You know two plus two equals five, and now so will the obstreperous, obstinate nabobs of negativism under your rule…

Introducing the new and improved “Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair” by Chokingsun Brands Home and Office Furnishings.

A “revolution” in the technology of Orwellian Behavior Correction!

No other restraint system offers the standards of performance required by today’s government officials and law enforcement professionals…

“When the occasional rebel student is detained, they tend to be very unruly. We are forced to gain control of these traitors, er, misguided young people, using the Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair. Five minutes and a couple of anally applied electric shocks later they are singing our national anthem and joyfully volunteering their time to whatever public service we choose. One young woman even made me a pair of sandals with the skin off her ass.”

-Soon Zoo, Chinese Labor Camp Interrogator

The Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair eliminates the four point take-down and chaining of out of control prisoners to a grate in the center of the cell. The strong arm shove of a single officer and the prisoner’s own weight serves to pin him in with this breakthrough design. Random acts of surreal violence are made more efficient and effective when the officers are unhindered by the demanding two-handed operation constraints of other systems.

“Not even a twelve gauge shotgun and a pair of German Shepherds can control an uppity supporter of the Zionist Occupational Government while the rope is readied the way the Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair can… and you don’ even have to put down yer beer to whoop ‘em.”

-”Joe Bob”, Aryan Brotherhood

Constructed of high-impact, flame resistant plastic and stainless steel means years of use without extensive care or “down-time” for costly repairs. This is the chair to carry you into the Twenty-second Century. Even sticky bodily fluids wash off easily. Two inch rubber casters make the Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair ideal for the transfer of the subdued arrestee to the infirmary after those difficult interrogations.

“At Abu Ghraibe and Guantanamo, two of the busiest detention centers currently in active status, we found the Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair to be unmatched in it’s versatility and ease of use. Unlike other restraint devices, it is quick to prep between suspects. Just hose the unit down with a mild soap solution and it is ready for the next detainee. Feces and urine were of no consequence. Even those nasty burnt flesh deposits came clean with no effort. The folks at Chokingsun Brands have fulfilled their patriotic duty with this product.”

-unnamed high-ranking Pentagon official

Previously only available in gun-metal gray or lab white, we now offer the latest model in a faux cherry wood finish for use in courtrooms. A beautiful, unobtrusive fixture for securing the contemptuous convict, giving the judge and jury a greater sense of security when delivering guilty verdicts and death sentences.

Other optional features include a seat-mounted scrotum screw, a 22,000 volt anal shock probe, a compact disc recorder/player for recording forced confessions and playing your favorite torture tunes, an ashtray, and a cup holder.

Designed in the USA,

Manufactured in North Korea,

Tested in Iraq,

United Nations approved,

guarrantee the quality of this punitive tool.

The Punisher Violent Prisoner Restraint Chair for the discriminating totalitarian despot.

For further details, see your local corrections supply retailer.

- xipetotec

Well we are almost back up and running in the studio.  I decided that since the hood was up so to speak, I might as well do a fresh install of OS 9.  Yes you are reading that correctly: we are running OS 9 on the G3.  The main reason is that it isn’t capable of running OS X and Cubase.  But it does a good job for what is required of it (except for this whole crash and burn routine).  We’ll be picking up a G5 soon (ideally before summer) which will hopefully coincide with getting a Mackie TT24.

We did pick up some new gear during the downtime.  The Akai MPD16 was the item I was trying to get up and running when the external hard drive crashed and burned.  Then yesterday we traded in a Behringer Virtualizer Pro (we got it home only to discovered it will not allow remapping program changes to the user bank and as such ditched it) and the Lexicon a|ex (no midi capabilities) on a Lexicon MPX1, Behringer RX1602, and a Nord Rack.  I’m a huge fan of virtual analog synths, so spotting the Nord yesterday… well let’s just leave it at there was no question regarding if it was coming home with us.  The Behringer RX1602 is a 1U 16 channel line mixer (well really just 8 stereo channels) that we have reached the point of requiring.  There were no more available channels on the board, so the only option left was another console, or a line mixer.  We aren’t getting another console until we can get the TT24, so by default it was the line mixer.  We’re submixing the synths through it so at the moment we can get another 5 stereo synths into it before it’s filled.

Tonight I’m hoping to finish installing applications and configuring everything.  Hopefully it won’t take all evening.

- mosquito

So far I’ve managed to rescue all but one of the original tracks. That one is “Simulated Stimulation,” so it appears I’ll be starting from scratch with it as I’ve also not located any previous back up. It’s not a horrible loss as I was already having some thoughts in regards to better approaches to aspects of it. There was also a collection of tracks that were covers and remixes for live, as well as a collection of material that we were asked to do some “mastering” on. Those I’m about half way through recovering. I’m hoping to finish it up this evening so that we can start working again in the studio on Thursday.

But so far the computer in the studio has been running non-stop since Saturday. The question on my mind is since I’m backing everything up, do I go ahead and reinstall? I loath the time required for a reinstall, and that is the only reason I’m debating it.

- mosquito

My cousin Garrett for Christmas last year is making us our own brew modeled after the gonzo imperial porter from flying dog ales. It’ll be about a month until we have it in house, but we are quite looking forward to it. Two of them will not be consumed (more on that at a later date), and I think there are a couple of people that are asking for one as well. If we could legally sell it, I know how it would be sold, however there is no way anyone is going to pry it from my hands.

Garrett is also being quite dilligent with the process of brewing it so we’ll have another set of photos for the gallery. Right now the gallery is the stock install for gallery 2, but the plan is to integrate it into the site. So please forgive the “stock display.”

For now you can see photos of the studio, recording sessions, Xipetotec’s car crash from earlier this year, and a gallery from a very old show we did in Johnson City, TN (I think that was back in 1996). I should be more dilligent in taking photos while we are in the studio, but it’s one of those things where it would be best if several cameras were mounted in various locations and they just automatically took photos. Of course that would require a digital camera of sorts, and I’m still fairly anti-digital in regards to photos. I prefer the “old school” 35mm.

But back to the brew at hand, which has already blown an airlock during fermentation. Quite a fitting event given we don’t seem to be able to be contained either.

Yes, the label has the logo.

- mosquito

In what I can only describe as the most horiffic moment in the studio, Saturday night while installing the software for the new akai mpd16 and the drivers for the oxygen 8 (so that it would also function over usb), the hard drive errored. Essentially the mac equivalent of the file allocation table got corrupted. I never quite reached the point of panic, but I was pretty close by Sunday morning.

Thankfully some of the guys at twelvestone were able to help me out. For $99 It looks like on the surface I’m going to be able to get back at the very least the cubase files for all the current tracks in production. So for about four hours last night I sat with Data Rescue pulling material off the drive. It’s looking like I’m only going to have to search for one track on a backup elsewhere (maybe i’ll be lucky and a copy of it still exists on another partition). If I can’t find it, I’ll have to sit down with the audio file for “Simulated Stimulation” and begin resequencing it. To me it’s not a huge loss as I was already contemplating doing some drastic things to it anyways given it’s original conception is no longer a influence.

Now the drive (made by lacie which i’ve never had issues with) is at most three months old which begs the question of why did it happen. Was it my own fiddling with the OMS studio set up while Cubase was opened? I’ve done that before with no issues.

so now we are up to 3 rules in the studio:

1. No beer past this line. You spill on it, you buy it. More for others than us.
2. Turn off the heat upon exit.
3. Create a cd of all related files for the track worked on that evening before leaving.

Xipetotec was able to get all the effects processors to step through their programs by changing the setting on the 8024, but also discovered that the newest effects processor (the behringer virtualizer pro) has a piss poor midi implimentation. factory presets are in the first 100 slots, and there is no way to jump to the user stored presets. So it and two unused old effects processors (the alesis microverb 3 and lexicon a|ex) were pulled from the effects rack to be traded in for credit on a lexicon mpx-1.

- mosquito