Friday, May 13, 2005

we didn't start the fire

so there's this thread on the exbe board... it started off pretty innocuously as a simple thread about a recent noise-friendly "open mic" night at a cleveland venue called "the capsule". but it quickly went sour when a troll showed up and started posting stuff calling some of the unnamed performers (who he hadn't seen) "hacks" and "losers" and the like. (i got in on the flamewar a bit late, starting on page 3, as i didn't find out about it right away.

things got pretty ugly, as they tend to do during such arguments, and the inevitable calls for peace started coming in. one such post petitioned everyone to "drink a vanilla coke" and "hug a puppy"... i went searching for a funny vanilla coke picture to post, and found this one:



before i knew it, kyle (of etherial transmission, colorforms, and press the button) asked me to databend the picture! i didn't really have the software to do so properly, but i gave it the old college try and soon downloaded goldwave so i could bend better. here were my results (all edits are simple cut-and-paste edits):


BMP edited in word.


BMP edited in goldwave.


JPG edited in goldwave.


now this one is weird... the previous image is the actual JPG file that i edited. but this image is what that exact same file looked like in mspaint. opening the bent file in different applicatioons made it look different, apparently. that's weird. maybe they don't look different to you! or the first one looks different on your computer than it does on mine!


so the thread took up a bunch of my time today, but at least i made something kinda cool out of something ugly (the flamewar, not the original image).

i wouldn't recommend reading the thread unless you like flamewars and messageboard drama (or you want to read someone call me names like "dick", "prick", "asshole", and "hack-job", in which case you should start reading around the end of page 6).

so that's what i did today when i wasn't on my job: argued on the net and bent a few pictures. connie, i wanted to email you, but when people are talking about how much they hate you, it gets a bit distracting. sorry 'bout that.

tonight drbmd & i are getting together to watch a nin-ja movie! someday, i really need to write a nice long post about nin-ja movies and other crappy cut-and-paste cinema...