mattm

I've always used norton or nothing at all but my field of expertise is computers so I know what's going on in my machine and you can't just sneak a virus onto it.

AVG is great 'cause it's free. Somewhat harder to use than the commercial ones such as Norton and McAfee but it's free and works.

If you are planning on getting one and not paying (torrent or something), I would go with Symantic Anti-Virus Corporate Edition (no serial keys or anything). Otherwise I would follow brad's advice and hit up AVG.

I always wondered about the glass being liquid or solid question so one day I looked it up in google and got this.

Another day (today and some years later) I looked it up again and go the same page. kinda neat.

Is it a joke, the spam recipes? I see different recipes all the time but only when I'm checking my spam. I just wonder 'cause I know google searches the topic at hand to figure out which add to post but it seems funny to me.

I love google april fools day jokes. some sort of juice last year I think (or maybe the year before).

Looks to me like it's either temporarily or permanently down but google still has links to it so it can't have gone down too long ago.

PS: I have a dvd burner and WAY too much time on my hands so anything I get I will share. I couldn't before due to school and homework (I'm a programmer so I need my computer for that) but now I'm working and the computer just downloads day and night. Might as well put the burner to good use. I'll post again when I get the vegas dvd's from backbacon. I'll distribute anything else as well.

nice, very very nice

water can't read?

On the lines of fun shows like these, I just watched the first episode of the 80's series The Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Wow, it's absolutely mind blowing thinking about the things he talks about and there are still 12 episodes to go.

If you've never heard of Carl Sagan, look him up in Google. Pretty damn smart guy and he smoked weed to boot.

If you have a chance, I suggest this as a good watch too (hint: search demonoid.com])

You should grab nero 7, it's got all the codecs plus some nice things like menu builder, etc.

Yup. It's (Waking Life) a good movie because you really can trip out like that. If you haven't seen it, don't watch it sober the first time, enjoy the mind fuck and then watch it sober some other time to enjoy the dialogue. I've only seen it sober once but dude is right when he says watch it with a buddy when shroomin' cause it's a hell of a trip.

also, this is an oldie but a goodie, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind w/jim carrey

Yup

lord of war was very good, subtle messages beneath the gunfire, loved it

Yup

the island tour dvds never dissappoint either, unless you dont like phish

Fuck do I ever want those. I have the last show downloading now but I think it's going to take a week and I'll still need the other ones.

If you like tragedy type movies see House of Sand and Fog but be warned, it is not a happy cheery movie.

If you like cars, see Gone in 60 Seconds but crank the volume. The engines sound soooooooo nice.

It was mentioned above as well but another of my choices is Waking Life. Some great discussions but also some AMAZING eye candy for good stoned watching.

Walk the Line of course. I've seen it twice now and I still can't believe how well Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon pull off their parts. They do their own singing!!

I'm going to watch Syriana tonight as I think it's looks pretty good.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Even if you don't like the movie, it's worth watching for the glocks and the wicked music.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

If you really want to learn about string theory, check out The Elegant Universe that I mentioned above. It's entirely about string theory but is a documentary rather than a movie/documentary hybrid. It's also a mini series rather than a whole movie.

By the way, I found both of those on torrents though I no longer remember where but it shouldn't be too hard, just go to mininova or isohunt or demonoid and search for them. Always remember that if you like it, buy it.

lol. I bought it and have forced it on everyone I know.

The water crystals blew me away. One of my favorite ideas from there is when they talk about what's real. How do you know there's anything behind you until you turn around and see it. It might be there, might not be there. It could be entirely different.

Also, the part about how dreams and vision produce the same reactions in the brain is neat. How do I know I'm not dreaming this? How can one be sure that what's real is real?

My buddy Graz and I are big fans on this movie (watched it over 20 times last year).

There's a kind of part 2 out called Down the Rabbit Hole or something like that.

It's mostly the same as the first one but with extra footage and, I think (haven't seen it yet), less of the animations, more of the wicked interviews and insights.

For the string theorists out there, try The Elegant Universe which goes into that fairly nicely.

Also check out Waking Life for some great food for thought and absolutely incredible eye candy.

That's some of the most terrible news I've read this week, imo. I wonder how long before they burn some witches.

I read an article a couple years ago on how Bush (pres) wanted to ban abortion. The article was about a woman. She brought up a fairly good point: What the hell right do old men have to say anything about a woman's body. She was saying this as there are some cases where an abortion is the only way for a woman to live. I don't know specifics 'cause it was a while ago but it pisses me off.

I'll stop now before I piss me and perhaps others off with my ranting.

(Whoopie) Goldberg raised a wire coat hanger -- a symbol of illegal abortions in the days before the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling recognizing abortion rights -- and told the crowd, "We are one vote away from going back to this!"

"I can remember when abortion was just as common as it is now, but it killed a lot of women," (Dorothy) Smith said.

I'm assuming this town is supposed to be good but all I see is promotion of unsafe sex and loss of freedom.

Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as

it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G

recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If

asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the

same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.

Cool, I've boycotted him my whole life and don't really have any plans to change that now.

backbacon you rock. the shit will be in the mail tonight.

Hehe, those funny americans. Don't they know that if the government wants their shit they'll just take it. The government is so corrupt down there that I don't think some little rules like a subpena will stop anyone. Didn't they have wiretaps for listening to conversations long before 911 (which allowed them to pass laws so that they could be made public)? I think I read that somewhere but it may have been in the Echo last week (right at the front, a bunch of reasons to impeach bush) and I don't know how reliable they are.

If the americans cared about their privacy they'd kick bush out so obviously it's not a major concern.

I think it's a great idea.

I wish I had tonnes of chicks creamin' their pants for me.

I love dave and tim although I'm not the hugest fan of the DMB I do enjoy their shows. Dave puts a lot of emotion into his singing.

I've always dreamed of a world where people can listen to and like whatever they want.

For me music is life. I play guitar (rather terribly) but music sends me to places most people will never see or experience. If I'm in a conversation and a good song comes on there's a good chance I lose track of what the other person is saying. This site is pretty cool as it's dedicated to my favorite type of music which is improvisational. It's also full of folks that I think might also feel the music like I do.

I have no idea where I'm going with this but I had to write something. It gets me so down when I see such negativity towards any music and the fans that like it.

PS: Umphrey's rocks!!!

It is a crime for the landlord not to give you receipts. It doesn't matter if you've signed anything or not, if you live somewhere you are considered a legal resident. There are different types of resident like sub-letter but that's only if you are renting a room that someone will be coming back to and the other types are also exceptions like that. Regardless, you are entitled to a rent receipt.

Last I heard H&R Block requires all paperwork when done in person. I'm not sure because I do my own taxes as well as a bunch of other folks using quicktax. It's fast, easy and even by mail it only takes about 3 weeks, max, to get the return.

I've never been audited for rent receipts though I have been asked to produce tuition receipts.

Nope but I have done my own (before the jedi kid came out). I just love doing that shit. That's just an easy example of what you can do with photoshop and premiere and a good one to use to push this stuff on folks since everyone knows star wars. I would, however, be willing to bet that the jedi kid maker followed somewhat the same tutorials I did (nikki's tutorial's but I can no longer find them).

I have a 250 gig hard drive with external usb case and it kicks ass. I can bring it anywhere and my entire music/movie collection almost fits on it. It's like the superman of usb keys. The problem is that these drives have to be plugged in but who gives a shit.

TIP: Don't buy a pre assembled hard-drive/case. Get a hard drive and get a case and put the drive in it. This way if you ever need to you can pull the drive out easily and plop it into a desktop computer.

If you want to try something really fun, get a video of you or someone with a broomstick or something on those lines (waving it around like a light saber).

Next, open the video in Adobe Premiere (available at your friendly neighborhood torrent site) and save or export (forget which one) as a filmstrip.

Now, take said filmstrip and open it in Photoshop. You will now have one giant picture that is a strip of the frames of the video.

Now apply the jedi light saber photoshop trick to each frame (yes, this takes forever) and save the filmstrip.

Open the filmstrip back up in Premiere and save it as a video. You now have a live action jedi looking person swinging around the light saber.

This little trick can be used to add effects to pretty much any video you want. If you film yourself in front of a single color wall (well lit and make sure your clothes, skin, etc contrast heavily with the wall and there are no shadows) you can tell photoshop to get rid of that particular color in the filmstrip. Now, take that video and super-impose it onto a movie or something and bam, you're an actor. I've put myself on street corners and in random spots in movies I've downloaded and the reaction from friends is pretty neat ("wow, how'd you get into so many movies..."

You can also use the trick to do things like shoot fire from your hands, etc.

WARNING: If you enjoy this, it's addictive.

I heard the rumour on the weekend.

It ain't The Who without Entwistle, and it ain't GNR without Duff and Slash.

yup

Not that I have a thing for bugs, but "Microcosmos" is another great movie/documentary about the "micro" world.

I haven't seen this new one but microcosmos blows my mind it's so vivid and has such high resolution for things so small. Granted I've never seen it sober.

That is in rather poor taste to have an exterminator as the sponsor of a bug movie though.

That shows how much I know. I thought it was just a Metallica song. On those lines, a great movie to watch is the one from Metallica's One video:

Johnny Got His Gun

I watched it in french in Paris but it was still just as effective.

Were there a lot of seeders for this? I can't download anything until monday but wouldn't mind watching it after reading the imdb blurb.