Wait. You mean in Ireland some random Paddy McBrokeass can contact a government representative ... and get something done about it? What is this Bolshevik nonsense?

A little happy update... I needed a large-scale music project to lift my spirits this week and I'm pleased to say I've found enormous success!

In my early high school days I was a devout Frühead, that is, a fan of the regional college acapella filk group called Moxy Früvous. I still find myself singing their lighthearted and politically-themed melodies as I make my morning coffee and afternoon tea decades later.

The group disbanded back in 2000, but I discovered that The Internet Archive has, with the band's blessing, archived 73 live shows capturing the band in their prime.

So I spent an hour experimenting and researching how to automate and batch download all 73 shows from the collection on a Linux filesystem. I found an old Reddit discussion pointing to a long-retired Chrome extension, but eventually found my way to the wget command line method.

It took some trial and error, (I had to use the advanced search function on Archive.org to generate a CSV, then batch remove all quotation marks and rename it as a text file, then modify the expression to target one audio format and to run as 'sudo'), but with a bit of tinkering I got it to work!

In only a few hours' time I had the complete archive saved to my server. I'll enjoy exploring shows from my favorite college performance spaces in the days ahead!

This is just what I needed.

https://i.imgur.com/Hj7LLfIl.jpg

Whoa, blast from the past! I used to be a big Moxy Früvous fan in high school as well, though they had already disbanded by that point. I completely forgot about them, thank you for dislodging those memories from my brain!

Duh. We put them in power, why shouldn't we be able to call on them for help? In Ireland local representatives have thier offices and you can make an appointment to see them about whatever issue is bugging you and see if they can help. Maybe it's a road going through your area, maybe something to do with schools or rent or bills, or some local sex offender living in your area. Whatever it is, they're there (ostensibly) to serve your interests; that's why you voted for them, so it's time to pay the piper. You can't do that in the States? Why do you vote for representatives then?

And they don't machine gun you when you try to go into their office?

Man, politics everywhere else seem so tame compared to ours.

They use Kit Carson's howitzers on us out here.

Some do, but you get used to it. They're just being lads.

No; I've never gone myself but I know people who have, and that is always the advice: if you can't get anyone to listen to you, go see your local TD.
Again, I ask: why would you vote someone into power if you can't later call on that power once they're, um, in power? Makes no sense. And they call us Irish thick?

To keep the other savages from electing Hitler/Stalin.

Yeah but when this guy comes knocking at election time, if he helped you out or at least spoke to you and looked like he was going to, wouldn't you be more inclined to vote for him? And vice versa? We here in Ireland all listen to WIIFM, you know...