All opinions expressed in this LJ are mine, unless otherwise indicated. They are certainly not those of my employer(s). They are also not the opinions of LiveJournal; I just volunteer here.

Assorted things in IRC led to the concept of The History of LJ: The Opera! The following features contributions from everyone who was there, including, but not limited to, gameboyguy13, pauamma, kamara, right and whatever phoenix's username is phoenixdreaming.

We'd need a Brad. Casting call followed. We'd need Brad's Mom, Developers, a User Chorus, Trolls, Ops, a clashing, sequin-studded dance troupe to represent Icons, a pantomime Goat (Frank), a backdrop to the set that changes every minute or so, pulled in and out by stagehands dressed in otherwise inexplicable colorful horse costumes...

Part of the opera must be dedicated to the blackout.

The entire house goes black, and a very tight spotlight falls on a soloist pulled from the user chorus (probably a soprano). She starts singing while fumbling around in the dark.

Another spotlight on the other side of the stage, and another soprano soloist from the user chorus starts. They're facing away from each other, unaware of each other.This section might be in the form of a round.

The basses start in, very quietly, with "re-load. re-load. re-load." All is still in darkness.

A larger spotlight represents IRC, with volunteers joining together, still with the sopranos as counterpoint.

Lights come up very dimly; Emergency Backup Journal locations are apparent. The meet-and-greet from the chorus swells, and the number ends to make way as Ops tries to clear up the mess.

The heartrendingly comic "Big Red Button" duet between Ops and the Colo Klutz follows. The Big Red Button will be visible for the entire show; many of the dance routines will come perilously close to it. Later, a bowl of petunias may fall on it.

right brought up Nipplegate. OK. "...We use these boobs to feed our baby / We don't care 'bout lotus pods or other slightly shady / forms of nipples on the internet..."

DDoS attacks are clearly a great moment for a zombie crowd; this is where the Ops' song "Send Shotguns and Fire" comes in (an obvious homage to "Lawyers, Guns, and Money").

The chorus will have parts for different prominent portions of the userbase as well as SATB, and should be able to dance as well as sing, because there's no way that we can represent scrolling through the friendspage without a whole lot of sound and motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJdEFf_Qg4 -- Baby Got Back.

Let's see. Writers group was fun. Read a very short poem. Dinner featured puns and me attempting to get out of the busboy's way, resulting in me meeting the wall with too much enthusiasm. Work is excellent; need to get my post count up. Work did breakfast this morning -- just Picard, Mr. Out, and me. The rest of the team has taken to calling Kirk and Picard by their nicknames, as when the sup wasn't there, I asked who was the acting lead using the nicknames, and it stuck.

Breakfast was peaceful -- lots of gossip and good humor, but no riots.

One of these days I am going to have the spare time to do a road trip for an LJ party. Today was not one of them.

lacey will be coming at the beginning of June. Have applied for time off.

If someone has ideas, they get sent to suggestions. We take them there, with one or two exceptions: if it's appeared before, or with lengthy digressions. Or with naughty userpics, to make bad impressions.

My brain is trying to filk "One Week", by the Barenaked Ladies, into a saga of DNS woes involving a too-long TTL. (It'll still be two days before I see your server.)

My new 9-5 job is sleeping.

No Wanking in the Office (video itself visually possibly sfw; audio not. Rest of site not. At all.)

hcolleen's lungs are courting bronchitis. Yay. (Hello, urgent care.)

Hello, bedtime.

Delayed-action channel instafilk from last night or so. One of the Six Apart employees accidentally set stuff up so that sixaphone did not work quite as designed, and instead of getting the LJ phone post at one point, someone got him picking up the Sixaphone. Thus, I giggle and sing.

---

The sixaphone is ringing,
the code is on my box
It's got production code now,
what a nasty shock

---

Well, the sixaphone is ringing,
Is that Gizmo on the phone?
sixaphone is ringing,
Is that Gizmo on the phone?
The sixaphone is screaming,
Can't those posters phone home

Good news: Jerry Falwell bitched about Fallwell.com, but got told to STFU and/or talk to the hand by the Supreme Court.

cadhla has snakes. Snakes are very, very "smart".


And we're banned from LJ just because
We trolled a newspost and started a big old fuss
It wasn't even goatse; it was just a post or four
But LJ doesn't want us anymore.
http://www.ovff.org/pegasus/songs/banned-from-argo.html

lj_ads is open and all that good jazz. I went over there and (fairly politely) expressed my nearly unutterable rage that LJ is using flash ads. The top four things that people didn't want were pop-ups, noise, flash, and over-blinkie-ness. There are no pop-ups, all noise is "on explicit turn-on by user, default to off", there is a policy against over-blinkie -- but flash/shockwave is allowed.

This annoys me for four distinct reasons:

1. I don't like flash being used for ads. Period.


2. If you don't have the programs installed, viewing a page with a flash ad will prompt you to install it, and there is no way to tell it "I am never going to install it" or "I do not have rights to install it on this computer".


3. Flash is typically bandwidth-intensive and processor-intensive.


4. A whole lot of people voiced their objections to flash at the outset. lj_ads chose to ignore that feedback. They did so at their peril; I have lost a lot of respect for them because of this, and am less inclined to view them favorably. User goodwill is a good thing to have. Goodwill of the woman who writes up the summaries of the news comments is a good thing to have. (Am I going to deliberately try and piss off/be hurtful to lj_ads staff, who are the co-workers of my co-workers in Support? No. Am I going to be half as sympathetic as I otherwise would have been? Not now. Not unless Flash goes away.)

If you oppose the use of Flash/Shockwave in LJ Sponsored+ ads, by all means go over to lj_ads and firmly but politely voice your opposition. Bitching in your own journal won't do much. Bitching in your own journal and repeating it over there in a mature fashion might do a little more.

There was some brief bad insta-filk on IRC. So... maybe I'll do the whole thing.

( Original lyrics to filk ... later. )

I have the beginning bits of a song about trolling bouncing around in my brain. It's a slippery slope I'm sliding on & this falling won't come free.

I need to filk "Radio killed the video card", because while it is probably unlikely that a twisted saga of household appliance interference would wind up with an EMP at the end, it is a hilarious reversal, in that odd "I was born in the '80s" way.

There are cons in the world
There are filkers
There are trekkies and trekkers and then
There are those that follow Voy-a-ger
but--
I've never been one of them
I'm a devout Star Wars fan
and have been since the first time I saw
The dramatic clash of lightsabers
That went on and on until dawn
You don't have to be a true Jedi
You don't have to side with the Sith
You don't need to be a Grey Sider
for the truth of the matter it is:

every legend starts and
every fandom twists...

If you're having data problems, I feel bad for you, son
-- got 99 problems and the disk ain't one.

( Read more... )


I also need to filk "Luck be a Lady" -- except starring Eris/Discordia. In non-Potter news.

A nothing day, it seems like. Up, LJ & e-mail, plasma, down again for a nap, up again, laundry, dishes. Random spr0t stuff -- nothing much, just poking at stuff and trying to help. But I'm so out of practice.

Weekend, yay.

I've been typing up random things I have around, mostly the Tarot sheet I've had around for reference. Maybe "A Cup of Time" should be next, if I can still find the bits I have. I know they're in the journals.

Incidentally, "Time Lord" is in my head, and I don't know enough Dr. Who to write it effectively. "It's the stripy scarf that drives you insa-a-a-a-ane / Let's chase the Time Lord again!" Someone, anyone, please, take this filk bunny from me before it hops into my sinuses and forces me to do things like make trystan_laryssa show me all the Dr. Who episodes she has!

Da Bird had a filk bunny. I proceeded to play with it, with the following (beta version) results:

One spell makes you shiver
And one spell makes you fall
But the spells that Hogwarts gives you
don't do anything at all
Go ask Albus
if you are just small

And if you go
chasing white-masks
but you can't beat them all
Tell 'em a naughty Dark Arts teacher
Has made you heed the call
Call Albus
he'll fix it all

When the prophecies and portents
they tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of potion
and your mind is moving low
Go ask Albus
I think he'll know

When loyalty and bloodlines
have crossed, and allies fled
And the Seer's talking Riddles
And the Dark Lord's 'Off with his head'
Remember
what the Dursleys said
You are dead
You are dead

Someday:
Switch for the eventual living room computers/guests (must have n + 3 holes: 1 for the uplink to Hawking, 1 for the downlink to Ol' Faithful, 1 for a guest, and n for the living room computers)
Bookcase (because we need more)
Box (compartmentalized) for my esoteric tools
Nice desk chair

Soon:
Grocery shopping
Figure out why I'm feeling low all the time


To Do:
Locate good used book stores in Phoenix
Take extra books to used book store
Sort tools between Good, Using, and Never Gonna Use
Locate lyrics of "Wannabe" for finishing that filk ( done )
Put away nice electronics