Breaker breaker one-nine!

CNN has a news report today which attempts to terrify parents into believing that their children are learning 1337 (LEET speak) in order to have stilted communications about sex'n'drugs on their cell phones.

CNN says in their article Parents, do you know what these texts mean?:

Children across the country are heading back to school, and new research from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shows that a third of parents are concerned computers and texting make it harder to communicate with media-engrossed teens about sex, drugs, alcohol and other risky behaviors. [...]
Jones has now made it his mission to help parents detect when their children are discussing dangerous activities online.
In his online dictionary, there are thousands of slang terms related to drugs and sex [...]). "A- boot," for example, means someone is under the influence of drugs, "cu46" means "see you for sex," and "gnoc" means "get naked on cam," meaning a webcam.

Well, possibly, though I doubt it. And then, for some reason, CNN chooses to give us the following text to translate:

"1 w45 50 j4ck3d up |457 n16h7. 1 5c0r3d 50m3 cr4ck 47 7h3 p4r7y 50 1'd h4v3 17 f0r 70n16h7 4nd 70m0rr0w, 4nd 7h3n J1mmy 700k 0ff w17h 17, 7h3 455h0|3! 1 4m 4|| j1773ry 4nd n33d 70 m337 up w17h y0u 70n16h7 4f73r my p4r3n75 7h1nk 1 4m 45|33p. c4n y0u m337 m3 47 b0j4n6|3'5 47 m1dn16h7 ju57 f0r 4 f3w m1nu735? 1 ju57 n33d 4 |177|3 4nd 1 c4n p4y y0u b4ck 0n m0nd4y, 1 pr0m153."

Translation:
"I was so jacked up last night. I scored some crack at the party so I'd have it for tonight and tomorrow, and then Jimmy took off with it, the [expletive]! I am all jittery and need to meet up with you tonight after my parents think i am asleep. Can you meet me at Bojangle's at midnight just for a few minutes? I just need a little and I can pay you back on Monday, I promise."

Can you imagine a teen thinking those sentences, and if they did, then going on to translate them painstakingly into 1337 on a cellphone that almost certainly has a letterpad of some sort, and possibly autocomplete, making finding the numbers actually harder than spelling the words? And wtf is Bojangle's? Sorry, slipped into actual text abbreviations there, sry. Srsly, FFS, CNN. Is yr next headline going to be, ".- .-. . -.-- --- ..- .-. -.- .. -.. ... - . -..- - .. -. --. .- -... --- ..- - .-. .- .--. - ..- .-. . --- ..-. - .... . -. . .-. -.. ... .. -. -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . ..--.. ???!!!11eleventy!"


Have to say I enjoyed the following exchange in the comments section (you have to read from the bottom up, because this is the intarwebz):

• 
  umassattack

  N4rC
  3 hours ago | Like | Report abuse
• 
  dawson1488

  Do you really have to call it crack cocaine? I mean it's just baking powder if it doesn't have the coke.
  3 hours ago | Like (1) | Report abuse
• 
  umassattack

  im a teeny bopper on my parents plan doing crack cocaine... or as we call it cr4ck c0c41n3... 0n d4 57r3375 y0
  3 hours ago | Like (3) | Report abuse

Monday Team Building Exercise

On Monday I had to spend the day offsite learning about the five or possibly six dysfunctions of a team. I've been on team building exercises before and they run out of steam pretty quickly.

But it was all right, because they gave me Mr. Blobby. I think he was a trinket in passing, but he's agreed to be my permanent friend.



He is so cool, and soft and playful, I might never be stressed again.

FDA says a life of excruciating pain is okay

From Medpage Today:

"A number of members on the Arthritis Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committees felt the potential for widespread abuse of the "date rape" drug was too great to warrant expanding the indication to a condition that affects an estimated 2% of the U.S. population."

"Should we be giving LSD to people because it improves their psychotherapy? Should we give marijuana to people because it improves their well-being?" Kostan said. "What are we thinking?!"

Maybe we're thinking that improved well-being and mental health is nice, but that's not the point here. The point is that fibromyalgia hurts like hell and people who have it get no sleep or rest for months on end. If a knock-out drop puts their lives back on course, as one study participant says, what sort of animal would deny it to them?

Nice interrobang at the end of the quote, though.

Best movie ever - Syfy's Sharktopus!

I haven't seen it, but I know it's going to be the best ever. It's by Roger Corman, it's on Syfy, and it has a half-shark, half-octopus monster in it. I wonder if it has a frikkin' laser on its head? And it has Eric Roberts in it! And the CGI is just...classic!



Is it possible to kill more bikini-clad women in a trailer? I think not. I think that's the maximum.

It's not quite as touchy-feely as my usual octopus posts, is it?

Going to California - Led Zeppelin

For some reason, this video swam up into my notice today. Led Zeppelin in 1977, unofficial video, playing an acoustic number for a few thousand Americans.



This is what people sounded like in my youth. Which is to say, 1977 music eats 2010 music. It just fucking does.

Shopping for skulls

I went to the local Goth shop today - Pandora's Parlor - and lusted over the creepy and finely-made bric a brac she sells.

There were a number of bright-eyed stuffed animals I really liked and I might go back tomorrow and pick one up. Do I want a raccoon or a coyote? The deer's nice but everyone and his brother has a deer. There are also Chupacabras claws, photos of 19th century people looking unnatural and slightly weird and lots of bottles of potions and gris-gris. There are lacy black dresses, mink and fox stoles, a chandelier broken up into bags of little gems and labels carefully distressed to look as aged as something in Diagon Alley. Today she had a dog's skull faithfully watching a (plastic) skeleton as it resided in a cosmetologist's chair that resembled a torture instrument.

Some Steam Punk stuff, too: coppery instrumentation, old microscopes, and she used to have a lot of brass stereoscopes, but I guess they sold.

I saw one couple arrive and one of them just couldn't even walk in over the threshold. She stood outside, muttering, "Creepy!" Another couple behind me had the following conversation:

She: How are we on raccoons?
He: We're good on raccoons right now.
She: Just checking.

Pandora's Parlor's website is here.

The Dead Weather, Don Hill's, August 4 2010

I guess that wasn't the last ever Dead Weather show. For some reason they played to an invite-only crowd of 'hipsters' at Don Hills in New York on the 4th. Jackie Boy got pissed off at them acting like hipsters (one wonders what he expected) and produced another f-bomb rant that is all over the interwebs this morning. They're all getting it wrong, though - he doesn't say he'll pour their free drinks down their throats - that would be silly. He says they should pour their free drinks down their pants, which is much funnier. And the press has the timing of the ejection of the photographer wrong.

Because lo, even though Jack White is in a black mood with photographers, there's always someone out of his reach filming him, so here is the rant and the ejection in glorious blackandwhitenicolor. (NSFW)




The band looks completely exhausted. Well, except for Little Jack who I suspect isn't actually human, but some incarnation of a particularly R&B-inclined Hindu god.

The band have two major soap opera songs that I and a few friends watch to try to figure out the body language. One is the often violent I Can't Hear You, and one is the deeply intimate Will There Be Enough Water. Anyone who's seen a performance of the latter before can't miss the nuances in body language here, from the very first moment as Alison Mosshart looks at Jack's face to check his mood before she has to get close to him to get her drink.



A friend called that "painful to watch". Here's a much happier one. For Dead Weather values of "happy" which really don't match the ones in the dictionary.



This band is more fun than watching orcas at SeaWorld! But they really do need a rest. And anyway, that t shirt's worn out now, so I guess it's a good time to wrap it all up.

The Dead Weather on Letterman

The Dead Weather's most likely final TV performance, on David Letterman. Blue Blood Blues, an excellent song - but not the one I would have chosen. It's a Jack workout with Baby Ruthless relegated to the reserve bench instead of up front howling the blues.

The Dead Weather's last gig

Here's Jackie, of the Dead Weather, with his general class-based analysis of inequitude You Know You Just Can't Win.

This is from the last date of the tour, Prospect Park in New York on 08/03/2010, and as far as anyone knows, the last Dead Weather gig ever.

Mustang Ford

I've been invited on a road trip, the car specified as a Mustang. I am stoked.




OK, that track was Hot Rod Mama, not Mustang Ford.

I've never heard that version in my entire life. I've chased after Marc Bolan tracks since 1972 and that's new to me. It's his John's Children version. His ice cream Mustang, his purple colored Do De Ville.

OK, this is Mustang Ford.



Well, that's not what I've kept clapped to my breast in vinyl since 1970 either, but it's so good to have some alternatives. God bless YouTube. Who knew there were so many alternatives to the released tracks back in the day?

Bootlegging teh vinyl

Although this site goes to great pains to point out it should only be done for out of copyright 78s, we know better, don't we, kidz?

How to copy vinyl/acetate records.

I have to say I love the bit about how the copies sound better than the original. No, I really do. If someone can explain the way that works, we could solve entropy, which would be a remarkable breakthrough.

Edit: I just noticed that site recommends you play your new record on a turnstile. I know it's just a typo but it's weird that turntables are so rare that the word can be replaced in your mind by such an infrequently-used term as turnstile.

[Partial link from Wayback Machine, accessed 10/2017]

Big Red Guitar

Undated and unattributed photo sent to me by a friend.



This is why I want to marry Baby Ruthless (though this appears to be Alison Mosshart in mufti).

If it's your photo, please let me know to attribute to you or take it down, thanks.