Awesome thing of the week, Website
Posted July 11, 2010 at 3:16 pm by Severed Head
Now More Fun is currently going through some wacky changes. There is extra shit here and weird shit there. I apologize, but it might be a while before we fix this shit up.
Also, do YOU — yes you! Want an e-mail? Address? One that ends with nowmorefun.com? Go ahead and come on and ask in the comments today!
Information Hoarding and Fucking Up/Becoming Free
Awesome thing of the week, Time Paradox, Website
Posted June 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm by Severed Head
This article/blogpost/wtf-ever is basically a continuation on my thoughts on the internet, and the digital age, and the omnipresence of technology and the unlimitedness of the databases available to us…
I guess I would describe myself as kind of an information hoarder. I have a bunch of files on my computer just full of text and shit, and often, I don’t even read them. Organizing such things can be incredibly difficult.
For example, I have a file on my computer that is made up entirely of notes. Things to do throughout the day-stuff I have to get done, sometimes important passwords, really great ideas that I can reflect upon later to see if I still think they’re worthy, etc. This is all in one giant text file in the most boring font you can imagine because all it is is some fucking notes, which a bunch of line breaks between varying pieces of information. Every now and then, I’ll skim over some of the most recent stuff in this giant file, and it will provide with reminders or information I need.
I’ve thought a lot in my life recently about all of this, and I’ve decided I want to get rid of this kind of completely unregulated clutter/mess that I will probably never get back to. Just clear out. And some fuck up somewhere along the line has gone and done it for me. I restarted my computer today, and my text file was suddenly empty. Normally, I have Time Machine setup to have all of this kind of stuff backed up, but, recently, as a result of quite a few events, mostly installing a new hard drive, the Time Machine was erased, and I turned it off temporarily. Basically, I forgot to turn it back on, and now there is no possible way for me to recover that notes file. While this initially pissed me off, I’ve already come to accept it (total time to go through those stages of grief: less than 5 minutes?)… There could be some really important things I lost, but honestly, I really don’t know. I’m going to start anew, making my notes more organized and more though-out. I’m going to use them in a way that’s easy to review for reminders, and a way that’s harder for important information to get lost.
Hopefully. I’m trying to look at this as an opportunity.
Now, there are still a bunch of other little bits of information I’ve stored through bookmarks (links to funny pictures that I want to post on here, interesting articles, etc.), and the thing is: I RARELY go over this stuff. A lot of it is fascinating and, provided I put my time in, it could really all help me out. But it’s holding me back in a sense from reading new stuff and writing new articles on here.
It really is a lot like hoarding, except that it’s all digital. I think I’m pretty good at getting rid of actual physical stuff that is no longer useful to me (minus some video games/consoles–mostly because I don’t know what the fuck to do with them… Continuing with this side note, I’ve hacked my Wii in such a way that I can basically play any NES/SNES/GB/GBA/GBC/N64/Genesis/Game Gear game I want on my Wii wirelessly with the use of a Wiimote and a classic game controller, rendering most of my game systems, except my PS2 and my Wii and an actual GBA, useless (although I only do have a few games for the GBA, so I might as well get a newer DS and some flashcarts or something)), but I seem to have a difficult time getting rid of a link that I haven’t fully read/haven’t shared with anyone yet. Not all of these funny pictures/articles/ideas really need to be shared with the world, and, every now and then when I do start to look through them, and there is a dead link, it’s not like I really know what was there in the first place.
I guess we’ll see how it works out. For years, this website has been my dump for ideas/links/whatever and it’s all terribly organized, but I like it that way. This is the one place where I really feel I can store my thoughts in an articulate manner and, because it’s on the internet, and, in some sense, available to the public, I feel the need to actually think and to create quality work.
I know I won’t get out of the habit of compulsive list-making or taking extensive random notes or writing down all of my ideas, but I really hope that this time, I can do it in an organized fashion that has me getting a lot more shit done.
Quick Thought: The Internet and Intelligence
Philosophy, Propaganda, Robots, Time Paradox, Website
Posted June 16, 2010 at 9:15 pm by Severed Head
Some people feel that having such a vast array of data available so easily at your fingertips will make us stupider. We will no longer have to learn anything, because we can always google it and learn more about it than most would know in a semester-long class in college.
I, however, make the opposite argument. Since we have so much fucking data available to us, you have little to no excuse as to why you don’t know something. If there’s anything you wanted to learn how to do, I’m sure there’s a page on the internet that talks about it extensively.
Just a thought!
Coming soon: I hated Arizona before it was the cool thing to do
Pissed off rants, Time Paradox, Website
Posted May 3, 2010 at 8:06 am by Severed Head
I know I’ve said many things on this site are coming soon, and I still have some lists of stuff I wanted to write about, but lately, Arizona has been getting a bad reputation because of the immigration laws, but I want everyone to know that we were a terrible state before that, too. I’m looking forward to writing about the main reasons why my state is terrible, quoting sources of studies to confirm that we are one of the worst states in teen suicide, suicide in general, red-light running, firearm deaths, etc.
Awesome thing of the week, Music, Robots, Time Paradox, Website
Posted March 19, 2010 at 12:43 am by Severed Head
Just in the last few minutes I found this article, which is really quite amazing. My favorite part is the discussion, and I really feel like I could talk about this stuff forever.
With all of my friends who have large collections of music, I always ask them how they organize it. I didn’t realize there were so many people out there that do this too. I really feel like this thread should evolve into a message board with just questions and ideas regarding music collections. Specifically, the following topics would be very interesting: Software used to access it (iTunes vs. Windows Media vs. cetera), Proper tagging (use of MusicBrainz? How to handle genres), playlists, capitalization, etc. I am just a huge nerd for all of this kind of stuff.
Speaking of which, I’ve gone about the task of setting up an HTPC situation. For those of you who don’t know, HTPC is an Home Theater PC… But this is an HTMac. Basically, the idea is to have all of your media hooked up to your TV. So, from my TV, ideally, the end product is this:
A computer hooked up to the TV, very easy and quick to turn on.
A remote interface (right now, my iPod Touch)
A nice interface on-screen(XBMC w/Aeon)
Access to streaming services (specifically, YouTube/Netflix/Hulu/Any other new TV sites I’ve discovered recently)
A database of stored movies and TV shows
Now, my particular situation is somewhat unique right now. A lot of other people will just scrap up an old PC and strip it down to what it needs to work. Currently, I’m just using my laptop and an external hard drive, which I have to lug over to my TV every time I want to use them, but it really does seem a lot better than just watching them on my laptop’s screen. Soon though, I’m looking to purchase an old MacMini and a 1 TB NAS drive. The NAS drive would allow me to access all of these movies and TV shows wirelessly, but I’m not really exactly clear on how all of that works.
One feature I really want, that doesn’t seem readily available, is a shuffle feature for TV shows. I don’t have cable right now, but I do have a fair amount of TV show DVDs. I have a few episodes on my computer so far, and I’d like just to be able to put them on shuffle, as if I had a TV station composed entirely of shows that I love with no commercials. That really seems like the ultimate HTPC situation.
I also seem to be one of the few XBMC users who wants to store deleted scenes from DVDs and TV shows, and have them link up with the movies/TV episodes themselves. I’ve finally figured it out a solution, but it’s not exactly satisfactory. Right now though, it’s only a matter of ripping everything to my external hard drive
Coming soon: Piracy is in the news, and I want to defend the pirates. But not in some stupid way like Cory Doctorow. His point seems to be that “the industry” are restricting the user’s copying of data to very specific ways, which really don’t make a lot of sense, and I completely agree with this. My beef with Cory is that he doesn’t seem to come right out and go “Fuck you guys, stealing is so awesome and convenient that everyone should do it,” but posts a lot of articles suggesting things like “Suing pirates seems wrong” and “Shutting down torrent sites seems wrong.” He seems to avoid the idea that this is stealing, and that these sites have a bunch of movies/music that people are downloading for free to circumvent any sort of payment system.
But maybe I’ve simply misinterpreted something here or there. I’m not posting all of my opinions yet because I’d like to do a bit more research first…
Also, check out this site for healthcare: Top 10 facts to know about health care reform… There are a lot of uninformed/misinformed people out there with strong opinions, so here’s a neutral source with good information. Please read this if you’re going to speak out about these issues. You’d be amazed at how many vehemently angry people are just completely wrong because some stupid fucking chain e-mail got to them first.
Wow. This has become like an actual blog again, and I’m acting like people read this. WEIRD.
Posted September 13, 2009 at 11:24 am by Severed Head
Writing from bed right now. Writing from my iPod. This rocks. WordPress iPod app FTW. I’m hoping to add another rant in the next couple of days, but I’d like to first figure out my future living situation. It’s all up in the air right now. What I’d most like is to be able to find a place like Jake’s. A house, but a studio. I don’t think they have those here. 
Letter to Jake about playing music
Awesome thing of the week, Comics, Conspiracies, Dreams, Fun, Fun Facts, Grammar, Guitar, Life, Limb, Lists, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Plane, Propaganda, Robots, Snakes, Time Paradox, Uncategorized, Website
Posted July 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm by Severed Head
I think maybe we should just start booking gigs here in Phoenix. I will find some that you and I can both make in terms of dates. If we get booked, I’ll really quickly record some shit and send it to you, and we’ll basically jam some songs off of that at the show since we won’t really have time to rehearse.
Just to get the ball rolling and play some fun shows. What do you think?
Awesome thing of the week, Website
Posted February 4, 2009 at 4:23 pm by Severed Head
We have just upgraded WordPress to a much more streamlined version which is, quite simply, fucking beautiful from the control panel type stuff. So if anyone has any problems, let me know.
Posted February 4, 2009 at 2:25 pm by Severed Head
Sorry about the down time, anyone who reads this website. It appears all fixed, but some shit may be screwy. Let me know.
Top 2008 Albums! (10 of them!)
Lists, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Website
Posted December 31, 2008 at 5:30 pm by Severed Head
Holy SHIT it was hard to pick albums this year! Here’s what I had to say last year:
Every year must have its mandatory top 10 list. I normally listen to a few certain albums a year, and when I listen to those albums years later, and they remind me of that year/time/certain feeling. So here are my favorite/most listened to albums this year. Hopefully when I listen to these later, they will remind me of the better times of this year. Also, it’s in reverse numerical order. Kind of like some sort of stupid countdown…. One last note before we start: A lot of people choose the top 10 2007 albums list as all the albums released in 2007. Well I don’t know that I even have any CDs released in 2007 other than In Rainbows or The Dethalbum (and Cannibal! Which didn’t make it onto the list! Shit!). That’s because none of my favorite bands released anything good this year. Nobody in general did. It’s been the year of shite-indie-bands-that-sound-exactly-the-same-as-every-other-shite-indie-band and way-too-much-screamin’-metal.
So yeah, just pretend I said that about this year too. Actually, a few of these did actually come out this year, or in 2007… Some are even left over from 2007, in that, I started listening to them then, and continued listening to them a lot in 2008. Anyway… I had a really REALLY hard time picking. At first, I was like “What the fuck am I going to pick? I can only think of 2 albums (now the top 2)… ANYWAY. JUST READ.
10. Ben Folds-Rockin’ the Suburbs
Pretty good! I got this album a while ago, and had always known Fred Jones, Part 2 (with John McCrea from Cake!!!), but I never realized how talented and funny Ben was until I met my wonderful girlfriend Julia. Anyway, it’s a really entertaining, catchy album, even if it is a bit pop at times.
9. John C. Reilly-Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
A collection of joke songs, kind of… But some of them are actually really damn good! In fact, most of them are pretty damn good, whether they were created for a parody movie or not… A lot of this reminds me of driving around in my car and singing at the top of my lungs… I would always have to warm up with other songs on this album before I could really get at the stronger ones like A Life Without You (Is No Life at All).
8. Jon Brion-Synecdoche, New York
It was such a hard pick between this and Eternal Sunshine, but I chose this because I’m still addicted to it. And with Eternal Sunshine, I skip over a lot of the non-score songs (not Beck though!!)… Anyway, aside from this being a perfect movie, I also feel that the soundtrack is pretty fucking amazing too.
7. Radiohead-8 Outtakes from Anesiac
While not much of an official album… In fact, I’m not sure if it was ever released… Anyway, this is one of the best collections of Radiohead’s songs out there. It’s a lot better than Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, the two albums it falls between… What a relaxing album. I must thank my friend Caroline for emphasizing how amazing this is.
6. YMCK-Family Music
Again, a really hard choice to say whether this was more prominent/favored than Family Racing. I chose this because I know all the songs a lot better. Family Racing still feels a bit more… Which is a bit odd, since I listened to them about the same amount… Maybe that makes the other one better. But this one has stuck with me more, which is why I chose it. So fuck off if you don’t like it.
5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds-Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
My favorite Nick Cave album in a long time! This goes particularly well with Grinderman. Anyway, again, I associate these both with driving A LOT. I remember listening to these on my trips to/from Flagstaff/Tucson. Good times!
4. KoRn-Untitled
Just when I thought I would never get back into KoRn, they come together and create a masterpiece. It probably never would’ve happened if not for the last track… And of course, seeing Jonathan Davis perform with a mind-blowing acoustic group in early December of last year.
3. Local H-Ham Fisted
Nearly forgot about this one! I had never really hard this album, but when I heard Local H play Feed in L.A., I knew I had to get into it… That song, for being composed primarily of like two riffs, is AMAZING!
2. Bumblefoot-Abnormal
Whoa. Just whoa! When I first heard this, I thought it SUCKED compared to Normal, but then it really grew on me. It’s a completely different way of organizing an album and bringing together a collection and making a concept album… And it fits perfectly. Once again, Bumblefoot has outdone himself!
1. Local H-12 Angry Months
Wahhh. One of my favorite albums ever. I listened to this album once or twice a day pretty much every day during May and June. Almost every day, when I’d drive to work, I’d listen to this… So I associate a lot of it with where I would be when I was driving. For example, I’d almost always get to “Jesus Christ…” right around when I was arriving at work. And then, when I’d go on lunch, I’d continue the album, so, particularly, the last 4 tracks, remind me of going to Taco Bell or Kyoto Bowl (which has horrible food, but I can still taste it when I listen to some of these!)… I love all of these songs and almost always have since I heard it, but Hand to Mouth brings back the most emotions in me.
Honorable mention:
Beck-Odelay
Blur-Blur
Jon Brion-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Carter Burwell-Burn After Reading
Paul Gilbert-Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar
Paul Gilbert & Freddie Nelson-United States
Jonny Greenwood-There Will Be Blood
Grinderman-Grinderman
Liars-They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Local H-The No Fun EP
The Offspring-Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace
Serj Tankian-Elect the Dead
Roger Waters-The Pros & Cons of Hitch Hiking
YMCK-Family Racing
Hope you enjoyed that. Not much else to say. Haha… Looking at the scene in general, it hasn’t changed a lot from 2007. The biggest problem though? Going to last.fm and seeing that the number 1 artist right now is Coldplay. What. The. Fuck…. Is wrong. With. YOU. FUCKING. IDIOTS. No, I’m just kidding. I mean, everyone is entitled to their own opinion in music… But seriously. Coldplay? Really?! REALLY?!
God… WHy is Britney at number 17?! And Oasis at 13?! GAHHH