Yes, the public has spoken. I have gone quite insane. Look see:

Randomlog. Awesome idea or Starla's gone insane again? OMG THIS IS SO AWESOMELY RANDOM I LUV RANDOM YAY INSANE LOL YAY - 2 vote(s)! whut. You're already insane. You're more than that! Do something! - 5 vote(s)! What's Randomlog? - 1 vote(s)! Indifferent - 1 vote(s)!

So, Randomlog has been dissolved. I know, I think I went temporarily insane last week. However, I have a replacement life for it. Don't think it's legacy is dead! Because... something!

I have been trying for A VERA LONG TIME to get it through my THICK head that THIS IS MY PERSONAL WEBSITE. OMG. I CAN POST. WHAT I WANT. ON IT. AAAH. I've keep telling myself that I can post freely here, and yet, it never happens. However, I think that is going to finally change. Now that Randomlog has been dissolved, I need another place to pour that random creativity into. Where should that be? Right here, right? No, I won't be posting Pink Panthers here because I know they are heavily despised. No, come back! :P

Now, Randomlog, as seen above and from the results of this week's poll that have already come it, was not a very popular place. I blame Pink Panther. :P However, I really liked both the Caption'd thing and the My Life Is Happy segment (which I never actually explained), so what I've decided is that I'll post a Caption'd along with every week's poll results and I'll just post My Life Is Happy pieces, as well as other randomly fun stuff, directly to my blog. Won't this be fun?

Because four Caption'd images have already been exhibited, I won't be cheap and spend four weeks showing images that have already been seen. I'll post those four images today PLUS a new one, and every week from now, I'll post one. Doesn't that sound great? prays

What I Like About... Starch

Gleefully Descrated

What I Like About... Tina

Robes

And here's the new one!

Tina's Creation

Yay! Anyway, my final topic in this extremely long poll post is that I really didn't like what I did last week with combining a poll post with a real post. It just produces too many problems. Therefore, while last week will not count as breaking my annual goal, I will no longer be posting ONLY on Saturday. I have to post at least one more time during that week.

Really, I think my problem with poll posts is that, because I don't post other things that frequently, there's so many of them. With this (hopeful) new posting regime, this shouldn't be a problem anymore. Yay! Let's see how it works out. :)

Okay, guys, last week's poll about a new poll process has completed and the unanimous result was to showcase the poll results along with a normal blog post. So, to try it out, here we are!

Do we need a new weekly poll process? Yeah, don't post the results in a post. - 1 vote(s)! Yeah, post the results along with a normal blog post. - 4 vote(s)! Yeah, something else, please comment! - 0 vote(s)! Nah, it's good the way it is. - 1 vote(s)!

The poll process really does need some revamping, especially seeing as it's one of the oldest parts of Four Island. Before Quotes, before Fouripedia, before the modern day Fourm, there was The Poll Of The Week. And now it's a half-deaf hyena with vocal issues. You get what you get. Anyway, the reason I'm talking about this is because I'm not sure that this is a completely satisfactory solution. My main problem with it is that I'm going to have to mix together two different topics into one blog post. I'm insane about organization and.... yeah. Really, this shouldn't be a problem as some old poll posts were embedded seamlessly into mass posts before, but still. Also, now I have to either: hold off posting main posts for Saturday or update the poll on Saturday but not post the results until later in the week when I update. And does this post count as my weekly required post for my annual goal? It's a bit of a mess, really. What do other websites do with polls? Please comment on this! I know you all hate commenting, but please! :P

Now, for the main content of this post: A few days ago, I went insane again (this is becoming rather standard.... :P) and created a new blog called Randomlog. It's pretty much just weird. So far, there are three different categories of posts on Randomlog:

• Viewer Content: This is what the blog is really about. I've created an email address (randomstuffthatyousendme@gmail.com!) that I want people to email random stuff to. Like, anything. Poems, drawings, quotes, viruses, tissues, whatever. Then, I'll make some content out of it. This'll be fun! :P
• Pink Panther: This is a bit of a throwback from a looooong time ago, but basically, this is a daily post thing in which I play MadLibs, fill out every field with the phrase "Pink Panther" (sometimes I may modify the phrase to fit the word type--Pink Pantherly for adverb, for instance) and then post the result. Not something that you couldn't do, but I did it and you didn't! Oh! :P
• Caption'd - As seen in The Elizabeth Randomnesses, I have a fondness of finding funny pictures and adding captions to them. Yep, that's what this is. :P It updates on odd-numbered days and so far, most of them seem to come from What I Like About You :P

So, well, there's Randomlog! Make sure you send in stuff to randomstuffthatyousendme@gmail.com! Yay! :P

Oh, and just a note, this week's poll on Randomlog is the hundredth poll on Four Island! Wow! :D Note that this doesn't mean that this is the hundredth week that Four Island has been up--we've experienced a few downtimes and I've neglected to update the poll a few times. :P

The Story Of How Starla Can Never Upgrade Her OS Painlessly (Yes, an IRC joke. Don't you love those?)

Ubuntu and I, we go way back. We have history. Ever since I fell out of my chair at 2am because Ubuntu was able to identify my wireless network card when Gentoo and Debian couldn't, I've been a solid Ubuntu user. However, there is one part of our history that always goes wrong: upgrading. As detailed in my last Ubuntu post, my Ubuntu upgrade process can be rather horrendous. In fact, Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 may have been the worst upgrade experience for me, but after that, everything was lovely. Ubuntu 9.10 worked out fairly well for me, after I fixed the mouse problem.

This time, it appears that the completely opposite has occured. When I started to upgrade Ubuntu, as expected, I was having trouble. The upgrade failed a few times due to my dismal Internet connection and Ubuntu's busy servers and eventually, the Update Manager failed to show the Upgrade button. I switched to using the command line, but after a while, that stopped working too. Eventually, I decided to do what I had done for Ubuntu 9.10: download the alternative CD, mount it and use the packages on it as a foothold. While that worked for me last time, it still took a couple of days to download the rest of the needed packages.

Not this time. As soon as I started the upgrade, I got "30 minutes remaining." O_O. A half an hour? Only a half an hour? Impossible. It couldn't be. But it was. 30 minutes later, all 1014 packages were downloaded and had begun to install. It was amazing. I don't believe I've ever undergone such a fast Ubuntu upgrade.

However, this seemingly amiable upgrade may have been a warning of what was to come. Needless to say, Ubuntu 10.04 has not been very nice to me. Let's go over the specifics, shall we?

• One of Ubuntu 10.04's "new features" is a new boot process which is supposed to make booting much faster. For me? My computer definitely takes longer to boot than it did before, which is annoying considering how long it took before.
• And that's if it's a completely normal boot. Two days ago, when I started my computer, fsck ran because it hadn't checked my disk in a while and it took TWENTY MINUTES. YES. Don't blame it on the large amount of data on my drive--after twenty minutes, the progress had frozen at 90% and I was eventually forced to restart the computer. This, I think, is ridiculous.
• Previously, applications that hid in the system tray could be restored with a simple click of the icon, while right-clicking made a context-menu appear. Now, several Ubuntu programs like Rhythmbox and Transmission instead show the context-menu on left click, and nothing on right-click, forcing you to use a context-menu to open your program. Not a show-stopper, but definitely annoying.
• When I close my computer screen and open it back up later, EVERYTHING STARTS FLASHING. It's insane, makes it impossible to see what you're doing and lasts a while. Why is this? Does Ubuntu think that my programs aren't bright enough?
• Something in the upgrade has broken my copy of gnome-globalmenu (which I use to simulate a Mac-like menu bar) and now, certain programs like Gwibber do not work. This is disappointing, especially as Ubuntu 10.04 has a lot of added features for Gwibber with the addition of the MeMenu.

There are definitely more problems, but they're hiding from me. Anyway, I hope that the next version of Ubuntu (oh god, it's 6 months away....) is better.

I am happy at the positive outlook on FourNet! FourNet has been flourishing recently and it's not because I've posted like four times as much as most other people.

I'm lovin' it! BEEP BEEP - 8 vote(s)! IT'S ABSOLUTELY INSANE - 1 vote(s)! It's okay.... - 2 vote(s)! YOU SUCK (Indifferent) - 0 vote(s)!

The new poll of the week is about my weekly poll process. What that means is, what I do with the results of the old poll every week. Currently, I write a blog post just for it. However, I think this makes my blog rather cluttered and content-less. If the ratio of real posts to poll posts were greater (if I posted more frequently or created polls less frequently), there wouldn't be so much of a problem with this. However, as it it is, my poll process annoys me.

About a week ago, I mentioned that it would be cool if I write a review about the CDs that purchase monthly. The day after I posted that post, I ran out to the store and bought a CD. What CD, you ask? Well, the hint is in one of the other post suggestions I had last week. Seen it yet? If you said that it's an Imogen Heap album, then you're completely.... WRONG!

No, the hint is House of Leaves. Amazingly, this album is by the sister of the author of House of Leaves, Poe! The album is Haunted and it's rather amazing. It's.... it's.... Well, to quote Drifty: "I like Poe's Haunted album, mostly because of the awesome songs and partly because of the connection to House of Leaves."

Haunted is a very strange album, in it's awesomeness. First of all, it's an amazing 18 tracks (including the bonus track) long and some of them are fairly long. Second, it's one of those CDs where you're supposed to listen to everything in order because the songs connect. Third, four of the 18 tracks are interludes, which aren't really songs but they add a bit of story to the album. And fourth, it can be quite scary. Seriously, listen to the interlude House of Leaves in the dark. FREAKY. :P

As Drifty mentioned, this album is interconnected with House of Leaves--they were both made at the same time. Brother and sister working together, awww. :P Anyway, both exhibit qualities and ideas from each other, which makes listening quite an experience because you recognize all of this stuff from House of Leaves. :P Also, this album is a tribute to Poe's deceased father. The story goes that one day, she and her brother found tapes in the attic with recordings of their father's voice. Most songs of the songs on the disc contain samples of her father's voice and the entire album is really more about her father than it is about House of Leave. Nevertheless, it's awesome. :P

Because I can't think of a better way to do this, I'm going to use the star system. I'll list all of the songs on the album (excluding the interludes and the bonus track), review them and give them ratings. At the end, I'll calculate the rating for the entire album. :P

• Haunted - The title track and, in my opinion, the best song. I'm not actually sure if this song actually means anything, but musically, the entire thing is wonderful. It's gotten to the point where I randomly go "BA DA PA PA" when talking to people. Yes, I'm that weird. 5 stars
• Control - This song is very good too. It's about taking control of your life from someone else who thinks they're in control. Not quite the best, but the first verse and chorus are really quite yummy. 4 stars
• Terrible Thought - Another rather good song. This song is about the easily relatable situation of being consumed by a horrible thought that you just cannot stop thinking--it just keeps returning. The chorus and the bridge are the best. 4 stars
• Walk The Walk - A fast-paced song about living your life the way you want to. Not quite my cup of tea, but it's good. 3 stars
• Wild - At 9 minutes long, Wild is the longest track on the disc, but this doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, it's one of my favorites. The whole thing is very sound, and what a wonderful sound it is. :P If I had to choose a favorite part, it would be the fast parts after the second and third choruses. They remind me of the fast part in Imogen Heap's The Walk. After the main singing finishes, the song breaks into what is essentially a three and a half minute instrumental with a bunch of vocals thrown in. It's quite fantastic, too. 5 stars
• 5&½ Minute Hallway - This song surprised me. It's a slow song and certainly not one that you could dance to, but it's absolutely fantastic. After listening to this song, you'll just be walking somewhere and suddenly, you'll hear Poe singing "I live at the end of a 5 and half minute hallway." It's very ethereal and quite amazing. 5 stars
• Not A Virgin - This song is, quite obviously (perhaps so obviously that I'm completely misinterpreting the meaning of the song), about letting someone know that you've lost your virginity. It's likable, but not quite my type of music. 3 stars
• Hey Pretty - This song is, according to Wikipedia, "a sultry pop rant of a woman seeking sexual satisfaction on any grounds possible." Um, interesting. Anyway, it's an okay song. This song was the only song on the album to receive any radio time, albeit in a modified form. Not my favorite, but it's growing on me, and the House of Leaves reference in the second verse makes me squee. Yes, that's how weird I am. :P 4 stars
• Could've Gone Mad - Another amazing song. In fact, when I first heard it, I didn't care too much for it, but now I'm in love. If I had to interpret it, I'd say that, while it does have some sexual undertones, I think it's more about separation anxiety and her father. She sings about how she would've gone insane if he hadn't arrived, which he didn't, which may imply that she is already insane since she thinks he has arrived. Yeah, that's my twisted, probably incorrect interpretation of the song, but it's mine, so go away. Musically, the entire thing is wonderful and gets stuck in my head frequently. 5 stars
• Lemon Meringue - Another great song whose chorus stays in my head all day. I'm not quite sure what it's about--I think it's about finding a way to make a bad day or situation better--but regardless, it's great. :P 4 stars
• Spanish Doll - The first real disappointment on the disc, which is quite a feat considering that it's the 11th real song on the album. It's quite a slow, sad song about a bad break up. The only part of it I like is the "Sweet.... spanish.... sweet.... spanish.... doll" part that could be called the chorus. 2 stars
• Amazed - This song is not vain, it is quite amazing. Lyrically, I interpret it to be about a new, wonderful love that the singer relishes in, which is good seeing the hurt she experienced in the previous song, before smoothly ending with a whole ton of House of Leaves references. Musically, the entire thing is brilliant. Like Could've Gone Mad, I didn't like it at first, but it really grew on me. 5 stars
• If You Were Here - What confuses me about this song is that after the singing is complete, there are two and a half minutes of pure silence. It was actually quite terrifying on first listen--I thought something was going to jump out at me. But I checked it with Audacity and, unlike Imogen Heap's The Moment I Said It, there's actually nothing there. Lyrically, this is quite a beautiful song. There's no fooling with metaphors here--it's very obviously about missing her father. There's quite a bit of her father in this song, in fact. I just don't really like the song. 1 star

Wow, that was longer than I expected it to be. Anyway, if you average the ratings together, you get 3.8 stars! Musically, Haunted by Poe gets a 3.8 of 5 rating from me. There's also an awesomeness factor, which I discussed earlier, but yeah. :P

I only rated real songs, however, I skipped the interludes and the bonus track. While I'll keep the interludes how they are (though I will continue to press the fact that House of Leaves is FREAKY :P), I'll tell you about the bonus track. Hey Pretty (Drive-by 2001 mix) is actually a remix of Hey Pretty, but not in a way that you'd expect. Back in 2001, when Poe was trying to get her music on the radio, she encountered many stations telling her that they weren't playing women for some reason. So she got her brother, the author of House of Leaves, to read a section of his book to the music of Hey Pretty. Surprisingly, this mix because a moderate radio hit. It also has a risqué music video, for those interested.

All in all, Haunted by Poe was a great investment and I think I'll be listening to these songs many times again. I hope this review makes you want to listen to it as well and I hope that Drifty agrees with everything I've said or I may suddenly find myself lying in a gutter in Staten Island. Bye! :P

This poll was just an udder surprise. Completely and utterly insane. Someone voted for Indifferent? Lol, unexpected! Anyway, results!

Apple iPod (or related) - 11 vote(s)! Anything else - 0 vote(s)! I don't listen to music - 0 vote(s)! Indifferent - 1 vote(s)!

And.... that's it. No, seriously, gotta go. Lol, don't be insulted! I love you! Expect some nice posts this week, that's all I'm saying. :P

For a very, very, very long time, native Four Islanders have communicated via a channel known as "Yaplet". However, many scorned Yaplet for it was never available, often slow and, possibly the most annoying (to me, anyway :P), did not allow you to log chats. Yes, as stated earlier, I'm a freak obsessed with chatlogs. :P

Anyway, the other day, I was discussing on The Fourm how we needed to find another place to talk in a room and suddenly, it hit me: start an IRC server! So I did! An hour later, FourNet was born. Yes, it really took an hour to set up the server. What can you expect? I had a bad SSH connection and atheme was stabbing me.

I made a pretty page for FourNet. The FourNet Page! YAY! There's an IRC web-client on that page that you can use if you want to see FourNet without downloading an IRC client, and there's also a page with some cool statistics about random people who frequent #fourisland. :P

It's not just a boring old chatroom, btw. I installed a chat bot! Meet Fourie! Fourie (who was named after the Four Island mascot, obviously) is very odd and has already spawned some pretty hilarious quotes such as:

359 - Intern molesting

361 - I Love TimTam

362 - Leaving

368 - Kicked

369 - Hatkirby's Virginity

Anyway, YAY! FourNet is a fun place and we like messing with Fourie's mind. Come and join our insanity by visiting the FourNet page and.... yay! :D Have fun, random stuff!

The people have spoken! "Subtle Mode" wins with an amazing majority over the rest, though "Mobile" did pretty well (considering it was my vote and I didn't cheat this time). One thing that does disturb me, though, is that two people voted for the "Rainbow" layout. Really? Can't you people see the invisible warning message "I WILL STAB YOU IF YOU CHOOSE RAINBOW"? Gosh. :P

A "Mobile" layout for phones - 3 vote(s)! A "Subtle" layout for TEH SNEEKINESS - 6 vote(s)! A "Rainbow" layout for OMG EPILEPSY - 2 vote(s)! Other (specify!) or NONE I DONT CARE YOU FAT - 1 vote(s)!

So, as I'm sure some people will be happy to know, I have started work on 'Subtle Mode'. It's basically going to be a bland layout of Four Island with not-so-eye-blinding colors. I'm going to try to get that committed to Four Island soonish, because I have a much better idea for Four Island 3.0 that will replace Subtle Mode: Masquerade Mode. Yes. Awesomeness. :P

Also, last night (or perhaps earlier, I only discovered it last night), someone left an anonymous comment on my Annetenna post. I approved it, but for some reason, my blog system accidentally deleted it. Yes, this is probably a sign that Four Island 2.0 really needs to go. Anyway, I'm very sorry to the commenter and if you're reading this, please resubmit your comment to the Annetenna post and I'll ensure that it gets posted this time.

Finally, you may have noticed this week's poll is about media players. You may have also noticed that the options are "Apple iPod" and "Everything else". That's because that's seriously how it is. Don't fight it! :P

I've often wondered about what I should blog about on my blog. Stuff, right? I asked about it in a poll a few weeks ago. Programming stuff won, but is that really all yo you people care about? Last year, I did a few randomish posts such as Cakefile and A Short Tribute To Doctor Who and they were received well. Random stuff is fun and hopefully you'll be seeing more of it on this blog.

However, note that when I say random stuff, I do not mean like My Weird Social Commentary. I'm trying to pretend that never happened. It actually only happened because I was in this same situation--it was late at night, I was tired and I need a post so I wouldn't fail my annual goal. This is why I like posting earlier in the week, so even if I don't post again later, I'm safe.

Also, I wanted to mention that I've been thinking about it and, really, this is my personal blog. I can write whatever I want to on it. If you haven't noticed, all I ever write about is programming or a project I'm "working" on. I could write about some insane book I'm reading or the most fantabulous singer evar. In fact, you know what would be cool? I buy an album once a month because I like collecting things and CDs are just freaking awesome. So, what I could do is, after purchasing my monthly album, listen to it for about a week and then write a review of it.

That would actually be a really cool thing to do. I actually just came up with that while writing the previous paragraph. Writing does stuff for you :). Anyway, I think I'll be writing more often on my blog because I realized that I don't have to restrict myself to formalish stuff. I mean, look at Drifty's blog, or Pyro's blog. Now, I'm logging off so I can get some sleep. Bye. :P

Love your indecisiveness people. Just love it.

Yeah, it was fun but it's dead. - 1 vote(s)! No! I'm feeling.... PRODUCTIVE!!!! - 2 vote(s)! I... don't know. - 6 vote(s)! Indifferent. - 3 vote(s)!

I don't know either. I think I won't freeze True Falsities. I think it's extremely unlikely that anyone'll ever post on it again (except for me, possibly, randomly, infrequently), but it's still awesome. True Falsities is a very important part of Four Island, having spawned numerous memes and Pillowcase. Anyway, cheeze.

EDIT: OH MY GOD. I can't believe I forgot to mention this! I've been thinking about it all week and was originally planning to write a longer article that included this on Wednesday, but then suddenly it was Thursday and whatever.... THIS IS THE 300TH POST ON FOUR ISLAND. OMG! Three hundred blog posts! Wow! Omg! And Four Island isn't even three years old yet! Wow! ....wow! :D