Extraordinary Machine

Thanks to Fiona Argentina for the image.

O.B. — Over-Blogged

Two words. Holy Crap.

The sheer volume of info (good, bad, both combined, whatever) put on the Internet each day is staggering. The link aggregators (such as MetaFilter, Google News, Plastic, bordom .oO!@#;,., del.icio.us and perhaps a zillion others) alone can batter your reality and blunt your sensibilities. Then you get into the whole world of blogs and the links they’re posting and re-posting, well, mind-boggling sounds like a good term for it. Here is a wacky sampling of this info tsunami.

• First things first. Screw you Sorny Records! Thanks for sitting on a great record for two years while waiting to find a radio single. They are probably trying to artistically stifle Fiona Apple the same way they tried with Mariah Carey years ago. Jump ship, Fiona! Find a better record distributor. I wish there were a combined hit counter on the zillion Extraordinary Machine download sites to show how many fans would have been happy to buy the cd. Lame industry bullshit.
• Indie labels seem to be figuring this whole fiasco out. It seems that most of them understand that pervasive global exposure for their artists would be a good thing.
• Glastonbury will turn the headphone rave culture on its ear this year when it debuts their “silent disco” idea. I thought it was cool when the Flaming Lips did it for The Soft Bulletin tour, but many others didn’t like the rather remote karaoke feel of the whole thing. I just wished the headphones they gave out were closed ear headphones. Twas impossible to wear earplugs with the cheapies they were handing out. IMHO, this drastically reduced the effectiveness of having the headphone content enhance the show.
• The Jr.-Sr. High School in Proctor, Vermont just decided to ban access from school computers to blogging applications and social networking sites like myspace.com. The primary decision cited was that “blogging is not an educational use of school computers.” I would have to disagree on this point. It may not be an educational use now, with zero interaction from teachers. However, this could be an excellent way for teachers to get across important ideas such as not giving out too much personal information on the net or an early introduction to journalism and information science. This could teach kids computer skills, including hardware, software and Internet aspects. One major added bonus for anyone going to college — enhanced keyboarding skills. And it seems strange to me that they would want to discourage kids from reading and writing. Now limiting how much school time can be devoted to such efforts is important, but cutting off this aspect of adolescence and our techno-culture influx won’t do much to help these kids. What is significant about Proctor, Vermont? That is the town where I was raised for nine years (ages 2-11). My brother and sisters went to this High School. C’mon Vermont. I know you’re more liberal than that.
• My Raleigh-based homie S. Dawg Champeon was at SXSW to talk about the web cruft — namely spam, trolls, stalkers, Oh My! I’m sorry I missed it. As we all know, that is my favorite topic when it comes to bitching about weblogs.
• There is so much cool stuff on the web. alexking WP 1.5 Theme Browser and ColorWhore. Amazing. Thanks to geeksmakemehot and nothing fancy.

Well, I think thats enough for now. Must… go.. to.. sleeeeeeeppp…

January 2005! Happy New Year!!

Okay, so I had better post something quick or I could wind up the laughingstock of the 2005 Triangle Bloggers Conference. That’s right — I signed myself up for that event even though I haven’t really been “blogging” for almost a year. Now I did dog blog most of 2004. (You can check that out by clicking on the puppy picture above or certain specific underlined keywords. For example, dog blog). I guess raising the puppy consumed most of the time I had put aside for writing before then. Oh, well. Alva is a welcome addition to my home and is responsible for most of my exercise.

So what is urgent and vital right about now? Well, I don’t know why everyone around the world is not completely obsessed with Har Mar Superstar. (Many thanks to the lovely Gina Suarez for clueing me in!) This guy has more musical and performance talent than most people who presently work in the music industry. (Hello, lip synchers!) You should buy all of Har Mar’s records and then go rent Starsky & Hutch so you can watch him demolish Ben Stiller in the Disco-Off. Hot stuff, I assure you.

I guess the other totally fascinating thing in my life has been Ali G. I have seen the awesome movie, Ali G Indahouse, and just got finished with the Season 1 DVDs from his HBO show. I am currently looking for the British episodes of the show which came before the US version by a year or two. This is some really funny stuff and has expanded my knowledge of British Hip Hop Massiv vocabulary. Respect!

Well, hit me up with a line or two. Let me feel that good vibe. Straight from your booty bone and on up into your fingers. Booyakasha!