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November 21st, 2009


announcements
[squeaky]
02:30 pm - IJ Holiday Sale
We are starting this years InsaneJournal holiday sale. From now until the end of the day Friday, November 27 we are going to be holding a sale on Self-Committed[paid] accounts and Extra Userpics.

The prices are be as follows

Self-Committed[paid]
1 Month -> $5
6 Month -> $15 $10
12 Month -> $25 $18

Extra Userpicx
6 Month -> $10 $5
12 Month -> $20 $15

Then on Friday November 27th from 8am until 4pm (Eastern US time) we will be running a very special sale on Permanently Insane accounts.

(21 comments | Leave a comment)

November 18th, 2009


vakkotaur
09:25 am - Satellite Radio Flop


My previous post was about the early pushing of bad Christmas/Winter music. A couple days ago I got in the car and found that XM's "40s on 4" had been replaced by "Holiday Traditions" until after Christmas. The 40s channel was not moved. This is irritating. This is the crap sort of thing that drove people AWAY from broadcast radio in the first place! And it's not as if there aren't other channels that could be used. It's after the baseball season, even I know that. And XM has a scad of baseball (MLB) channels that could have been used.

Right now I'm settling for the 50s channel and occasionally others, but I'm not bothering with 4 for a few weeks. Sure, if it had stayed 40s, I'd have expected some holiday music - but that's it, just some. They DID use dormant channels in previous years. Why did they decide to screw over to 40s this year? Is it that Sirius pulls that crap and this is merger fallout? Is it that this forces an audience for a moment, ala spammers? If I want that sort of abuse, I'll go to a damn mall.

Great going XM/Sirius, you make going to an mp3 player look all that much better: no subscription and no bogus channel-format change crap. Hey, I know it's now considered rather Old School, but I still have a tape deck and I'm not afraid to use it.

I hope XM manages to learn not to do that as they managed to learn a bit with the Radio Classics channel. For a few years they'd have a week (only a week!) of all Christmas themed radio shows. Until last year when they had a week with only some Christmas themed shows, and some regular shows - listeners had had enough.


Current Mood: [mood icon] pissed off

(Leave a comment)

November 14th, 2009


vakkotaur
08:37 am - Christmas/Winter music


Some places are already playing Christmas music and nothing but Christmas music. This is rather early, I think, for that. The inclusion of the occasional winter tune might be acceptable, but full-on Christmas music shouldn't happen until after Thanksgiving if it happens at all. My problem with Christmas music isn't that I don't like it. It's not even necessarily the repetition, though by now there ought to be enough tunes that repeats shouldn't need to happen frequently, and that's counting by title rather than by performance. It's the poor quality of every b-list,c-list, d-list... z-list quasi-celebrity cover of tunes that have been better by better. While White Christmas might not require Bing Crosby and Here Comes Santa Claus might not require Gene Autry, they are destroyed by various wannabes and also-rans put their undesired mark on them. One thing I will agree with the bletcherous Beavis and Butthead on: "Micheal Bolton can make anything suck."

I know there are some radio stations with an all-Christmas format, but the places where one encounters this most are stores that have Muzak or such (no commercials save what the store adds) and those seem to be sanitized of the more interesting Christmas and Winter tunes, such as Christmas At Ground Zero.

Now I'm pondering the interesting not-so-standard Christmas and Winter tunes. I know of a few:

Christmas At Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic
Happy Hairy Hippie Santa Claus ("You bet your sweet bippy Santa Claus is a hippie...")
Rusty Chevrolet - Da Yoopers
My Car Won't Go - Da Yoopers
I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas - Yogi Yorgesson
A Christmas Carol - Tom Lehrer
I'm Spending Hanukkah In Santa Monica - Tom Lehrer

Any others that wouldn't be all that likely to played in a store, but might provide some welcome relief if they were?


Current Mood: [mood icon] curious

(Leave a comment)

November 13th, 2009


vakkotaur
07:45 am - Rum?


Nobody put in an appearance to decry fruitcake or the committing thereof. There was agreement that real ingredients (butter, eggs, spirits) be used - and that the spirits were essential. Rum seems to be the canonical spirit for this sort of thing. I don't know enough about rum to judge what might be good or bad.

So, what rum would you recommend for soaking a fruitcake? And maybe for other baking. Possibly even drinking, though probably not by itself.


Current Mood: [mood icon] curious

Tags: ,

(Leave a comment)

November 12th, 2009


vakkotaur
12:43 pm - Fruitcake?


A couple days ago I saw a store display of colorful dried or candied fruit that was clearly meant for fruitcake and so I've been thinking about fruitcake. Fruitcake, some say, is a nasty unwanted (and probably dry brick-like) thing. This has become a joke in The Single Fruitcake Theory: "There is only one fruitcake and people keep sending it to each other." Others say that sure, bad fruitcake can be a dry brick that might only be budged by thermonuclear weaponry, but there is good fruitcake if only you can find or make the stuff.

I've not encountered the truly miserable fruitcake, but I suppose I've sampled some so-so stuff due to the effects of commercial mass production. And now I'm pondering making a fruitcake so that I have control the quality - or lack thereof. But I haven't done this before and I have no idea what a good recipe is. There are several variations.

Some recipes soak the thing in rum. Others call for brandy. Others call for whisk(e)y. Some say substitute orange juice for the spirits, while others don't mention any spirits at all. So one question is: spirits or not? If so, which? And if brandy, which flavor? I'm not a huge fan of apricot. I don't really dislike apricot, I'm just not that fond of it.

Another question is, should I do this? I don't mean in the "Aie! A fruitcake! Run!" sense, but I've mainly just been baking cookies (scratch), simple bread (scratch), and the odd cake (mix). Is this a reasonable step or a flying leap?

And of course there is the Big Question even assuming the others are answered and I proceed: Which recipe ought I go with?


Current Mood: [mood icon] curious

(Leave a comment)

November 10th, 2009


vakkotaur
06:57 am - Poll: Canada


[LJ]dumbbum_comics: asked for it:

Poll #4582 Bonjour-Hi. Don't blame Canada. Blame dumbbum_comics instead.
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Canadian beavers...

View Answers

are dam polite.
0 (0.0%)

are colonizing Scotland.
0 (0.0%)

are infiltrating the Emergency Shallot Reserve.
0 (0.0%)

play racquetball.
0 (0.0%)

secretly run BC Hydro.
0 (0.0%)

Canadian moose...

View Answers

include Mr. Moose of Captain Kangaroo.
0 (0.0%)

include Bullwinkle's mother.
0 (0.0%)

are defending the Emergency Shallot Reserve against beavers.
0 (0.0%)

play racquetball.
0 (0.0%)

make more sense than Canadian Senators.
0 (0.0%)

Racquetball...

View Answers

has precious little to do with Canada and vice versa.
0 (0.0%)

was invented by Canadians when it was too warm for Hockey.
0 (0.0%)

was invented because people kept asking for "handball racquets" somewhere in Manitoba.
0 (0.0%)

makes me hungry for a dish with shallots.
0 (0.0%)

was imported from China.
0 (0.0%)

When it comes to Canada and China...

View Answers

it seems that Chinese immigrants (and not all of them legal immigrants) seem to comes to/head for Canada.
0 (0.0%)

there is a fierce racquetball competition between them.
0 (0.0%)

trade tends to involve shallots.
0 (0.0%)

there is a (so far) Very Cold War and Canada is secretly arming moose with beaver-launchers to be unleashed on China.
0 (0.0%)

Shallots...

View Answers

are grown in Quebec.
0 (0.0%)

are stored in the Emergency Shallot Reserve somewhere in Newfoundland.
0 (0.0%)

seldom play racquetball.
0 (0.0%)

are not onions or scallions despite their looks.
0 (0.0%)

are not garlic either.
0 (0.0%)

Petroleum Jelly...

View Answers

does not go on shallots.
0 (0.0%)

is not a suitable substitute for maple syrup.
0 (0.0%)

is made from tar sand extracts.
0 (0.0%)

is a secret ingredient in Tim Horton's doughnuts.
0 (0.0%)

is fat-free, sugar-free, has no artificial flavors or colors added, and is low Calorie: It's the perfect snack!
0 (0.0%)

is used by moose to polish their antlers.
0 (0.0%)

Maple Syrup...

View Answers

is a bit of a cliche when it comes to Canada.
0 (0.0%)

is rather common. Now, _birch_ syrup is really something...
0 (0.0%)

makes a breath 'mint' that combats shallotosis rather well.
0 (0.0%)

is great to fill balloons and make 'waterbombs' that are interesting -- especially if there are feathers handy.
0 (0.0%)

attracts moose.
0 (0.0%)

must be made, or untapped trees can overpressure and explode.
0 (0.0%)

The Littlest Hobo...

View Answers

is a cartoon character.
0 (0.0%)

is a set of child actors.
0 (0.0%)

is the nickname of someone in Parliament.
0 (0.0%)

is the nickname of a government position.
0 (0.0%)

is a dog.
0 (0.0%)

is a cat.
0 (0.0%)

is a shallot.
0 (0.0%)

was the last car to be made by solely Canadian auto company.
0 (0.0%)

This poll about Canada...

View Answers

is just about right.
0 (0.0%)

is far too silly. Do a decent one.
0 (0.0%)

was ghost-written by Gene Shallot..er..Shalit.
0 (0.0%)

bitumen.
0 (0.0%)

bitumen, eh?
0 (0.0%)



Current Mood: [mood icon] silly

Tags: ,

(Leave a comment)

November 9th, 2009


announcements
[squeaky]
02:32 pm
We have created an official FaceBook page that will be used to mirror our twitter account for status updated etc. This is yet another great offsite location to let everyone know what is going on when we have any kind of downtime

Become a fan of InsaneJournal at http://www.facebook.com/pages/InsaneJournal so you can get our status updates added to your feed.

And just as a reminder, here is the official IJ twitter account http://twitter.com/insanejournal

(87 comments | Leave a comment)

syn_promo
[playswithknives]
08:24 am - yet another web comic
[info]marriedtothesea

(Leave a comment)


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