Music moochers of the world, rejoice!

Google has launched an enhancement to their search to make it easier to find information about music and artists, find lyrics, discographies, etc. The official Google blog post is here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/searching-for-music.html. Google doesn't actually provide lyrics, they only provide links to lyrics. But they'll probably get sued anyway. Enjoy it while it lasts.
There's also Amazon's free music downloads, which is basically just what it says it is. You can also see the most popular downloads and the most popular "indie music" downloads. There's some surprisingly good stuff there, including my favorite Devendra Banhart song and some weirdo playing Pachabel's Canon as a tribute to Nick Drake. It's always cool to have free music to find new stuff and to add to that annoying folder full of single songs that you sometimes listen to, but not that often because nothing has an artist name and you can never find anything. Man. Fuck that folder.
And to increase the speed and ease with which you download music, here's a Greasemonkey user script to make the most popular list into direct links so you don't have to go to that extra page: Amazon free music helper.
Enjoy free music.

William Gibson articles

I just found two articles in Wired by William Gibson. In God's Little Toys: Confessions of a Cut and Paste Artist, he talks about remixes and mashups and their impact on the culture, drawing comparisons to William Burroughs' cut-up experiments. It was written in July 2005, so it's not as prescient as most of his writing, but he sums things up nicely and makes some interesting points, mainly the blurring lines between sampling/theft and audience/artist.
Related to these ideas, I ran across a site of public domain movies available by torrent on www.publicdomaintorrents.com. They have a load of stuff: Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Buster Keaton shorts, Flash Gordon, Radar Men from the Moon, etc. They're free to download, sample, whatever. And most of them come in iPod/PDA compatible formats, too.
The other article, U2's City of Blinding Lights was written while hanging out with U2 on tour. It's a bit star-struck, but more by the technology behind the spectacle, rather than by the band itself. Good insight on what goes into creating these media spectacles.

An Impending Travel Adventure and a book review.

I have been at work less than a half-hour and I already have 23 pages open in Firefox. To say that my job is boring would be a bit of an understatement. Hence, I am quitting and moving to Spain. I bought my ticket last week for the 18th January 18th for Madrid. I was going to give my two week's notice today, but I've decided to wait a week because I could use the money.
I'm considering starting another blog devoted specifically to the trip, but I'm SOOO lazy. I need a name, etc. I'll see what happens. Suggestions are welcome.
In preparation for the trip, I'm reading several travel books in hopes of both inspiration and disillusionment. I'm going to write about them to satiate my desire to spew as many words as possible, but I hope that other people may find this useful, too.
Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts is an introduction to a philosophy of travel called, of course, "vagabonding." What is vagabonding? On his site vagabonding.net, Potts says the book (and corresponding philosophy) "is about taking time off from your normal life — from six weeks, to four months, to two years — to discover and experience the world on your own terms." He communicates this idea largely through anecdotes, drawing on his extensive travel experiences. This is his first book, but he has written award-winning travel articles for a number of magazines and sites such as Salon.com, National Geographic Traveler, and Conde Nast Traveler.
The book is organized into four main sections: Declare Your Independence, Getting Started, On the Road, and In the Long Run. They are subdivided into chapters that each cover a topic of travel, all aimed at helping the reader understand and embrace the ideas behind Potts' philosophy of travel. Each chapter has a brief introduction, some anecdotes and advice, followed by a "tip sheet" that is a list of books and web pages with more information on the topic. All of these resources are kept up to date on Potts' site at www.vagabonding.net. It's a nice site, with his blog, a Q&A section, links, etc.
The stories are inspiring and often humorous. Everything is short and to the point, which makes for a quick read. I also agree with his philosophy of travel, since it's similar to what I wanted to do before I started any travel reading. The book is simple, practical, and concise. I would recommend it to anyone about to travel, but I don't know if I would buy it. My main problem is that it's light on detailed practical advice. His list of resources makes up for it, but as that is available online, I don't feel like I need to own a copy of the book. It's a good starting point for information and good inspiration to get off your ass and travel.
Ugh... I haven't eaten a damned thing this morning and I'm feeling loopy. I will perhaps write more after lunch when my brain will hopefully be working.

Kurt Vonnegut is alive and well.

He's older than dirt, but he's still the man, as you can see in this Daily Show segment: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TDS-Kurt-Vonnegut1.wmv

How Worthless is Your Blog?

I suppose this may change at some point in the future, but right now, I'm pretty darned proud. I always suspected that all my work here was entirely worthless, but now I have proof. Behold!

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

I'm not sure how they value things. It's probably based on traffic, incoming links, outgoing links, and possibly post frequency. In any case, this usually has no relation to reality. Unless your blog, much like the hundreds of thousands of other blogs out there, or any given livejournal, is worthless. I swear that I did it before and it said my blog was worth $800 or something, which, by the way, I would totally sell out for, but those glory days are gone. The Evalutron 5000 must have been overheating. Someone gave it a whack and now it's spitting out correct answers. It feels good to have my worthlessness validated.

Celebrating the holidays in style: Buy Nothing Day

Buy Nothing Day

"Now is the time to question the goal of a Big Mac in every hand, and Britney Spears as cultural Ambassador, to reclaim the meaning of being American."
-- quoted from this Eastern Michigan University article on Buy Nothing Day.

This Friday is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. It is also becoming known as Buy Nothing Day through grassroots anti-consumer efforts.
My friend and I used to go to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse on Black Friday, not to specifically buy anything, though we would usually end up getting a game or something that was on sale, but to people watch and to stand around and take up space. Long lines and crowds aren't a problem if you have no agenda. It was like our own form of protest, though we were too apathetic to think of it that way and we had no knowledge of Buy Nothing Day.
Ironically, my friend is now a sales manager at a Wal-Mart and was recently telling me about his store's preparations for Black Friday.
I like the idea of Buy Nothing Day, even if no one actually buys nothing. I'll probably end up being too lazy to pack a lunch and end up spending money on food. But just telling people about the idea can do a lot to get them to think, to break them out of what The Northern Light calls, "pseudo-reality."
From the Northern Light's article on Buy Nothing Day: "Advertising has taught us to detach from reality and embrace a pseudo-reality. Inevitably, we spend money on superfluous products to enhance our pseudo-reality rather than to face the true reality."
That quote pretty much sums up everything Adbusters is trying to do. There's also a frightening amount of truth to it. Everyone liked that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden told us we are not our "fucking khakis," but everyone continues to buy. We were all entranced by the vision of Fight Club, but the same generation (or consumer demographic, same difference.) was seduced by the iPod. And then the iPod mini, because you need one in pink. And holy fuck! The iPod Nano is so tiny and shiny that I NEED to have sex with it! RIGHT NOW!
I have been a video game junkie for much of my life and I have absolutely no need or desire for an Xbox 360. There are games that I will eventually want to play, and the idea of being able to play games and talk to my friend in Texas almost as easily as when he lived two hours away is appealing, but the lineup of games is mostly sequels or movie-licensed crap. Yet people are incredibly excited about this launch. It's not a coincidence that this is the first video game system that had a 30 minute TV special hosted by a celebrity. People have by now conveniently forgotten the audience of freakish clone-people that were paid by Microsoft to clap and coo and form X's with their arms on cue at the E3 presentation.
Further disturbing statistics from the aforelinked Northern Light article: "Suggesting we are indeed the magnified reflection of our socio-political circumstances, Americans' $9 trillion personal debts exceed the U.S. $7 trillion national debt." It also mentions that 1 millions Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2004.
Think about how much power the Xbox 360 will use, along with your computer, DVD player, TiVo-like device, etc. Think about how much that electricity will cost, not in only in dollars, but in pollution from generating electricity. There's a C|Net article about home electronics power consumption that talks about how much electricity all these fancy new plasma TVs are going to use (some models will use as much as a refrigerator). It also mentions that the recharger for your cell phone, laptop, or digital camera often wastes 30-70% of the electricity it draws and can draw power even when it's not charging anything.
Anyway, enough ranting for the moment. Try not to buy things, or try to buy less, and try to tell people about it. And punch a mall Santa Claus in the face while you're at it. He's used to it, he's a homeless drunk.

A new book from the unpublished files of Lancaster Chumley

Among more than 137,000 pages of as yet unpublished writing is a complete children's book, And Away the Toys I Shall Put. There are many references to his attempt at children's literature in his letters. The Collected Letters of Lancaster Chumley, Vol. XVII contains some 370 rejection letters for the then unnamed book and a series of exchanges with friends in which Chumley laments the conservative attitude of publishers at the time. (Further references in his collection of essays, Post-philosophical Inquiries Into the Nature of My Own Genius and in the third volume of his 27 volume (and counting!) autobiography, Among These Days, My Life: Being an Hourly Account of My Existence)). The book has not yet been published except piecemeal in critical journals, but it is already highly anticipated in literary circles.
By any standard of the time, it is progressive, even avant-garde. In simple, yet beautiful language, it tells the story of a group of young children who decide to search out Santa Claus and forego their presents to help a dying child. Each of the children tells parts of the story in turn, though one, Archibald, is obviously the leader and a greater portion of the text is his voice.
Initial reactions to this work are varied. Any Chumleyite knows of Chumley's furious hatred of Santa Claus for both anti-capitalistic and religious reasons. (Chumley was a devout Catholic before his conversion to atheism, allegedly caused by drug use and meeting Allen Ginsberg, though both have denied rumors of a sexual relationship.) Many mistake his anti-Santa Claus attitudes for anti-children attitudes. This is understandable given his later writings on education and moral conduct in the home --see the essay "Philosophy of Child-rearing" for his thoughts on this subject (the short version: children should be raised in an "emotionally sterile" environment to further their intellectual and creative achievements)-- and the fact that he never had children despite his staggeringly numerous affairs. Because of this, some have chosen to view Toys as a needlessly cruel exercise designed to shock, horrify, and disillusion children. But even a superficial reading disproves this, as the children are portrayed sympathetically and their emotional turmoil is entirely unironic.
Others have chosen to view the characters as stand-ins for Chumley and his contemporaries. The main character, Archibald, is certainly a Chumleyesque figure, prone to give philosophical monologues at the drop of a hat, but other characters share aspects of Chumley's personality also. Because of this, The New York Review of Books viewed Toys as a psychological self-examination, Chumley deconstructing himself metaphorically through the transition from child to adult.
Yet another interpretation has been put forth that the work is existential in nature. Santa Claus is God and the children must confront their own nature when it is revealed that he does not exist. Chumley certainly met Sartre as a part of his work with the French Resistance, but he never identified himself as an Existentialist. This novel certainly could have had an influence on Beckett's most famous work, Waiting for Godot.
What has yet to be addressed by any critic, are the erotic sections of the novel, of which little will be known until portions are published this summer in a literary journal. This will also be the first time anyone sees the accompanying illustrations, which consist of engravings of the first 47 positions of the Kama Sutra, displayed in a Neorealist style except for the fact that both of the lover's faces are Chumley's own. At that time, Chumley's likeness had never been published anywhere, so it is unknown if these pictures support the psychological self-examination view of this work, or if it is one of Chumley's many in-jokes to himself. At the least, these sections and illustrations will shed more light onto his relationship with Anais Nin.
Ah, Mr. Chumley. You remain an eternal devil and an eternal delight. New volumes of Chumley's work have produced an uproar in the New England literary scene since he opened his archives to publishers and simultaneously disappeared from the public eye on his 100th birthday in 1999. It is still unknown whether And Away the Toys I Shall Put will be published in whole in the near future, but Chumley will continue to challenge our perceptions of himself and his work for decades to come.

Angels with Mullets

Angels with Mullets. Just when you thought megachurches couldn't get any creepier. Be sure to click the pictures in the megachurch article, by the by.

Nov. 5 is Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day

I'm sure you're all breathless with anticipation. Here's the official site of Worldwide D&D Game Day. I just like saying "Worldwide D&D Game Day" as much as possible because it brings to mind images of a horde of nerds dressed in shoddy, home-made armor overthrowing local institutions of government. The leader of the horde (the fattest one with the best goatee) will then issue demands. "Xlyxzor the conqueror hath a mighty appetite from all the conquering! Bring me cheetos so that I may sup and Mountain Dew to quench my parched palette!" And then they probably get gunned down or nuked or something. But it is remembered thenceforth as The Great Nerd Revolt.
Of course, I'm a dork for even knowing what D&D is, but at least I'm reasonable about it. I don't wear a chainmail hood that I made myself. And yes, there are people who do such things. Some of them live in Ithaca.
If you really want to know what D&D is like, any day of the year, watch the movie, Mazes and Monsters. Starring Tom Hanks! You really need to read that page. Stop reading this and click on it.
I'm glad you're back. Now it gets even better. Thanks to Wikipedia, while I was looking for info on The Dead Alewives' legendary D&D comedy sketch (something else you also need to experience), and I came across the fact that Vin Diesel claims he has played D&D many times. He even wrote the foreword to Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of D&D. Or on Wikipedia. Please note that the Amazon page has a link to the Loser's Guide to Dating. Has Vin Diesel also read this list? It's compiled by Efrain Rivera Jr. I submit that it is possible, and even entirely probable, that Vin Diesel's real name is Efrain Rivera Jr. The fact that the Loser's Guide to dating is not a very good guide supports this hypothesis.
In conclusion, I wish you all a happy dorking, through whatever form of dorkery you choose to engage in.

The power of positive thinking.

You must be thinking that 2,000 dead in Iraq is horrible. Come on, it's not like we've sent thousands of our troops there to die for absolutely no reason, right? You just need to think positively. For example, remember that for every soldier of ours that died, we've killed at least three or four insurgents and seven or eight Iraqi civilians. So c'mon, turn that frown upside-down! Think of the fact that we didn't get nuked (yet). Think of the low oil prices we'll have, any day now. Think about the next country or countries we'll inva, er... liberate. And if none of that works, just hang on for a few more weeks until the holiday season when you can drown all of your woes in an orgy of consumerism.

Duct Tape Bandages?!?!?!?

Strange New Products: Duct Tape Bandages
What the hell? Why do I want these so badly? I don't use band-aids (non-trademark name: adhesive strips, or in Britain, sticking plasters) all that often anyway. I guess it's because they've finally identified my particular nice in the market. Much like the popularity of metrosexualesque behavior has caused an increase in beauty products for men, these duct tape band-aids are a result of the same insidious soulless marketing anti-men identifying DIY as a new personal care target. We might as well just give in to the relentless pressure of capitalism. It's going to devour our souls anyway. If I see these duct tape hoojiwhatzits, I have to get some for my dad.

Smoking China chimp kicks habit

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Smoking China chimp kicks habit

Goddammit, China! Why did you let the monkey start smoking in the first place? We told you not to. Why don't you ever listen?

The library from the future.

Uh... Where to begin? I don't think the Seattle Central Library is the library of the future. I think it's a library from the future. Look at this slideshow tour and tell me I'm wrong. Notice the shiny, candy-like meeting floor that looks like something out of 2046. Look at this staircase! This building is crying out to be the set of a bleak, psychological sci-fi film.
What is the mixing chamber? It sounds like something out of Willy Wonka. Though this whole place looks like something from Willy Wonka. Only with more concrete.
There are several major art pieces, including this sculpture that looks like something from Dave McKean's subconscious.
In case the architecture doesn't float your boat, there's the electronic display of books in circulation, a wall of screens above the circulation desk of all the books put back into circulation that day. The library is averaging around 36,000 books a day and the information is presented in various ways according to the time and Dewey Decimal classification of the material. Designed by George Legrady, it's like a Winamp visualization plugin for books.
The NY times has a review of the library that's an interesting read. You can tell there were points where he got so hot and bothered that he had to stop to, ahem... relieve himself. "Intense vertigo gives way to erotic stimulation.... Don't look now, but the library could be reading you." But really, who can blame him? As he says, it's a big ol' "blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon."
Wikipedia has a interesting article on the history of the library, along with some nice images and informative links.
The library was designed by Dutch design firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture under the direction of their head genius weirdo Rem Koolhaas, who went to film school in Amsterdam and is, as far as I'm concerned, a 6'5" walking advertisement for the legalization of drugs.
So, how soon are the going to convert some of that space into luxury condos? I'll take one.

The Internet just keeps getting cooler

The Internet always has been, as Al Gore said when he invented it, "Friggin awesome!" But there are legions of weirdos out there striving to make it even cooler. You may have heard talk about the Web 2.0, the Semantic Web, etc. Acronyms abound: RDF, XML, AJAX, RSS, REST, etc. But what I like most is when things just work and do cool things without you even having to think about them.
Social bookmarking is such a thing.
I've actively encouraged everyone I know to use StumbleUpon. It's pretty self-explanatory. It's so fun, it will drain away almost all of your free time. Huzzah!
If you're more hardcore about it, there's del.icio.us, which I'm finding more useful. You can bookmark a page and add tags to it, ala Flickr. So then you have a whole list of pages that are available to you from bookmarklet buttons in your web browser, or from logging into the del.icio.us site. They're also adding stuff constantly, and they don't seem to have plans to start charging for stuff, as StumbleUpon is starting to do. They recently added recommendations and adding tags for another person, though I have yet to screw around with these. But one thing they've done is added easy access to your most recently bookmarked pages. They're calling it a linkroll. So when you hear a pretentious hipster talking about his linkroll on his blog (which may also feature a blogroll), you'll know what they're talking about.
So now, in case I haven't updated and you're bored, just look to the left and there's all the websites I've found recently that are worth remembering. Of course, this assumes that you have any free time left due to your newfound addiction to StumbleUpon and del.icio.us.

Nerve.com on Hugh Hefner's new reality TV show

Nerve.com Screening Room - Hugh Hefner's "Girls Next Door"
Holy mother of shit! Something on Nerve that's halfway intelligent... Kind of. Never afraid to attack our culture's sacred cows, this time Nerve rips apart... reality television! Nerve exposes the vapid hypocrisy of reality shows and their attempts to "contrive drama from the aimless reams of footage they amass..." I, for one, was shocked.
But this is not the main issue. Here's the real problem: "There is almost no discussion of sex on the show, because it is quite obvious that Hef doesn't view these women as sexual objects. He views them as hood ornaments." No sex? But Nerve is nothing but sex. Without sex, Nerve would be nothing but bad photography and bad writing by people who are pretending to be bisexual because they think it's hip. Would Nerve be bothered if this was an R-rated HBO show with tits and profanity? Probably not. It would be hailed as a new sexual revolution.
Is this a decently written attack on reality TV? Yes. Is this even remotely related to sex? Yes, if your idea of sex is what the TV (or the Internet) tells you it is. Is it news? Not really, so why is it in Nerve News? Why do I bother to receive this craptacular newsletter anyway?

Koreans are pansies

BBC NEWS | Technology | S Korean dies after games session

He was playing Starcraft, of course. It's tragic and all, but 50 hours? Come on. That's just over two days. Granted, it's a long time to play Starcraft, but who hasn't been up that long? He even took naps and bathroom breaks. He's not even the first guy to do it, either. There was another story about a Korean guy dying in an Internet cafe a year or two ago. I remember him being up like 70 hours or something. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a very lame way to die.

Blotter Barn | LSD Blotter Art Archive

Blotter Barn | LSD Blotter Art Archive

I am completely amazed by this. The name says it all. This guy has been collecting blotter acid sheets for years. He either gets them unsoaked, or chemically treats them to remove the LSD. He considers the blotter sheets folk art. One of my favorites is J. R. "Bob" Dobbs.

The interviews and stories are too bizarre to be invented. You can also buy prints of these images, if you have $1000 or so.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US agrees climate deal with Asia

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | US agrees climate deal with Asia

Hooray for the US undermining every environmental treaty it can!

Super-intelligent Yogurt Spells Doom for Humanity

The Future Health Of Our Brains
If the future health of our brains depends on people like Jan-Willem Bats, the... blogger... of the linked blog, we are truly fucked. This man's craziness is subtle, but deep. He might even appear normal to others except for his obsession with artificial intelligence. According to him, people are studying how to simulate the human brain and in 2020, computer will be able to perform more operations per second than the human brain. Put these two things together and voila! a superhuman AI that will benevolently rule us all.
People are attempting to simulate very small parts of mammal brains, but even if you assume they can simulate an entire human brain, that's still only as smart as a human, not smarter. If you run it faster, it's still thinking like a human, only faster.
The retarded pseudo-science of this whole site aggravates me. He can multiply powers of ten written in scientific notation! He must be right!
He also has an email exchange with a "well-known futurologist", Ian Pearson, who was recently featured in a CNN article about downloading your brain into a computer, which, according to Pearson, will happen in the next 50-70 years. Mr. Bats has decided that he -- "a Dutch guy", as he identifies himself on the site -- is smarter than (the obviously equally insane) Pearson. Pearson's claims are too conservative for Bats, so he wrote to him.
A quote from Mr. Bats' email to Mr. Pearson:

To me, it seems more likely that uploading [He means your brain.], and every other thing we could ever dream up, will be available a fraction of a nanosecond after the Singularity has hit. Completely for free, ofcourse. Running an entire planet smoothly is a triviality to a mind billions of times faster AND smarter than us.

I am assuming a friendly and humane SAI as I write this. Why would a friendly SAI let us suffer through 40 hour work weeks so we can barely pay our way through life? It does not make sense. It doesn't make sense to think there will still be an economy once the Singularity has hit. That whole concept will have vanished.

Oh, well obviously. Let me just ask one small question? How do you program a computer to be friendly? With pixie dust? This man envisions the computer being turned on and instantly spitting out answers to all the world's problems. I picture the scene from Robocop where the prototype ED-209 screams and rips its own brain out.
Let's hear from Mr. Pearson, who cannot fucking spell:

Nothing new here, I myself explored all the same arguments you pose back in 1990, so I've been writing about it for 15 years too. Positive technology feedback was one of my first major insights when I started doing this job. I even rely on it in the design of my own OB1 (optical brain 1) machine, whihc I'm designing to achive human level intelligence by 2015, potentially 1 billion x human intelligence by 2020, in a smart yoghurt.
...But the OB1 machine won't arrive overnight, and the military are already well aware of the project type (we've been discussing this with the military for many years), so it isn't going to suddenly arrive out of the blue and will almost certainly be made illegal before we start building it. If it does get built, it will almost certainly arrive first in a weapon system...

Ah, here's a much more reasonable solution. A cup of yogurt a billion times smarter than humans running a weapon system. Now I don't see the ED-209 scene, I see the SAI launching every nuclear missile in the country. Yee-haw! Finally, the solution to the problem in the Middle East that every American in the Midwest wants to see.
On second thought, please don't click that link. Don't give the man traffic. Don't increase his Google ranking. Just let the page suffocate from lack of attention. Crikey. I'm going to eat some yogurt that won't try to kill me.

The New York Times > Magazine > The Redeemer

The New York Times > Magazine > The Redeemer

Interesting, very in-depth profile of/interview with Pedro Almodovar.

From the article: "My movies are more sincere than I am in real life. My movies are more honest than I am in real life. My movies are clearer than I am in real life."

Stabbety-stab!

This fourth of July weekend, a man got stabbed two blocks from where I live. People in Binghamton are so patriotic. They just can't contain their patriotism. They have to let it out. By stabbing someone.

Weddings are friggin' weird

I went to a wedding recently. It was, as I have stated, friggin' weird.
Seth Godin, in his new blog for his new book, "All Marketers are Liars", says this about weddings:

The American bride's worldview is a twisted, scary place. It's not only about creating a special day, a day just for you, a day that you'll remember, a day that you've dreamed of forever, a day where you are the princess you'd always like to be, but it's also filled with doubt and self-esteem issues.

Why do we "need" $9,000 worth or flowers or a dress that averages $799? (Aside: if the average price of a wedding dress is $800, that means that most brides are spending close to their entire annual discretionary income on an article of clothing that will be worn exactly once). The reason, of course, is that on this day, the way you feel is everything. Nobody NEEDS a wedding. And the way you feel is largely driven by your expectation of how others expect you to behave.

The entire wedding industry is built on a lie. The lie is a story that says, "if your wedding doesn't include at least all of the standard items, you're not special."

Read Godin's whole post.

The Joys of the Corporate World

Today my boss told someone to write a procedure on how to write a procedure. When relating this to another employee, they responded by saying that they wanted to go into the boss's office and exclaim, "I want to take a leak, but I don't know how! There's no procedure!" Sad, but true.
This is the same boss who tells me what he wants, waits for me to do it and then ALWAYS suggests something requiring a ton of additional time and effort. Not a minor modification, but a substantial revision.
Corporate IT is a fluorescent hell.

From the brain of Marshall Brain

From his book (most of which is available for free online), "The Teenager's Guide to the Real World".

"Part 1 — The Hard Facts. These are the basic facts of life that you must understand before you can do anything else. Most of these are hard because they will force you to break down fundamental assumptions that you may have about yourself and your world right now. Start with them."

That's the right way to start off any self-help book. I'm interested in reading this. I think it's going to be my sister's birthday present. Nothing says sweet 16 like breaking down your fundamental assumptions about yourself.
Of course, I'm asking for her to turn into a capitalist if I give her a book where the first chapter is titled, "Money Really Matters", but I think she's a bit young for Marx & Engels.
Yes, I really need to find better things to read while at work...

The Downing Street Memo

House Representative John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, is asking for letters to the President to answer questions asked him by Conyers and the other 88 members of Congress. Read more and sign the letter at www.johnconyers.com.

Four Tet

I like Four Tet a lot. He's releasing a new album, "Everything's Ecstatic" in a week or so. It's already out in Europe. There's a really interesting interview with Kieran Hebden from July '03 courtesy of www.soundonsound.com. The description of his live shows makes me salivate with anticipation. Has he ever done a US tour? I think I really need to see him. He also talks a lot about his process for creating music and mentions that one of his main tools is AudioMulch. And there's an interview with Ross Bencina the creator of that tool at www.em411.com, which stands for Electronic Music 411 and seems pretty derned interesting.
AudioMulch doesn't seem anywhere near as geeky as SuperCollider, a music programming language. But SuperCollider doesn't want to run on my Windows machine. One day when I'm a ruthless dictator, I'll have a Mac in addition to my other computer to avoid such inconveniences.
Read! Listen! Enjoy!

What has the world come to?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Notes on life

Someone forgot to tell Sean William Scott is going to be mighty pissed at all of these people putting an extra 'n' in his name. And that he's in a movie about rednecks directed by an Indian guy. The director's nationality may also explain Jessica Simpson's horrendous "Southern" "accent." Nonetheless, I have been craving me some confederate flag-wavin', car-chasin', rootin'-tootin', flamin' arrow-shootin' action. I'm more excited about this movie than Episode III. Take that as a crack against Star Wars or an embarassing personal admission, however you wish.

Musique

I am currently obsessed with John Frusciante's "Will to Death" and everything by Lightning Bolt, especially their most recent two albums "Ride the Skies" and "Wonderful Rainbow". John Frusciante and Lightning Bolt (who would have been more accurately named Laser Beast) create totally different kinds of music and probably wouldn't get along if you had them over together for tea, but they have this in common: they are geniuses who are also bat-shit crazy. If you don't believe that they're crazy, look at their websites. How about the 3 page (1, 2, 3) handwritten letter from John Frusciante that is the bio for Will to Death. Lightning Bolt's website is misleading as the drawings could be interpreted as cute. But go to the band photos page for completely chaotic shows, or better yet, read some of drummer/singer Brian Chippendale's comics for total insanity. And if you don't believe their music is genius, you'll just have to listen to it.
But don't let all this talk of derangement deter your from listening to their music. Frusciante is very experimental within the traditional area. It's very accessible. He was in the Chili Peppers, for crying out loud. He also has some of the best lyrics I've heard in a long time. He's singing about life and death, but avoiding cliche and managing to really express interesting feelings and ideas. It's a very raw album with very simple production but definitely great. Last night I heard some of the other albums he's done recently and they were very interesting. I'm excited to hear more.
Lightning Bolt is definitely more... out there, experimenting in the realm of pure noise, but their sound is thick like stew. But more like gumbo because it is spicy. There's so many layers to listen to even though it's just a bass and drums and vocals that bring new meaning to the term distorted. Brian showed me some of the DVD they made of a tour they did and it's incredible. I am hopefully going to see one of their shows soon and I don't know if I'm going to survive it. I think they're going to rock so hard that it will liquefy all of my internal organs.
As an exercise in masochism, I looked up what Pitchfork had to say about these albums. They rated Pinback, The Game, Jay-Z and Interpol higher than or equal to all of these albums. Now, I'm not saying that Pitchfork generally has their head so far up their kitsch-obsessed asses, they listen to music with $500 yuppie headphones strapped to their buttcheeks, but, well... Actually that's exactly what I'm saying. Why would you rate regurgitated pop nonsense so high? Why give an unusually high 8.5 to Interpol, a band dedicated to sounding EXACTLY like Joy Division? I guess I'm just still upset that they put two of Jay-Z's albums and Interpol's first album on their best of the first half of the decade list yet completely ignore Mum's "Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today is Ok" as well as most electronic music in general. Their top ten list: #1 - Radiohead - Kid A -- Ok. #2 - Jay-Z - The Blueprint -- ??. #3 - Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights -- ?!?!?!!!. (The punctucation indicates my bewilderment and disbelief at their jackassery.) Thank god we have the independent media to help us recognize corporate America's blatant attempts to shove untalented bands down our throats by having their names and albums in every venue possible.

Strange Rumblings in America

My return from weekend of drunkenness in Philadelphia was greeted with the sobering news of Hunter S. Thompson's death "from a self-inflicted gunshot wound." The articles I saw last night listed him as 65, but the big NYT article I read today said he was born July 18, 1937, which makes him 67. Journalists are already starting to get lazy, knowing they won't be skewered by a relentless, fire-snorting doctor of gonzo. The NY Times has a nice feature on him, with a short bio, an interview from the early nineties, and book reviews of his major work. I can't handle Wild Turkey, but don't let that stop you from drinking a bottle in his honor.