BACON: Making Procrastination More Efficient Since 2010.

I have never been a huge reader of webcomics, myself. I would read a couple here and there, and for the last couple of years I have been a fairly avid follower of XKCD. But I've never been one of those guys who reads fifteen different comics every morning. This semester, though, through the suggestion of a friend of mine, I have picked up a few more. My friend introduced me to the wonderful world of Cyanide & Happiness, the absolute brilliance of Buttersafe, and the instant classic, Daisy Owl. I'm quite upset that I didn't discover Daisy Owl when it was still being actively produced. I also stumbled across the amusingly quirky Packed For Laughs. It's cheesy humor, but I like it.

Anyway, I dabbled in a few others here and there, but as the number of comics increased, so did the hassle of navigating from site to site to read them all. Then I learned that a friend of mine here at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mike Stark, along with a few others, have put together an awesome open source project to solve just this problem.

BACON (Bring All Comics Offline Now) is a Java-based project that allows you to add the dynamic-content page for a webcomic and identify the img tag wherein the comic lies. You can then simply boot up BACON every morning and cycle through the comics right in that window, without having to traverse the whole internet to find them.



An important thing to mention: BACON does not save the files on your hard drive. This is for good reason. The awesome people who make the webcomics you read are usually collecting money from ads and such. If you want to read an old comic, head to the website and check out the archives. That way, the authors don't lose money on the deal. BACON is starving-artist-friendly!

Anyway, I love it. I'd love for more people to find out about it. So check it out. If you like, pass it around. Also, remember, it is open source, so if there's something wrong with it, fix it.

Alright, That's all for today.

- Ken Bellows

Sphere

Recently I've become very into jazz music. I'm actually a little behind on the times, I know, but hey, better late than never, right? I have found Jazz to be so free and unrestricted in it's workings compared to the fairly formulaic pop and "Rhythm and Blues" (that's a laugh) artists of today's music culture. It has really been a breath of fresh air to step back away from that restrictive, boxy music realm and backwards in time to when art could really flow from your music.

Probably my favorite jazz artist thus far is Thelonious Sphere Monk. What I love so much about him is his total commitment to and love of jazz, not only as a music style, but as a philosophy. As a lifestyle. Ev'-ry-thing about this guy was jazz. You watch some of the recordings of him on stage and you can see what I mean. He was the king of improvisational jazz piano, if you ask me. He was famous for his unique style of playing the piano; he would stab at the keys, leaving odd spaces and gaps between sections.

He took it further, though. In the same way that he left gaps in his playing, he would randomly get up out of his seat and walk around the stage as the other instruments continued to play. He would even walk off stage at random times. Never for long, but enough to keep things interesting.

His lifestyle was as unorthodox as his music and his stage attitudes. First off, he was born with what is probably the most unique name of the 20th century. He was known to say very unexpected things, dress in odd ways, walk strangely, and make odd facial expressions. He was the very epitome of jazz music. He simply didn't care at all about what anyone thought of him.

Thelonious was a true jazz musician, and a true jazz icon in every facet of his life.

Where's the love, guys? Where's the people love?

Man... Disclaimer here, my non-existent readers. This is going to be a long rant about how dumb people can be.

So, yeah. I haven't lived up to my "Hello World" promises. But I'll try to get back on it.

I was just listening to some Thousand Foot Krutch on YouTube. I could barely hear the freakin' songs over the arguments going on below! So much crap about completely unimportant stuff.

Now, I could rant and rave for pages (or pixels, I suppose, since this is a blog...) about how much I hate the way people act on YouTube. Instead, I decided to compile a list of the major topics of any given Christian music video on Youtube. Actually, let me clarify a bit: any given Christian music video that secular people can enjoy as well (i.e. TFK, Switchfoot, Demon Hunter, Relient K, etc.). Remember, these are simply the basic topics. Go ahead and mentally sprinkle the following liberally with all the expletives you can think up, remove a letter here and there, intentionally ignore punctuation, and occasionally spend an hour writing your 2000 character comment with perfect grammar and spelling, scouring the interwebs for the perfect witty, biting words, all in order to sound \u252ber intelligent so you can win the argument once and for all.

Here goes:

1) This Band isn't Christian. Despite their Christian label, Christian lyrics, and public proclamations of Christianity, they obviously aren't.
2) Yes, yes they are. You're stupid.
3) No, you're stupid.
4) You guys are both stupid. Who cares if they're Christian?
5) Yeah, who cares? Christian are stupid anyway. Who even believes in God anymore? Stupid noobs, probably.
6) Man, you're stupid! You're so stupid! You're so stupid that I don't even know why God loves you! Oh, and God loves you. But you're STUPID!
7) (@*!#$&(* @#&!(!*@!&!!??!! (383*&!?$@ (*#&$(*@# &$(*@#$& *#&!(@@!
7) Hey guys, hey, heyheyhey stop the violence, man. Where's the love? God wants peace. God wants music. The music is all that matters, man. Christians are cool. So are you no-God-guys over there. I'm not Christian, but I am spiritual. So come on. Where's the people love?

8) YOU'RE    ALL    SO     STUPID!

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHI need my meds.

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There it is. That's basically the eightfold path to insanity on Youtube. God bless those poor souls who have to moderate it. Granted that they exist. I mean, man, have you seen some of the crap on that site?

....So much Rick Astley....


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Today's Quote: Just to lighten the mood, I present to you Dwight Schrute, everyone.

"Once I am officially regional manager... I will need a new 'number two'. My ideal choice? Jack Bauer. But he is unavailable, fictional, and overqualified." - Dwight Schrute, The Office