And we're off!

well were off. im writing from my cell on carpet so please excuse my punctuation. ill see you all in one week when we return. see yall later!

A Thief Gone Bad Gone Good

Check this out. This guy started out like me, stealing for sustenance. Over time, he strayed from the path of an honest thief, but in the end it all worked out. Seriously, someone should make a movie about this guy. It has such a happy ending.

Read the Story

PS.
I don't endorse thievery of anything other than what is strictly needed, or what increases in quantity when it is stolen (like digital stuff, more copies to go around).

Update

Hey, all

I haven't disappeared. I'm working on moving from a hosted blog (blogger, wordpress) to a dedicated site with my own url. This means that I have to either get some money to buy the web hosting space, or steal some. I don't really like to steal more than what I need, and technically I don't need a blog. I should really talk to Iago about this, he's great at money making stuff.

Well, keep checking here for a link to the new site when it goes up. Next week I'll be in Liamuiga, so I wouldn't expect to hear from me too much until I get back April 3rd.

Bee yourself!
- Aladdin

Library of Millat

Hey, everyone

I haven't been on lately, as I've been exploring the Library of Millat. Even though things haven't been too good between me and Jasmine lately, the Sultan still seems to like me. He assigned me, Carpet, and Genie to investigate reports of an earthquake near Millat. It turns out that the damage wasn't too bad, but we still stayed for a few days while the Millatians tried to rebuild some of their infrastructure (their city center suffered the worst). As a gift for helping them, they loaned us an archive of their weekly newspaper, the Millat Panorum. I'm trying to get some of the articles posted online, but it's hard since my scanner is a piece of junk (literally, I salvaged it from the junk yard on Glass Street). The first thing I've got for you is a piece on the Sultan of Agrabah and the history of Agrabah's royalty. I've posted it at the top of this page. As I thumb through this archive, though, I'm getting the feeling that neither Wordpress nor Blogger is going to be able to handle what I'm planning on doing with this site. So stay tuned for a brand new (again) website, with tons of information on Agrabah, the Seven Deserts, myself, and whatever piques my interest. Luckily, this is all keeping my mind off of Jasmine for the moment.

We shall see. Bee yourself!
- Aladdin

Jasmine

Hey all. First, a poem by me:

My lips are lonely. Lonely for the taste of sticky strawberry shine that glistens on your lips. Lonely for the softness of your cheek, the curve of your neck, the tingle of your hair. But there's more. My lips are lonely for the words that burst forth without thought, the love and care and comedy that seemed so natural and linear. I think there's a word for that. Sauretude. My lips miss the sauretude between us. And not just the lovely, but the rocky, the jagged, the thin pricks of hair that maybe you should have shaved a while ago, the sweet slick of sweat dripping down your nose pressed firmly against my lips. Confidently, too. I miss the confidentiality between my lips and yours, the unshaken agreement that yours are mine and mine are yours. The secrets, the woes, the bubbles of happiness and fear and platitude and sauretude that pass between us. Between my lips pass the three syllables that make the rest of my frame shake and quiver and mope: "I miss you".

OK. Here's what's going on. First of all, welcome to my new blog. I've been meaning to switch from Wordpress to Blogger for a while, but I've just never gotten around to doing it. I finally got some time over the weekend to make the change, so welcome to my new site.

Jasmine. Here we go. So Jasmine was off on a royal visit to Quarkistan, trying to work out the kinks in a trade agreement between Quarkistan, Agrabah, and Odiferous. Prince Mamoud and Prince Uncouthma were both there. As you may or may not know, Jasmine has a history with Uncouthma, and while she was in Quarkistan, she decided that she wasn't quite ready to go through with our marriage. I have to assume Uncouthma is to blame, as Mamoud is only 12 years old. Anyways, when Jasmine returned with Carpet and Iago, she told me that she wasn't sure if she's ready to get married, and that she thinks we both need some time away from each other to… what did she say? "Get some more experience". I've dated two girls before I met Jasmine, but I get the impression that I'm her first boyfriend (we never really talked about it). So, I am sad. Genie said that sometimes people need some room when they're faced with getting into a deep relationship, but the only person Genie's ever really dated is Eden (there's a small chance we'll run into her in Liamuiga). I'm not even sure if I want to go to Liamuiga. I guess I'm still moping, but hey– can't I have a mope or two?

I'm not sure where this is all going, but I'll keep you all (my 2 readers) in the loop.

Wish me luck!
- Al

Pi Day

Welcome, one and all, to International Pi Day!

Rather than soapbox at you about the importance of numbers between integers, I'll let the dapper young lad below serenade you about the value of math:

Hey, everyone!

So yesterday I told you all about how me, Jasmine, Genie, Abu, Carpet, and Iago are all vacationing in Liamuiga for our spring getaway. I had Genie take some pictures, and I thought you'd all enjoy this one.



That's Nevis, one of the neighboring islands to the south. Genie said he took this at a restaurant called the Beach House. I can't wait. I'm sure Jasmine will love it.

Speaking of which, Jasmine gets back tomorrow. It's been kind of weird not having carpet around. Abu loves to play Carpet at chess (Abu always looses, though).

In my last post, I mentioned Rockbox. I realized that most people probably don't know what Rockbox is, so here's a go.

Apple, Inc. makes this awesome little device called the iPod. When it came out way back when in '01, it changed the way people regarded their music. No longer did you have one or two CDs and a bulky CD Player with you when you travelled, no, you had 1,000 songs in your pocket. Then 10,000. Then 100,000. Now look how people treat their music. It's their prize possession. I personally have spent months collecting rare and exotic Disney Parks music.

But here's the caveat: do you actually OWN your music? Turns out, that's a little debatable. See, with the iPod came this mystical store called the iTunes Music Store. You could download untold gigabytes of music there. But it came at a cost. The price? Digital Rights Management (DRM). See, DRM is this little tag of code stuck on your music, that keeps YOU out. Sure, you can play it and put it on iPods and burn CDs, but what else can you do? Not much. Ever try using some music you purchased in iTunes in, say, GarageBand, iMovie, or your Zune mp3 player? Doesn't quite work out.

Think people liked this? Nope, not at all. Of course, Apple being the all-powerful entity that it is, would get really mad when people like Jon Johansen worked out how to beat the DRM encryption. So what to do?

I'm a pacifist. While Abu and Iago can be a little pushy at times, I don't personally believe in force or violence. So here's what I do. I get my music DRM-free, from places like the Amazon mp3 Store, FreePlayMusic, Jamendo, and SXSW. I manage it all with DoubleTwist, and I put them on my hacked iPod, running (finally, here we go) Rockbox software. Check it out.

So there's my soapbox moment. Maybe it's just the streetrat in me, but I'm with all those brilliant hackers out there who fervently believe that if you can't hack it, it's not yours.

- Aladdin