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

I quite clearly have a problem. I call myself a programmer, but really, when was the last time that I programmed? My project management system tells me that the last commit on The TGS Website, my current project, was on March 16th. The most recent thing that I've released was probably Layout 7 back in August. Therefore, I'm a fail.

What do I blame my current programming laziness on? My extreme obsession with archiving. I'm sure that's a mental disorder or at least a byproduct of my obsessive-compulsive disorder because it's really unhealthy. My music library has the have the exact date I started listening to a song and it has to have the exact number of times I listened to it. When I chat with someone, I must be able to access some form of log. And when I started the revival of the TGS website project, I started to track the time I program.

I have an extremely tight procedure when it comes to programming: write a ticket, start the timer, implement the feature, commit the code, close the ticket and log the time. This is very unhealthy as it puts me off from coding because I feel that it's too much work to fix a simple bug or implement a simple feature. While I know that source control and issue tracking are very good practices, I am very strict with my implementation of them and the addition of time tracking is too much.

Therefore, I need to come up with a new strategy. I think the best thing to do would be to eradicate the time tracking part of the process. While that doesn't resolve everything, it would get me back to where I was before, and didn't I manage to release Layout 7 for Four Island last year? I think that if I try to maintain a healthier programming strategy, this laziness streak would end. I sure hope so, anyway.

If anyone has any suggestions for a healthier programming procedure, I'd be very happy to hear about it. Leave a comment! :P And new commits should start appearing in the TGS Website repository before long if this decision works :).

YAY I LIKE PILLOWCASE. Anyway, yay! I guess it was worth the wait, eh?

AWWW YEAHHHHHH - 10 vote(s)! No, I mean no, I mean no, I mean no, I mean no - 0 vote(s)! Maybe? - 0 vote(s)! Indifferent - 1 vote(s)!

Okay, I know, I failed. I ultimately failed with my True Falsities revival. I posted once, and then ate a brick. Sorry. I really don't know how I can try to revive TF if I can't even post on it. So, first off, I failed my goal. No neutrality, I just flat-out failed it. Second, I'm reconsidering freezing True Falsities. We could either freeze it and leave it as it is, or keep it unfrozen in case anyone randomly decides to post on it. I doubt people would post on it anymore, but it's not my choice (well, it sort of is), it's the voters' choice. Sort of. :P

Through the popularity of my current comic (Pillowcase!), it's sometimes difficult to remember that I once had a different comic: Kirby's Fan Mail. Yeah, remember that? That was a.... weird little comic, wasn't it? Yes, anyway, I recently had it brought back to my attention when I was looking through my Google Analytics. I saw a referral to Four Island from something called badwebcomics.wikidot.com, and I though, "Hm, what could that be?" So I went to the page in question and found.... a review of Kirby's Fan Mail explaining how it fails and how I'm mentally challenged! YAY! :P

Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. The article actually was about how stupid the comic was and I seriously find it VERY amusing. Read it here, plez. 'Tis awesome. Like how he points out that I can't draw or that I think word salads are comedic gold.

However true or funny the article may be, however, there are some points I would like to make in my defense:

• First of all, the author of the article spelled my last name incorrectly. It's Insigna, not Insignia.
• One of the author's favorite things to make fun of was a comic of mine called Shimi's Warning, which he described as incredibly stupid because it was just a picture with a link to an off-site comic. There are several reasons that I had to do this. First off, Shimi's Warning was done in Flash, which, due to a technical limitation of the comic hosting software, could not be hosted directly on the site. Second, the only thing you can post in the comic area on that site is comics. You cannot just post text. Yes, I probably should've provided a text version of the URL so people could just copy/paste it, which I eventually did. However, the comic itself has since gone down which is really not quite a shame because it was pretty bad.

And.... that's really all I can think of right now. It's not too easy to defend KFM :P. In fact, here are some things that I think the article lacks:

• Blatant copyright thievery - After writing a comic involving a cookbook, I posted a comic from the original Kirby manga because it had to do with the previous comic. Yeah.
• My total non-coolness - Yeah, four years ago, I didn't know what "emo" meant. So I probably embarrassed myself.
• The whole "world trip" debacle - For a few comics, I talked about having Kirby go on a trip to other people's comics and do stuff. Instead, I stopped posting comics for two months and simply had him write a letter of apology when I got back. Wow, my failness never fails to fail!
• Same with the "awesome" 50th Comic Party.
• Homophobia.
• There is clearly no food in this one, yet he claims he is eating it.
• The punch line of this one is the fact that the sender of the letter didn't leave a name. Ha-ha.
• I'm not going to pretend to know what I was on while writing this one.
• My total disregard for an update schedule. For a time, I would post like 10 comics a day, and then I wouldn't post for like a month. Then, I stopped doing the comic in 2007, only to pick it up for a month in 2009. I'm surprised people actually still read it.

Clearly, I could go on for much longer, but I don't feel like it. Instead, I'll let you, the reader, either read the article I linked to above or search through Kirby's Fan Mail for more of my failness. Oh yes, and check out my recently revived comic, Pillowcase! Thank you and good night! :P