I just finished the page and documentation for snow2.js, a little javascript toy that makes explosive snow rain down upon your page!

translation: “the blinkenlights have returned to the little white box”. after being told Monday i had an appointment with Insight on Saturday morning, Kelly and I returned from the gym on Tuesday to be informed that they’d been to the house, and no one was home. So I called — exasperated — and told them that I’d take off work just to get them out there when they’d said they would be to fix my problem. Well, that day was today — and what pray-tell did they fix? Well, they took the trap off the line that they had installed to untrap HBO. Now HBO works great, the digital cable guide works great, and my cable modem is purring away like a little robotic kitten. Oh — the trap is in a user-accessible part of the NIU (Netowrk Interface Unit), and I could very well have done this myself. Oh well. Happy days.

note well the “snow” control on the nav bar up top. much like a CD player, or tape player of-old, you can hit “pause” to pause the snow, or the “>” (play) button to start/stop the snow all together (stopping the snow removes it from view).

And in other news, the big-ol project I had a good hand in developing went live yesterday – yay!

also, kelly got out of bed last night and came tromping down the stairs looking for some of her old tapes. “tapes of what?” you may ask. tapes of Yanni. yes, THAT Yanni. The mustachioed Yanni. You see, at one time, Kelly was a promising young pianist at YPAS, and enjoyed the soothing melodies of Yanni. Yawni. Yaaaaawni. Oh well, somethings can’t be helped. She’s still pretty to look at, but her cool factor is in a bit of a recession :)

(15:06:18) ben[at]thelocust: i’ve got the Jurassic 5 album on my share
(15:06:22) ben[at]thelocust: “Power in Numbers”
(15:06:26) ben[at]thelocust: it rocks
(15:06:34) ben[at]thelocust: from track one to the edge of the disc
(15:06:56) ben[at]thelocust: simple in instruction like it was powered by RISC
(15:07:09) ben[at]thelocust: your welcome for that
(15:07:24) MrCoffeemonk: they actually worked that into a rap? awesome.
(15:07:30) ben[at]thelocust: no
(15:07:33) ben[at]thelocust: i just made that up
(15:07:59) MrCoffeemonk: well, that was pretty damned good.

What constitutes a “Rock Jam”? If you think like I think, without prior instruction or clarification — i’m thinking “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain or perhaps “Paradise City” by Guns n’ Roses. Songs that both rock AND jam at the same time. However, a more loose interpretation of “rock jam” is any song that is good.

While “good” may be extremely relative, I give unto you hunter’s double-live rock jam compilation volume one. Please note that this was a group effort on the part of hunter’s B&N brethren (and sistren), and he was posed the task of making clean segues and a proper tracklisting.
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Volume One:

1. Jolene (live)- The White Stripes
2. Satisfaction (live)- PJ Harvey and Bjork
3. Mr Bojangles (live)- Jerry Jeff Walker
4. Pancho and Lefty- Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson
5. Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash
6. Angry Anymore- Ani DiFranco
7. A Minha Menina- The Bees
8. Sweet Jane- The Velvet Underground
9. 19th Nervous Breakdown- The Rolling Stones
10. Go Your Own Way- Seaweed
11. Sliver- Nirvana
12. El Scorcho- Weezer
13. Muzzle- Smashing Pumpkins
14. The Tears of a Clown- Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
15. Man in the Mirror- Michael Jackson
16. Around the World- Daft Punk
17. Like a Friend- Pulp

Volume Two:

1. Introduction- Mr. Jack White (this is “we pose this musical question…”)
2. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (live)- The White Stripes
3. This is Love- PJ Harvey
4. You’re No Rock N Roll Fun- Sleater-Kinney
5. Walk This Way- Run DMC and Aerosmith
6. Hey Ma- Cam’ron
7. Cock Mobster- MC Paul Barman
8. Work It- Missy Elliot
9. The Rockafeller Skank- Fatboy Slim
10. Block Rockin Beats- Chemical Brothers
11. Run’s House- Run DMC
12. Girls- Beastie Boys
13. Tainted Love- Soft Cell
14. It’s the End of the World As We Know It- REM
15. Superstition- Stevie Wonder
16. Paradise City- Guns N Roses
17. Volcano Girls- Veruca Salt
18. Stutter- Elastica

My initial impressions? First off, that “Satisfaction” cover by Bjork and PJ Harvey, as much as I love them both, well, I could do with out. Kudos to the “double-shot” of the White Stripes and Superstition by Stevie. Also, indie props to “You’re No Rock N Roll Fun” by Sleater-Kinney and “Volcano Girls” by Veruca Salt. Girl-rawk always jams in my book.

Excellent segues include “Mr Bojangles” to “Pancho and Lefty” to “Ring of Fire”. Also, the Sleater-Kinney to rap/rock forefathers Run DMC deserves some credit.

Insight Broadband are the true bastards. We ordered some changes to our service (Cable TV) last weekend. Tuesday they came out to “untrap” HBO, and summarily knocked my cable modem off-line. I called that night, and they said that they’d be out to check the line on Wednesday — they did, and it seemed that the signal was good enough. However, that didn’t allay my problems in the least. Snow was falling heavily, and my weary heart called up Insight once again to get them out here — “it will be either Thursday or Saturday”, neither of which were true in the least. So, this morning I called them up once again, had to replay the WHOLE SCENARIO once again (despite the fact that they have a system that tracks notes for issues), and now they tell me it will be Monday. Yeesh.

workin’ early, too, I am. I saw the “Future Self” episode of South Park last night — oh my lordy, that is some funny stuff. While they may not have the coverage they used to, they are if anything, MORE funny. Adults acting like children, children acting like adults. And that’s always funny.

Oh yeah, the bastards — Burger King — forgot my hash-rounds with my French Toast Stix. No Domo Arigato, BK!

there are plenty of people workin’ late, and I’m one of them.

i’ve been messing around with this little javascript snow-thing today whilst at work (it’s been a bit stop-and-go today, and I’m frazzled). I went to sleep late last night, and have been drinking coffee. While I feel great because I’ve been doing good work today, and there is snow outside, things are getting hectic on this project i’m on.

In that spirit, when you clicky on the snowflakes that are falling on this page, they explode.

You can pause them with the “pause snow” link over here –>

yes, it’s snowing in louisville. the troops – rallied, the salt – dispersed, the snowplows – everpresent, the news – chock-full of at least three feet of pap about our two inches of snow.

in other news, i love little javascript snowflake thing.