Random thoughts.

August 20, 2006 AD

  Along the shore the cloud waves break,
  The twin suns sink beneath the lake,
  The shadows lengthen
      In Carcosa.

  Strange is the night where black stars rise,
  And strange moons circle through the skies
  But stranger still is
      Lost Carcosa.

  Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
  Where flap the tatters of the King,
  Must die unheard in
      Dim Carcosa.

  Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
  Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
  Shall dry and die in
      Lost Carcosa.

Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2.
(Thanks to Project Gutenberg.)

May 23, 2006 AD
Leftover closed captions, V2.0:

Channel surfing. Turn on a movie, caption pops up. Change channel, caption stays. End result? Occasionally, a humorous clash between events onscreen and the caption. Tonight's episode, changing from a dramatic movie to a press conference.

As the person at the podium (random older guy, head of some committee) talks to a reporter, at the bottom of the screen a leftover reads, 'I know you've been screwing my wife!'

January 12, 2006 AD
Closed captioning is always fun. You could fill an entire 'Misheard Song Lyrics' website with the captioning for the opening ditties to television shows. My new current low:

Misheard lyric: 'We were sad, we were freshman.'

Real lyric: 'It all started when we first met.'

November 27, 2005 AD
Ah, the Ov-Glove, or whatever. A fancy Kevlar-coated baking mit, perfect for baking during a shootout. In one commercial for it, Generic Mother takes cookies out of the oven while Generic Father looks on and Generic Kid watches hungrily. Watch the kid - mom uses a spatula to get a cookie off the cookie sheet, which is supposedly so hot that she needs the great and powerful Ov-Glove to protect her hand from the searing heat. Kid then reaches out and grabs the exact same cookie. That just came out of an oven. A hot oven. Evidently the Ov-Glove is so good at protecting you from the heat that the protection extends to your immediate family!

October 28, 2005 AD
Had one of those technology flashbacks again. Ran some old tapes (1996ish vintage) through the VCR and caught not only about 10 hours of the ill-fated Computer Television Network, but also a segment from the late, lamented Discovery Channel show Travellers. In this segment, one of the hosts (Patrick Michael) was in Akihabara, the Mecca of consumer eletronics in Tokyo. He was amazed by the small cellular phones, which measured about 5 inches by 2.5 inches by 1 inch. These days, that's enormous for a cellular phone. I had to rewind the tape and replay it just to fully soak in his amazement that a cell phone could be smaller than a brick.

Been a hell of a decade.

August 26, 2005 AD
The sins of the fathers mothers pass to the third and fourth generation. We're up to generation 2: Soleil Moon Frye's daughter to be named Poet Sienna Rose Goldberg.

Of course, that doesn't explain Jerry Seinfeld naming his kid Shepherd.

August 22, 2005 AD
Hotmail, being one of the many tentacles of Microsoft, spits me out at MSN's main page when I log out. I find myself being tempted with random headlines leading to full articles. I don't often click on these links - particularly since most of them are obviously not as provocative as their headline implies. However, two recently caught my attention. '10 things every single man must own' and '10 things every single girl must own'. I suppose we could hint at sexism in the choices of nouns there, but I see no reason to accuse the editor (two different authors) without more ammunition than four letters.

But let's check over the lists, shall we?

Stuff guys need....

1. A top-notch coffee/espresso maker. - 'Top-notch' meaning $250ish. (That's roughly my entire entertainment budget last year.) The basic justification for this one is not that a guy needs it, but that the bevy of women in his dating/sex life will want it. Okay, so we know this isn't a list meant for homosexual guys, then. (What, a misleading headline? A singles survival guide that's just a guide on how to get coupled? Who'd have thought?)

2. A bedroom lamp. - Now this one is so obvious I'm surprised it's there. I mean, I'm not going to grope my way to the wall to turn on the overhead. And yet, it's on this list because, to put it only somewhat more blatantly than the author did, chicks dig it.

3. Every Swiffer product in the known universe. - Because I'm not naming them like the author did. Cleaning products. How depressing that a 'standard' guy needs to be told to clean the floor. Justification: Chicks dig a clean floor.

4. A comfortable couch. - Having fallen asleep on two different couches in recent history, I'm all for that. Justification? You pick something that doesn't clash with everything else and then you can show your decorating skill. Chicks dig l33t d3c0r4t1ng sk1llz.

5. Nice underwear. - The standard motherly advice about being in a car accident is ignored here. The reason for getting nice underwear? No points for guessing.

6. Leatherman key-ring. - Evidently, having a Leatherman makes you handy, which puts you in higher demand. Woe to the men of the world if the women of the world ever think of getting their own Leathermans.

7. $150+ jeans. - I maintain that a $150 pair of jeans looks no better with tie and suit jacket than a $15 pair. Unless you're so shallow and vapid that the price IS the look.

8. $200+ (name-brand) dress shoes. - See above. I pay for comfort, not name. You know, if I were ever to find someone carefully examining the shoes I wore all day to see who made them, I'd be rather worried.

9. $120 cotton sheets. - Evidently they're really comfy. Well, that's good. And, of course, chicks dig comfy. Though if you've got them far enough that they're feeling your bedsheets, I'd hope that 'the bed was nice' isn't the most memorable part of the experience for them.

10. The Joy of Cooking. - Expecting 'sex' there for a second, weren'tcha? In all seriousness, though, it's an absolute must that a bachelor own a cookbook - and not one filled with exotic junk like 'unborn yak ribs with mountain goat cheese' that you'll never make. Their reason for adding it to the list? The same as the last nine. My reason is that same cheeseburger you've been making since you were 15 isn't going to be as appetizing when you're making it every night.

And now stuff gals need. Okay, I admit to being out of my league here, since my parts list doesn't include female bits (and all the male bits are already out of warranty...), but if the main justification is 'guys dig it' in the style of the last one, I think I can at least attempt to offer an opinion.

1. A fabulous photo of yourself. - For online personal ads, e-mail suitors, etc. (Which we all believe completely, no one's ever posted someone else's pic on a personal ad.) Plus, you can put a copy on your fridge so guys - attracted to the fridge stronger than magnets - will realize how great you look. That is to say, looked. Perhaps it does lead to thoughts of "You're hotter than I realized!" But I suspect it's a double-edged blade. If it's too much better - or a decade old - it'll be more "What happened to her!?"

2. A pretty pair of heels. - Erm, uh, woot?

3. An Eminem CD. - Because guys will scan a date's music collection and all 'girly' stuff will scare them away, since dating a person with different musical tastes is a sin so vile it's right between homosexuality and sodomizing zoo animals. A ranting misogynistic homophobe hiding between chick flick soundtracks evidently puts men at ease, since we never assume that one 'odd man out' CD was a gift. (Wonder what the guy would think if he found a burned CD with the handwritten label 'downloaded hardcore porn'?) Personally, I'll take PSB's The Night I Fell in Love over The Real Slim Shady any night of the week. And in the age of the Internet, mainstream music isn't a safe bet anymore. What if the date turns out to be into metal? European metal? Good luck FINDING The Druid Ceremony or Chapters from a Vale Forlorn in a music store!

Also, I find the idea of purchasing music with the express intent of faking musical tastes is a bad idea. Besides the gross violation of the 'be yourself' guideline, it's a minefield. If the guy's not a fan, it's either a turnoff or irrelevant. If he is a fan, he's going to use it as an icebreaker and ask you what song you like the most. Better give that sucker a few listens, all the while kicking yourself for following the advice.

4. A great pickup line... and a way to blow 'em off. - Dirty jokes to yourself, please. The lines are, respectively, "Hi. Having fun?" and "Sorry, I don't think the guy I'm seeing would appreciate it." Of course, you might look a bit weird if you use the pickup, find the guy's a loser, then try to break it with the dropoff. An alternate pickup - though not a suggested one, since the person using it is apparently still single - is "Hetero, homo or metro?". To which my instinctual response would be "Doesn't matter, because I wouldn't touch you either way."

Oh, random thought.... Notice that most dating advice writers are long-term singles? I can appreciate a dearth of Mr./Ms. Rights in the world, but when you see taglines like "The writer is a veteran of four long-term relationships....", a mind starts to wonder if it's the advice-giver with the problems, not their dating pool.

5. Good bottled beer. - Microbrew, no less. Er, I suppose. Though half the justification is relating to same-sex guests, so perhaps there's more relevance there than I can find, being a barbaric male. Who dislikes the taste of alcohol.

6. Bathroom reading. - Funnily enough, this is a guy-centric one. I don't know, given my pickiness for reading material and my unwillingness to look at anything in a host's bathroom not needed to do whatever, I don't normally go anywhere near the provided reading material.

7. A business card. - Scrawling your name and number on a napkin is a no-no. "A napkin he can lose. A card he'll file and keep." (Lifts up keyboard, finds various cards for lawyers, dentists, doctors, and one non-business-related business card.) Well, I file them, but I don't really do much WITH them....

8. Earplugs. - There's a dating rule I never knew. Women need comfy sheets provided, but they have to bring their own earplugs.

Another random thought.... Notice that the gal-list's most expensive item so far was the Eminem CD at $20ish? (Business cards would be more for the batch of x hundred, but not per card. The shoes probably would be more, but they didn't have to be.) Notice that the guy list can only keep under a c-note half the time?

9. A straight male friend for relationship advice. - That's amazing. Every male who read this article before me winced when he hit this passage. I felt the psychic disturbance from here. In the words of Lore Sjoberg, on such relationships: 'He or she gratefully bends your ear at length about sundry personal problems and familial delimmas. Your long night of feigned sympathy ends in a warm hug and exchanged phone numbers. Over the next few months, you and your new friend develop a platonic relationship with a faint erotic undertone, kept in check by his or her statements about how "you're such a good friend," and "with all these nights of exhausting passion with people I've only just met, it's so nice to be able to have a friend to describe them to in alarming detail." The sexual tension is eventually broken by the cold embrace of death.'

10. A condom. - Good thing someone's thinking. For all the talk of sex, it's not on the guy's list.

May 25, 2005 AD
Y'know, the thing that amuses me the most about Belinda Stronach turning from liberal Conservative to conservative Liberal is that the two Conservative politicians who used words like 'whore' and 'prostitute' to describe her were both holy rollers. Certainly, the nonordained politicians were no better, but they mostly kept to general insults and comments like 'dipstick' (I'm looking at you, Runciman). The two sex-for-money-related comments came from:

Maurice 'Some people prostitute themselves for different costs or different prices' Vellacott, a Master of Divinity (amongst other things);
Reverend Tony 'she whored herself out for power' Abbot.

For these gentlemen, I'd like to recount something from their favorite book, the Bible. Specifically, John 8:1-11. (New International Version. Your translation may vary.)

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

May 15, 2005 AD
The metaphorical trophy goes to Chase, part of the JPMorgan empire. Why? Because they've made ads that are not only tasteful, but they don't crucify the songs they've purchased for the commercial with new 'funny' branded lyrics. They just play the songs.

May 11, 2005 AD
Little Fluffy Industries has started regularly updating again, which is great because I needed a Flash game fix. Little Fluffy founder... er, Fluff Overlord? King Little Fluffy? Flufferino? Flufferion! Flufferion Lore Sjoberg seems to have perked up a bit in his personal thoughts as well - his E3 reports are particularly amusing.

April 25, 2005 AD
As morals on television stoop dangerously low, in the Kool-Aid commericals, now the Kool-Aid Man wears pants.

People in thongs is just fine, but the anthropomorphic pitcher has to wear khakis?

(Though I've noticed that Sonny, the bird of 'Cuckoo for Coco-Puffs' fame, as shucked his shirt and is now naked as an, er, jaybird.)

April 17, 2005 AD
Thoughts from the Internet: "Does rail gun ammunition come in hollow point?"

April 14, 2005 AD
I was going to rant on the 'Time to fall off the wagon' ads which were written by someone who doesn't understand that falling off the wagon is a bad thing, but these guys are about as succinct as possible.

April 1, 2005 AD
William Hung... dead of a drug overdose?

Kenny Rogers... siccing his bodyguard on people?

California... sterlizing fat people?

Nope, nope, and nope. Three practical jokes the media fell for.

For every moron who lies his way onto CNN and then screams 'BABA BOOEY!', there's someone who lies his way on and doesn't give himself away.

Welcome to the world of New Media.

March 7, 2005 AD
When a television writer decides to write about something he knows nothing about (namely, business)....

Last month, Carly Fiorina was fired after five years of running technology giant Hewlett Packard. Her assignment to be an agent of change was apparently too much for some old hands in the company.

Well, when all the changes are bad, that'd be too much for anyone. She took a decent company with a track record of innovation and gutted both R&D and quality so she could fiddle with the bottom line. I still see ancient HP Laserjets in use in high-volume operations. Do I see anything newer? No. It breaks too easily. I can produce half a dozen horror stories about recent HP products - without flexing my connections from when I worked on EDS's HP Deskjet contract. The number increases exponentially if I do.

To blame all the Carly-hatred on sexism (as this author seems to want to) is naive at best, disingenuous at worst. The price of HP stock jumped upwards when Carly was booted. Since no long-term successor had been named (to the best of my knowledge), it's rather obvious that the stock-buying public believed that anyone - male or female - was better than Carly! The author also conveniently ignores the excitement about Martha Stewart getting out of prison, as well as the increase in stock price as her release date loomed, since it flies counter to his point that a woman can't earn the respect and faith of the stock-buying public. (I admit, the article could've been written before she was actually let out, but there was some good press long before she could retake the helm of her company.)

Unless one wishes to speak of an Anti-Carly Conspiracy composed of thousands of people. If that's the case, I've got a nice tinfoil hat for you, right from my bosses at Majestic 12.

More quoting:

(At least she has a severance package worth at least $21 million US and a possible position as the boss of the World Bank to help her get by.)

Well, that severance package rather burns a lot of people, as did EDS CEO Dick Brown's (who's similarly blamed for many of EDS's woes) when he walked away with an even fatter one. When you write your own paychecks, it's easy to walk away with a nest egg.

And the World Bank thing? Opposition has already sprung up. And that's only a rumor so far.

March 1, 2005 AD
From the local paper:

A large advertisement posted on some Kings Transit bus shelters that shows a woman's bare buttocks has apparently angered and offended some Kings County residents.

The larger-than-life black and white photos were to be part of a national advertising campaign by the Colorectal Cancer Screening Initiative Foundation, a charitable organization that promotes cancer awareness. The ads display a woman's naked backside with a small rectangular box containing a few lines of text.

A thought - since it's colorectal cancer, and they're obviously going for a provocative ad, perhaps they'd like to give equal time to Goatse?

February 28, 2005 AD
Amusement on the Slashdot front:

> > I don't really think so, it's just a joke.

> That would have been funnier with the comma over one word to the left...

February 26, 2005 AD
As reported earlier this month by the excellent music publisher MbD Records, I'm pleased to state that the first print of the wonderful Deus Ex Machinae by band Machinae Supremacy has completely sold out. (A second print is underway.)

Congrats, guys!

February 23, 2005 AD
Burninating the countryside/Burninating the peasants/Burninating all the peoples/In their thatched roof COTTAGES!/THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES!

Er, yes. Trogdor the Burninator, first seen in SBEmail 58 (my introduction to the world of Homestar Runner), has a video game. With an impossible level 27. Well, that's been fixed. Fans of classic video games might get a kick out of the bugfixed Trogdor!

February 21, 2005 AD
Here's a thought, thanks to the old Crosswinds index page.

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February 20, 2005 AD
I was considering passing comment on how, in the face of an ultra-sanitized Teen Titans doing well, it's rather pointless to try go the other way and make the classic Looney Tunes characters 'x-treme', but of far more interest is (talented) Flash animator Nef's rant on the content of the promo. Entitled "WB, you freakin' cheapskates!", it reaches a marvelous capstone (er, acme?) with the line "Behind the duck. It's freakin' BATMAN."

February 19, 2005 AD
There's been an ad series running lately where Evil Corporate Masters smugly thank the populace for 'trading weekends for workends' and generally sacrificing quality of life for quantity of work. I was sure it was for some worker advocacy group until they started ending it with a plug for tourist destination Universal Orlando Resort. It's been pointed out that this pro-worker ad was therefore created by the Evil Corporate Masters themselves.

February 18, 2005 AD
SUVs sometimes feature a television as an added feature. For the edification of the people in the back seat, one would hope.

Has TV developed into such a opium that people have to be watching it even when going from one place to another? Enough to make it a selling point on an SUV?

Life is looking more like Max Headroom or 1984 - where turning your TV off was illegal - every day.

February 17, 2005 AD
Person A: 'Why can't I set closed captioning on a per-channel basis?'

Person B: 'Well, you're either deaf or you're not.'

February 16, 2005 AD
MSN ad: 'Surf the web on your cell.'

What I thought it said: 'Surf the web in your cell.'

February 15, 2005 AD
Heard in a Gateway contest ad: 'Just purchase a Gateway (PC or bigscreen TV) to be automatically entered. No purchase necessary.'

February 14, 2005 AD
On this fair Valentine's day, I wonder about the phrase '7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year'. I want to know how you could work 365 days a year and still work a 5 day week.

February 13, 2005 AD (Again)
Larry: 'It's amazing how much you look like your mother.'

Doug: 'I'm adopted.'

Larry: 'Uhh... and that's what makes it so amazing!'

A slightly misquoted Larry Bly and Doug Patterson, "Cookin' Cheap".

February 13, 2005 AD
As heard on TV:

'Many older people, especially men and women, are concerned about their health.'

????

February 12, 2005 AD (Again)
There's a chain of stores called 'San Francisco'. They sell the sort of stuff people enjoy window shopping for, but never actually buy. You know, silly little things that make noises, roll around, or are composed entirely of neon. Tchotchkes, basically.

Once they had two items side-by-side:

1) A little punk rocker puppet that you put next to a speaker (preferably a subwoofer, I think). It shakes like crazy ('dances') when it hears a noise.

2) A fake canary in a cage with built-in audio output of a canary singing.

Since they were next to each other, the latter was triggering the former. The bird tweets, and the rocker moves. Since the bird wasn't tweeting loudly or constantly, the little punk rocker dude never got really shaking for long. He just twitched. It looked like he was suffering from caffeine withdrawal or something.

It would actually make a good package deal, come to think of it.

Update, February 17, 2005 AD: Something in a similar vein from Rez: 'Tonight at the PC club, one of the door prizes was a pair of toy doggies that sing and dance to "I got you babe", as Sonny & Cher. Amazingly good choreography considering they were about 8" tall and cost under $5. There was much argument about whether they were the greatest thing since canned milk, or should be shot and put out of our misery.

February 12, 2005 AD
I was looking for interesting 'robots.txt' files (I'm easily amused) and I found this one. Evidently the author didn't even do one test to check if the robots.txt file was being fed through the CGI interpreter. So much for letting one's efforts speak for themselves....

February 11, 2005 AD
I once saw a TV program about using computers to translate numbers into stuff us humans understand better. Everyday example: PC taking numbers and making a bar graph.

Experimental example: Taking the numbers from a urinalysis and having the computer play them as notes. Makes for something you'd expect on an alien soundtrack. Problem is, humans can't keep the right frequency range for all the different numbers in their head easily, so they can't tell if a note is 'okay' or 'a bit off'.

So they normalize everything so it all has roughly the same frequency, and the 'off' note is the same for all of them. Still too hard.

So they get the PC to do the math, then play a cheery little ditty like 'Happy Birthday'. If one of the numbers is off, it plays the note off-key.

At this point, I realized that the musical stuff was completely irrelevant, and thus the entire point of the show moot. Now, we have a PC making the diagnosis and informing the person in a roundabout way. Ideally, you scrap the music altogether and have the PC say 'Sample #4 is beyond normal parameters.', thus saving the doctor from having to hum a ditty and count notes to try figure out what was off.

February 9, 2005 AD
One thing I've noticed about designing things.... When building a device to perform an action, do not mimic how the human body performs the same action. For instance, if you're making a machine that climbs ropes, make something that grips the rope tight between wheels and then rolls the wheels. Don't make something that mimics the grip-rope-then-pull action of a human arm. It's more complex and it's invariably slower. The human body is the ultimate general-purpose tool - really good at nothing, but passable at almost everything. It's not meant to be mimiced.

(Of the two hosts of Mythbusters, one understands this and the other either doesn't or - more likely - chooses to ignore it just to make things interesting.)

February 8, 2005 AD
Here lie I by the chancel door;
They put me here because I was poor.
The further in, the more you pay,
But here lie I as snug as they.
- Epitaph, Devon churchyard

February 7, 2005 AD
The world's worst hold music: An orchestra, composed almost exclusively of violins, playing 'Moon River'. Starts out low, then goes into a high screech as the notes corresponding to the word 'River' are first played.

February 5, 2005 AD
'I admire the keen interest in the deeper aspects of the black arts you and your friend have shown. You may each have a lollipop.'

A quote from Azalin Rex, archmage and master of undeath in the Ravenloft series, after beginning a new reward system for apprentice necromancers.

February 4, 2005 AD
Someone at VH1 deserves a raise. In their schedule, for the vastly overwatched 4 AM slot, was this:

'Test Signals: An exciting special with colorful bars and incredible sound! Check it out!'

February 3, 2005 AD
'Hey cool! If you look through this thing backwards everything is real small!'

- Nefarian Rogue, discovering a new and potentially painful use for his sniper rifle, In2It.

February 1, 2005 AD
Due to popular request (by eye doctors, I presume), I'm reposting the dreaded L33tsp33k Jabberwocky. Enjoy!

                                   
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January 31, 2005 AD
'That's what we use the kitchen for. (...) To keep the murderers in.' - A rather odd Nero Wolfe quote, slightly misquoted.

January 29, 2005 AD
Fans of surrealist Shockwave Flash animation might be intrigued by Space Tree the Space Tree, a bizarre series in which a talking tree plays ersatz superhero, except in the episodes where he's an inept teacher, or breaking someone out of a jail run by the universe's happiest warden. New character introductions happen arbitrarily, as if the characters just fall out of the sky (which, in one case, is the literal truth).

Yes, it really is that weird. So much so that when continuity is introduced later in the series, it's almost a distraction.

January 28, 2005 AD
A missive to aspiring clubbers. Ways to make a bad remix:

10a. Add static accidentally.

10b. Add static intentionally.

10c. Add that annoying sound of a vinyl record being abused.

9a. Name the remix after someone famous, or use a 'near name' like 'Mike Ollfield'.

9b. Name the remix after yourself.

9c. Same as number 9b, but also use the title 'DJ'.

8a. Call the remix a club 'anthem', even if it was only played at that club once, because your sister's boyfriend knows the DJ and wants you to put in a good word with your sibling.

8b. Number 8a, but since you don't have a sister, you make up the club.

8c. Number 8b, but make sure the club name is something 'sexy' - which will invariably make it sound like a gay club, no matter how hard you try to think of a 'straight' title - possibly involving the number '69'. '54' if you want to look like you know a bit of history.

7a. Insert random electric guitar solos.

7b. When there's no electric guitars in the rest of the song.

7c. Play the solo yourself.

6a. Play the same vocal sample over and over again, adding more 'kewl' effects to each iteration until it sounds more like a drunk squirrel exploding than a person singing.

6b. Play the same vocal sample over and over again, but without adding more effects, because you don't know how.

6c. Use that annoying fake doppler effect excessively so it sounds like a van full of bad electronica bands is circling the block.

6d. Ditch the real vocals, and add a looping track that sounds like it was sampled from Mr. T. (Don't laugh, I've seen it done!)

6e. Play the vocals, but make sure to excessively repeat on the last word word word word word word word word word word word.

5. Play the baseline, without anything else, for the first thirty seconds.

4. Throw out the original completely, except for three chords.

3a. Insert random sounds, so a song about growing up in a loveless household has appropriate sounds backing it, like Zulus chanting.

3b. Use internally inconsistent effects, so the Zulus are chanting while a cow moos...

3c. ...in reverse.

2a. Sample several songs by the same band into one 'megamix'.

2b. Sample several songs by different bands, then try to pass it off as a one-band megamix.

2c. Sample one complete song, add a rap track of your own over the real vocals, then try passing it all off as yours. See also 'Will Smith', 'Puff Daddy', 'Any-other-rapper'.

2d. Sample 'Knight Rider', or any other television show. I'm sure that 'Married With Children' is ripe for the sampling.

1. Do all of the above, then start calling yourself an 'artiste'.


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Run along home.
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