Narziss

well, it's a holiday week. times are tight as well. thankfully gas prices are going down and the summer is ending for those being milked by the electric company over air conditioning. so i say enjoy your extra money, go have a drink or two and if you get a chance during the next few weeks, throw us a dime or two. you'll have my love forever.

i left the announcements closed simply because i didn't want the chatter to stray. you know how it gets.

it hasn't been overwhelming but there has been a good response nonetheless. i really do appreciate it, guys. i wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.

someone, who will remain nameless for now, donated a penny for every post. i thought that was both hilarious and awesome.

my biggest fear, though, is that this will rest again on the shoulders of people who have donated or bought subscriptions in the past. they've given plenty and it's such a small number of members (even less than last year). i'm hoping that we can tap into the other 97% of the board a little. maybe some that use the torrents or post regularly that have never bought a subscription.

to put it into perspective... if 250 people donated $5 we could practically pay for an entire year. if there were a few $10 in that mix, we could cover the costs of upgrades and all the little crashes and repairs that happen sometimes. we could possibly buy Solace a dinner or two as well. there have been days when a tired and frustrated Solace has called me after 6-7 hours of fixing databases and code for this place. all for nothing. and most of the time without any of us noticing a problem.

thank you all again.

Hello all,

Well, it's time again. Time for a money push! I feel a bit like NPR on that morning drive to work. In between listening to the news I want to hear or some interview of someone that interests me, I have to sit through 10 minute intervals of sophisticated groveling. I try to avoid being annoyed though because I know why they do it. I don't get that interview if no one, or myself, donates. Which is very similar to the situation here. VC exists based on the money donated or paid towards subscriptions. We've become a large community by message forum standards and it's not cheap to pay for it. Unfortunately, this year has been a little more lackluster in terms of subscriptions and we've fallen short a bit. We are extremely grateful for the people who have donated more than their share and those that have paid what they can for subscriptions. We wouldn't be even as close to as far as we are now.

In the past, I would cover all costs and then all shortages during the last year with subscriptions. Sometimes Kyle would jump in, sometimes someone else would help. However, I won't be here after November and my credit card will no longer be able to cover the monthly charge of running the site. Or, if the site crashes and there has to be some maintenance, which we all know happens unfortunately. Come November it will be someone else's responsibility and I want them to be taken care of in that respect. I don't want them to take the site over and find it too much of an expense to pay for it and run it. I want VC to have a long happy life. So I'm going to spend the last two months of my time here trying to insure that my successor is doing fine on Cloud nine, so to speak.

So here we go. If you can find it fit for your finances, please purchase a subscription or even just donate to the board. You can buy a subscription in your member profile. Down the page on the left side amongst the options. If you want to donate, please send via paypal at the following address:

paypal@viachicago.org

I can assure you that it will be greatly appreciated. This site has been a great testament, for better and sometimes worse, to what a good community of fans, people and traders can be. It's a luxury in the web world because, as I'm sure we can all attest, most web forums are bollucks! We have a good group of music fanatics, social conversation and debate, Wilco fans, traders and a pretty cool torrent section. It's more than just getting the latest Wilco news, rumours and stories, this is a place you can waste a lot of time in different ways. I'm pretty proud of this place. I'm also excited to know that it can be better even after I'm gone. So anytime you buy a subscriptions or donate a little money, it goes towards that goal.

So, again, thank you for your continued support and thank you for making this a wonderful place. Let's keep it going strong!

Best Wishes,

Narz

Hello all,

Well, it's time again. Time for a money push! I feel a bit like NPR on that morning drive to work. In between listening to the news I want to hear or some interview of someone that interests me, I have to sit through 10 minute intervals of sophisticated groveling. I try to avoid being annoyed though because I know why they do it. I don't get that interview if no one, or myself, donates. Which is very similar to the situation here. VC exists based on the money donated or paid towards subscriptions. We've become a large community by message forum standards and it's not cheap to pay for it. Unfortunately, this year has been a little more lackluster in terms of subscriptions and we've fallen short a bit. We are extremely grateful for the people who have donated more than their share and those that have paid what they can for subscriptions. We wouldn't be even as close to as far as we are now.

In the past, I would cover all costs and then all shortages during the last year with subscriptions. Sometimes Kyle would jump in, sometimes someone else would help. However, I won't be here after November and my credit card will no longer be able to cover the monthly charge of running the site. Or, if the site crashes and there has to be some maintenance, which we all know happens unfortunately. Come November it will be someone else's responsibility and I want them to be taken care of in that respect. I don't want them to take the site over and find it too much of an expense to pay for it and run it. I want VC to have a long happy life. So I'm going to spend the last two months of my time here trying to insure that my successor is doing fine on Cloud nine, so to speak.

So here we go. If you can find it fit for your finances, please purchase a subscription or even just donate to the board. You can buy a subscription in your member profile. Down the page on the left side amongst the options. If you want to donate, please send via paypal at the following address:

paypal@viachicago.org

I can assure you that it will be greatly appreciated. This site has been a great testament, for better and sometimes worse, to what a good community of fans, people and traders can be. It's a luxury in the web world because, as I'm sure we can all attest, most web forums are bollucks! We have a good group of music fanatics, social conversation and debate, Wilco fans, traders and a pretty cool torrent section. It's more than just getting the latest Wilco news, rumours and stories, this is a place you can waste a lot of time in different ways. I'm pretty proud of this place. I'm also excited to know that it can be better even after I'm gone. So anytime you buy a subscriptions or donate a little money, it goes towards that goal.

So, again, thank you for your continued support and thank you for making this a wonderful place. Let's keep it going strong!

Best Wishes,

Narz

Happy birthday, Paul. I hope all is well.

i'm always bummed when something i want shows up in FLAC format only. it's rare because I have all the live shows I could ever want and hardly download them but it sucks when it's an album.

i'm impressed by two things: that Pete Yorn is still around and that there are this many people with opinions on him.

Happy Birthday, Rich!

thanks, guys. i figured it hadn't changed much since the last time I checked.

sounds like the convert as i sleep plan will be in effect.

thank you.

It seems to me in the past the process to take a divx or avi file and burn it in dvd format that will play on a basic stand alone dvd player was rather time consuming as opposed to say, mp3 to wav. If I remember correctly, it almost had to play the movie in real time in order to convert it to dvd.

Is there a better way? A quicker way? Do I even know what I'm talking about?

Could someone explain the process to me in brief?

NME is the worst music rag in the world. You could argue Spin, Rolling Stone or other magazines like them but they no longer pretend they are significant. NME still pretends that are something more than a tabloid and pop culture magazine. Besides, their readers poll reflects a very young and uninformed audience.

Yeah... you have it worse off. Cheaper By The Dozen??? Egads!

I didn't know they showed reruns of that on LOGO.

My wife loves My Fair Brady. That and Flavor of Love. It's rubbish, I tell ya!

I love Project Runway. What can I say? Fashion is cool! I even watch Next Top Model... The American and British version.

I make up for it by doing push ups and scratching.

My wife is an anglophile, super Britpop fan so I have to endure hours of Blur, movies, books and films about Britain, and a host of other UK-centric stuff.

Rich,

I just want to say that I quite enjoy reading your posts for the english slang. "absolute dogs" and "any cop"... It gives this poor white kid from Indianapolis now living in Dallas, Texas a little culture.

Thanks,

Narz

They make great tshirts and such. Well, let's say good. It's their cut that seperates them from Hanes, Anvil and Gildan. The quality is iffy at best.

I've worked for a promotional products firm for six years now and remember when they first popped on the scene for us. It was kind of interesting since their catalogs were suggestive and racy compared to the typical Mr and Mrs Whitebread in polos and khakis. I've dealt with them a number of times and they are straight up creepy. There was an expose on them on Dateline this past Friday. Even more creepy. I prefer not to deal with them actually. There are other sources that work just fine in my business.

I met with them once at a tradeshow here in Dallas. It was odd. Psuedo-models (not tall enough to be real models) walking around trying to be sexy. Lots of large, suggestive posters. One girl asked if she could take some photos of me for something in their office.

Call me a prude but I put them in the same league as the Girls Gone Wild dude. I can't figure out who's worse, the outlet or the subjects. It's just done in poor taste.

The British media should be banned from making lists such as these. From NME to now the Observer, it's always ugly. I'm just glad to see the Libertines aren't in the top 5.

Happy Birthday, Sir.

ULF!!! I can't believe you are still around, old friend.