"You could murder every drunken idiot in your town and the world would still be full of them. .... Assholes are a virus. They will always be present and there are times when the virus will run stronger than other times, depending on where you're at. Depending on where you're at assholes will increase in numbers like a virus taking hold. Other times they'll retreat, but they'll just be somewhere else. .... You can't eradicate them, so why even engage in trying to eradicate one or two or three?"

I watched Ian MacKaye lecture about music Tuesday night, and... wow. He has a very low-key stage presence that I was completely unaware of. I mean, Fugazi, Minor Threat, "Straight Edge", yes, but the man's been in and out of bands for over twenty years. His voice is one of experience.
The lecture itself, however, was incredible. Ian MacKaye aside, the entire Ames punk scene was there, more or less, as were many of the regional promoters, label heads, and musicians. One bloke there was from Malaysia, and he and MacKaye reminisced about an incredible gig Fugazi did in a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur.
I'll try to scare up a transcript somehow sometime maybe. In the meaning time, an interview between MacKaye and Sir Boone, the man who not only brought the head of Dischord records to Iowa, but sold him on the lecture format in the first place, is available on the Daily's web space. The quote above is from that piece.

News:

• R-town is on fire. See Joan 5:38.
• A priest from Illinois was busted for manufacture of and intent to distribute gamma hydroxybutyrate. No, I'm not kidding. He really was manufacturing with intent to distribute.
• DVD Mania: Trimark is releasing four eps of The Super Mario Brothers Super Show on DVD for some reason late next month. I'm surprised this is actually being done; I didn't think anyone even remembered this show.
• It's snowing. ((Media source: ISU Webcam.)) Still. What's that? The snow was supposed to stop falling by nine? Oh. That must be an army of tiny gravity fairies outside my window, then.
• I've found the perfect Everything Box. For some time, I've been looking for a computer that could do Everything: a portable, media-friendly rig that could go anywhere, hook up to anything, and do whatever I wanted. So behold the Shuttle SV24--at 10" by 7" by 6", it's an incredible little box, sporting up to a 1GHz Pentium III processor; on-board networking, audio, and 3D video; four USB ports; two FireWire interfaces; and S-Video and composite video output... all for $250. After adding CD-RW/DVD drive, hard drive, peripherals, LCD screen, TV tuner/3D accelerator card, memory, peripherals, and the processor itself, the cost comes to somewhere between $1500 and $2000... but a laptop with these features costs twice as much, and is generally inferior to the SV24's already toned-down specs. Also, laptops generally have bigger footprints than 7" by 6"... heh. I have a new dream machine, and it's almost affordable! Now I just need a job...
• There would be more, but homework summons me. Arr. Until next time...