JonVarner.com

A roundup of pals

2008-05-11T10:00:00.002-05:00

After a long hiatus, I've been pressured to update this blog again. What better way to start than by redirecting to other blogs?

First, my sister is now documenting the exploits of her daughters.

Second, my friends and former bandmates, Jason and Ann Rerun started their own blog and also contribute to one featuring rare punk MP3s.

Third, my friend and former bandmate Andy Malkus is attempting to post a new song demo every week. I hope to contribute to some of those.

Hope those keep you few readers busy for awhile!

Ch-ch-changes

2007-03-03T17:22:00.000-06:00

I was recently hired by closerlook. This inspired me to touch up the blog, which so far has involved a new Art Deco color scheme and integration of sIFR for Flash-based custom fonts in the titles. The cool thing about sIFR's method is that the XHTML still validates.

Which brings me to another change - getting rid of bad Blogger code. I spent a lot of time getting my page to be nice and XHTML Strict only to be undone by Blogger's refusal to simply use & instead of & in their embedded comment and edit code. So, I had to drop the Quick Editing feature and manually rewrite the Blogger-created links in the template. Unfortunately, there's one issue I can't fix - when someone enters a line break in a comment, Blogger inserts <BR /> instead of <br />.

I have other flashier updates in the queue, too, that are sure to impress the one or two friends that visit this site every six months!

Good Guys and Bad Guys

2006-10-17T08:41:00.000-05:00

NPR featured two interesting interviews yesterday and today. First was Dick Armey, with whom I disagree politically on just about every issue. The thing is, he was reasonable and clear-eyed, and I agree with his assessment of the Republican party. They will lose the House and the Senate, because they have wasted the last 6 years. I may not agree with his plan for Social Security reform, but I agree with him that it needs reform. But the Republicans have concentrated solely on supporting the President, right or wrong, and trying to maintain their political majority.

Which brings us to today's interview with Rep. Rahm Emanuel. His manner could not have been more different from Armey's. He was basically combative and desperately trying to keep the interview "on message" - the message being simply "vote for us because we're not them".

Now is the time for the Democrats to seize an opportunity. Nobody's happy with the current state of the war or our muddled domestic policy (these days, the Republicans are the ones creating and supporting a massive, centralized, expensive government agency). The Democrats don't have to harp on those issues; they've already "won" the argument simply by being an alternative.

What they need to do is set out some clear policy goals and articulate them to the voting public. The next Presidential election should be a shoo-in, but the last one also should have been. If they fall into the same morass that the Republican-controlled Congress has - simply trying to establish and maintain party control as an end in itself - then our country will be no different.

Javascript fun

2006-06-17T12:46:00.000-05:00

In a fit of World Cup fever, I added a stylesheet switcher. Click on the team abbreviations to restyle this blog based on my favorite kits!

ORIG | ANG | ARG | NED | POR

My job is slowly getting easier

2006-04-25T19:19:00.000-05:00

I'm all excited about IE7 now that I managed to get a standalone version running. That link gets you most of the way there - you have to do a bit more work to get the advanced features working.

Firefox will still be my browser of choice. But from a professional standpoint, it's so great that in a year or so we can feel free to use PNGs with alpha transparency and most pseudo-elements (why no support for :before and :after, though?). I'm already trying to strip out the * html hacks I love so much from my company's hosted websites now that I understand the simple beauty of conditional comments.

So, that's it for my web developer post. Now I can turn to less nerdy pursuits.

Gitmo Goes On

2006-02-16T12:18:00.000-06:00

The UN just released a report condemning the Guantanamo prison. Scott McClellan's response was exactly what you'd expect, as if the fact that these detainees are "dangerous" means that they do not deserve basic human rights, particularly the right to a trial. I guess none of the inmates of other US prisons are dangerous.

Recently, certain Muslim groups responded violently to the accusation that they are violent. This response is so absurd that you'd think anyone with a sense of reason, regardless of their cultural background, would realize it.

Just as absurd is the attitude of our current administration towards the detainees - "These people reject the ideals our country holds dear, the basic rights we afford to all humans. Therefore, we will not extend those rights to them."

trendwhore

2006-02-04T15:22:00.000-06:00

I finally succumbed to peer pressure and bought my first iPod (60GB, white). It will take a few months to transfer 2000 or so CDs to it, but then they won't be lining every available inch of wallspace, right? And now I can buy DRM-shackled tracks when I don't feel like wasting hours tracking them down in Kazaa or Soulseek or whatever.

I also rearranged the layout for the site and cleaned up the CSS/XHTML a bit. This article was the impetus. Hopefully, the new "feature" I'm cooking up will be ready to roll out soon. In the meantime, I'll keep tweaking margins and colors in lieu of writing anything worth reading.

2006-01-19T21:02:00.000-06:00

My friend Matthew has an important public service announcement up over at Serious Danger concerning his bad landlord, Gloria Trembicky. Check it out if you're currently apartment-hunting in Brooklyn or if you just want to commiserate.

2005-10-22T15:51:00.000-05:00

Jinx graduated from her training class this week. And for those who haven't already heard, I got a job here.

Alphabet Street

2005-09-01T19:07:00.000-05:00

Since I'm a sucker for music lists, I have to post my version of this alphabetical thing I saw over on Prole Call. Here's the first song I have alphabetically for each letter, according to my iTunes:

A Bad Dream - Sun City Girls
Baby's Playing Games - Vomit Pigs
C.E.T.A. Suckers - The F.U.'s
Dan and Ross - Sun City Girls
Eat The Rich - Morbid Opera
F... & Suck - Mad Virgins
Gardens Green With Broken Chests - Sun City Girls
H.S. Art - Swell Maps
I'm A Raccoon - The Briefs
J'suis Punk - Bulldozer
Kicks In Style - The Users
L'Anamour - me!
Malika - Sun City Girls
Neonlight - Revenge 88
On The Street - Die Kreuzen
P.U.S. - The Slammies
Radar 1941 - Sun City Girls
Sabre Dance - Classy Punk
Take Me To Your Leader - King Geedorah
Unnatural Silence - The Pattern
Vegis - Learned Helplessness
We'll Love You When You're Dead - Battered Youth
X - nothing!
Year Long Summer - The Briefs
Z - nothing!

All that list really says is:

1. Someone gave me a bunch of Sun City Girls MP3s once and
2. I spend a lot of time at Strange Reaction.

On a related note, the Toy Love comp is utterly fantastic and you should go buy it immediately.

auto

2005-08-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

A brand new song has been tossed on the heap.

lyne

2005-07-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

On 4th of July, my sister Lynda was killed in a drunk driving accident. She was probably asleep in the back seat when it happened. She was 26.

It has been a very difficult few weeks - the most difficult of my life. One thing that has helped is a gift from my good friend Andy. He managed to dig up a recording that he and I made with Lynda singing. This must have been recorded in '95 or '96. It's one of Lynda's favorites, "Half a Person" by the Smiths. Although she was 16, she wasn't very clumsy and she certainly wasn't shy.

At the time, Lynda liked a weird range of music. Elvis Costello and the Smiths are pretty typical for an intelligent girl her age, but she also loved Liza Minelli and Carol Channing. Their influence accounts for the flamboyant way she belts out the incongruously monotone melody.

I hope you enjoy this. Everyone remembers Lynda's humor and energy. I think those qualities come through pretty well in what we considered a forgotten throwaway until now.

Jinx!

2005-06-07T08:10:00.000-05:00

A few pictures are now up in the Jinx Falkenburg Appreciation Society group at Flickr. I'll add more as I take them throughout the day.

puppy

2005-06-04T16:44:00.000-05:00

We just got back from the shelter, and we are now the proud parents of a roughly 4-month-old labrador mix. She's still small, but she looks like she might have some boxer in her. On Monday, she will be spayed, then we'll pick her up in the evening. Pictures will soon follow.

Her name will most likely be Jinx Falkenburg - more because it's such an awesome name than in honor of the original (although she seems pretty cool aside from the Republican thing).

music meme

2005-05-29T00:31:00.000-05:00

I found out about this navel-gazing blogger music meme from Strange Reaction and I couldn't resist.

Total volume of music files on my computer:
A paltry 4.42GB. However, I have an additional 7 CDs full of MP3s that I pulled off my work computer before I quit but haven't got around to putting on my home machine.

The last CD I bought was:
In one trip, Black Forest by A-Frames, Live in Cambridge 1988 by The Fall, and Humpty Dumpty LSD by the Butthole Surfers.

Song playing right now:
"I Am A Computer" by the Mad Virgins

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

"Too Late" by Wire

"English Scheme" by The Fall

"Waterloo Sunset" by The Kinks

"Unsatisfied" by The Replacements

"Little Man With A Gun In His Hand" by The Minutemen

It's impossible to narrow down the works of any of these bands to just one song, but those are definitely the Big 5 bands of my life.

Edit: After a good night's sleep, I don't know how I can justify not including a Pixies song, but I also can't imagine bumping anybody off that list. I also made some odd choices for the Wire and Fall songs, I guess.

2005-05-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

I first learned about the Wilhelm Scream right after college, when I was getting more deeply into the nerdy, obsessive aspects of movies. While watching The Two Towers DVD, I noticed what seemed to be a very obvious use of the effect. That makes perfect sense, since those movies (particularly the Special Edition DVDs) are tailored for the obsessive nerd market.

So it's nice to see that someone has posted a thorough history of the Wilhelm Scream.

2005-05-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

Many of the people who will look at this blog have already heard The Farm Team, the latest band featuring Andy Malkus and Jesse Morrison, formerly of the Tremors and Brand New Broken Homes.

The Farm Team is a new direction for them - folk songs performed in the old-timey style. Andy's high lonesome voice is perfect for this kind of music, and Jesse's gruffer baritone makes an excellent counterpoint. They haven't written any original songs yet (I'm not sure they plan to), but their selections so far demonstrate a broad musical knowledge and impeccable taste.

If you live in St. Louis, try to see them live. You won't regret it. If you don't, you'll have to make do with these demos, which I recorded in my living room before I moved. I'm sure they won't mind me posting them here.

The first is a DQE song called Married Girl. The instrumental break is reminiscent of the old BNBH style - Andy's part is a complex, rhythmically jerky construction that resolves into Jesse's strongly melodic mandolin part. Good stuff.

Next up is the traditional A Fool Such As I, most famously covered by Elvis. I suspect that Andy enjoys arranging songs more than writing them. In fact, the second tape we ever made under the BNBH name, Let's Spend This Christmas With The Brand New Broken Homes, featured his reworkings of Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues" and the Carter Family's "The Poor Orphan Child". Jesse was always the harmony expert, and he does a great job here.

I have a few more Farm Team songs available upon request, and if we're lucky they'll get recording again soon.

2005-05-18T12:35:00.000-05:00

To whom it may concern: I recently moved to Chicago. This seemed like a good time to try another revival of the blog. The old stuff is available through that link on the right there. Until new stuff comes along, please check out the "Elsewhere" links.