I'm sitting here at my desk, looking totally busy, with Fatboy Slim's "Kalifornia" humming in my ears. I'm pondering lunch—I'm supposed to meet someone for lunch today but I don't know if it's going to work out or not.

I'm a bit disgruntled—one of my new favorite sites (kuro5hin.org) got nailed by some dumb-ass 3l337 skript k!dd3z, and as a result they've taken the site down. Sigh. I really liked kuro5hin.org—it was like Slashdot, but without a lot of the crap, and it was a lot more focused on geek life and culture instead of just 'Open Source Rooolz!'

(Sorry. I like Linux. I even have a penguin cap. But I'm not as rabid about it as some people I know. I agree that it's a good OS, and that micro$quish has major flaws, but I do graphic design professionally. The Gimp, the image editor for linux, just isn't robust enough yet for my uses.)

Next up on the player—Underworld's "Cups." I never would've heard of these guys if it weren't for Brad (yo, CanSpice!). This is tasty techno—11:44 of it, to be honest. I call this stuff "sonic adventures." Technically I think it falls under the definition of "electronica"—definitely machine-driven stuff. Here's what Spin had to say about "Cups":

"Undaunted, Underworld's new album, Beaucoup Fish, kicks off with their stab at "Stairway to Heaven"-the long and wondrously meaningless "Cups." For most of its 11:45 running time, "Cups" offers up a clubland version of Jimmy Page's acoustic fingerpicking: a lithesome deep-house groove over which swatches of elegant decor-a synth squiggle, a fusiony guitar line-are pinned up, mulled over, and then removed. Hyde sings throughout, and if his slightly lazy diction and the mild Vocoderization keep comprehension just out of reach, the song's effortless glide keeps the listener reaching. But then, eight minutes in, everyone winds down the road: The slow groove gives way to aggressive synth stabs and a riling chak-a-lak-a drumbeat, Hyde's robotic quiet-storm stylings disappear, and another voice, chopped up and swirled around the mix, mocks the listener's efforts at figuring out what's being said. "

Yeah. Sonic goodness. I think I played that song about a zillion times while repainting the blue stripe in the living room. (Don't know what I'm talking about? See the house saga for the scoop.)

More news—Jonatha Brooke is evidently coming out with a new album in January or so. This is a happy thing in my world; I'm hoping that she'll tour again. Since I've introduced the wondergeeks to her music, I might actually have someone to attend the concert with.

Other news—Heather's coming over this evening. She and [her] Jeff are going to play with the stereo for a while, as Jeff's thinking about purchasing stereo speakers, and he wants to hear what ours sound like. We have NHT 2.5i speakers and we absolutely adore them. (See reviews at AudioReview to get an idea why.)

Hopefully Heather will find Katharine's cat5 crimping tool. We're getting ready to wire the house for cat5, and those are rather necessary critters for doing such a thing. I'd hate to have to buy one. (Friends who are reading: are you willing to loan me yours? I'll send cookies!)

Well, I didn't get this done in time for lunch. I've got a list of a few restaurant reviews that I need to write up, so I'm going to close this up for the day and work on that. Cheers.