Random pointlessness (or: The power of misinformation on the Intarweb)

Back before the web, in the days when online life was altogether more texty, various factions on usenet and bbses would trade song lyrics and guitar/bass tablature as one of the ways of procrastinating on schoolwork. Sometimes there were liner notes, but generally these were all done by listening to sometimes rather dodgy copies on tape to try and make out what we supposed was being played or sung. The accuracy was...well, I recall reading something from Carl McCoy, who'd found some of these attempts at interpreting his voice and sounded rather amused at how wildly off they were. Some of these managed to find their way to places like ftp://archive.uwp.edu/, and from there in turn to http://www.olga.net/, and so on.

Bands have since gotten better about releasing their lyrics, or at the very least the consensus of more pairs of ears has produced better attempts as time passes. But it still amuses me to see some of my crappier relics from those ancient times still being passed around as if they had any merit.


Meanwhile, news for today is ten days of neopolybac and a lifetime of cyclosporine for pooch.