MERVERNATION News

6/30/1999

You know something that bugs me? well Im gonna tell you. I hate everyone using the word "BOX" to describe their computers. Answer me this... Why is it, that when you have a computer with DOS/95/98 its a computer? but when you have unix/linux/NT all of a sudden its a "box". I have heard some excuses. "when its a server, its a box" ok.... that may be true, but there are plenty of NT workstations out there, and there are plenty of 98 machines being used as a server. excuse #2, "its a box when it has no monitor, keyboard, mouse and just sits in the corner functioning" fine.. then it looks like a box. but what good is it when something goes wrong and you have no way to fix it. excuse #3 "its just a word" Im willing to bet this is the most acurate one.. Its like some people feel smarter when they say "unix box" rather than "unix server" or maybe it makes them feel like a somewhat hacker,. using all the supposed slang and terminology. I have an NT server. sitting in the corner of the bottom of my desk, no monitor/keyboard/mouse of its own, its on a switch with one of my workstations... serving my LAN which is 6 computers in my house and 3 at my neighbors through underground cabels, also acting as a gateway to the internet for all 9 computers by routing packets in to my DSL line. works great! is it a box? I call it my server.... box,. geez. now when someone comes to me and asks me to install a box in their car... maybe I should put a linux system in there... not a stereo. so I ask you, besides feeling special when you say it.. what makes a computer a box?..... feed me back, please.

by the way, this is not to insult my friends or anyone who uses the word box. I just want to find out where this comes from, where its going, and why. maybe I will start a page about boxes. hell if someone can make a page about 27s..... why not?

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6/29/1999

THIS is proof that some people have WAY to much time.

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6/28/1999

NEW WEIRD AL YANKOVIC ALBUM!!!
Weird Al is a genious. everything he does is done with class, and complete effort. I dont think anyone can deny that he has a gift for what he does. others have come and gone, but Al is the only one that has lasted and he is also the only one that artists give permission to. (yes he has to have artists permission before he does a parody) the new album "Running with scissors" will be in stores tomorrow, June 29th. I cant wait to get my copy. the album is also supposed to have another NIN parody/cover in it. will keep you posted. (Im gonna see if I cant get my copy today)

"Running with Scissors" In stores June 29, 1999
Check out The official Weird Al Website to see picturs and stuff about the new album. when you get to the greeting page, you will see a parody of a starwars poster. its rather funny.

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6/24/1999

NIN Link
I added a link to Trents official NIN site. NIN.COM it doesnt do much but play a quick shock wave graphic and sound of the logo... however, if you let that go, and then hit reload 2 times, your browser will automatically start downloading 1 minute of the new NIN song. I must say, its very different from normal NIN stuff, but at the same time, you can tell its him. it has that quality to it. check it out.

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Remember a while ago when i was complaining about the old BBS and the forums? well, I have been working on a setup to have a "forums" on this web page. I never got very far with it, but I had been exploreing different options. Today I learned that Marlin is working on the same thing... I gave him a few of my resources, and maybe he will get farther than I did... then again, maybe not.. maybe we will construct something together. I actually have implimented a UBB on this site which is still in testing.. if that works out to my satisfaction, I'll make it public and it will have the old IPS BBS colors and everything. I will keep you updated.

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6/21/1999
Well, once again I have gone and started more things than I can finish. I was working on goath, and I opened up a file of a song which I had begun a while ago, and got started piecing IT together only to end up with 2 things I want to finish REALLY bad now. the new song, which I think Im gonna call "the jungle" or "water jungle" or something will be done soon after, if not the same time as goath. I will keep you updated.

My DSL line was installed on friday. it works great. I downloaded one of my song on the song page, which is 5.5 megs in under 2 minutes. because of the DSL splitter I can not talk and type at the same time over 1 phone line. very cool. I set it up on my NT server with WinGate as a test, to give all my other computers access to the net. it worked fine. I also was listening to a 4 hour RA feed from Astralwerks without all that rebuffering crap.

Went to the computer show on sunday. My girlfriend and myself, along with Flying Moose, Trainmaster, and Marlin went up in one car, and Hoagie went up in his car. we hung out for the day. on the way home, Moose went in to his usual sound effect mode and went along with my trance cd. the other 2 then joined in and had a pretty good sound going. we were all laughing so hard all the way home that Trainmaster almost wet his pants. Moose and his sounds will make anyone laugh. I started in with a thump on the center console of the car for a base beat, and if we recorded this, we could call ourselvs TranceApella. lol.

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6/18/1999

not much going on lately. have to go out tonight to some dumb thing. means I have to get dressed up in a suit and tie/tux type thing. I hate getting dressed up. it sucks. I feel like Im in a candy wrapper or something. whats the point. if you dont get dressed up on a regular basis, then why do we always put on a false personality when we go out? I say we should go to weddings and proms and crap AS WE ARE. not dressed up like NO ONE knows us. anyway... I think today is Garfield's birthday. the cat in the comic strip. pretty sure its June 18th. I'll have to check one of my books when I get home. Got a new BASS CD yesterday. BASS 305, they make the best CDs. it rumbles the car like crazy. you rule Dave. Getting my DSL line today at 3:00. that should prove to be interesting. hopefully my NT server will handle the IP routing of my network against the DSL address ok. I have wingate running as a test to see if proxy access for the 7 other computers works right. Computer show on sunday. 200+ tables. Orange County Fairgrounds, Middletown NY. I need a SCSI adaptor for my 48 gig tape backup which I plan on running on my NT system. might get some other parts too. gotta watch the money. I wanna pay my car off by the year 2000 (not because I am worried about money problems in Y2K, because its a good goal). only got 6000 bux to go. once I do that, I will drive this car till its not moveable anymore. (got 108,000 on it now, and all origional parts). once Its life is complete, I will have saved up enough for an SHO. thats what I really want. well, its lunch time here at work, (take a break from slacking off to go to lunch) update more later.

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6/16/1999
This EN thing is getting a bit out of hand. in the last month I have heard the phrase "E/N" more than ever. isnt the idea of it, to just talk about whats on your mind, and be somewhat origional? it started as that, and now, they all end up talking about what the other ones are talking about. theres nothing new anymore. its predictable. When something happens in the news, every one of the sites has a post on it. the bombings are over... next day, every link I clicked on for my daily sites,... thats what I read. thats not EN, thats news.. I could have read the content of 10 pages by reading CNN once. none of the ENs talk much about themselvs anymore. except my friend Marlin, but I see him just about everyday, so even thats boreing (Just Kidding Marlin). that schlonger guy used to poor his life out on that page. in my opinion, that was cool. EN is getting out of control, just like SUVs, but I will leave that for another time... anyway, I get comments about this site, some say I am an EN site, some say I am not. question... WHAT AM I? I never thought I was EN but maybe I am.. I just like to post about my music, who won the NASCAR race, and the occasional "my point of view" type of report. (Im also sick of the phrase "Daily Rant".. be a little more origional huh?)

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6/14/1999

NEW JUNO REACTOR ALBUM!!!
FINALLY! I have been waiting for this for quite some time,. I hope this one is enough like Bible of Dreams, but different enough to keep it interesting. Its Juno Reactor, so it will rule no matter what. Juno Reactor has such a unique sound,.. I have to describe the last album as a "trance gothic attack" if your into trance, specifically GOA trance, and you havent heard Juno Reactors Bible Of Dreams, go listen to some tracks on CDNOW or something. Juno Reactor is my main trance influence when it comes to my music. I cant wait. theres also a load of other new stuff comming out from Blue Room as well.

The new JUNO REACTOR album 'DJANGO' will be out on the 13th September, 1999
Out on the 28th June, Juno single 'PISTOLERO' including mixes by The Headrillaz, Fluke and Man With No Name.
look out for special Juno section soon on Blue Room !

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6/11/1999 + 6/10/1999

Songs
I have added a "SONGS" section on the page. Right now I have the 2 songs that I feel happy with to the point that I probably wont be working on them anymore. (unless theres a calling for a remix) so If you feel like hearing my efforts and you have a few hours to waste downloading them,... please do, And let me know what you think.

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This is pretty sick, and if your not able to handle simulated blood, then dont download them. I have no idea where they came from, but I give credit to whoever made them. his name is in there someplace. download, unzip, run.
FROG.ZIP
GERBIL.ZIP

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I dont normally post anything with a foul language of any kind, but this one is pretty good. See I work with computers every day, fixing them, programming them, building them, smacking them areound when windows does something stupid... and if only THIS were the solution sometimes.

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I was thinking the other day about all these "E/N" pages and where they are comming from. I honestly had no idea there were that many of them out there. I also honestly didnt consider myself one when I found out about the whole concept. my origional page of at least 4 years ago consisted of info about me, some little mermaid stuff, some NIN stuff, and at the top I would update every other week or so. I also think that Marlin is pretty much in the same boat I am,.. I could be wrong, but Im betting he didnt realize what was going on with "E/N" either. I know where its comming from... for me at least... Forums. We had a BBS which my friend Flying Moose started which had 10 nodes, a teleconference, e-mail and Forums. I had my own Forum, and so did Marlin. every day you could go in and post messages about whatever you felt like, just like we do on the pages. every day had its fill of loyal people who would scan the forums for new messages. just like the pages. as time went on and the net took over, our poor BBS was deserted. I miss the BBS, In so many ways, I liked it better than the net. thats when I gave in and let my friend "Homey" at the time, put up a page for me on his server. Thats where MY page is comming from. probably Marlins too.
Just as a side note, I was told by Moose that I would have ownership over the BBS now, and my plan is to get the thing converted over to a telnet package, and on the net. then all the old people could log on even if they moved far away, all the fun of teleconference would be back (mainly for people who found IRC to be lame compared to tele) let me know what you think of that idea. and if anyone reading this knows anything about converting a GCOMM BBS to a telnet system, drop me some hints.
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6/9/1999

Musical Standings
I didnt MP3 the song last night, I ended up working on the mix the whole time. I also decided, after starting the mix, that I would rather work on "goath" instead in hopes to get it put together in time for our DigitalFl00d meeting. DigitalFl00d is going to be a means of distribution for computer oriented art. mostly music. On Saturday we will be meeting to kick off some ideas, share what we have created so far, and just hang out.
This brings some conflict to mind however,.. see a couple years ago, when I first started making this music, I figured that I would put it on a label I called "Digital Water" kind of funny how close that is to my pal flAnnelmAn's "DigitalFl00d" name. this will probably work out better though. It should be quite an interesting CD when we are all done with it. Electronica WILL be heard!

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6/8/1999

New Song
I was driving home from work yesterday, listening to Single Cell Orchestra, at the same time thinking about Juno Reactor. WHAM an idea hit me for a new song... So I got home, and turned on the computer. within minutes I had the base line down, and was beginging to make the effects. If you have been reading my page and have seen any of the past writings about my songs, you know that straying from the normal set of genres is not uncomon for me. this one is probably my most unique sounding piece. to simplify it, its a "GOA, Ambient, Tribal, Progressive Trance Sound" because of its GOA influence, along with the fact that it sounds like a tribe in some forest playing sounds of warning to intruders, I called it GOAway. I might change the name, but probably not. it is very progressive in that it starts very basic, and makes its way in to something complicated. not over complicated. you can pick out each sound if you listen closely. towards the end theres some real heavy bass embedded in the patterns. Right when things start getting a little to wild, the whole thing drops out in to just some tribal drumbs and ends right there. its about 6 minutes long. when I get home today, I will MP3 it and post it for download. hope everyone who visits will grab it and give it a listen. while I am at it, I will post my first completed song. (I feel wrong for calling it a song,.. theres no words)
As an update to those who know, I will be finishing the GOA/gothic/trance song shortly. this one I call "goath" and all I have left to do is past all the parts together. along with that, a new mix CD containing GOAway and a bunch of other electronica songs will be done today or tomorrow.

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6/7/1999
I decided to become Year 2000 Compliant. Arent you proud of me?

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NASCAR
Good race yesterday, I dont think it could have been won by anyone more deserving than Bobby Labonte. with an extreemly smart pit stop the last lap of caution rather than the first, he was able to go the distance with the tak of gas he had while the leaders were forced to pit under green. very few cars out this week, hopefully that will be the story when I make my way down to the Dover Downs speedway in september. Last year when I was there, My favorite driver won, and the guy I like the least got black flaged. It couldnt have been any better of an experience. hope to get a repeat performance this year.

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Blue Room Rules
If you didnt guess by that statement, I got my Blue Room order in on friday, 7 out of the 8 CDs I ordered were delivered. Ill have to find out the story with the last one, but 7 is good. all England stuff which cant be bought here in the US, which I am the proud owner of, included 3 Juno Reactor singles with some very rare stuff on them. I plan on putting together a CD for myself and friends of all Juno Reactor stuff you cant get. I have about 10 tracks to put on there, about 7 minutes each. 70 minutes of sound from GOA master Ben Watklins... along with pieces by KoxBox and Total Eclipse. Dont worry Hoagie, youll get pressing #3 as usual.
other CDs included in this package were the Saafi Brothers, KoxBox, and X-Dream. I was also able to get the origional england version of the CD which I complained about in the past. the one that I had been waiting for and my buddy got to Media Play 1 day ahead of me, found it (not knowing) and got it. since that day, he has not been able to find 1 single Blue Room CD. so Hoagie, now that I have "signs of life" the curse has been lifted. good luck in your Blue Room quest.

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6/4/99
I just got an E-Mail, a free one at that,.. which described this new governmental idea to charge people 5¢ for every e-mail they send. where is this fee going? to the US Post Office. thats a bunch of nonsenceical bull crap. everyone is out to get money, and this is no exception. who knows what triggered this... maybe they are mad cause of the term "snail mail" maybe they feel e-mail has hurt the business somehow. I dont think they have a right to complain. there is still enough physical mail to keep them busy. you cant send someone a check through e-mail, you cant send someone a $20 bill for their birthday in e-mail. they have nothing to do with the e-mail service, and hence have no right to make any money off of it, unless they put up a server, and gate every mail that goes by, checking it, and postmarking it themselvs like they must do with regular mail. this boils down to someone getting easy money and it must not be allowed. the Internet was what it was supposed to be for about 1 year, after that, it has become nothing but a big commercial, or a big newspaper containing nothing but ads. I thought it was supposed to be a resource for information, a tool,... but the amount of junk on the net is just pathetic. a new statistic says that 80% of the internet is based on porn. I have no problem believing that. almost every site I got to has a banner for porn. I do a search for "qbasic" and at least 1 hit comes back "XXX click to enter" dont ask what thats got to do with 5¢ on an e-mail... I just got a little carried away with the situation as a whole. either way. stop the nonsence.

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6/3/99
Hypocritical cops and Harassment.
Ill start this segment which was inspired last night, with a story about my uncle. See theres a younger guy, maybe 20 or so,(if your thinking this must be a LONG time ago for my uncle to be 20, let me say that my uncle is only 4 years older than I am. I am 22 now), going home from work and simply enjoying a can of soda. (we can all see where this is going) An officer saw this and decided to give him a hard time about it. stopped him, came up, took the soda, sniffed it, dumped some out on the ground, wasted about 15 minutes of his time, and went on his merry way.... I will continue this segment with a story about my Dad. driving home from work one day, and saw a cop. decided to see what would happen if he opened a can of iced tea in front of him. opened the can, took a swig. lights went on, gets pulled over. wasted 15 minuted of time, went on merry way.... I have other ones, but I think you get the point... So last night I am sitting in the Burger King drive through and a State Trooper pulls in behind me. As I sit there watching him in my rear view mirror, he picks up a can and drinks. outs it back doen in his cup holder and reads a paper. the thing was obviously opened before... and Ill tell you what, that can didnt look like any soda I have seen before. NEXT.... when an officer pulls you over, he normally walks to your window and begins the BS right?... not in this story. I was on my way to work in Newburgh a year ago on rt 84, and passed by a speed trap. I saw the thing, and was not speeding. along the side of the road were 6 other cops all with cars pulled over. every driver looking younger than 25. in the speed trap there was 1 officer facing away from me watching the other side of the highway, and one facing me watching me. I pass, he comes out and pulls me over. Im on a skiney edge of a 65 MPH highway and he turns on the PA and asks me to get my stuff and walk back to him! so I bring my stuff to the lazy shit, and go back to my car. while he sits there writing me a BS ticket, he is scarfing down some sort of glazed treat and a chocolate quick. after waiting about 25 minutes in that spot, and not seeing any of the other 6 cars leave either, he finally askes me back to his car to get my stuff. as I stand there, I asked him what I had done wrong. He stated I was going 10 MPH over the limit. I asked to see the radar. he says, and I quote "uhhhhhhh its in the other car." wasnt the other car watching traffic from the other direction? jerk. NEXT, driving to shoprite from the back roads one day and I have a cop in front of me going about 15 in a 35. I had no idae it was a cop cause it was one of them new cars with no lights on the top, just on the mirrors and grill. I get a ticket for following too close. one night I am going home from my girlfriends house, and I have a cop following ME too close. because he was so close, (so close I couldnt see head lights) I got nervous and sped up to about 5 over the limit, and at the same time, my tire went about 1 inch over the yellow line on a curve. collected 2 tickets that night. where am I going with this? besides giving you something hopefully entertaining to read, I just had to complain about this. its not right. in no way does it make any legal sence. they should just rewrite the law to say "If you do it, its wrong. If we do it, its OK"

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