The old HN account, Slade, is hereby revealed as Ivan's forum troll alt. He chose the eponym (edit: by which, of course, I mean pseudonym.) because it would be easy for early '00's hacker teens to phonetically mangle. QED: 514d3. Hectar.

Thread delivers? Discussion?

Another jazz obit from Luci - Dennis Irwin, modern throwback jazz bassist, has passed away from liver failure as a result of cancer. He was a giant walking among men in his life, and a fixture in the New York music scene since the '70s. When he wasn't playing regular shows at the Vanguard over the last 30 years, he had played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, where I first met him, Red Garland, and John Scofield throughout his seminal 90's prog-jazz work.

He died at age 56 - far too young, and far younger than me. Some things just ain't right.

R.I.P.

The New York Times obit
Dennis as he should be heard and remembered

My conundrum is that I believe there is a bit of wireless bootlegging going on at my bootleg cafe. SO, I'm not sure it would be entirely ethical...? of my to lock of the wireless, but I feel I need to nonetheless, if only for the security of my customers.

Now, I may be ancient, but I do know how to use the whole SSID or whatever encryption system through the router, but I would rather have everyone who logs on redirected to some sort of webpage, where the would be asked to log in with a username/password. Unless I could do that with the router.

Anyway, how would I go about doing something like that?

This thread has nothing whatsoever to do with the HECTAR! thread at the other place.

I thought it would be interesting and useful (or not) to have a running thread of posts that made you "OMFGLOL!!!1" or at least chuckle, so that when your mother dies of bone cancer, your father slips a disc and falls down ten flights of stairs and enters a permanent coma, your cat gets hit by a truck, and you loose 10,000 dollars in the stock market all in one day, you can come here and have a fleeting moment of happiness before your drab life catches up to you once again. I will start:

Uh-huh.

I can't believe you burst in here and demand an emotional response from a complete and total stranger about some 3rd party to which we have no connection, real or imagined.  At least post a picture and tell me about the sob story about how she contracted this horrible disease by no fault of her own because she was in Mexico when she got bit by a huge spider and the only way to get the venom out was to suck it out.  Then, to her dismay, the guy who saved her life also sentenced her to her death by passing on his HIV infection... ironically.

And she has new puppies to care for, too.

Hectar!... I mean, OMFGLOL!!!

Posted to main page, apparently some things have been changed while I procrastinated... so I'm waiting for it to be "reviewed"? Anywhoo, it should be up shortly, and if it doesn't appear... here it is:

The Meaning of Leaf
From the journals of Lucille Satan Elizabeth Samuel
Part Two in a semi ongoing sortofseries

In which your (hopefully) favourite forum vagrant explores the intellectual,pseudo intellectual, and simply psuedo geeks of the world, in particular those who ingest into themselves the smoke of a lush leafy plant from the south of the americas; properly and excessively proselytizing his point.

-----


In the effort and support of the revolutionary idea of media synergy, Luci recommends that you procure and listen to the following songs while reading and pondering this article:

Dean Martin - Come Back to Sorrento
Dean Martin - Memories are Made of This
Dean Martin - I Love Paris
Dean Martin - Come Back to Sorrento (reprised!)
Dean Martin - Blue Moon
Dean Martin - That's Amore
Dean Martin - Arriverderci Roma
Bobby Vinton - Blue Velvet
Frank Sinatra - Witchcraft
Frank Sinatra - The Best is Yet to Come
Frank Sinatra - Young at Heart
Charmillionaire - Riding Dirty (seriously.)
John Coltrane - Lush Life (To purify you from last track)

In further tactile synergy interests, Luci recommends that you smoke any cigar you might have at hand. Indeed, he recommends you eat a nice steak with a side ceaser salad, pour a glass of Chianti, and find a CAO Italia "Fato" for this occasion. This of course is optional. Veal will work in place of steak.

-----

In our last segment, I conducted a stream of consciousness attempt to decode the psyche of the tobacco professional, aruguably the most geeky of tobacco geeks. Needless to say, it failed in a miserable fashion, and I couldn't help but think I understood them *less* with my further follow up digging. As such, undeterred by defeat, I decided to join forces with this dark alliance - I have since forayed into their very realm by becoming such a monster, in a minor way. I will, in this article, explore this avenue breifly, and then proceed to examine traditional computer geeks who enjoy smoking - a group that esteemed disappearing artist Ivan Davidoff terms the "Man of Letters geeks".

In late February of this year, I entered into a shady business pact with another tobacconist and friend in the general west coast area. His tobacco shop has a rather large upper area that he really had no use for beyond his store security camera stuff and some office supplies, and so he and I put our senior citizen cahoots together and started, shall we say, an extensive remodel. By march, we had our own speakeasy, if you will. I had tired of not being able to smoke in most of the area coffee shops, and wanted a place that he, I, and a few choice friends could sit back and have espresso, beer, wine, scotch, light foods, and smoke to our hearts content, maybe play a bit of poker Free of tax. So,  we made our dream a reality and I leaped in to the small business arena with vigor: a full bar, about 48 regular customers, a full kitchen with panini press (vital), all manner of coffees and teas, and a modest counter of cigars that may or may not make the excise man shake a finger.

After I had figured out the whole wireless thing, and figured out how to work a cash register, I was set! There were of course the normal business foibles - keeping everything in the black, maintaining customer service, assuring protection for my little racket, etc.

The procurement, needless to say, was one of the more enjoyable points. I started out with about 20 guys who I wanted as regulars, and polled them all on their favourite cigars, pipe tobaccos, and fine cigarettes. I assembled a list of domestic cigars: CAOs, Padrons, punch, H Upmanns, Cuestra Rays... all the finer things. A resounding choice in the cigarette field was Nat Sherman Naturals, Camel Wides, and Djarum Super and Black clove cigarettes. Popular selections from the Island South of Miami included the ever enduring Cohiba, Bolivar, Partagas, Diplomaticos, and Juan Lopes. The pipe tobaccos were many and varied, and more often than not I had to hunt for flavors or blend my own to get their satisfaction the perfection. In the end, I decided to keep in stock 3 boxes (20-25 per is the box average) of about 130 different cigars, 40 pounds of pipe tobaccos, and 5 different cigarette brands (Camel Wides, Lucky Strike Unfiltered, Nat Sherman Touch of Cloves, Havana Ovals, New York Cuts, and Classics, Djarum Supers {blacks were just *too* youthful for me to tolerate. Damned kids and their black cigarettes. Looking all young...}, and the Dunhill line). I try to throw in a good broad selection of sample packs of cigars, and cigarello boxes as well.

I've had a great time of it, 4 days a week when I'm in the area I get to play shopkeeper, bartender, and dirty old man all rolled into one. As such, it didn't take long to figure out the mystery behind the tobacco geek - it's about socializing. Sure, tobacco is a drug. It's addictive! But, there is something more addictive about the whole experience: sitting down, taking life a little slower than what we're accustomed to in this day and age, and chatting it up while enjoying a simple and for all the bloviated health warnings, relatively harmless pleasure. For one thing, you can't complain about second hand smoke when literally *everyone* is lit up!

In the context of such blatant laziness, you can't help but conjecture that surely there exist particular tech geeks who also inhabit the realm of the tobacco geek. These are the geeks who don't simply sit in a dark room or brightly lit cubicle typing away while sipping coffee and redbull, simultaneously (though they may do that as well). No, these are those rare and treasured men and women who sit back in their decidedly comfortable chairs, if they have any say in the matter, think in a slow and concise manner, perhaps have some Thelonious Monk playing behind them, and can somehow smoke a pipe without even having touched such a thing all their lives. They carry this relaxed aura with them in all their patient, collected actions. If they are at home, they may indeed light up a pipeful of tobacco and slowly work away at their specialty; at work, they may count the hours until they can take a slow puff of a favored cigar.

The man of letters geek, that sort of fellow who may be found humming "If I Were a Carpenter" instead of the latest techno beat, can be found even among us here at the Geekery. Noted scholar and man of dubious gentleness Ivan Davidoff had more than a few enlightnening things to say on the issue", and we will be exploring these and other musings when I point my canards towards the subject in the next segment.

For now,
Luci Out"*

*The posted version is different, as both were added after being Copied over and Pasted. I hadn't expounded that point yet, forgot about the ending, which is pretty minor...  wink
--------

Discuss?

I have some fun stats for this article.

Damages-

Chronological: It took me about 9 hours to compile, write, edit, but the research and writing process stretched out over 4 months.

Fiscal: $440.00 USD (Tax Deductable!) for 2 boxes of cigars, 3 ounces of pipe tobacco, and of bottle of Blackbush whiskey, and some of the entries to the Eadible entry.

Smoked: (Only counting cigars, pipes, or misc smoked WHILE directly researching or writing article): 17 Bowls of Peterson University Flake in an One-Hundred-and-Fortieth Anniversary Pipe, 5 bowls of Peterson luxury blend in a Cassano Perla pipe. 12 H. Upmann Coronas, and 9 Punch Rare Corojos. 1 pack of Nat Sherman Touch-of-Cloves, 2 packs Nat Sherman New York Cut.

Eadible/Otherwise ingested: 3 Cajun steaks, 12 massive heartkilling orders of hashed-browns "with your choice of egg, your choice of bacon or sausages, and endless coffeepot" (for 3.50! A little of what America used to be.) , 1 bottle of irish whiskey, 3 glasses of various scotch (Laphroig, Bowmore, and Talisker), 4 bottles of wine (various), 1 half bottle of port (Fonseca), A La Cucina Trapanese style meal cooked by my token mafia friend in New York {featured in my next article} that consisted of, among many things, arancini di riso con ricotta, deep fried tomatoes, and a marinated tuna steak. Around 4 million liters of coffee. (estimated... cheesy)

Concert tickets: 2, $10.00 to an open mike jazz-and-blues gig.

Petrol: Most likely around 80 bucks.

Motorcycle Repair: $13.00 for two spark plugs stolen by some crackfiend off of my Yamaha while I was inside a cigar store.

 

I hate this technology shite. Alright, so, here is my problem - I have six Western Digital external harddrives, each 250 gigabytes, that I use for all my musicks and other related witchcraft. All of them are pretty much full. Anyway, the one that *isn't* full, I like to keep about 100 gigs free at any time because I use it for backing up all my latest projects; I also use for it for my movies, or at least those I am currently watching/collecting. Well, I was in the process of transferring said digital media about an hour ago, and out of some strange OCD impulse wiggled the USB cord's head a hair of a centimeter to straighten it.

Needles to say, the bastard contraption wigged out, the witchbox (read: the computer) told me that it was disconnected, I got a delayed write error from bit torrent, since I was moving a file straight to the drive. Whatever, par for course. I drop the damn things enough anyway, and they come disconnected on me alot. I know these symptoms!

However, when I disconnected the cord and plugged it back in - nothing. I tried stopping and starting Western Digital Button manager - the process that seems to operate the autobackup features and such. Nothing. The laptop devil simply won't recognize that the harddrive exists!

Now, fearing that my USB *whatever* system has gone kaput, I plugged in some other misc USB devices, a mouse, a donge, etc. They all recognized just fine - also, switching out the USB cable of the HDD did not do anything. I tried 4 different cables, so I know that the cable itself isn't an issue.

I'm, as they say, freaking out man. Not severely, because the harddrive *seems* to be working fine in and of itself, but since it has alot of important musical heritage that I am working on for other people, and I only keep my laptop around these particular digs, I can't be sure if I can access the drive from another computer. This isn't huge, because I have more than a few other computers I can try it on elsewhere, but I try living in the here and now. And, since the laptop is what I use for most of my mixing and all anyhow, this is a prime concern.

Anyway, thoughts? Helps? Please?

Seems a popular title.

Anyway, I'm stuck halfway through two different articles, one is part 2 of my tobacco series and one is in regards to today's holiday.

But I need something. A muse, perhaps.

Of with the pannehs, Ivan!

(This reminds me of that time when Cecil... wait, nevermind)

Anyway, Dear the Judge:

I think it is long past overdue (laik s0 m4ny m0nths b3f0r3 1 3v3n j01n3d! OMFGLOL!) that you reinstate the Let's Get Personal topic!

I think your idea of getting to know forum members was really neat and adds a more personal sense of community to the community! OMFGLOL!

Signed,
Lord R. Wegoin Thomas T. R. Bates, Madame.
143 North Pemplechuck Street
Liverpool, England

Mail To:

Office of Judicious Use of Pornography in Children's Programming
The BBC WorldWide
80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
England, The United Kingdom

I saw this and was right away jealous of this man's beard. Spectacular! It requires captions.