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S.KRAUSE

Vitreous Vitriol

Part 2

I will let you in on a little secret: my diaries are written by The Euphemism Generator.

All our times have come
Here but now they’re gone
Seasons don’t fear the reaper
    [ m o r e ]

You have got to love Romanian/Rom Pop ... especially as sung by 4’7” Adrian Simionescu.

Note for a few folks around here: if you don’t have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all.

Ah, Thursday afternoon. My phone bill came today. I know you care. Yes, you.

The main theme of the works of Gaiman is the role of the poet as writer. But if materialist rationalism holds, we have to choose between expressionism and neocapitalist discourse.
    [ m o r e ]

I did not get around to doing either the Mac installs or the PC work today due to an unexpected power outage. It took out the whole building (including backup power) and apparently several other buildings on campus. The Dept. of Information Technology was out of it, and the email servers were trashed for a while. I do not care about this. What I care about is that my uptime is gone ... 379 days (as recorded in yesterday’s diary). I therefore do not feel so bad about replacing that box with a slightly more powerful machine.

There is a conference going on this weekend. If you are in the Madison area, feel free to drop by. It promises to be both entertaining (a bunch of academics in one room—trust me) and educational.

As a continuation of my Spring-Cleaning-in-September program, I will be clearing out my bookmarks this afternoon. It might not be Fark-worthy, but what the hell.

No pancakes for me tonight
I might just have to try out some free recipes from the early 1900s. If you are hungry, you might want to consider browsing the USENET Cookbook. There are also plenty of recipes from mod.recipes/alt.gourmand. If you get thirsty, you can consider which type of Earl Grey to drink. You might instead prefer a little Lasko beer. If Slovenia is too far away for you, there is City Brewery (LaCrosse, Wisconsin). You could then finish up with a little Turkish Delight for desert.

All in the Family
We can start with people who share my last name. Let us take Joshua Krause Studios, for example. Or Steve and Mike Krause in Glasgow.

No More Politics!
Given that his weekend’s conference is on Hitler, I should do the socially-conscious thing and throw out a link to anti-fascism.org. Pretty useless site. John Stanton and Wayne Madsen are more interested in “The Emergence of the Fascist American Theocratic State.” hitler.org is still a revisionist paradise in the guise of a “museum.” I enjoy contrasting marxism.org with marxism.com. Perhaps it is just better to join the World Socialist Movement or the Communist Party USA. More effective is the Death Penalty Information Center. Other folks keep going on and on about The Tragedy of the Commons. Let us not forget questions of (online) privacy. For that there is AntiOffline. [Note: You can read the German Constitution online.] By the way, you should probably test yourself against the F Scale.

Everybody and his/her pet cockroach seems to have a Mythology site.

I am still waiting for Battle Royale to be available at the video store.

Books
One of my interests is in making books. For example, I have instructions for making a paper bag book and for making blank books (and binding them), as well as a link to a page on book and paper arts for kids. makingbooks.com has some good resources, as does Don Lancaster’s “Guru’s Lair” (which won’t win any design awards). Perhaps you need to repair a book or bind a paperback by hand. The Capella Archive has some “TinyHelps” for Self-Printing books. Linux Gazette did a series on micro pubishing; it was popular enough that they did a part II and part III. Douglas W. Jones at the U of Iowa Dept. of CS has a good little bookbinding tutorial. Finally, there is “Practical Bookbinding” by Morris Lee King.

Language Stuff
Language sites can provide hours of shits and giggles. Witness Lojban “The Logical Language.” And let’s not forget Brainfuck. I didn’t have it bookmarked, but it would be a crime not to list Intercal. One can also check out the Constructed Language Listserv. And although tix insist upon Perl, I think that PHP is a wonderful tool. Other of you might be interested in the Quine Page (not to be confused with this page about Willard Van Orman Quine).

Pen, Pencil, & Paper
Let’s try Colorblind, which has a small gallery. There’s the Gallery of Dark Art, which I’ve linked to before, and the works of Joel-Peter Witkin. It would be irresponsible to forget fantasy artist legend Frank Frazetta. I’m rather fond of the art of the Hildebrandt Brothers. Mark Evans isn’t bad, but I’ll take Dave McKean anyday. Some people are a bit too much into all things furry. I find ASCII Art Farts much more satisfying. I bookmarked the Schatz/Ornstein Studio because it features the book Seeing Red: The Rapture of Redheads. Lost America is also worth your time. There are other cool pictures on the web. For example, one of the most fascinating exhibits is hosted by the Library of Congress.

“Comics”

Circuit City
Here I’ll start with bootdisk.com (for your DOS and Windows floppy needs). Here at UW-Madison we have a site licence for SecureCRT, which provides for my Win32 SSH needs. A few years ago I was wondering how to set up either DHCP or PPP on a DOS box and came up with a few resources, including one for Connecting from a DOS-system using TCP/IP. Another time I came across some NT Server in the Enterprise Notes. And there’s always Beamspot Unix, which provides all sorts of Unix-related information/fun. Rute (Rute User’s Tutorial and Exposition) still seems to be online. Steve Parker has a Bourne Shell Programming Tutorial. At one point I was interested in the Ultima IV: The Dawn of Virtue site, as they promised a rewrite of Ultima IV. I was also a fan of The Bard’s Tale way back when, and it’s hard to complain about Wizardry either. New Breed Software says they make open source software for Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS, BeOS, Ataris, and PDAs. I have an interest in computer/OS history, and at some point bookmarked The GUI Gallery; on a related note, one can take a look at Windows 3.x Scheming Features & Themes. It’s still hard to be the old Apple IIe.

Another interest of mine is typesetting, text-editing, and word processing, and at some point I bookmarked a page on RTF-Tools. I spent some time learning about LaTeX Graphics. Impressions is a Madison company that produces books and journals. They have a few interesting articles on XML and PDF.

A topic related to my current computer work in the department is converting old PCs into standalone X Terminals. The more Mac-oriented among us might instead prefer the Info-Mac archive. Others might be interested by MenuetOS.

Some of my computer interests are Linux-specific. I had a bookmark for Vector Linux. There is also LERT (Linux Emergency Relief Team). DistroWatch.com supposedly keeps track of the various distros available. I love Debian, and was pleased to hear of the DEbian MUltimedia DIstribution (demudi). Linux Journal keeps a list of Groups of Linux Users (GLUE). If you’re putting together a gateway/router, you’ll likely be using multiple ethernet cards [another link]. One problem I faced was trying to get multiple 3c509 cards to play nicely together [another link]. Oskar Andreasson has a few useful tutorials and such on his site.

Getting your Wires Crossed
Last year we moved into a new house (rented) and we got DSL from TDS. However, I needed to wire the house with Cat-5.

Math ... because it rocks

He who laughs last ...
Everyone loves Cruel Site of the Day. Missouri Trailer Trash is almost as much fun as FUGLY, The Camel Toe Report, Baiting.org, and Wasted Chicks. For the German-speakers out there we have ZYN! (Satire & Cartoons). You should know the story of George P. Burdell. The faithful cannot pass up Landover Baptist Church. Remember that Betty Bower is a Better Christian Than You and that God Hates Flags [remember: Now it’s time for Jesus Dress Up, and don’t forget the Jesus of the Week]. The curious of course want to know how Mohammed vs. Jesus turned out. And help the guy out, Jesus is seeking a loving woman. Make money on the Internet—Sell your soul to Satan. You might want to become and ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (“100% Legal & FREE For Life”). And don’t forget to study the Acts of Gord. Other folks might instead prefer TechnicalVirgin.com (“Everything Butt!”). RinkWorks provides hours of entertainment (such as the Dialectizer. Its cousin, pornolize.com, is also worth a visit). If this isn’t enough for you, just visit The Keepers of Lists or the Bud Dwyer Fan Club. Either that or you should check out the Institute for the study of the Neurologically Typical. I think tix and Buggy were involved in the creation of this LEGO porn [not to be confused with Concentratin-Camp-LEGOs]. If you just want a trip back to the “good ol’ days” of the 50s, then try out lileks.com. It’s one thing for babies to die ... it’s another to do this to them. Is it sick, or is it funny? Sort of like the Down Syndrome Dolls. If these testimonials can’t get you to read Chick tracts, what can? [and visit the Luciferian Liberation Front for some anti-chick-tracts] You might not think that there would be humor to be found in The Economist’s Style Guide, but you would be mistaken. Very mistaken.

There’s plenty of flash—and other—animation on the web:

We’ve Got the Beat ...
Google is all you need to find sites about Rammstein, Kenny Rogers, Natalie Merchant, the PetshopBoys, Timna Brauer and Elias Meiri, and others.

Life is too short ...
Who wants to be reasonable all the time? Wackos, conspiracies, esoteric “knowledge” ... it’s all online. There are the Knights Templar taking over the world (with the help of those satanic Masons) and lost civilizations in Antarctica waiting to be de-iced. Others argue that Troy was Atlantis. Other people go a bit overboard with the whole earth goddess crap. If that’s not enough for you, there’s always Erich von Daniken and his Chariots of the Gods craziness. I’m waiting for a FOX special on “Pseudoscience and Relgion Mix.” Luckily, there are others out there to keep track of and combat all the pseudoscience babble floating around the Net. Personally, I’m rather fond of the Priory of Sion Hoax. While we’re at it, why don’t we Debunk the Ice Age?

Traveling
If you need a place to stay when you visit Vancouver Island and Victoria, I might recommend Marigold House Bed & Breakfast. That the mother of one of my friends runs it in no ways influenced my recommendation. You can get rail information at The Man in Seat Sixty-One. A friend pointed out a neat place to stay the next time I am (or we are) in Hungary.

What a tangled web we weave
If you have a website, it probably sucks. Perhaps you need to study Art and the Zen of web sites. You should learn how to use Cascading Style Sheets. Learning to use the proper lists can also be beneficial. One can also check out the Easy HTML tutorials by Vortex Design.

Miscellany

Stuff I didn’t write
If you’re tired of reading this shit, you can always peruse this collection of unpublished short stories and poems. There are lots of other “artists” online, such as the brownflower creative group and asdf. McSweeny’s provide a lot of stuff to read. Free. Baen Books has some free stuff, too. Then there are a bunch of German poetesses to check out. There are also all of Grimms Fairy Tales to read [another link]. The Paradise Lost Study Guide has the complete poem as well as essays, summaries, etc. “The Wake” has information about Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. If that’s too “traditional” for you, just visit the Chomskybot. If you’re really into Terry Brooks, you can check out The Terry Brooks Experience and the Shady Side of Shannara. And if you just want a long list of “children’s literature,” we’ve got that, too.

Whatever: just Fuck the Skull of Jesus. It is priceless.

My bookmark.htm file is much smaller now.

—20 September, 2002

[ Part 1 | Part 2 ]