....but in the meantime, we're going to get down to the nitty gritty on this Blogthings thing....(?).......

What kind of SOUL are you??????? Here's me.

***You Are a Visionary Soul***

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness.
Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul.
You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable.
Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings.

You have great vision and can be very insightful.
In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself.
Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend.
You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofsoulareyouquiz/

I'm beginning to think that perhaps these quizzes aren't exactly scientific.....

***Your Monster Profile***

Undead Hunter

You Feast On: Pie

You Lurk Around In: Flocks of Freshmen

You Especially Like to Torment: Pop Stars

What's Your Monster Name?
http://www.blogthings.com/monsternamegenerator/

Jeff at Boiled Dinner (see the link to your right) led me to a site with this test. It's to see if you could pass the citizenship test. Let's face it, many people who have a birthright to American citizenship don't know SHIT about America.

Here's my results:

***You Passed the US Citizenship Test***

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?
http://www.blogthings.com/couldyoupasstheuscitizenshiptestquiz/

How will YOU do?

I was playing around on my computer recently when I had nothing better to do. I could have been cleaning, dusting, packing for my impending move, or going through huge piles of clutter to find things that I can throw out prior to the move, so it isn't like I had nothing to do. I just had nothing BETTER to do.

So I started farting around with Google, to see what can actually be looked up on the internet.

It turns out that almost anything can, so I decided to make a game of it. Within certain restrictions, I wanted to see how long it took me to get no hits on a Google search. I didn't have the restictions right off the bat; the "rules" developed as I went along.

I started with the pseudo-word "ploink". I chose that because of my lifelong affinity for nonsense words, with "bink" and "spooge" being two other long time faves. "Ploink" got 55,400 hits, starting with the "Ploink Brothers". I can't tell you anything about them, however, since the site was in German and my knowledge of that language comes entirely from beer bottles and signs I saw on "Hogan's Heroes".

Next I tried dogs eating apples, which came back with 1,220,000 hits. I realized that I hadn't used quotation marks, and thus got any site in sight that had any of the three chosen words. I wondered why, given that fact, I only got 1,220,000 hits. I can only guess that that was all Google figured I would have time to look at that day. I tried it again in quotes and got "about four" hits.

Now, THAT bothered me. "About four"? It seems that a computer that can count to 1,220,000 could count to four with a reasonable degree of certainty. It turns out that the two it didn't show me were identical to the two that it did, so there were exactly two. Neither site had any problem with a dog wanting to eat apples.

Next was "Krishna Awakens". This hit 278 times. The guy's an insomniac. He should lay off the sodas after 6:00.

"My spleen hurts" got 429 hits. This bothered me as well, since I was getting more esoteric yet finding more sites than the last two times. I didn't stay. If I read too much about it, MY spleen might start hurting.

By now I decided to have a minimum of two words, to keep it from being too difficult, and a maximum of three, to keep it from being too easy. I also decided that to find a zero, I would have to get fairly ridiculous.

So then I tried "trees run fast." Amazingly enough, I found 35 sites, although there was always a comma after "trees". I decided that that counts anyway, since it's MY game. I also learned what to do if a rhino charges at me. You guessed it.......... look for trees, and run fast. I really did not need to be told that second part.

I figured I had it the next time, as I typed in "The moon farts." "About" 26 hits. 26! I didn't read them, because I really didn't want to know. I can tell you that there were no commas.

I tried "The Queen's panties", since I figured that no one would want to write about that. I mean, ick. Lady Di's, perhaps, or Fergie's since they'd be laying around all over Europe, but the Queen's? What sick bastard would want to write about THAT? Ask the 50 sick bastards that did.

Finally, "twelve silver pigeons" got me nowhere. I didn't look, but it would be ironic if I had simply picked the wrong number.

So, it took 8 tries to get nowhere with Google. What did I learn?

First, I learned that there just might be too much information on the internet.

Second, I realized how absurdly easy it is to get that info. I grew up in the days of library cards and the Reader's Guide. Finding "about 26" articles about the moon farting would have been a career opportunity when I was in school.

Third, I learned that I can be awfully easy to entertain.

What's YOUR Googletrolling score?

Okay, you've chosen your BT client, your high-speed connection is rolling, and you're ready to download something. What shall it be, and where shall you get it?

BT sites are easy to find. I find ones by Googling "Bit Torrent (thing I want to download)". It's that easy.

Say, for instance, that Hillbilly Tim wants to find some monkey porn. He would want to search for  "bit torrent monkey porn." If he want to be more specific, he can type "bit torrent gibbon porn" to get just the naughty gibbons, and not those sick orangutan bastards. (BTW, I've known Hillbilly Tim since 1974, and I can assure you that he is in no way aroused by simians of any type. Keep him away from your parrots, though.)

So you can search for music, bootleg, books, comics, movies, whatever. There are several things to be aware of, however.

First and foremost, what is legal? There are sites that are very careful about what is allowed, and others that couldn't care less. Their attitude won't shield you, however. When it comes to music and video, follow this rule of thumb. If what you are about to download is available to buy anywhere in any way, it is illegal to download. That includes stores, record clubs, pay-per-views, and downloads for sale. That's why I stick to the unofficial recordings. There is no copyright being asserted on that material, and many bands do in fact support the trading of unofficial recordings. There is a vast trading community out there that can amaze you with the things that they are willing to share. Notice the words "trading" and "share". No selling.

With books it is the same, except in the case of comics, because those are back issues of periodicals. It's legal to sell your old comics at a profit, so it can't really be illegal to share them for free.

When you go to a site, ALWAYS read the FAQ and the rules. Different sites have different rules, and different things allowed. This is ESPECIALLY important if a friend has given you an invite to the site. Your behavior reflects on your friend.

Some BT sites are open, others require a membership. The latter usually has some sort of share ratio requirement. Remember from session 1 that you are uploading while you download, then just uploading. It is within the mores of BT that you should always endeavor to give back as much as you took. After all, you're getting something for free. The least you can do is pass it on. Since uploading is almost always slower than downloading, this means keeping the torrent open until your up/down ratio is at least 1. Some sites will enforce this by having minimum ratios. When you go below the minimum, you can ONLY upload until you get your numbers up.

All this said, I can lead you to some sites. Unfortunately my favorite is not accepting new members at this time. There are still a lot of good ones out there, though.

UNOFFICIAL RECORDINGS, AUDIO AND VIDEO

bt.etree                          Mostly jam bands. This is where it started for me!

Trader's Den                  A good variety.

Zomb                              I've gotten quite a bit with this one, as well. They do 
                                       cool things with your cursor!

Bootcity                           The name says it all.

Yeeshkul!                        This site focuses on Pink Floyd, loosely.

Genesis Movement         Focus on Genesis and its' members.

The Music Never Stopped Project    Grateful Dead, natch.

Long Live Rock               The Who and related artists.

COMICS, BOOKS, AND MUSIC

Oink                                 Lots of stuff, but be selective.

TorrentSpy                       A lot of everything.

Most of these sites are open and easy to sign up to. I have a few invites to Oink I can give out. You can find me on these sites under the name RioGrandeJoe.

If you're looking at the bootleg sites and plan to get into trading, note the different file formats. Many sites are picky about lossless ancestries, meaning that a recording is not and has never been in a "lossy" format like mp3. If you download any boots in mp3 or any other format that does not give lossless reproduction, be sure never to offer that for torrent or trade without telling people. It's another "mores" thing.

I would be happy to create a torrent at one of these sites for learning on, if readers would like. Some Pink Floyd, perhaps? DIscuss what you would like amongst yourselves.

I know this seems like a lot of info, and we're only half done, but it really is simplicity itself once you learn it and get into a groove.Go see what's out there. If you see a torrent you might want to get later, it is ALWAYS a good idea to bookmark it. They can slip away sometimes!

Next I'll cover exactly how to start a torrent and what all that crap on the BT client means.

......who thinks that a video of an exploding fireworks factory is cool as hell?

I guess it's just that part of me that still lives in Never Never Land and just won't grow up, no way!

Several people have asked me to explain Bit Torrent to them, as it makes up a large part of my daily computer life. Bit Torrent is an increasingly popular way to share files online. It allows you to share large files (or large amounts of small files) more quickly than regular downloads, thus allowing them to be spread more widely with less effort.

The way it works is simple. Instead of a stream of data going from one uploader to one downloader at a time, Bit Torrent (or BT) allows the uploader(s) to connect to multiple downloaders. The uploader can provide different parts of the data to different downloaders. The downloaders can also connect to each other, and share data amongst themselves. This means that if one uploader is serving seven downloaders, he doesn't have to upload all the data seven times. He uploads it once (in theory. In practice, a little more than once.) and the downloaders all share the data between them. That is why it is called a "torrent", as the bits are flying in every direction.  When you are connected to a torrent, you are both a downloader(leecher) and an uploader (seeder) until you finish the download, then you continue to be a seeder.

There is praactically nothing that isn't available somewhere via BT. I have used BT to amass an incredible bootleg collection, great music that is not available commercially but is still legal to share online in this fashion. You can find books, comics, software, TV shows, and of course, more porn than Howard Stern could watch in a year. If you have an interest, just google the name of that interest with the words "bit torrent" and you'll find it. I'll put some links up as well.

What you need to participate is:

1) A fast internet connection. Dial up just won't work here. DSL is good, cable is better.

2) A BT Client.

3) SOmething to download.

A BT client is a program that allows you to connect to a torrent. There are a bunch of them to suit different needs, and they are all free. I'll let you look at a few.

1. Bit Tornado

I started out with this one, but I quickly outgrew it as I found more and more things todownload. It is a good, stable program, and allows you to selectively download (say a torrent has 10 files in it, but I only want 3 of them), but it only allows for one torrent at a time. Being the greedy sort, I wanted to be able to do more than one at a time. I moved on to

    2. ABC (Another Bittorrent Client)

This one I used for a long time, as it allowed multiple torrents. It allowed me to set download and upload priorities, and allows "queueing", so that one torrent is shut down automatically when it is finished, thus allowing another to be started. I ended up keeping Bit tornado on my computer, though, since ABC doesn't allow selective download and wouldn't connect to some sites for whatever reason.

Last year, I finally switched to

    3. utorrent

This one has it all. Multiple downloads with queueing, selective download, lots of configuration freedom, and the added bonus of using far less computer resources than ABC. It's also helping me learn the world flags. This is the one I recommend. Anyone interested (and there damn well BETTER be someone!) should go ahead and download it.

Next I'll talk about BT sites, where to find what you want, and how to stay on the right side of the law.

Yesterday, sports legend Kirby PUCKETT died. Two weeks ago, Rythym and Blues Legend Wilson PICKETT died. Coincidence?

Probably, yes.