welcome

for fanclub members only: BEWARE THE BLACK SAUCER MEN!

may 23, 2005

i don't want to sound superstitious or anything, but allow me to sound supersitious for a moment. i just downloaded and installed the latest trunk build of firefox from deer park, and all of a sudden not only is my internet connection running insanely fast, but so is my computer! switching between applications, active or inactive, is happening faster than it ever has since i first got it. it's kind of spooky. makes me wonder if there's some sort of optimization script running in there that i don't understand - or, whether IT services just killed some worms on the network. in any case - like i said before, go for the latest trunk build whenever you can.

i'm also noticing that my designs look great in firefox and break in everything else, which is bad. which means it's more forgiving of poorly written code. which is not good. it sort of encourages mediocrity. but you can't force people to code better. in any case...i hope that my good fortune lasts throughout the day.

hope you all are having as much fun as i am...

may 16, 2005

have installed airtight simpleviewer. go check it out here.

may 2, 2005

playing around with htaccess and restricting certain directories to specific users via login. most of the directories on this server are permission denied anyway unless you either have an index or an active url.

i'm working up steam to record some shit straight in this fucking mac through the onboard pinhole mic, as i am tired waiting around for the perfect fucking conditions. i mean come on, how punk rock are we.

the atrocities will be uploaded, no matter how horrible.

april 23, 2005

UPDATE:
php script added to <h2> tags.

whip-a-whip-whippeeeee!

well, the php script that serves whatever font i want from my server to your computer is nifty enough - thanks to stewart rosenberger for doing all the work, and helping me when i came whining to him about configuring the URLs, etc. it's amazing enough when people who charge you money for software or scripts give you any support at all; when people actually take the time to give you support for something they gave away on the internet for free - that's just cool.

the one caveat about this type of server-side action is that it's dependent on how the server is performing that particular day. so, you may find that the page loads in the blink of an eye, but the nifty text images don't pop up for another half a minute or so, due to...something or other. the little man inside the computor internets did not have his coffee. the hamster died. something.

in actual music-related news, mr. gavin mahaley has promised to pirate me some...uh, that is...lend me the use of some of his music-producing software, so you may actually get to hear some actual new music on the "sounds" page very soon.

or you could send me a paying writing/editing gig and i can buy myself the damned software today. how 'bout that?

GFE is coming back to town in June. evacuate the women and children, hide the livestock, fill the moat.

and finally - after a confusing couple of sunny and warm days we have returned to the familiar, comforting blanket of gray whatever that is seattle. thank goodness! i was afraid i was going to have to be cheerful there for a minute.

best regards etc.

april 11, 2005

happenings 20 years time ago

[postscript written june 25:]
this web site seems to have had only one useful purpose lately - to re-unite me via email with people i used to know twenty years ago. i suppose i should be thankful. i am capable of that emotion, after all. it's been a long saturday in front of fuse tv hitting "delete" over and over again. it just seems like no one even tries any more... anyway, oddly, the person i addressed below just sent me an email. can you believe it? i had better go back and check for spelling and grammar mistakes...

yes, i have seen your web site. congratulations on the PhD by the way.

the reason i haven't emailed is because the last time i saw you, the manner in which i read your "hello" was that it contained a subtext of "i really don't want to have a conversation with you, nor do i find the fact that we used to be friends particularly interesting." i got the hint, even if that hint was generated entirely inside my own brain and had nothing to do with any external reality. but as you know, i do that.

since that time, i had no particular inspiration to relinquish my reticence, and ever the diplomat, i decided to leave it in your court. that having been said, if you decide to throw the ball my way again, please yell "check!" first so i don't get a broken nose.

i had a really good musical idea while playing guitar the other day, and i immediately thought "i should record this, i'll forget it." i didn't, and i did. today i had a great lyrical idea. good thing i'm better at typing than playing the guitar.

april 11 2005: "one red eye" 

     one red eye
     watching me
     one blue eye
     that cannot see
©2005 erik j. rader.

april 7, 2005

i am not the guy from university of michigan who's a microbiologist or something, who also appears to be an athlete - track star, or whatever. i am also not the guy from somewhere in the netherlands or scandinavia or whatever. i am not the collector of baseball cards and model cars. i am not the online strategy gameplayer.

apparently, there are a whole bunch of guys with the exact same name [including spelling] as me, which i guess is mathematically reasonable. however, i want to stress that they are not me.

however, i AM the guy who got drunk in the berkeley rose garden, ranted about the "evil corporate coffee machine" [long before anyone had ever heard of starbucks] and threw up in a paper shopping bag, all when i should have been at school. i am the guy who worked as a temp at the northeastern university english department and told people they had to fill out their requisition form correctly if they wanted to get any pencils. i am the guy who made your latte at peaberry coffee on pearl street in boulder, colorado, when you should have been turning in that column you were slacking off on. i can't believe how many coffee breaks journalists take. i am that guy who made your roast beef sandwich at bubi's deli. i am that guy with the mohawk to whom you said, in your delightful accent, "you are ugly and mean!" i am that guy who painted the nightscape clocktower on the wall in mary ward hall's alternity wing at SFSU in 1983-84. i am that guy who bussed your table at algiers landing in new orleans. i am that guy who cried out loud at the memorial service when all the other men just looked confused. i am that guy in your web design class at the community college. yes. that is me.

i am also, shallowly and embarrassingly enough, pretty much that guy in all the lyrics of my songs. more or less. i just don't know how to do it any other way. maybe i'd write more songs if i pretended to be somebody else. that microbiologist for example.

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april 6, 2005

added mssrs. heem bogus and sean "first take" griffin to the bands page. clearly, there are many bands/musicians i COULD put on that list but CAN'T because of one of the following reasons:

  1. band broke up
  2. no web site
  3. very, very bad web site
  4. petty personal vendettas on my part
so...sue me.

more digital media from me coming, i promise...

april 3, 2005

as you can see, a good lot of tinkering has been done here over the past 48 hours. look around. if something breaks in your browser, please email me and let me know. oh, oops, right - please email me.

april 1, 2005

in honor of april fool's day, i have posted another phonecam pic of myself. it's wonderful what color quality you can get out of these tiny stupid things with horrible lenses the size of spermatozoa, which become horribly occluded by one or two specs of dust.

listening to a CD "greatest hits" compilation from 1991 of THE JAM singles. i know, i know, where's my "SEQUENCING BITCH!" purism? the fact is, if i were to get happy satisfaction out of my favorite bands, i would carry around all of their albums in a sack, and listen to them one after the other in sequence. in other words, i am too cheap/disorganized to get myself - say for instance - an iPod.

the reason the sequencing-purist in me is not offended by this compilation is that it was put together by some crazed italian fan, including semi-literate liner notes. now that's my kind of compilation CD.

what's missing perhaps are a few of my personal favorites. for instance, i am far more enamored of their cover of wilson pickett's "in the midnight hour" than i am of the kinks' "david watts". and although "when you're young" is fine and dandy, i would have gladly traded it for "thick as thieves". but it's a "greatest hits" compilation, and as per usual with me, their greatest hits were not necessarily my favorite songs.

a science fiction writer i can't recall once posited that one idea of heaven might be the ability to relive the lives of other people at will - for instance, one might select being born, living, and dying as cleopatra, napoleon, gandhi, ernesto "che" guevara, andre breton, or even one's next door neighbor. there are times when i think that i already live in this heaven in some nearby parallel universe; or perhaps this is simply my experience of the hindu aphorism that all separation of consciousness is an illusion, that "there is no difference between you and i." therefore, not only have i already been both john AND yoko, i still am, somewhere, an infinitude of times.

now if you will excuse me - i have to go down to the elementary school to resign my teaching position, in order to go on tour with r.e.m. or rocket from the crypt or something like that.

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