As of April 16th, 2010 this website will nolonger be accessible via the web address http://www.youfuckingpeople.com/. I initially purchased the domain, YouFuckingPeople, with great notions of a website filled with caustically entertaining rantings about... Well, about you fucking people, of course. Complaining about your many retardations seemed to come natural to me and I figured I might as well go into the business. Almost immediately thereafter however, I soured completely on the idea, judging it an unhelpful enabling device for my worst qualities: bitterness, self-segregation, and a whole slew of other negative habits I'd hoped to curb, generally. I recanted, changed the site's title, and made the YouFuckingPeople domain into a hidden redirect. (Fat lot of good it did me, eh?)
I am choosing not to renew the domain. So any of you who've been accessing these pages via youfuckingpeople.com will need to start coming in the main gate: http://tvopiate.blogspot.com/. ...At least until another whim hits me and I change things up again, invalidating all my page rankings and confusing my many devoted reader.
So heads-up you motherfucking asshole fucker people bitches. Say! That sounds like a good name for a book!
'I Come From the Water' - Toadies Cover
Oh Toadies. How do I love you? Let me count the ways... Twenty-seven.
Note my face, neck, scalp, and various hidden unmentionables turning hot red as I belt out the latter half of the bridge circa 1:30. Ah, those were the days! I used to be known for my shrieking, red-faced coffee house performances. You can never go back, you know? And all dogs go to heaven.
People, not so much.
Alonedness
"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
--
I can't help but look at you and see a walking, talking corpse. You'll be dead soon won't you? Just fifty or sixty more years of your precious comfort and distraction and you'll be rotting in the fucking grave -- another immature soul ready to spin the wheel again, Pat! Ready to waste another century careening haphazard and directionless 'round the sun.
Just keep putting roofs over heads and food on tables. Hey, maybe you'll manage to survive long enough to get Alzheimer's and forget it all just before you die, confused and alone.
The world is truly against me. No joke. No exaggeration. And it's the biggest chip on my shoulder. It's probably at the heart of my current despair. You just set such a horrible fucking example don't you? You aren't kind, or patient, or long-suffering, or respectful, or happy. Or happy. Or HAPPY. You're sad, angry, hateful, unsympathetic, abrasive mal-intents, who'll manipulate, lie, cheat, and steal at the drop of a hat to get something you want, then go to church on Sunday to thank God for making you in His perfect image. And you see nothing wrong with any of it. You don't worry. You don't regret. You sell out, fuck over, and sleep well at night.
I guess that makes me lonely. Deep, cavernous loneliness, that's me. Last-man-on-Earth style loneliness. Yes, I'm the only one of my kind. The only one who sees something wrong in whiling away this life clocking in and out in pursuit of ever greater paychecks. The only one who sees comfort and convenience as a death knell; as something to stifle and rob him of potential. Who sees ownership as burden. Who sees security as sham.
Oh, but wait, no. Let me explain: I know you all think you see these things. I know you "understand" them and "agree." What I mean is that I actually believe and apply them to my life, not just wax conjectural in agreement when someone brings it up.
I called myself a Christian for a while. Why? Because I loved and followed the teachings of the man they call Jesus Christ. Not because I liked the idea of a magic man dying so that I can go to heaven after I finish up my heathen, money-chasing, comfort seeking, bullshit excuse for an existence. I actually followed the teachings: Give up your property. Be meek. Serve your fellow man... I didn't just show up in suit and tie on shabbat, nodding as the pastor conceptualized. I lived what Jesus said.
And that's where we differ, you and me. That's where I'm alone. I know you don't think I'm alone. You think I just feel alone, right? even though there are so many people who are with me? You for example! You're right here with me. You feel the same way! And since you agree with me when I talk about the shallowness and greed of our culture, I must not really be alone. See, but here's the separating point: I leave our little hypothetical discussion and go back to my minimalist lifestyle where I choose not to work more than twenty hours a week, where I save more than I spend every month, where I hope and plan for a future rich in spirit as well as physical adventure... Whereas you head back to your forty hour work week, and your hundred dollar a month cable package, and your fifty dollar a month cell-phone contract, and your leased, $26,000 automobile, and your adjustable rate mortgage, to plan the next thirty years you'll spend paying it all off, so that you can at last be free to get right back into hawk on some new shit.
That's where I'm alone: Where I actually try - successful or not - to live what I believe in. And if it weren't for you, if it weren't for your overarching societal imperative of 'go to school, get degree, enter profession, acquire spouse, have children, buy home, retire, die...' If there were a few people wandering around who actually lived according to an ethos that didn't revolve around money and comfort and this prepackaged, nutrient-added life-path you all follow like fucking lemmings right off the side of the cliff, then maybe I could find some inspiration and support for a true ideal.
But that isn't how it is, is it? I'm fucking alone. You've all either bought in, sold out, or both, and I'm left as the only human being alive who wants to squeeze some life out of this life before it's up; who wants to be a good, kind, understanding, sympathetic, intelligent, thoughtful, peaceful, spiritually centered adult human being at some point premortem. Oh wait, I'm sorry -- who wants it AND ALSO FUCKING PURSUES IT. Who doesn't expect it to drop out of the sky after fifty years lived in complete contrast to the desire. See, that's what I mean when I say you're out to get me. I look to you for support and comradeship, because you claim the same desires but all you ever really do when I draw near is infect me with passivity, mediocrity, and your inexplicable tolerance of shitty, meaningless lives.
If I had just one person, just one human being who was ready and willing to come with me; one person to lean against, to be stronger for, to share the goal with... If I weren't completely alone, and worse, beset upon by an insipid, insistent world that feigns agreement while chastising and persecuting any who venture it; if I could occasionally say or do something foul and not immediately have it redoubled and returned with a childish "Oh yeah?"; if I weren't the only one making the effort to restrain his baser mannerisms and encourage his higher self... If any of this!
But so long as I never see a real life example of charity, compassion, and love, I'm fucked. If it's just me, making it all up as I go, fighting you all tooth and nail for some small corner in which to practice sanity, it just can't happen.
My father talks about the "end times" as predicted by the author Ellen White -- those last few decades leading up to God's triumphant return and subsequent destruction of everything he first created. While I'm no believer I do seem to keep coming back to the idea of the 'last days;' those that hallmark the end of all human endeavors in which even God, in omniscience, can find some subtle hope or worth.
Ellen White tells us that in the world's final chapter God's true followers will be persecuted and that they shall be forced to flee into the mountains. The common interpretation of this prediction envisions either an atheistic or secular-specific society turning upon the elect, viewing them as some sort of terrorist threat to civilization, and therefore imprisoning them, torturing them, and so forth. Basically what we do to Arabs in this country now. The last of God's chosen who escape the gulags will flee the populated world and hide from their oppressors, safely ensconced in mountainous, uncultivated areas.
I can't help but wager a reinterpretation: In the end times the last few people who consider life as more than simply an effort to gather and reproduce, being mainly separated from one another and therefore very much alone in their pursuit of the higher self, will be forced to flee the retail, consumer driven, TV watching, pop-trivium obsessed, inane, insane world that subdues and persecutes the higher man while bolstering the carnality inherent in his lesser self. They shall wander into the mountains to live unseen and unheard, where they will not truly or fully enjoy all that life might have offered them had they been born at any other than the end of times, but where, abode in their hermitages, they will at least find the peace and devotion their lost and crazed societies would not allow.
--
I can't help but look at you and see a walking, talking corpse. You'll be dead soon won't you? Just fifty or sixty more years of your precious comfort and distraction and you'll be rotting in the fucking grave -- another immature soul ready to spin the wheel again, Pat! Ready to waste another century careening haphazard and directionless 'round the sun.
Just keep putting roofs over heads and food on tables. Hey, maybe you'll manage to survive long enough to get Alzheimer's and forget it all just before you die, confused and alone.
The world is truly against me. No joke. No exaggeration. And it's the biggest chip on my shoulder. It's probably at the heart of my current despair. You just set such a horrible fucking example don't you? You aren't kind, or patient, or long-suffering, or respectful, or happy. Or happy. Or HAPPY. You're sad, angry, hateful, unsympathetic, abrasive mal-intents, who'll manipulate, lie, cheat, and steal at the drop of a hat to get something you want, then go to church on Sunday to thank God for making you in His perfect image. And you see nothing wrong with any of it. You don't worry. You don't regret. You sell out, fuck over, and sleep well at night.
I guess that makes me lonely. Deep, cavernous loneliness, that's me. Last-man-on-Earth style loneliness. Yes, I'm the only one of my kind. The only one who sees something wrong in whiling away this life clocking in and out in pursuit of ever greater paychecks. The only one who sees comfort and convenience as a death knell; as something to stifle and rob him of potential. Who sees ownership as burden. Who sees security as sham.
Oh, but wait, no. Let me explain: I know you all think you see these things. I know you "understand" them and "agree." What I mean is that I actually believe and apply them to my life, not just wax conjectural in agreement when someone brings it up.
I called myself a Christian for a while. Why? Because I loved and followed the teachings of the man they call Jesus Christ. Not because I liked the idea of a magic man dying so that I can go to heaven after I finish up my heathen, money-chasing, comfort seeking, bullshit excuse for an existence. I actually followed the teachings: Give up your property. Be meek. Serve your fellow man... I didn't just show up in suit and tie on shabbat, nodding as the pastor conceptualized. I lived what Jesus said.
And that's where we differ, you and me. That's where I'm alone. I know you don't think I'm alone. You think I just feel alone, right? even though there are so many people who are with me? You for example! You're right here with me. You feel the same way! And since you agree with me when I talk about the shallowness and greed of our culture, I must not really be alone. See, but here's the separating point: I leave our little hypothetical discussion and go back to my minimalist lifestyle where I choose not to work more than twenty hours a week, where I save more than I spend every month, where I hope and plan for a future rich in spirit as well as physical adventure... Whereas you head back to your forty hour work week, and your hundred dollar a month cable package, and your fifty dollar a month cell-phone contract, and your leased, $26,000 automobile, and your adjustable rate mortgage, to plan the next thirty years you'll spend paying it all off, so that you can at last be free to get right back into hawk on some new shit.
That's where I'm alone: Where I actually try - successful or not - to live what I believe in. And if it weren't for you, if it weren't for your overarching societal imperative of 'go to school, get degree, enter profession, acquire spouse, have children, buy home, retire, die...' If there were a few people wandering around who actually lived according to an ethos that didn't revolve around money and comfort and this prepackaged, nutrient-added life-path you all follow like fucking lemmings right off the side of the cliff, then maybe I could find some inspiration and support for a true ideal.
But that isn't how it is, is it? I'm fucking alone. You've all either bought in, sold out, or both, and I'm left as the only human being alive who wants to squeeze some life out of this life before it's up; who wants to be a good, kind, understanding, sympathetic, intelligent, thoughtful, peaceful, spiritually centered adult human being at some point premortem. Oh wait, I'm sorry -- who wants it AND ALSO FUCKING PURSUES IT. Who doesn't expect it to drop out of the sky after fifty years lived in complete contrast to the desire. See, that's what I mean when I say you're out to get me. I look to you for support and comradeship, because you claim the same desires but all you ever really do when I draw near is infect me with passivity, mediocrity, and your inexplicable tolerance of shitty, meaningless lives.
If I had just one person, just one human being who was ready and willing to come with me; one person to lean against, to be stronger for, to share the goal with... If I weren't completely alone, and worse, beset upon by an insipid, insistent world that feigns agreement while chastising and persecuting any who venture it; if I could occasionally say or do something foul and not immediately have it redoubled and returned with a childish "Oh yeah?"; if I weren't the only one making the effort to restrain his baser mannerisms and encourage his higher self... If any of this!
But so long as I never see a real life example of charity, compassion, and love, I'm fucked. If it's just me, making it all up as I go, fighting you all tooth and nail for some small corner in which to practice sanity, it just can't happen.
My father talks about the "end times" as predicted by the author Ellen White -- those last few decades leading up to God's triumphant return and subsequent destruction of everything he first created. While I'm no believer I do seem to keep coming back to the idea of the 'last days;' those that hallmark the end of all human endeavors in which even God, in omniscience, can find some subtle hope or worth.
Ellen White tells us that in the world's final chapter God's true followers will be persecuted and that they shall be forced to flee into the mountains. The common interpretation of this prediction envisions either an atheistic or secular-specific society turning upon the elect, viewing them as some sort of terrorist threat to civilization, and therefore imprisoning them, torturing them, and so forth. Basically what we do to Arabs in this country now. The last of God's chosen who escape the gulags will flee the populated world and hide from their oppressors, safely ensconced in mountainous, uncultivated areas.
I can't help but wager a reinterpretation: In the end times the last few people who consider life as more than simply an effort to gather and reproduce, being mainly separated from one another and therefore very much alone in their pursuit of the higher self, will be forced to flee the retail, consumer driven, TV watching, pop-trivium obsessed, inane, insane world that subdues and persecutes the higher man while bolstering the carnality inherent in his lesser self. They shall wander into the mountains to live unseen and unheard, where they will not truly or fully enjoy all that life might have offered them had they been born at any other than the end of times, but where, abode in their hermitages, they will at least find the peace and devotion their lost and crazed societies would not allow.
HIO 2.0 FTW
Another hole in one. Now that we've got that pesky hymen out of the way they're lining up like sailors!
My First-Ever Hole in One
...in Super Swing Golf for the Wii. Talk about a fruitful day, huh? First bike ride of the year, first oil change of the year, and now my first-ever hole in one. I'll set the scene:
Blue Water; Hole 6... An inexplicable stone column, 242 yards, and a 9mph cross-wind stand between me and and immortal glory. Kooh pulls out the 2W from her Air Lance III's, gives a careful nod to Dolfini and sends up a silent prayer to the golf gods -- that 'he is fallible;' that perfection is unattainable. She rears back, muscles up, and smacks the ball with every bit of curve she's got in the bag. Pangya!
It sails out to the left of the obstruction as the gallery watches in a hush. The ball is spinning; trajectory curving. The shot is dead on the pin! But no, it's coming in too fast! The crowd leans forward in anticipation. A thousand muscles seize; a thousand lungs all hold a single breath. My god! What will happen? Will this moment never end?
Plunk.
What a little Warm Weather can Do
Today marks my first bike ride of 2010. I freed the Schwinn from storage-hell, overfilled the tires as is my wont, and rode a pleasant loop to bank and back. Just think, I'll be able to ride the bike to work again soon. If this Indian spring holds out another day I might even make a break for it tomorrow.
On my ride I saw so many people tuning up their cars in the warm weather that I decided to give the big red van an oil change. The last she had was in late September and I suppose, old as she is and counting now that I've only got a four quart pan, I should change it more often. But winter... But I don't drive it much... But but, but butt.
The engine developed a new sound recently that's been bugging me so I went with a heavier weight oil. (Like that's going to do anything.) I'd like to do what I can for the transmission soon, too. The transmission fluid has been overfull since the day I bought it and its always shifted a few degrees late for my tastes.
Next for the van is trans filter and fluid. Next for the Schwinn is chain and gear oil. Next for yours truly is Mexico. ¡Hasta luego, putas!
On my ride I saw so many people tuning up their cars in the warm weather that I decided to give the big red van an oil change. The last she had was in late September and I suppose, old as she is and counting now that I've only got a four quart pan, I should change it more often. But winter... But I don't drive it much... But but, but butt.
The engine developed a new sound recently that's been bugging me so I went with a heavier weight oil. (Like that's going to do anything.) I'd like to do what I can for the transmission soon, too. The transmission fluid has been overfull since the day I bought it and its always shifted a few degrees late for my tastes.
Next for the van is trans filter and fluid. Next for the Schwinn is chain and gear oil. Next for yours truly is Mexico. ¡Hasta luego, putas!
Midnight Bloom
I love the darkness and the blueish palette here.
Trippy man.
I simply crushed the levels together in GIMP for this last one. Thought it might make a nifty desktop background for somebody. Not me, of course. God no! But you, maybe.
'XP Internet Security' corrupts '.exe' file associations.
Click here to jump to Removal Instructions
We've got something new and interesting in the world of viruses today folks, and its proliferating like gang-busters judging by the three infections that made their way into the shop this week. The front end of the virus is calling itself "XP Internet Security," though there's nothing new about that.
We've long been plagued by "Internet Security" and "Personal Antivirus" (PAV) variants: Flashy viruses that throw up messages from the taskbar and open 'Scan result' styled windows telling you you've been infected with two or three dozen nasties and that the only way to get rid of them is to Click here, enter your credit card numbers, etc. Nope, there's nothing new or interesting about any of that. It's old hat! What is new and interesting about this latest "XP Internet Security" infection is the method by which the virus starts up.
Rather than squeeze into the boot sequence circa msconfig or attach itself to the winlogon or write itself into an AppInit_DLL statement, or a thousand other things I see three times daily every day of the calendar year, this new-styled "Internet Security" infection is hijacking the ".exe" file extension association. By prepending the path of the virus executable to .exe associations in the registry the virus gets an opportunity to start up every time any executable on the machine is called. And the best part of it - from the virus' perspective, anyway - is that this method of initialization, simple as it is, isn't monitored by the tools of the industry. In other words, Hijackthis doesn't look for registry changes there. (yet)
Thankfully this piece of malware came out a tad under-ripe. Had the developer spent a little more time with it, it might have really been a barn-burner. Had they integrated a method of masking the executable from detection, randomized the file name and hidden it in the system32 directory, it might have been all-but invisible! But the early release has doomed it to one-hit-wonder status.
Hijackthis doesn't detect the startup entry but it does see the executable running - it does tell us the path to the virus - and that's enough information to put this one to bed. You can run a Hijackthis scan, open the log, see the path to the virus, track it down, and simply delete it. (Or rename it as I usually do.)
But wait! Removing the virus is one thing. Undoing the damage to the registry is another. For once you quarantine or delete this virus, you'll immediately find that none of your programs open up anymore. Due to the way the virus had infected the .exe file extension, your machine has forgotten how to open executables!
This is where I pause to applaud the developer. That, my friend, is a thing of beauty. Kudos.
Anyway, its all fixed easily enough. The virus overwrites standard calls to executables, but it didn't modify the "Run as..." registry entries for them. So to start any program you need only right click it, select "Run as..." from the drop down menu, uncheck "Protect my computer and data..." and there you are; Bob's your uncle; program's running.
With that bit of information in hand you can navigate to the \Windows folder, (Explorer.exe, and therefore File Explorer, is unaffected by the extension corruption) pop into 'Regedit' and search the registry for references to the virus executable, repairing the infected associations as you go. That'll get your .exe's opening again.
Then it's just a matter of some incidental cleanup. The infection knocks out all the detection and notification features of the Windows Security Center and it also turns off the Windows Firewall, so you'll want to set that right as well.
I'm impressed with this virus because defeating it required a departure from my methodology. I don't usually need anything but Hijackthis and Sophos Anti-Rootkit to detect and defeat everything, and I suppose I didn't really need anything more than that here either. But for a minute there, this one left me scratching my head -- looking at a perfectly clean HJT scan and no indication of a rootkit. That's good! Then I remove the virus and discover these executable errors popping up like penalties imposed on me for killing the virus. That's really good! Then there's the joyful process of reverse engineering it and coming to understand how and where it was able to start up without being detected by a Hijackthis scan.
That's a worthy opponent! That's a satisfying day's work, there.
Removal Instructions
CAUTION: These instructions are not written so that just anyone can follow them. They are not written for you. You don't know what you're doing. You'll mess it up and it will be really bad. Don't read this. Don't try this. Call a computer repair guy, you cheapskate. You have everything to lose.
Locate the Virus
The variant described here installs itself to "C:\Documents and Settings\<User Account>\Local Settings\Application Data\av.exe". Other variants may install elsewhere. To detect them, download and install HijackThis. Select "Do a system scan and save a log file." In the log file, search the "Running Processes" area for suspects.
Show the Virus
Open "My Computer" and navigate to the location of the file. It is a system-hidden file so it will probably not appear. To see the file click Tools>Folder Options>View and uncheck the "Hide protected operating system files" box. Click yes when prompted with the warning and then click OK to close the Folder Options dialogue.
Kill the Virus
Delete the file "av.exe" or quarantine it by renaming it to "av.exe.quarantined". Go back into Tools>Folder Options>View and re-check the "Hide protected operating system files" box. Restart the computer.
Open Regedit
You will not be able to run .exe files regularly because the virus corrupted the registry. Open "My Computer" and navigate to C:\Windows. Locate Regedit.exe and right-click it. In the drop down select "Run as..." Uncheck the "Protect my computer and data from unauthorized program activity" box and click "OK."
Clean the Registry
Make sure "My Computer" is highlighted in the left pane of the Registry Editor and press CTRL+F to bring up the "Find" dialogue. In the search field type the file path to the virus. ("C:\Documents and Settings\<User Account>\Local Settings\Application Data\av.exe")
[UPDATE: Since writing I've found it beneficial to search the registry like so: .exe" /START. More recent versions of the infection I've just seen will install under multiple system accounts like 'LocalService' and 'NetworkService,' and with mutliple files like 'av.exe' and 'ave.exe' so being less specific may discover more infected registry entries.]
Click "Find Next." When you find a key with a value like this:
"C:\Documents and Settings\<User Account>\Local Settings\Application Data\av.exe" /START "%1" %*
...double click the value to edit it and delete the path to the virus along with the /START command from the beginning of the key, leaving whatever remains after it. In this case you would delete "C:\Documents and Settings\<User Account>\Local Settings\Application Data\av.exe" /START and you would leave "%1" %*. Then press the F3 key to continue searching the registry for more instances of the virus path.
You will probably also find a key for iexplore.exe that has the virus path followed by the path to iexplore.exe. Just delete the virus path and the /START portion from any keys you find - this one included - while retaining whatever follows, as described above.
You will find other keys that are just pure references to the virus. They are easy to distinguish from the previous kind if you pay attention. You can just delete those.
When you reach the end of the registry, close regedit. You can now run .exe files again. That is, unless you jacked it up. In which case you can always download the "EXE File Association Fix" at http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm and merge it with the registry to get things running again. ...Unless you can't. In which case: I told you not to try this in the first place, man. What the hell were you thinking?
Re-enable Windows Security Center and Windows Firewall
The virus disables Windows Security Center features and the Windows Firewall. To put these in place again, open Control Panel>Security Center. Under Firewall click Recommendations. Uncheck "I have a Firewall Solution I will monitor myself...", click the "Enable Now" button, and click OK.
Under Virus Protection, click Recommendations. Uncheck the "I have an antivirus program that I'll monitor myself..." box and click OK.
In the left column of the Security Center click "Change the way Security Center alerts me" and put a check in all the boxes there. Click OK.
Done
You are done. Good work. Hit the showers.
Cover of 'Just' by Radiohead
I did it to myself. I did. With guitar, drums, and vocals too.
From 2p to half passed midnight, this was another whole day's work for me. But oh so very worth it! Experience glee lately? I have. When I saw the finished product. Hell, the first of the video composites was enough to get the glee going.
No, those aren't twin brothers but disembodied portions of my soul whom I asked to sit in on this jam session. The video trickery is done with - of all things - Windows Movie Maker. I created my own xml "transition" using the techniques exampled at rehanfx.org, splitting the video into thirds with blurred edges and compositing twice to achieve the final effect.
All the work was done in a single day from setup to recording to mixing to editing. The quality of each component suffers minimally under the sheer number of balls being juggled here, but I have to say that this came out better than a lot of my less involved projects. Its something of a magnum opus and I'm proud. Yes, I amaze even me.
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