Conorblog

2008-11-04T00:39:00.001-08:00

2008-11-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

The Conor Slate (print out and bring to the polls):

US President/VP: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
US Rep, 9th District: Barbara Lee
CA State Senator, 9th District: Loni Hancock
CA State Assembly, 16th District: Sandre Swanson
CA Superior Court, #9: Dennis Hayashi
Oakland City Council: Rebecca Kaplan

CA Ballot Measures:
1A: YES
2: Yes
3: No
4: NO
5: Yes
6: No
7: No
8: NO
9: No
10: No
11: No
12: ?

2008-09-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

Rather than post all of them here, I'm making a separate area for webpages I find to be of interest. If you think you may also find them to be of interest, you can subscribe to the RSS feed (have decided to use Delicious for the time being).

2008-09-12T15:41:00.001-07:00

Good luck to everyone in Houston!!

2008-09-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

Just submitted a bunch of items to Sarah Palin is Your New Segway, including Bridge to Nowhere, Dan Quaye, Harriet Miers, No Jack Kennedy, HD-DVD, Mad Moose Disease, Bisphenol A, Ted Haggert, Acid Jazz, Baby Mama Mama, Poochie, and I forget what else.

2008-08-28T02:10:00.001-07:00

Regrettably, most networks didn't broadcast the amazing speeches made by John Kerry and Bill Clinton, but luckily they are available on the internets here and here.

2008-08-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

Due to the recent demise of Muxtape, I've put the latest ConorMix up at 8tracks. The songs are played in random order, which is a big drag, but it's better than nothing I suppose.

2008-08-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Bailter Space interview which was previously found here has been moved here.

2008-08-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

For reasons I can't comprehend, Google recently crippled its Google Maps site by removing several vital features, while supposedly upgrading the layout. The good news is that you can still access the superior prior version here.

2008-07-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

Latest ConorMix spiel here and here.

2008-07-02T04:45:00.000-07:00

Behold, there is a new ConorMix (tm), available in the usual manner. Also, this time I've put it up on muxtape. Side A is here, Side B here.

2008-06-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

It seems that I am now writing for the NonAlignment Pact on Mondays.

2008-06-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

News Flash: I'll be playing (listed as Lordosis) in LA tomorrow night (Tuesday June 10th) at a place in Silverlake.

Ding-a-ling!
June, 10 2008 at Hyperion Tavern
1941 Hyperion Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90026
Cost: Free

EON Mkai�s Wrap up party for CIRCA �82

The Lost Captains In The Sea of Cortez
Core of the Coal Man
Lordosis

DJs
Glamorous Pat (PDX)
Prickle
Don Bolles
Quinn

2008-06-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hey California, don't forget to vote today! Specifically, don't forget to vote NO on 98!! Don't let the bad guys win because of low turnout.

2008-06-02T19:01:00.001-07:00

Just when you thought the Bush administration couldn't possibly get more incompetent. This article provides evidence that Bush & Condi's idiotic strategery led directly to Hamas's takeover of Gaza.

2008-06-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well, dang.

R.I.P. Bo Diddley.

2008-05-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

A gear report of Swervedriver at the Fillmore, for old times' sake. Adam was playing a beat-up vintage sunburst Fender Jazzmaster, alternating with a (reissue?) white Jazzmaster with matching headstock. Used both a Marshall JCM 900 half stack and a Matchless combo, presumably with EL84 tubes for a Vox AC-30 type sound. Second guitarist had a Gibson Les Paul Custom; in the light not sure if it was silverburst or two tone sunburst, alternating with a (probably reissue) natural Fender Telecaster Custom. He also had a Marshall JCM 900 half stack, but with a Mesa Boogie combo, which gave a bit more of fizzy tone. I was right in front of his amp, so wasn't able to hear Adam's guitar as well as I would've liked, which was a drag, but what I heard sounded awesome.

Dude is a master of the Jazzmaster; used the tremolo bar to maximum effect, for one thing. Was a bit surprised, looked like both guitarists were using their neck pickups most of the time. I assume they were swapping guitars to use different tunings, but it wasn't too obvious, so maybe just drop-D or something? They both had a long row of pedals, which were obscured by the stage monitors, but looked like mostly Boss pedals, somewhat surprisingly, along with a wah pedal (of course). I think Adam's first two pedals were a Boss digital delay and digital reverb. Also EQ & perhaps chorus? Second guitarist might've had a whammy pedal, not sure of that though. The bassist swapped between a beat-up vintage black Fender Jazz bass and a (reissue?) red Jazz bass. Skinny drugged out looking drummer had kit with bunches of cymbals. The tempo was slightly slower than expected on some of the songs, but overall it was quite a fine night of shoegazing.

2008-05-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

Want to understand what's going on in Iraq?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/04/08/petraeus_iran/index.html
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/03/26/iraq/index.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/01/basra/index.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2189372/?from=rss

Things are a bit more complicated than achieving "victory" against "the enemy". In fact, we're supporting one Shiite faction's militia (the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq's Badr Corps) and attacking another one (Sadr's Mahdi Army), apparently mainly because the latter wants us to leave the country, and we so so want to keep our "temporary" permanent bases and ensure good deals for U.S. oil interests. In doing so, we're furthering Iran's strategic interests, as they have much closer ties to the ISCI than to Sadr. This is what U.S. taxpayers are paying $343 million per day for. Strategery in action.

2008-04-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

2008-02-27T20:42:00.001-08:00

Note to self: When moving XP to a new hard drive, don't put the new drive in the machine and partition and format it from the old installation. If you do, Windows will assign the drive a letter, and store this with the drive's serial number info in the registry. When you then clone the old install to the new install, the new install will therefore also have this information in its registry. Then when you try to boot off the new install, you'll run into a fun problem where as soon as you log in, XP logs you off again, ad infinitum. This is because it thinks its own partition is E: (or whatever) instead of C:. Meanwhile it's looking for user data on C:, where it isn't located. Thanks for the total lack of error message there BTW, Bill Gates; much appreciated.

To fix the problem, you'll need to log in and edit the registry... except that you can't log in. Thankfully, BartPE exists, allowing you to boot up and load a registry editor. Then see here and here. I had to change a bunch of crap from W: to C:, but the main thing was to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ (in the remote registry, obviously), rename MountedDevices to MountedDevicesOld, and create an empty new MountedDevices key. Then next time you boot up, Windows will see the drive for the first time and default to C:, allowing you to log in. In the future, do all cloning of OS partitions from an Acronis (or whatever) boot CD, and don't allow either OS install to be aware of the other before or afterwards.

2008-02-14T19:29:00.001-08:00

If anyone happens to use Adobe Encore and gets "Unknown Error -12004", profit from my days wasted repeatedly transcoding in various ways, deleting and reimporting, etc., trying somehow to get around the problem (there was no helpful info on the web). I finally figured out a solution. You're probably working with PCM audio. Use Sound Forge or a similar audio editor to make a master .WAV file comprised of the audio from your various video clips, and import that as an asset. Then delete your current audio track(s) and drag the .WAV file over to replace. Of course, you shouldn't have to do it this way, but there you go.

2008-02-04T07:18:00.001-08:00

Citizens of the Super Tuesday Nation:

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday for the candidate of my choice, Barack Obama!!!

Feel free to contact me if you need convincing.

2007-12-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

I edited the NAPcast this week.

2007-11-30T00:12:00.000-08:00

Behold, there is (another) new ConorMix (tm). As usual, available to friends via CD or mp3. I had to wait so long to get that final CD for my last mix, bunches of new tracks started piling up, and before I knew it I had another mixworth of them. This time, decided not to wait for out of print CDs I may never find before proceeding.

2007-11-29T11:46:00.000-08:00

Crucial quote from an entry by David Byrne:

This practice, not exactly Kosher, was once semi-secret though insiders knew it went on. It hardly makes for a level or objective playing field. Now, as with many things in the Bush era, formerly hidden practices are brazenly played out in open. The idea of shame has disappeared, probably because in a market driven, dog-eat-dog world, any practice that benefits you is in turn reflexively defined as legitimate.

He's talking about the application of one repugnant aspect of the Bush administration to the art world, but it also works as a well worded summation of the practice in its original context.

And, as if we needed any further confirmation, Carson Daly really is a big tool.