting. Firing Kalashnikovs in the air and yelling "DEATH TO ISRAEL"? Yeah. Sure. If I hang upside down and let all the blood rush to my head until I see fireworks and my vision spins, that one starts to make a little sense, too. But CARTOONS?
I agree: the west doesn't understand Islam. We equate it with violence and terrorism, and that's a bad thing, but is it so hard to see that killiing people over this misconception is never going to do anything to change minds in the west? You can't say "Islam is not terror" and then yell "Those cartoonists must be beheaded for shaming the sacred name of Mohammed."
My only explanation for this is that there ARE so many things wrong with life in the middle east, and people know that they can't really do anything about most of it without getting smacked down by their own country. It's like the China -> Japan riots about a year ago. Chinese people are angry, and they can't riot about anything pertinent to their current lives because they'll get run over by tanks, so they riot about the one thing that the government will just sit back and smile about (and maybe encourage a little), their dead grandfather's brutalization at the hands of the dead grandfather of someone in Japan. In the middle east they can rally in defence of the one thing that transcends government and daily life: religion. But even that seems a little silly if you think about it. I mean, who are we to even try to psychoanalyze these people.
Eh. I understand nothing.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7814698/ Mon, 06 Feb 2006 00:28:23 PST
-Kimekomi doll number two will be finished in about a week provided I don't break anything.
-Am doing a new box like the one with the characters from Snow Queen, only with pictures from George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. I'm doing it in inks and watercolours, like Join, so it's going comming along really slowly. Probably another week or two.
-Am reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion, and I want to draw a shrike. Seriously, the shrike's badassness is rivaled only by Muad 'dib, and that's worthy of a drawing of some sort.
-Kimekomi doll #3 is also in the works. So exciting, I know.
-Also may scan some weird crap I found while fishing for an ethernet cord in my closet. Every trip in there is like a little adventure.

So stay tuned!

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7766459/ Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:51:57 PST I'm reminded of Mappo whenever I hear some old fogey (or condescending younger fogey) go off on "the youth of today." The youth of today have no values. American traditions are dying because the youth of today don't value their identities (as white americans, I can only gather) and their traditions. The youth of today have no work ethic, no sense of familial duty, no desire to nurture future generations.
Hell, the youth of today are screwing in the streets, and they're blowing eachother's brains out!
But you know, your grandparents' generation said that about your parents' generation, and your grandma's Victorian mother saw your grandma in that flapper dress and went into the sort of hysterical fits that only Victorian women could have. Just like the heian parents tsk-tsked their children. "We never behaved that way when WE were younger." Mappo.
But there never was a golden past. When we're older, our pasts are going to be tainted with nostalgia. We're going to associate the world of our youth with our own innocence and turn a blind eye to the ugly glory of the way things REALLY were.
Sure, the youth of yesteryear probably didn't shoot eachother up at school, but the youth of today don't frequent opium dens, and the english-schoolboy bullies of Pink Floyd fame have given way to different social pressures entirely.
The nature of humanity never changes. There are always going to be bad eggs in every generation, there are always going to be crappy parents. There are always going to be rebellious, disatisfied teens, who find some violent, destructive way to express themselves. (which seem to take different forms in each generation) And parents need to remember that when they think of the Golden Past.
Because there IS no Golden Past. While the world, and how we live in it are constantly changing, people stay the same as they always have been. Emotions, psychology, the nuances of parenting. They're all the same as they were in the Heian period. And they aren't about to change. ]]> ~rokujolady "I've got you where I want you... http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7662527/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7662527/ Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:33:06 PST
Like a bad booger joke, we keep hearing from Osama binLaden and his nefarious cohorts. I was reading about his latest offer of a "truce" and appeal to the American people protesting against the Iraq war.
OF COURSE,
This is going to give Bush leverage against anyone complaining against the war (If Osama wants you to protest the war, then we must have done the right thing by starting it in the first place.)
Analysts are saying that Osama thinks he can push America around like he can get push Europe around by offering a fake truce. I wonder why, when anyone talks about justification to the "war on terror", that the conversation inevitably reverts to Europeans being pansies? In my mind, insulting others is the recourse of a nation that is not sure that it should be doing what it is doing.
But anyay, that's off topic. The crux of the biscuit is that "Analysts" are stupid.
Osama is playing the Bushies like a "Harp from Hell". He has nothing to lose by offering a fake truce. Contrary to what the so called experts beleive, he knows damn well that the Bush admin will never take him up on his offer. He's always known this. He's always known that Americans are going to do the exact opposite of what he tells them to, because he knows that to us, he's Satan incarnate. He's counting on it. And he has counted on it in all his previous addresses. And because he knows that the Bushies will never accept, he's offered peace. In his mind, and in the minds of disaffected young muslims, he's justifying all future actions of Al Qaeda in the war. "Well, we offered them peace and they threw it in our faces."
So I'm in favour of throwing Osama off guard. Let's line up behind the Cindy Sheehans and do what Osama tells us but really doesn't want us to do. Let's stop stomping on bees nests in other parts of the world, stop fattening up Osama's ranks with more disaffected Muslim youth, and put all those resources into our homeland security. Let's take our toys and go home and make sure Osama does likewise. It's not appeasement, it's looking out for what's best for Americans.
That's a little idealistic and simple. But let's stop pretending Osama doesn't understand Americans or America's involvement in the middle east. Let's stop looking at him like a transparent villain in a disney movie. He's a complicated and intelligent man. And he's sucessfully playing Bush off against America. ]]> ~rokujolady Give the Geisha Back Their Pompadours! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7350489/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7350489/ Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:20:36 PST I tried to explain to her that my thoughts about the programming on Satan's Liebox and "How Hot Cedric Bixler Zavala from At the Drive In Is" (Haven't written that one yet, actually...next time I go drinking. Promise.) isn't NOTHING. It's the fibre that ties together my existence.
(Actually, it is just me pratting on about nothing because I like to spout off into cyberspace. And I like to read it when I spout off into cyberspace.)
On a totally different thread (my mind IS multithreaded), there are two movies that I am going to end up boycotting, even though deep down I really want to march on down to the theatre, cough up 9 bucks, and whore myself out to the glowing screen of overcommercialized Hollywood melodrama and packaged morality. Since I only intend to prat on for half a page this time (prat withdrawal is a process...it takes time) I'll get to the point here. I can't see Memoirs of a Geisha because of the hair. Not because the actresses are Chinese and Malaysian, not because even I with my limited Japanese movieviewing experience could come up with some JAPANESE acresses who could go well in those parts. (That girl who played Gogo in Kill Bill as Hatsumomo, for example. We've seen from Kill Bill and Battle Royale that she has "murderous bitch" down to an art form.), and not because they all speak English with an accent that is what Americans think that Japanese who don't speak Engrish should sund rike, but because of the frickin' hairdos!!!!!
Now this might seem stupid, but if you are going to have "period sets" (of the plastic snowglobe variety, apparently), and if you are going to have "period costumes", you would want to have period hair, RIGHT?! Apparently not. I was reading the photobook for Memoirs, and apparently, the hairstylist wanted something like "Geisha meets French Couture". Excuse me? Their hardos are buns with chopsticks in them! And "french couture" in a movie about Taisho Japan? That's like making a movie based on the Illiad with an ancient greek setting and GIVING PARIS A CELL PHONE! I don't know about you, but if I were watching the Illiad, and Paris' phone went off during a Trojan Battle playing "Fur Elise" it would really kill any involvement I had with the movie.
Now, if this were the faroff past, and speculation was required, this would be excusable. But there are an excess of photographs of real geisha, courtesans, and japanese women from this period. So what is wrong with giving them the hair that they were always meant to have?!
Just for reference: Here's a real maiko from the Late Meiji, early Taisho period.
[link]

Memoirs of a Geisha Geisha
[link]

Isn't that just a buzzkill? I read the book and absolutely loved it, so it's not surprizing that I'm not going to see the movie's bastardization of the book.

Other movie I'm not seeing is...drumroll....NARNIA, but more on that some other time, because I have a nasty week at work this week, and I'm moving! All two days before Christmas! And a Merry one to YOU! ]]> ~rokujolady Watching TV with Rokujolady http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7059796/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/7059796/ Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:59:53 PST I'm a little too cheap to get cable, and I know that if I did, I'd have to sacrifice two hours every night to adult swim. And then I'd really never get anything done. Like last summer, the place we lived in was right on an intersection at the end of a major road and there was some confusion on the part of, say the phone company and the cable company as to whether our address really existed or not.
"Where do you live maam?"
"28 Harding Street"
"I'm not seeing number 28. I'm seeing number 29."
"Well, It's right on the corner."
"I can't find 28, maam."
"Well, we're getting electricity, we're just not getting the bills..."
So yeah. The guy who lived there before us cancelled his cable service...and the cable guy must have gotten lost or something, becuase we got FREE cable all summer. And I watched adult swim waaay too much.
Tangent aside though, I sprung for the very cheapest set of rabbit ears, and I get five channels: The 24 Hour CSI channel (except when you actually want to watch CSI, which is when they put on something lame like "Will and Grace.") Warner Brothers, which is channel twenty-something, and I can't count that high so I never watch the WB, Telemundo, and the 1980's Japanese Sitcom channel which comes in the very best. And oh yeah. I get Fox. For when Will and Grace is on.
The biggest TV watching mistake I've made was watching numb3rs. I go into shows like "Super Nanny" or "Trading Spouses" thinking they're going to be trashy, and like the movie Alien vs Predator, they're unashamedly trashy to the point of being very entertaining. Numb3rs is just indescribably Lame. It was like the creators thought: "Let's make something like Mathnet", and didn't figure out that the reason Mathnet was great was because a) most people who watched it were in elementary school and b) it never took itself serioiusly. Numb3rs is too serious to appeal to those of us who associate Mathnet with being a kid, and two adult for people who actually are Kids. Therefore, it just ends up being embarrassingly LAME. But then again, that was apparent from the clever substitution 3 for E in the name. Get it? A number, in a show called NUMBERS? HOT DAMN!
I usually end up watching CSI, or CSI NY or CSI Kathmandu: the plot is always the same...guy gets murdered, and you can tell if they've found the right killer by how many minutes are left in the show.
I really can't watch CSI Miami because that golden boy who is the lead detective peeves me. Especially when he delivers the inevitable moral message.
"If you watch porn, you're endorsing paedophilia. You may also become a stalker."
"If you smoke pot, some small child will end up getting murdered by a drug lord because of you."
I used to watch Close to Home every once in a while too, until I caught on that every episode was going to have to end with the touching domestic scene where the heroine shows us that we need to treasure our family.
Man, if I wanted someone to tell me the difference between right and wrong I certainly wouldn't be watching the damn TV I watch TV to be entertained and to have my brain turned to Jelly by insipid yet catchy melodramas. I watch TV to see people do dumb and rotten things to eachother and then laugh at them.
Which brings me to the only non-[adult swim] show that is worth watching.
House on Fox.
It's like CSI, only instead of a crime lab it's a hospital and without the lame cg clips or the pop-music shooting-autopsy montages. And instead of being a moralizing wank, the lead is a doctor who is a complete bastard to everyone. He talks down to his colleagues, he mouths off at the patients. Every once in a while he'll say something that's less mean and it will make you feel warm and happy inside in a way that CSI never can. Sometimes, the patients even die at the end. But there's never a moral to the story, and you can rely on House to be a complete asshole in the next episode.
Tuesdays used to suck: On monday you're ready to get back to work, wednesday means the week's half over. Thursday--tomorrow's friday and Friday...well come on, they have donuts in the office kitchen. But watching House be a total bastard with no strings attatched makes Tuesdays far less bleak.

[This was tongue in cheek with a dash of serious opinion, in case you were wondering]

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/6401041/ Fri, 02 Sep 2005 21:33:23 PDT Anyway, I just read in the news that that some researchers in the UK have hypothesized that Mad Cow Disease came from people originally....it's always been a human disease. It jumped into cows due to the hindu practice of tossing half-cremated human bodies into the Ganges river....and the cattle food supply got contaminated via the water supply. Don't really know if this is the other critters that drank from the ganges that got ground up into cow food, or that the cow-food processing plant was using Ganges water.
Anyway, that makes a wierd sort of sense. Because CJD and Mad Cow Disease aren't caused by viruses, they're caused by Prions. Prions are proteins that are twisted the wrong way....they don't really infect cells and reproduce like viruses do. They twist up good proteins that are naturally in your brain..and these proteins in turn twist up other good proteins, causing the holes in brain tissue that give Spongiform Encephalitis its name.
A prion closely related to the prion that causes Mad cow disease causes Kuru, a disease that was fairly limited to certain tribes in Papua New Guinnea. The transmission of Kuru baffled scientists. It wasn't sexually transmitteed or transmitted via blood or bodily fluids.
Kuru is caused by ingesting the brain of someone infected with Kuru. The women of these tribes would mash the brain and then cook it and eat it. However,because of the altitude of the Papuan highlands, the brain wouldn't get hot enough to degrade the prion proteins.
With the intrusion of western culture and religions (and the discovery that Kuru was caused by cannibalism), these cultures eventually abandoned that particular ceremony.
As a result, Kuru, at least in humans, is a thing of the past.
It seems logical in the context of Kuru, that CJD also originated in humans.
It's kind of a chicken and an egg thing: which got CJD first? The cow or the human?
WHO THE HELL CARES?!
I HAVE HOLES IN MY BRAIN!

~rokujolady The Man: Addendum http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/6383269/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/6383269/ Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:00:48 PDT Anyway, the Adobe office is the biggest honkin' office building I have ever seen. Three skyscrapers arranged in a triangle with a glass bridge connecting them on the thirtieth floor...anyone else wonder where the 800 bucks you spend on photoshop goes? That's right. Eight hundred bucks. (But then you guys all knew that, all having totally legit copies of Adobe products). I look on ebay, and PHOTOSHOP 6 is going for 100 dollars. Satan will wear ski-boots before I pay that much money for used, obsolete software.
So, though I have an intense respect for software developers, the building has forced me to the following conclusion:
Adobe is the Man.
So stick it to the man and download the gimp.

PS. For those of you who didn't read Drama/Aftermath when I first stuck it up, you now have a second chance. I've posted Version 2.0 Along with a picture that should show up--eventually.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5918194/ Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:02:47 PDT When I try to assign a definite identity to The Man, I get this pang of guilt as I am reminded (through the eloquent lyrics of Maynard James Keenan from Tool) that we are all, in some way, the Man. But Maynard's opinion aside, some of us are more "Man" than others.
Now, I have nothing against those who have "Sold out to the Man". Most of them are just honest blokes trying to make a living, trying to put some food on the tables for their families.More honest than a lot of people who use "Not selling out to the man" as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. You can't begrudge anyone an honest dinner. The Man puts food on a lot of people's tables, which (I guess) means that he's giving a little back to society.
Buuut, in the name of public interest, I'd like to put the identity of the Man out there. If you happen to work for the man, well, "The Truth will Set you Free."
If you are on any of the following boards of directors, you are The Man.

The RIAA
Pfizer
Dell
Merck
Disney
BMG Records
The MPAA
Capitol Records
Paramount Pictures
Halliburton
Goldmann-Sachs
GAP/Old Navy/Banana Rep.
Walmart.
Microsoft
Merck
Merck
Merck
Pfizer
Pfizer
RIAA
The Movie Studio Which Put out Another Frickin' War of the Worlds in Favour of Going out on a Limb and Doing Something Creative For Once Damn You Hollywood.

PS. I've written a continuation to dance macabre. I'd love it if you read it and told me what you think. I got pretty involved in writing it.

~rokujolady Music: Why must it be so painful? http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5303885/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5303885/ Sun, 08 May 2005 16:14:48 PDT

Today's topic: "Music: why must it be so painful?"
On the insistence of a friend, I decided to go to Yahoo Launch and watch some music videos....heck, I only have to study for a Virology test that I ABSOLUTELY-MUST-PASS (so it's not like I had anything better to do).
Granted, my tour-de-top-forty was a little biased, but I USED to think the top forty was terrible.
Now I realize the truth. You see, five+ years ago, when I was of the top forty listening age, music was merely mediocre. It was bad, but had a tune. It tried not to tread on anyone's toes.
FAST FORWARD: Now, the top forty, as if not happy with being only lame, ACTIVELY SUCKS. It goes out of its way to make your ears hurt deep inside. It makes that lady in Uzumaki who tried to destroy the spiral in her inner ear not look so spiral-crazy.
Case-study:

Hollaback Girl (Gwen Stefani)- I was expecting to sort of like this one since I really liked No Doubt in highschool (before they lost their sense of humour in return of saturn). Man. This song HAS NO TUNE. I was expecting at least a chorus, but it is painfully tuneless. And furthermore, Gwen, you are not black. You are the very pinnacle of *NOT*BLACK*. And what's with the cheerleaders singing about *Bananas*? Nothing slightly relevant, I'm sure. Remind me to add this to my list of dumbest songs EVER. Right next to Beautiful Stranger.

Harajuku Girls (Gwen Stefani)-Slightly less craptacular than the above. At least it has a tune. Even if the lyrics consist of Gwen talking about how her boyfriend bought her some Japanese fashion and how she likes it and how she wishes she could afford more (suuure she can't afford it). This is a new level of inane, folks. And she pronounces harajuku (Hair-uh-joo-koo). And despite her apparently fervent wishes, GWEN STEFANI IS NOT JAPANESE, EITHER.

Do Somethin' (Britney Spears)-Have you ever wanted to see britney drive a pink hummer through the clouds and sing about it?
Me neither. And I hope to never hear it again. The bar has just been lowered. Thank you, Britney. Again, absolutely no tune. Britney can't rap, but she shows us in this song that she CAN squeak and squeal. Heinous.

La Tortura (Shakira)-Watching this was La Tortura, but it was probably the best one I watched. Actually had a tune. Not a memorable one, but we give points for the basics here. This harks back to the good old days of mediocrity. I'm absolutely fascinated by how she can move her thighs and bosoms like that...it's like a "Machine or Sumthin'."

So unless machines do it for you, avoid this one.

In conclusion, I think that the escalation of pure suckage in music has coincided with the rise in lawsuits against downloaders. The suckage of music is why a lot of people download in the first place. I can't count how many albums I bought because a mediocre song on the radio hinted at better things on the album. I think that Cary Sherman and the RIAA are masochists who are innerly wishing for their own demise.
So I'm going to do my part to give them their wish...now where did I stick the exec. for that bit-torrent client?

]]> ~rokujolady I've Been BA-ed by an Icon! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5289870/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5289870/ Sun, 08 May 2005 15:48:41 PDT
-Hey! First new deviation in a while. First time I've had time in a while!

-If I were going to make posters of one of my pictures, it would be the weenix to the left. I'd buy a weenix for my wall.

]]> ~rokujolady Why can't I http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5261372/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/5261372/ Wed, 04 May 2005 00:40:24 PDT Half of the trackers don't work, and those that do are all DJ Tiesto. I think Tiesto is trying to take over the world. Yuck.
GOSHGOLLYDARNIT! I cry with vexation.
Anyway, if anyone likes psytrance/GOA and knows of any fun groups, do leave me a message....or good electronica in general. I need help here.
Suggestions with names starting in "DJ" will not be accepted. Having a name that starts in "DJ" is a one-way ticket to lameness.
Oh, and me? My life is going great. Getting ready to graduate from uni. Trying to make boatloads of money (read "enough to pay rent") so I don't have to live the next few months in a box under a bridge. Got a job, though....so excited.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/3286153/ Sat, 04 Sep 2004 14:52:44 PDT
-The suicide girls ads are disturbing. I mean, REALLY disturbing.

-If I ever draw inuyasha, Please kill me, for I have lost the will to live. If I ever draw any sort of chibis, please do the same.

-Kerry: You are a sissy! Stop licking your wounds from the whole swift boat thing and tell us what you want to do with the country, ok? GWB may be a dunce swimming in a sea of assholes, but at least they have a plan. It may be a crappy plan, and they will likely do exactly the opposite when they get voted in, but at least they have one!
I admire Kerry. He fought for his country, and seeing the flaws in a system firsthand, stood up to protest and change them. He's a protester who actually knows intimately what they're protesting, and that's noble.
But he's comming accross as clueless and petty. George Bush is feeding us cotton candy, and kerry is feeding us nothing, and like the little kids we are, we're eating the cotton candy even though the sacharine in it is known to cause cancer in lab rats. Least it's filling our greedy little tummies.

- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld both bear an uncanny resemblance to the mad scientist in Nightmare Before Christmas.

-I know a few guys who look like Phil from Hercules.

-I think more people read this blog than look at my art.

-Beating the beezus out of polygonal video game characters should make you happy. If it doesn't, you need antidepressants.

-I want to vandalize things and get course credit for it.

-There was a chalking on the sidewalk that said: "College Hill for Christ Par-Tay ---->"
Now, I love the CHC kids, but man, if you want to advertise yourself as being a total square, there's no better way to do it than to spell party "par-tay."

-And lastly, everyone in my subnet who shares their playlist has a playlist full of coldplay and Dave Matthews. I can only take this to mean that every lemming around here listens to coldplay. I'm going to entitle my shared playlist "No Yuppie Music Here"

Luv,
Rokujolady

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/3242859/ Sun, 29 Aug 2004 21:07:15 PDT On a seemingly unrelated note, (the brilliant connection will be made in a few more lines...) my grandparents pissed me off quite recently by calling my generation intrinsically stupid. (Funny how the generations that are NOT intrinsically stupid are the ones who have been @#$%-ing up the world for their moron children to fix.)
I've gotten to thinking....the under-thirties of today aren't stupid. We're jaded. And we've a right to be.
Activist youths seem to have lost their direction and purpose, even at the very uberliberal institution that I attend. Everyone has something they feel strongly about, but most people just shrug off activism and politics and take a passive approach.
I don't protest because no one listens.
The government isn't an interactive entity for most people. You can write letters and letters and letters to your congressman, and you can go out on the street corner and stand on a box and yell, but it doesn't do any good. Protesters are more annoying than anything, and the protesters, hell, the citizens in general aren't the ones the politicians are answering to, anyway. I mean, if you had the choice between a CEO taking you out for lobster, or some protesting college kid taking you home to the 'pod for some ramen noodles, what would you pick?
The fact that most of the world was against the war in Iraq and even the invasion of Afghanistan (which in hindsight, was a good idea, unlike the former), that mass protests occurred worldwide, and were met with a blind eye and a deaf ear is proof that the people in power don't care.
They don't have a reason to care.
But, if our generation of Americans can shed apathy en masse, we can give them a reason to care in November. We can show them that Fox New s watching grandparents aren't the only ones who are going to be at the polls. America is going to be ours in a few years, and we need to start nudging it in our direction, whichever direction that may be. And I for one, am going to rain on grandma and grandpa's parade....
'cuz I'm old enought to vote, baby!
love,
Rokujolady

~rokujolady The Good and the Bad http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/3188425/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/3188425/ Sun, 22 Aug 2004 15:10:36 PDT
So, I was watching the masterpiece theatre version of tale of two cities last night, and was thinking, if I were like madame defarge, and I were to knit myself a coded shitlist, who would go to the guillotine? So, after much thought, here you are!

-That guy in that rolling stone article who harasses abortion workers. Somehow this is legal. Oh, my blood just boils. Dude, if anyone deserves to rot in the eternal pit, c'est toi! Oh, and dick 'n george 'n donald, too!

-The guy who writes those damn burger king commercials. Even in Australia, where the standard of commercials is much higher than it is in the states, burger kind commercials set a record for lameness. Now this whole "Doctor Angus" ad with the lord of the dance music playing in the background. This man shoule be fired. And then shot for ruining a perfect half hour of Sealab 2021. You'd think Burger King could afford to hire an advertising person who didn't make the consumers want to eat strichnine instead of burgers.

-The person who had the great idea of making a movie about paparazzi. Along with Catherine Zeta Jones, Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, etc. etc, etc.
I wrote a Haiku about them:

It's Soaking my sleeves
For the poor celebrities,
This torrent of tears.

-And last of all, in the spirit of this entry, academics who write books on dickens and cover his works, skipping from Little Dorrit straight to Great Expectations. I don't know whether they're just literary snots or don't want to cover anything that might contradict their contrived little theses, but OFF WITH THEIR HEADS FOR BEING ACADEMIC CHEAPSKATES!

Thank you, Thank you.
And lest you think I'm a negative person, I've decided to leave you with a list of things that make me quiver with the thought of their sheer coolness:
-The thought of aliens fighting predators. Movie was just OK, but what a totally kickass concept.

-Juni-Hitoe: Twelve layered robes worn by women in the japanese court. Man, nothing is cooler. Nothing. See for yourself:
[link]

-My cat, Buyo: so soft, and cuddly, and warm to hold, yet fiesty and all too willing to give you a friendly love-bite. Well, maybe not.

-The Vampire Lestat. John Murdock from Dark City. Ohhhh. I love it when you destroy things with your mind oooh, yesss!

-Frontline Assembly

-Koi. All fat fish for that matter. Fat fish are so cute.

-Artificial intelligence that tries to take over the world. Now THAT is awesome.

-Orchids

Luv,
Rokujolady

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2997489/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 16:09:08 PDT You'll enjoy it, I promise.

"Kerry Promises Balanced Budgets, Strong US Defense (Update2)"
What was the first update? I like Kerry's hair. I'm going to vote for him so we can give the Japanese a run for their money in the "leader with unique hair" division of the "world leaders' beauty pageant."
In other categories, we have Muammar Kadafi as the hottest middle-eastern dictator/tyrant (The competition kind of sucked), and Bin-Laden as the least-scary-looking terrorist. He looks like he could be your grandfather. Or like a goat. He looks like a grandfatherly goat.

"US Says Pakistan Captured Qaeda Bombing Suspect"
Ok. This guy is the least imposing looking terrorist. I take the above back. If you've seen the mugshot, he looks like he's about eight. And what happened to the "Al" in Al-Qaeda? I didn't know Qaeda could stand on its own, but ok...

"Brazilian Shrimp Farmers Balk at Tariffs"
How much do you want to bet that everyone in Brazil simultaneously clicked on this story so it would make the google headlines? Hey everyone! I'm Brazil! Pay Attention To Me!

"Fla. to vote on future of bullet train"
Yup. There's Florida. On the cutting edge of innovation. This should have happened a long, long time ago. While you're at it, why don't you put one in Colorado, too, so people who care about the environment don't have to drive their kids to soccer on the interstate in an SUV.

Calif Judge Refuses to Dismiss Double Murder Case
(Laci Peterson Case)
They'd damn well better not.

"Apple accuses rival RealNetworks of "hacker tactics""
Apple. Stop whinning. When you're having a bad day because of realNetworks, just think two things:
1) It could be Microsoft. Then you'd really be screwed, because what Microsoft wants, Microsoft gets. The Godzilla that is Microsoft is now terrorizing the Tokyo that is Unix, so be glad their attention is diverted.
2)No one takes realNetworks seriously anyway. When I think real, I think slow+spyware+(crappy-quality-video-and-m usic)+bluehorrorcrash

"DNA Scientist Francis Crick Dies at 88"
Rest in peace Crick. We'll miss you. << sigh>> at least we still have Watson, I think.

"IBM Snaps Up Management Software Venture"
Yup. Big fish eat little fish and little fish eat plankton.

"Zeta-Jones Hearing Postponed After Fan Takes Pills"
Catherine.....the guy is sorry! You're hurting him! Just leave him alone!

"Jackson Trial Delayed Until 2005"
Sweet Jesus. Don't tell me I'm going to have to read this @#$% for another year!

"Moore misses showing of "Fahrenheit 9/11" in Bush's hometown"
Maybe the Al-Qaeda members with pitchforks blockading the theatre turned him off.

"Israel Kills Militant Chief in Gaza Air Strike"
I have this feeling that to the Israelis, killing terrorists is like trying to hit a target with a machine gun when you're blindfolded. If you shoot in every direction for long enough you're probably going to hit the target at least once. Too bad for anyone standing within shooting range, though.

"FBI firing linked to whistle-blowing"
Oh, I can sleep more soundly at nights knowing that the good-ole-boys club at the FBI have my safety ranked just below "covering our own asses", "covering our own asses", and "putting red warnings before movies."

"Pakistan Says Undecided on Troops for Iraq"
You know, I really don't understand these Iraqi militant groups. They're really only hurting themselves, and any cause they may have been fighting for has totally been blown away by killing citizens of a fellow muslim/arab state.
Iraq is like a guy who stabs himself in the chest and says "Look what you made me do! I'm bleeding! Don't make me do it again" and the person they're talking to is like "Why should I care? You're only doing this to yourself."
And that analogy was almost totally lost.

-Rokujolady ]]> ~rokujolady Ich Bein Ein Dumbass, Part I http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2984180/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2984180/ Tue, 27 Jul 2004 22:54:04 PDT I know the other shoe is going to drop and I'm just planning ahead.
I know the rest of the shit is eventually going to hit the fan. It's just a matter of Mass of shit*Gravity*horizontal velocity.

So this afternoon, instead of working on my drawing like I should have been doing, I was surfing ebay for japanese horror dvds and thinking: "Gee, wouldn't it be great if my cheap no-name dvd drive would play any region dvds instead of forcing me to budget how many times I watch my Australian copy of Hedwig and the Angry Inch so that I don't accidently lock my drive in region 4 so that I can't watch the rest of my dvds?"
I mean, the idea of DVD regions is so dumb that the RIAA could have thought it up. It's not like it's going to stop people in hong-kong from pirating movies anyway....they'll just make multi-region dvds.

No. I'm convinced that the only reason DVD regions exist is so that I can only watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch four times. Five times, and I'm sure I'd start to question my sexuality.

So, being a friggin' genius, I decided to flash my dvd drive. On my finicky computer. Having only some forum hack's word that version DIE666.bin (I made this name up.) was the firmware that I needed since I have a no-name cheap dvd drive made in some kid's garage in Hong-Kong.

You can see where this is leading, I'm sure.

I am now minus a working dvd drive, and was, for a while, minus a working computer, until I whipped the thing apart and unplugged the posessed member, casting it into a life of eternal bondage to the working cd-rw drive , provided I can get it to work again at all.

On the brighter side, I imagine I'll save some money on dvds.

-Yours in Vexation,
rokujolady

~rokujolady Bush fans, please look the other way. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2937630/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2937630/ Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:29:17 PDT
I don't consider myself a tree-hugging-hippie liberal.
That being said, I bloody hate George Bush and his posse. I shouldn't read the news. It just irks me. When I think about the muck that Clinton got dragged through like the moral fiber of the universe was getting torn apart by him lying about sleeping with an intern, and how GW first GREATLY exaggerates the thread of Iraq, neglects Al Qaeda, blows off terror-reports before sept 11 and now hypes up the nation every time some kid on the internet visits the anarchist cookbook website and MOST OF ALL, SENDS MY GENERATION OFF TO A PRE-EMPTIVE WAR BACKED BY SKETCHY EVIDENCE, my blood boils.
And he gets away with it. Clinton fibs about screwing an intern and almost gets impeached. Bush lies about Iraq, sends the nation to war, kills by proxy thousands of iraqis and US soldiers, entangles the nation in a bloody mess that is never going to work due to really, really poor planning and gets off with an angry michael moore movie, but almost no political repercussions.
Anyone who thinks the media is liberally biased needs to have a reality check. They were like vultures every time Clinton farted.
Half hearted media reports bounce off Bush's thick skin and are forgotten the next day.
American conservatives are vultures. And now they're after this former clinton aide. Now, what he did was wrong, sure, but you can bet the timing of the release of this information was a strategy to hit Kerry.
Of all of the underhanded cheap-shot plots.
I'd like to think that if nothing else, the dems are a bit above that.
Anyway, if there is a God, and God is good, Bush will get voted out next term.
If not, I guess I'll just have to become an atheist.

Yours disgustedly,
Rokujolady

Ps. Before you tell me to move to China because I'm a commie who doesn't appreciate the liberties given to me in America (Nope. Never heard THAT one before), please note that I think America is swell. I love Americans. I am an American. I don't like what we've let our leaders get away with. I don't like the power we've given them out of fear. And you know, if a person doesn't dissent when they think something is wrong, do they really appreciate the liberties they have been given?
So if you think I should shut up or go somewhere where I'm not free because I'm anti-American, maybe you should have a long think about what it is that you love about america, because it obviously isn't life, liberty or the persuit of happiness.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2922353/ Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:27:47 PDT I got a tablet!!!!!!!!!!! (Just thought I'd brag)
Anyway, I'll have to look through everyone's galleries and catch up on everything I've been missing. Very tired now, and not much to say.
Lurve,
Rokujolady

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2239720/ Sat, 17 Apr 2004 01:24:00 PDT Just saw Kill Bill vol 2. It kicked. Darryl Hannah as the eyepatched assassin was really awesome. I was on the floor. Not nearly as violent as the first one.
Speaking of Bill, Just read the Bill Leeb interview on Mindphaser.com. Seems like he's not seeing much of a future for frontline assembly. (burnt out, really) thought the new album was fantastic by the way. It blows my mind that FLA never really went mainstream.....considering all of the crapola that's out there. Man, this must be like what my dad felt when Zeppelin broke up. My sleeves are wet with tears for all of the unmade cds that will never annoy my neighbours at 2 am.
And on the subject of crap music, I've been reviewing cds for the local radio station.......figured that they needed a goddess of electronica like myself. (haw, haw, haw.) You know, it seems like college stations should get all the good cutting edge stuff...........
Nope. Of the cds I've so far listened to there were only two that didn't make me want to smash something in irritation, and one of these, I fished out of the "crappy reject cd sale" bin at the station. There''s AMAZINGLY GOOD electronica, and then there's the vast majority which is "Highschool Kid With Cut/Paste Synthesizer" electronica. Kind of like every other type of art.

My brain is flooded with a slew of new project ideas....will I have time to do them? Who knows. Expect a RokujoLady in 3d studio and another Reede sometime in the future.

~rokujolady <BANG!> Maniacal! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2049918/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/2049918/ Sat, 20 Mar 2004 15:00:45 PST And I have some new nice drawings that I need to finish inking....one of Veyse and Akhire as a baby, and a new fellow, whom we will call Aat Jidana, whom I think is Rhokai's (the courtesan from Courtesan & the Physicist) nephew. (Look in my past work if you haven't seen Veyse and Akhire yet. These are my own characters.)
Also, I drew such a lovely picture of the Seamstress from Tale of Two Cities, but I lost the notebook that it was in. Dammit.
Other than that, I've been drawing lots and lots of GUI designs for this programming project, which aren't terribly interesting.

And now, because I enjoy writing lists: Original fantasy authors.
There is a lot of fantasy out there. And about 3/4 of it is utter crap with cut-paste characters, dragons, elves, etc. If I EVER put an elf into one of my pictures or stories, or ESPECIALLY a unicorn, you have my permission to beat me with a baby seal.

Joan D. Vinge.
My favourite right now. Some of the most original and well-thought-out scifi/fantasy that I've read. Snow Queen, Summer Queen, and the Catspaw series. Joan, please write more! I need you!

Sherri S. Tepper
Don't have the same passion for her that I have for JDV. I always have to talk myself into reading her books because they aren't easy to read or digest. That being said, I always love her books when I get into them. She has some of the wildest and most unique ideas in fantasy that I've read, and none of her novels are formulaic, and each one is extremely well thought out.

Frank Herbert.
If you don't know who frank herbert is, you've been living under a rock.

Isobelle Carmody
Aussie Writer! I love her, although she can't seem to resolve the obernewtyn. I'm putting her on the list because of the Legendsong series, which struck me as the most detailed world I'd read about since Lord of the Rings. Only Unicorn series that I've ever been able to stand. (With the exception of Last Unicorn, which I'd classify as satire instead of fantasy almost.) Don't think it's available in the US, which is sad because it's a fantastic series, and I want all my friends to read it!

George RR Martin.
Yup. Dragons. Princesses. Knights. Seen it all before in David Eddings and a slew of other authors. What sets song of ice and fire apart is the magnificent characterization. The characters are all so real, and all multi-faceted. No one is flat, and the characters themselves make this series shine.
Oh, Sandor Clegane. I love you.

Connie Willis
Colorado Author. Doomsday book was great. Haven't really cared much for her other books. Passage was just too dreary and to an extent very predictable. Doomsday book was absolutely fantastic, though. The characters were brilliant and everything was well drawn-out.

Phillip Pullman
I started off hating His Dark Materials ( I couldn't get used to the paralel universe, and the pseudo-english placenames were distracting) but I really got into it after a while. A more sinister and more thought-provoking Harry Potter.

And...
Sharon Shinn
Read Summers at Castle Auburn and loved it. Very medeival flavour, with the typical knights and princesses, but again, the characters themselves made it a great story. I had a very compact fairy-tale like structure, which was refreshing.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1881244/ Sat, 21 Feb 2004 01:44:05 PST Anyway, I just put up a new one. First new piece that I've done in a long time. Probably going to flunk biochem cuz I did it in lecture, but oh, well.
Anyway, if you put up new stuff, I should be going through my deviation messages and commenting on stuff. I'm so sorry I've neglected you all!

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1839721/ Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:51:53 PST Things that are creepy, a short review of the new Frontline Assembly CD, and a shameless plug for a friends' art.

Things that are creepy.

-Samara or Sadako.

-John Ashcroft. George W. Bush for that matter.

-Jack Chick

-Cockroaches: the way they move their antennae...so slowly and deliberately...is pure evil.

-Giant spiders. The ones with long legs are a whole lot creepier than the ones with short hairy legs. Giant daddy long legs == I wet my pants. Shelob == kind of creepy in a comical sort of way.

-That scene in 2001 a space oddysee where HAL cuts that guy's air line when he's outside the spaceship. The whole scene is totally silent. So creepy.

A Quick Review of the Frontline Assembly CD, Civilization
It's good. Not as good as Epitaph (this is and always will be my fave by FLA), but still pretty good. It's everything that the new Delerium CD should have been, which is kind of odd for a FLA CD, because FLA is like Delerium's evil older brother. Guess Leeb and Fulber are getting soft in their old age. The best thing about it is the melodies....lot less rasping and yelling in this one than in any previous except for maybe TNI. Also, some of the songs border on Alternative Rock, and they do a damn fine job of it if I say so myself. (Song: Civiliziation.) This is a reflective, almost melancholy CD. Whereas the previous CDs focused on society being destroyed by technology, the listener gets the idea in this cd that the world already has been destroyed by technology....it has a "where did we go wrong" sort of feel to it. Not a perfect album, though. I have a bit of a beef with the lyrics which are borderline inane sometimes: Let's all get together, let's all join hands, Let's do the war dance" (from Transmitter) for one example of stupid lyrics. The lyrics in Epitaph and TNI are pretty good. (Though Flavour of the week is a bit inane). Guess Leebo has bad days when he's writting lyrics. There's a little too much sampling going on as well. Sometimes you have a hard time telling what is sampled and what is original, but I guess this is the case with most FLA cds, with again, the exception of Epitaph which seemed to have very little sampling.
Anyway, that's my take. 3/4 stars.

And finally, Here's a shameless plug for my friend Sophia who is a friggin' awesome fantasy artist. I know it's on Elfwood, but I'm sure you'll forgive me. (As will the powers that be around here.)

[link]

~rokujolady Things that hack me off. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1753928/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1753928/ Tue, 27 Jan 2004 22:43:15 PST Things that piss me off.

-That guy from Velvet Acid Christ.

-Locking myself out of my room.

-John Ashcroft. Cary Sherman (The RIAA). George W. Bush. Ariel Sharon. Rush Limbaugh. David Horror-wits. Donald Rumsfeld. Oh, the list goes on and on and on and on.

-The Matrix. Seriously folks. This is not the Star Wars of our generation. It was an OK action / sci-fi flick with a little substance added by pseudo-religious babble. If you're looking for spiritual enlightenment through sci-fi, try Dune or even Star Trek. Not a classic, and I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with it.

-The gaming industry. Computer games should be an art form. There's so much space for creativity and innovation. Used to be some kid could come up with a great game in his or her garage. Now it's a corporate wasteland and nothing original or novel ever gets published. It's all doom and final-fantasy clones.

-Ugly Americans.

-Michael Feldman, host of the show What Do You Know on NPR. His voice makes my ears bleed.

-Fantasy books with no original ideas. Seems like every fantasy that comes out has knights, pseudo-tolkeinesque character names, and ye olde english placenames. Even the so called good authors like Stephen R Donaldson spend half their time trying to rip off Tolkein and failing miserably. I do like Sherri S. Tepper, though. She has some really great original ideas.

-People who think that everyone loves their dog. Especially when their dog is drooling all over you and they won't tell it to "sit" or "bugger off."

-Guinnea Pigs. They crap all over the place and I hate cleaning it up.

-Julia Roberts. She plays a misunderstood whore in every single movie she's in. Really.

In a cranky mood now? My work here is done! Sorry if I've included something you love in this list......we can still be friends, really. ]]> ~rokujolady I'm Baaaackkkkk...... http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1692946/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1692946/ Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:07:54 PST I hope you all had a lovely holiday, and for those of you who don't happen to be Christmas or New Years or Chanukkah people, I hope you have a nice holiday comming up some time in the next 356 days.
And now ,
In the grand tradition of Sei Shonagon, the first and to my knowledge only person whose lists of opinions are now considered classic literature,
------------------------------------
Things which make one happy:
------------------------------------
-Comming home to find the cat laying spread-eagle on the dinning room table. Like a little entree.

-Wood floors, which one can slide accross in socks if one gets a running start.

-Having a full suit of Hoplite Armor in Vagrant Story and making wanker Guildenstern sorry he was ever rendered.

-Gingerbread houses.

-Snowflake mobiles, which sparkle in the dim lighting of my dorm room.

-Geckos on the walls.

-Antique stores with lots of pretty old dishes and books.

-Windowshopping and not buying anything but making a mental list of things you would like to have if you had the money and were willing to spend it. This has got to be one of the most enjoyable ways to spend an afternoon.

-Being warm and having a nice cup of tea.

-The feeling you have after writing 500+ lines of assembly and having the program actually work.

-Pretty, thick sheets of patterned origami paper.

-Old copies of Tale of Two Cities with nice (Not the original Phiz illustrations) Well, at least that makes ME happy.

If you have any additions to the list, please reply! ]]> ~rokujolady I cry with vexation. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1443576/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1443576/ Sun, 23 Nov 2003 23:40:46 PST On a less vindictive note, I've been a-thinking. In continuation of the "Best Cinema Rumpkickin' and why you should see it" list, I've decided to make a " Wierdest movies ever and why you should see them" list.
Being a self-proclaimed connosieur (sic, I'm sure. bloody french) of odd movies, I find myself in a perfect position to recommend some. Now I'm not talking about movies that are wierd for wierd's sake, ie David Lynch.........you know that the driving force behind his creativity is the desire to outwierd previous movies, and the wierd factor becomes pretensious. No, I'm talking about movies that are so out there and artistically awesome that you are willing to see them five times to unearth the subtle intricacies in the plot. Movies that are able to convince you that the way to enlightenment lies in figuring out what the hell is going on onscreen, so without further ado.....
-->Utena: Adolescence.
This movie is odd. It starts with an intricately drawn art-deco schoolyard and ends with a carwash. You figure it out. I'm still trying, and I've seen it five times. Seriously the most visually beautiful movie I've ever seen. The animation is stunning and puts Disney and other American efforts to shame in every respect. The music is pretty darn cool, too. If you want to watch a beautiful movie that will make you extrapolate deep meaning, watch Utena. (Note, this movie has lots of symbolic lesbian undertones. I could launch into how Utena and Anthy's stripping in front of eachother relates to the fact that each feels that they can only safely put trust in the other, but I won't.)
-->Uzumaki
Another good wierd Japanese movie. A little more cohesive than Utena, and no less visually stunning. This is the first movie ever to make lame photoshop effects look better than the big budget hollywood stuff. The only movie featuring highschool kids turning into snails that will ever scare you. It's directed that well. I won't blow the plot, but let's just say that the basis is the slow descent into madness of an entire town. I could seriously spend the entire two hours of this movie viewing it from different angles and looking for eyecandy. Truly a Masterwork of wierd, though I think it lost a little in the translation. Scary, and WIIIIEEEERRRRD.
--> City of Lost Children
Another masterwork, this is one of my alltime greats. Evil cyberpunk agents kidnap children in a town right from Doctor Seuss. Plays around a lot with dream imagery...guess that's the point. Lots of famous faces, too. You must see this. It has everything from a floating brain to evil siamese twins. Also visually amazing.
--->Titus
In the tradition of the horrid Romeo+Julliet that teenage girls everywhere are still swooning over, (The only reason that I was ever compelled to watch this tripe was the garbage song, Chrush #1, and they NEVER FRIGGIN PLAYED IT!) Titus takes Shakespeare and gives him an MTV makeover. Actually, in this case, an MTV vs Dali Makeover. And since it's shakespeare's most controversial and horribly violent play, you know it has to be good. Some of the neatest cinematography and costume design ever. So awesome. Not for the faint of heart, though.

~rokujolady Bum bumbumbum BUM! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1410164/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1410164/ Sun, 16 Nov 2003 16:31:09 PST

]]> ~rokujolady Something.....eeeevil. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1384136/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1384136/ Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:24:08 PST I have a digital painting in the works, but it's going to be a while at this rate. Saw Matrix Revolutions, though. I actually liked it. I think the people who whine loudly about it are the same people who gripe about how lord of the rings sucks because Tom Bombadil isn't in it. (In my opinion, editing him out was one of the smartest things a film-maker has ever done!) Also saw a movie called Uzumaki....if you get the chance, you must see it. It's like watching someone else's bad acid trip. Bizzare. Creepy, and Bizzare. Like city of lost children. I have totally forgone caps in this note. I'm sorry!

~rokujolady Halloween! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1343712/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1343712/ Thu, 30 Oct 2003 23:42:33 PST This week is finally over!
What are you dressing up as? Are you dressing up? I know that those of you not in the US (Yes, I live in America these days.) don't go all out for halloween, but it's my favourite holliday

I'm going to be Samarra from the Ring!
I'll have to post a picture.

~rokujolady Just me and the pygmy pony...over by the dentalflo http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1331630/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1331630/ Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:57:41 PST Not much to say really. Since I'm so stressed I have steam comming out of my ears, I thought I'd list a few nice things that make me happy...and may make you happy too!
---------------------------------------- --------------------------
-Kittens. And big kitties with personality.
-Pie.
-Buttercream icing on white cake.
-Delerium and Frontline Assembly.
-Frank Zappa at 2am.
-The chicken game at [link]
-Playing morrowind all night long.
-Drawing pictures.
-Drawing pictures of Sydney Carton.
-Ancient Egypt
-Gummy mint-leaves.
-Chicken Katsu.
-Watching wierd movies with friends.
-Sleeping (but not through lectures)
-Going to work! (Normal job, not schoolwork)
-Playing on swingsets.
-Going to antique stores.
-old books with people's names inscribed in them.
-Ukiyoe
---------------------------------------- ------------------

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1294684/ Sun, 19 Oct 2003 19:44:33 PDT Elfwood is a pain. The review board members must all have SCRABS up their asses.
Bugger them.
Snooty conservatives make me crazy. Not all conservatives, but snooty ones who think they're carrying out the will of god himself.
Bugger them.
Can't think of anything else that makes me irritated right now. Must mean that life in general is pretty good.

~rokujolady A little of the ol' ultraviolence. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1268546/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1268546/ Wed, 15 Oct 2003 21:43:45 PDT The first item on my list is probably the least disturbing of the selections. Blade 2. A mediocre sequel with some truly awesome asskicking. Who needs a plot when you can watch Wesley Snipes lay the smackdown on vampires? The violence in this movie does not provoke thought, in fact, watching Blade 2 will probably destroy brain cells. However, like most things that destroy brain cells, Blade 2 is really fun. I've never cheered so hard when watching someone get the crap kicked out of them. It's seriously not offensive unless you happen to object to the wholesale slaughter of vampires. A+ booty kickin'. Absolute emotional detatchment.
Kill Bill.
The level of blood-spattered revenge in this movie would make Madame Defarge's mouth water. I must say, this Kill Bill did disturb me a little. I've seriously never seen so much gore on the screen at one time. On paper, it's much like Blade 2: serious unprovoked smackdown......but with SWORDS! But unlike Blade 2, it can be analysed. You find yourself appalled by the merciless killing, but then, part of you thinks that almost all of it was perfectly justified. There was probably not a single person killed in this movie who deserved to, if not die, feel the hurt badly. The world would not have missed most of them. Still, the nice person in me says that though the revenge was on a level justified, it was still merciless, sadistic, and not something a nice person with values would do. Worth seeing for the thought-value and some awesome visuals.
Clockwork Orange
Probably the God of the ultraviolent movies, and probably the most thought-provoking/disturbing as well. You want to like Aleck, even though he's a rapist and a murderer, and a general sadist. In the end, though, it makes you wonder if humanity isn't by nature violent, and whether it isn't more of a sin to try to justify violence with a pretense of moral superiority than to perpetrate mindless violence in itself.
Truly a classic. Will make you think probably more than you want to, and is probably most disturbing because the viewer is tempted to laugh during some of the more horrific scenes due to the perfectly ridiculous synthesized music.

A little on-screen ultraviolence isn't nessesarily a bad thing. At it's best, it can make you re-analyze your own humanity, and that, I think, disturbs people far more than the blood flying accross the screen.

People who rawk my twisted little world.

http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1253418/ Wed, 08 Oct 2003 23:05:46 PDT It's two in the morning, and I AM J-E-N-O-V-A!

People who rawk my twisted little world.

]]> ~rokujolady American State of Mind http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1226433/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1226433/ Wed, 01 Oct 2003 23:40:24 PDT -Chuck D rebuffs LL Cool J in the RIAA Senate Hearrings

I really like that quote. And it's so true.
Happy October, everyone!

People who rawk my twisted little world.

]]> ~rokujolady Out of the frying pan.... http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1211590/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1211590/ Tue, 30 Sep 2003 21:36:42 PDT Anyways, I've decided to upload some new pics. I'm doing a pencil one of Reede from the Summer Queen, but it will be a few more Physics lectures before he's finished. Haw, haw, haw.
Talk to y'all later,
rokujolady

People who rawk my twisted little world.

]]> ~rokujolady Delerium Concert http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1193356/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1193356/ Mon, 22 Sep 2003 21:24:03 PDT I got to meet Leeb and Fulber afterwords. *swoon*
I'm going to be riding on cloud nine for the rest of the week.

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

]]> ~rokujolady Hi...It's ME: The Central Scruuuutinizer... http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1178203/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1178203/ Mon, 22 Sep 2003 13:32:55 PDT It's been a long week, but the nastiness is over, and I'm relaxing to some new tunes. Talvin Singh. If you haven't heard him, check it out. Secret Tear is brilliant. And Frank Zappa, who is a little less, shall we say....elegant.
Anyway, that's all I can say that's halfway worth hearing....oh, yes. I CAN MAKE A 2-1 MULTIPLEXER USING ONLY NAND GATES! How about THAT?! (and only two more days until the Delerium concert...)
Lurve,
rokujolady

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

:icontelegraphixs: ]]> ~rokujolady Randomness http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1168743/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1168743/ Wed, 17 Sep 2003 23:12:13 PDT
1) I think a great career for most college students is that of Environmental Terrorist/ Arsonist. Too bad career centres never recommend this, because everyone has the qualifications for it. (Even froshies.) Think about it: What do college kids do best?
a) Set stuff on fire. (I've been in 3 real (the building was evacuated) fires since freshman year.)
b) Protest
Combine the two, and you can light SUVs aflame! It's a perfect job: lots of opportunities, healthy future prospects (as more and more people buy gas guzzling yank-tanks), the sense that you are making a difference in the world, media coverage, and, if you can string a sentence together coherently, you can write a book about your experiences, a la The Monkey Wrench Gang, and make some good money....or you can just rob the cars before you burn them. No one would notice.

2) Sexist Waterfountains. I've recently noticed that all of the waterfountains at my university are of the porcelain variety that are set into the wall. The spout is conveniently pointing into the wall, and you have to stick your head in the little porcelain alcove to get a drink. Now, besides looking like urinals (they aren't urinals, before you comment. I'm not that dumb.), which as we all know are ubiquitous symbols of maleness, you have to have a butch haircut to use them without getting your head drenched. There is no way to use them without dragging your hair in the bowl or in the water stream. These waterfountains were CLEARLY designed for MEN! I think that along with handicapped ramps and elevators, we need to be lobbying for female friendly waterfountains. If I wanted somthing stupid to get self-righteously indignant about, this would be it!

3) Only 5 more days until I get to see Delerium live. My little world is going to be complete in only five more days.

Luv,
rokujolday

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

]]> ~rokujolady New blog. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1155916/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1155916/ Fri, 12 Sep 2003 22:15:57 PDT I'm going to gesso it and draw on it with sharpie markers

I finally did write a poem about the RIAA.
.....end transfer.

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

]]> ~rokujolady The RIAA Sucks. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1148114/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1148114/ Thu, 11 Sep 2003 20:04:25 PDT I think they eat small children.
They're not making any friends. Stealing is wrong, it's true, but that's not going to be the first thing that people think when they read about all of the new suits.
And frankly, I see no evidence that their financial woes are due to piracy as opposed to....say....CORRUPTION, and faulty accounting?
The RIAA could make a load of money off of P2P if they'd stop feeling sorry for themselves and exploit it. (and I'm not talking about lowering record prices or those crappy dollar-a-song download services) Most people I know use P2P to sample songs, and to find new groups. People will shell out 15 bucks for a cd, if there is a quality product. I and most people I know are NOT WILLING TO PAY TO EXPERIMENT. I'm not going to buy something I may not like.
I usually end up buying the CDs of a group that I like that I've found on the internet. I have this love affair with Delerium......I own most of their cds....and I discovered them on the net. I'm happy. The record company is happy. Bill Leeb has something to eat tonite.
My point is that P2P could be used to filter songs. The RIAA could use the net to test the market...which artists get a lot of word of mouth exposure? Which songs get the most downloads? Let's plug money into these artists. It could also serve as a form of quality control. If a song doesn't get any downloads, don't put it on the CD. The people who like the unpopular song will probably like the popular ones and buy the cd, plus get a copy of the unreleased song. The people who didn't like the song will buy the cd because the songs they like will be on it.
Instead, they're biting the hand that feeds them. Hard. And it's going to come back on them. If the world was fair, the RIAA would go down in flames like the Hindenberg hitting a warehouse full of nitroglycerine. They certainly deserve to burn.

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

]]> ~rokujolady People who Blow My Mind. http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1139179/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1139179/ Sun, 07 Sep 2003 22:27:07 PDT I watched Koyaanisqatsi last nite. It was surprisingly cool. Kind of like watching a screensaver...it's so pointless, but so mesmerizing. Like that linux screensaver that is just a bunch of stars flying towards you, but if you watch it for long enough the starship enterprise flies by....(either that or I was just delirious at the time.) (Koyaanisqatsi did have a point....just not one that smacked you in the face.) I want the soundtrack.

Anyway, there are so many truly awesome artists on deviantART that I've decided to list some of the ones who have really blown me away in one way or another. Go visit these people!

People Who Rawk My Twisted Little World

There's more goodness in the favourites.... ]]> ~rokujolady <sigh> The sequel http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1129145/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1129145/ Thu, 04 Sep 2003 19:49:05 PDT In fact, I think that it would complete my evening beautifully to play Morrowind.
Did I mention that orgo==guano?
I'm going to get to see Delerium in concert in a few weeks! I can't wait! YAY!
Anyway, that was today's mindless waffle.
Cheers,
rokujolady ]]> ~rokujolady <sigh> http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1111292/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1111292/ Fri, 29 Aug 2003 22:47:36 PDT
There was an atheist walking through the woods admiring the chance machinations of evolution. "What a lovely stream. What lovely mountains." He poked his head through some brush and saw a bear. The bear saw him, too, and thought about lunch. The atheist, seeing hunger in the bear's eyes, turned and ran, and the bear crashed through the brush after him. He ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran...turned around and the bear was getting closer. He ran and ran and ran and ran, and still the bear was gaingin. He ran some more and the bear was right behind him, and as he looked back, he caught his foot on a root and fell. The bear was on top of him. It raised its claw for the kill, and the guy put his hands over his eyes and screamed...
"Oh, GOD!"
Everything stopped.
"YES?" Said God, "You called? I suppose you want me to save your life. You never beleived in me before, so what gives?"
"Well, I'm still not sure I beleive in you...this could be a Near Death Experience" said the atheist. "I don't really want to be a Christian, so could you make the bear a Christian instead?"
"mmmmALRIGHT." said God.
Suddenly, everything was back to normal, and the bear's claw began to move towards him.........and the bear raised another paw, and put his paws together in prayer and said...................................
"For what we are about to receive, may we be truly grateful." ]]> ~rokujolady Wanna Be a Techno Artist! http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1103656/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1103656/ Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:05:25 PDT -I will never use samples from the movie Event Horizon. Is it like a prerequisite for being a techno musician that you have to make at least one song that is all Event Horizon samples? Good god, man! It was an entertaining flick, but it's getting a bit old, now!
-I will never use the same thump-thump-thump beat in every song. I was reading through a list of FLA samples where someone guessed that FLA had sampled Velvet Acid Christ. Well, gee. VAC uses the same beat in every song on Fun with Knives with the exception of "Slut". They use the SAME GENERIC BEAT AS MILLIONS OF OTHER TECHNO ARTISTS! Everyone uses that beat! I think it's public domain by now, folks!
- I will not whinge constantly about how depressing my life is, and how everyone else in the world is out to get me. Someone needs to send that guy from VAC some Prozac.
-My songs will have tunes involving more than four notes.
- I won't whinge constantly about Delerium. Delerium is cool. Much cooler than Enigma.
- I will not use that "instrument" that sounds like a high pitched elephant. It's obnoxious. Everyone uses it.
-I will never have women moaning and saying stuff like "Oh, yeah!" and "let's go!" in the backgound of my songs. I love you Moby, but, in the words of a friend: "El- Tack-O"
-I will be conservative in my use of chanting. It's overdone in a lot of stuff.
If you have any requests for additions to this list, please comment. I know I'm missing a lot of good ones. I'll leave you with another clever pearl of wisdom:
Q. What's Brown and Sticky?
A. A stick. ]]> ~rokujolady Blog? http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1102465/ http://rokujolady.deviantart.com/journal/1102465/ Tue, 26 Aug 2003 23:07:41 PDT Errrm. Nope.
I'll leave you with a joke, for lack of anything interesting to say:
Q. Why did the Koala fall out of the tree?
A. Because it was dead.
Q. Why did the second Koala fall out of the tree?
A. Because it was stapled to the first Koala.
Q. Why did the third Koala fall out of the tree?
A. It thought it was a game. ]]> ~rokujolady