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Top Scriners

  1. Keith :: 2649
  2. 'mouse :: 2201
  3. boot :: 1394
  4. Jo :: 1177
  5. Br. Ezra :: 1108
  6. pam :: 714
  7. bakerina :: 657
  8. e :: 476
  9. littledevilworks :: 360
  10. You can call me, 'Sir' :: 262
  11. steve :: 261
  12. JadedBeauty :: 230
  13. OhNo789 :: 215
  14. grudknows :: 215
  15. hysterium :: 183
  16. goliard :: 179
  17. carrot :: 149
  18. Centerfold :: 141
  19. darksteve :: 121
  20. Bunni :: 114
  21. scott :: 92
  22. other keith :: 68
  23. Snow :: 64
  24. heather :: 62
  25. Ontario Emperor :: 59
  26. baltimore :: 56
  27. Skyte :: 52
  28. shady180 :: 41
  29. OralGrist :: 40
  30. Elisson :: 38
  31. cetacean :: 38
  32. mercuryfern :: 37
  33. hameno :: 37
  34. skif :: 36
  35. ecklektik :: 29
  36. Coyote :: 28
  37. Mr. Fitz :: 26
  38. VanEck :: 25
  39. ewillyp :: 25
  40. The Girl :: 22
  41. microkat :: 21
  42. viki :: 19
  43. Fire_star :: 18
  44. admiral dewy wilkins :: 18
  45. Imaginary Keith :: 17
  46. tajtonic :: 16
  47. Nyuu nyuu :: 16
  48. aerosolspray :: 16
  49. Joan of Argghh! :: 15
  50. secretlover :: 13
  51. ampersand :: 13
  52. limine :: 11
  53. toaster :: 9
  54. Randy :: 9
  55. Tiff :: 8
  56. Mike Schwartz :: 8
  57. Glee Riot :: 8
  58. Slim101 :: 7
  59. Adnarimen :: 7
  60. the boy :: 6
  61. Self made :: 6
  62. SarahsGreenEyes :: 6
  63. Pseud Anon :: 6
  64. pat :: 6
  65. kimberly :: 6
  66. johnsheirer :: 6
  67. Dr. Stevenson :: 6
  68. Chug :: 6
  69. Meg :: 5
  70. Chade :: 5
  71. Henry :: 4
  72. halfadeckshort :: 4
  73. Christopher Cocca :: 4
  74. Scrine :: 3
  75. Schofeild :: 3
  76. retiredfrogkisser :: 3
  77. kel :: 3
  78. f2white :: 3
  79. ardina :: 3
  80. emsie :: 2
  81. cherrychairy :: 2
  82. Cate :: 2
  83. steepest_slope :: 1
  84. Spilane :: 1
  85. princesstoughguy :: 1
  86. pickles :: 1
  87. Bird Bones :: 1
  88. 7AM :: 1
  89. *cough* :: 1

Archives

Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Long and Winding Road of Scrine Radio :: Keith :: 1

Several years have passed since Other Keith gave me my first real taste of digital music, transferring his Beatles collection and whatever else he had at the time onto my laptop.  If I recall correctly, the transfer came to around 40 Gb and I felt like I’d hit the mother lode.  So much music, I thought at the time.  I was on top of the world.

I kept collecting over the years, starting off slowly back at the farm with my slow Internet connection, harvesting music a track at a time with a program called Peel, which allowed me for the first time to automate the process of downloading single mp3s from various music blogs that I’d began to discover.  It worked for me for a time, but I soon realized that much of the music it downloaded was not only music I ended up having to weed through and throw away, but was often so badly tagged that I would spend way too many hours hunting down information for a single song at a time.

Eventually the speed of my Internet connection increased and I was able to get serious about hunting for music.  It didn’t take long to find a whole community of blogs dedicated to the sharing of not just single songs, but whole albums, which could be downloaded with the click of a button.  Now hobby became obsession, taking on even greater steam when fellow Scriner ‘mouse climbed onboard this musical adventure, teaming up with me to help create what has become a fast growing musical library.  40 Gb quickly became 80 Gb, then 100 Gb, then 200 Gb, and before we knew it, a 1000 Gb had been reached.

There have been setbacks, of course, the biggest of these being last year’s iTunes mouse click that nearly broke my spirit.  Attempting to bring order to the entire library, I gave iTunes the task of converting all of the id3 tags—something which I knew nothing about when I started but grew too learn more about after the near fatal click—into one of the newer versions.  iTunes went to work right away, but when it was done, nearly half of the songs in the library had lost nearly all of their id3 information.  I couldn’t believe it the first time I loaded iTunes and saw that nearly two years of organizational work had been washed down the tube by that single mouse click.  And no, I didn’t have backups at the time because if you know my history at all you know that I was at that time struggling with every penny just to save the family farm.  External hard drives for backups were one of the last things on my budget.

But I’m not one for giving up, so I dug in my heels and went to work restoring the information for each and every song that had been lost, a job that took me more than a year to complete, but which would have been a breeze had I known about the existence of one single program - Jaikoz.  My solution at the time involved running each and every song through a program called Max, which isn’t a tagging program at all but an audio extraction/conversion software.  It got the job done, but slowly.  Believe me, I searched for a program like Jaikoz to do the job, but for whatever reason, bad luck most likely, my searches always ended up at dead ends.

Eventually everything that had been damaged was repaired.  Backups were made and mailed off to ‘mouse.  The library continues to grow and is fast approaching the 1.5 Tb size, which works out to nearly a quarter of a million songs.  Currently, thanks to a recent Scrine donation by Boot, I was able to purchase some volume adjustment software that I’ve long had my eye on, which will make listening to this vast beast of a library much more pleasurable.  iTunes does what it can to normalize the playback volume of the library, but the logarithms they use to analyze the music are far from perfect, and so this week I’ve handed off the long and arduous task to my newest tool, iVolume, a program I’ve long heard and read about.

My goal, other than a vast and all-encompassing collection of music that takes in every imaginable genre, is to be able to fire up the Scrine Radio station and let ‘er rip.  With my new job coming up and the promise of a bit more money in my future, I find myself looking forward to some larger external hard drives, a new, faster computer, and the collection to make a real go of the online radio thing.

So just what is the software that makes Scrine and Scrine Radio tick?  Here’s a list:

ExpressionEngine runs the site.
EngineHosting for the hosting of Scrine’s main site.  Very realiable.  Excellent customer service.
Dotster for additional hosting for music, video, and multi-media files.  Less service oriented, but reliable and fairly cheap for the space provided.
iTunes
Radiologik DJ and Radiologik DJ Scheduler for Scrine Radio playback.
iVolume for setting volume control of the music files.
Rogue Amoeba’s Nicecast to stream the music from my computer to the Internet.
Jaikoz to fix all tag information for the song library.
Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro for when capturing portions of audio is necessary.

And finally, the newest tool in the bag, I’m testing out MyShoutServer for the SHOUTcast streaming of Scrine Radio.

 


Monday, June 08, 2009
Dirty Dancing :: OhNo789 :: 4

I wonder what happens
when the top to the washing machine
is closed.

All I know
is that when I open the lid
at the tail end of my cycle
my laundry is soggy and clean,

but I cannot be sure
that the whites, brights,
darks and jeans
are not having a party
in there
when I close the lid,
turn the knob to
normal wash
and walk away.

Who is to say
that the sound
which I assume is
just the washer washing
is not their form of music,
and that inside
the dark and enclosed space
my blue turtleneck
and gray polo
aren’t grinding up against each other
to the wish-wosh-wish-wosh?

I’d try to catch them at it,
but like teenagers kissing
they immediately stop
at the sound of footsteps.


Saturday, May 30, 2009
“What Thunder?” :: OhNo789 :: 0

Well, I’ve done it. (Kind of) I’ve brought together 20 pieces of my poetry, and have put them into a collection of sorts. I’m planning on giving copies to my family as a thank you for putting up with me through my lower education. I really wanted to give something to them, and I wanted it to be more than a card, so I made a collection of things that I wrote, and I’m planning to give it to them at my graduation party along with a cd that I’m currently making for them. I hope that they like it. I know that it isn’t much.

Anyway, I’m also sending it off to my friends, so if any of you would like the PDF just give me your email, and I’ll send it ASAP.


Monday, May 25, 2009
Fly, Monkeys, Fly :: OhNo789 :: 2

I have set my poetry free;
I have loosed it to the world
in silent proclamations of love,
in unruly rage and desire.

I have handed many a verse
off to blue eyed, fair haired
strangers lurking with their
hair down to their shoulders
in the corners of local coffee shops

and I have also handed
line and line perhaps
a bit haphazardly
into the hands of
the pretty brown haired girls
of Chicago.

You know,
the ones with boyfriends.

And I have asked them all
in one way or another
for a small piece of their heart
which I would,
if I had my way,
sequester into the pages
of this fair city’s poetry weeklies.

Whereupon it would be loosed
again to fetter another’s affections
and bring them to me,
clacking tirelessly away at my computer.


Friday, May 15, 2009
The Sound Of Scilence :: OhNo789 :: 0

I must’ve walked two miles
or so through the dying
light of mid-may and
to your doorstep alone,
where neon greeted me
with a cheery close to close hello,
and I let myself in.

You were quite noisey when I entered,
for the whole time I sat
in the quieter of corners
admiring the photographs on the wall
I did not hear myself speak -
not even for the cup of hot chocolate
with extra whipping cream,
which setteled itself into the wooden chair
beside me - cooling itself in the central air.

In fact, when I left
scarcely a half-hour later
into the night
it had been some time
since a single word
punctured the folds of my lips,
so to keep from going silly in the head
I spoke: “I’m sorry
that my accent is a little different.”

The night listened,
and replied in the droll tones
of one who always listens
with the knats who lingered
in the light above
who carried my words
from streetlight to streetlight,
finally resting
on the lamp beside my keyboard.


Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A + M :: OhNo789 :: 3

The margins were happy that you came.
Pen in hand, you circled, boxed
and starred your way through
the droll paragraphs of some classic or other -
Homer, Ibsen, Spenser - it mattered not.

Small words like “the,” “a” and “an”
stood no chance.
My best friend, “munificent”
you scribbled around in cold blood.
He died, cold and limp in my Q alone.
In your grip a ballpoint became a weapon.
Your hands never shook.

But the margins were happy that you came.
In those fleeting moments
when you paused to write “Irony,”
“Circular Reasoning,” or “Motif”
they stood with a blank stare,
and your red ink caught them
with a luring flick of the wrist,
made them blush and bleed and love.

Love! As if empty margins could love
like the words of Whitman’s
“To a Stranger.” As if they
could feel like a Plath
or laugh like a Collins.
A shallow one-inch space
cannot speak, is void
of thought, action and wrong.
Am I not a word of vowel and consonant?
Take me! for I am not a placeholder
for thought, but a verb of action.

Pen in hand, you circled, boxed
and starred your way through
droll paragraphs - lines
ever leading to the sad side
of the page to report
your conquests.

Oh, Aphrodite with a ballpoint pistol,
why do you pause, move your tongue
from mouth to lip and back subtly?
only to quickly doodle a heart,
and in hasty loopy script
an A, plus sign, M.


Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Bogus Scrines :: Keith :: 3

Work began last week on Bogus Scrines, which is a random sentence generator that will hopefully help create even more nonsense for our enjoyment.  It began, as all things of great importance do, with testing upon ducks.  Seriously, as I weeded through the list of verbs that would go into the “duck” portion of the code, you wouldn’t believe how many times I read a verb then thought to myself, “the duck.”  Actually, I can tell you - about a 1000.  Currently, the duck verb list stands at about 800, but I’m not sure if that number is actually correct.  If you happen to see the word “undefined” pop up in the Bogus Scrine sentence, than that means the number is high.

In my spare moments, I slowly go over other lists of words that will go into the code to help generate other types of sentences, trying to weed out the words that are difficult to place randomly based on parts of speech and sentence structure.  Once I get these lists ironed out, I can add a variety of other sentence structures to the randomness of the thing for our mindless entertainment.

Originally, I thought about pulling all of the words for the random generator straight out of the sentences of Scrine, but then realized that that was madness and would be way too time consuming.  So, I stuck with the main characters of Scrine, some of whom I’m sure I’m overlooking.  But we’ll find them and stick them in.  The other parts of speech words I’ve pulled from lists I’ve found, with a few exceptions of my own thrown in for good taste.  Many lists, for example, recognize “house” and “giraffe,” but no list I’ve found anywhere lists “house giraffe.”

Like so many other facets of Scrine, I have no idea of where this is going, and to tell the truth (like I always do), I’m perfectly fine with that.


Friday, April 24, 2009
Why are all the cool kids shunning me? :: 'mouse :: 2

There is so much screamingly uncool (as well as “he/she/they aren’t dead yet?”) in the following list (which is the Mountain Winery summer concert calendar) that I’m seriously doubting my taste in the couple shows I’m actually thinking about attending:

B.B. King
Rodrigo y Gabriela
India Arie
Heart
Three Girls & Their Buddy featuring Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller
The B-52’s
Ani DiFranco
Yes with Special Guest Asia
Duran Duran
Regeneration Tour with ABC, Wang Chung, Berlin, Cutting Crew and Heaven 17
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Blues Traveler / Big Head Todd & The Monsters
Tears For Fears
Boz Scaggs / Michael McDonald
Indigo Girls
Pat Benatar + Blondie with Special Guest The Donnas
George Thorogood & The Destroyers / Jonny Lang
The Moody Blues
Kathy Griffin
Steve Miller Band
The Beach Boys
Lyle Lovett in Concert
Smokey Robinson
Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers with Toots & The Maytals
Melissa Etheridge Live and Alone
Los Lonely Boys / Los Lobos
Huey Lewis & The News
Elvis Costello & The Sugarcanes
Diana Krall
Lewis Black
Chris Isaak
Heroes of Woodstock featuring Jefferson Starship, Ten Years After, Canned Heat, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Grateful Dead’s Tom Constanten, with host Country Joe McDonald
Susan Tedeschi with Jackie Greene
Foreigner
Sheryl Crow
Daryl Hall & John Oates
Gipsy Kings
The Doobie Brothers
Bonnie Raitt BonTaj Roulet: Bonnie Raitt & Taj Mahal - Alone & Together
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Creedence Clearwater Revisited
Etta James and The Roots Band with Special Guest The Robert Cray Band
The Temptations / The Four Tops
Wynonna
Tower of Power / Average White Band
Tony Bennett
Cheech & Chong with Special Guest Shelby
John Prine
Pink Martini
Loggins & Messina


Tuesday, April 21, 2009
“What thunder?” I say, my funeral-black umbrella held in the left. :: OhNo789 :: 2

My last words
are hardly going
to be ones for the
books of learned men.

Unlike Wilde’s terminal
“either the wallpaper
goes, or I do!”
they’ll practically
stroll over my tongue,
through the cracks
between my teeth
and dance off of every
atom in the air between
my red, pouty lips
and the detached earlobe
of my lifelong friend.

Those two careless words
which forgot that
on the hallowed
ground where I stand
(stood) Irony is
a goddess wielding
crossbow - lightning-bolts
in a quiver slung
on her naked back.


Saturday, April 04, 2009
Just a rant. :: JadedBeauty :: 3

The film (enabled Will Smith to tackle a subject which has always fascinated him from a different perspective: how do men overcome their traumas? How do they continue to live when everything is going wrong?

WTF?  Why is it that MEN are the only ones that suffer traumas?

I am not a typical female.  I am not one of those women that think that every man I meet is “THE LOVE OF MY LIFE OMG!!!”

So why didn’t a brilliant female actress decide to make a movie about what women (REAL women, not pansy ass naive ignorant unmotivated bitches) do when everything they touch turns to shit? 
Has anyone seen a movie with a woman like that?
NO…I haven’t.  I’ve only seen the stereotypical female hero/anti-hero films…

EFFING A people!
ugh…I really feel that I must write a book at this point.


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