Music on the interwebs: ur doin it wrong.

One of my favorite bands with local connections is OAR. They're a bunch of guys who went to Ohio State, created a jam band, and eventually figured out they could be a billion times awesomer by pursuing music careers than by getting degrees in accounting or whatever. They put in their time and paid their dues, releasing several albums on an indie label before getting a major label to sign them. They had a significant grassroots following, gaining attention largely through the internet and word-of-mouth rather than radio airtime.

One of the coolest things about them was their willingness to share their live performances. They allowed fans to plug a laptop into their soundboard at live shows, then put the show on the internet--for free. Unless a given show was being recorded for a live album, you could snag a copy at archive.org and not pay a dime. I did it a time or two; not so much to have entire performances (although I did grab a well-known show at the Hammerstein Ballroom), but to get some of their more fun tracks or covers or joint performances with other acts playing with them. I mean, I had all the albums, so there wasn't much in the live shows that I didn't have in some form elsewhere. But it was a great way to spread the word, and a very listener-friendly way to get people to listen to them live; it was especially helpful because they are very different live than they are in the studio, and the live shows are where they really shine.

So today on Facebook, I saw an update from the OAR fanpage that said...

liveoar.com is now live!! check it out, get your FREE RED ROCKS download. wwwliveoar.com [sic]. 40+ live O.A.R. shows in high quality MP3 and FLAC formats.

Intrigued, I hopped over to the website to see what they had to offer. It had been a while since I'd done any downloading, maybe there'd be something I was interested in.

What I saw was a list of prices... starting at $7.99 and going to $15.99.

(Except, of course, for the free Red Rocks download.)

Now, this is a band that tours the country and charges $30 or more a ticket. They have songs getting national airtime. They have made it, for lack of a better term. Their sound is more "radio-friendly" (read: mainstream and boring) than it used to be... there's less of a reggae feel, and more of a "this would make a great Top 40 song!" feel. And today they have officially closed the door on one of the characteristics that made them unique: a chance for people to experience their live shows without having to pay through the nose.

I get that everything is about profit for them, now. You've gotten a taste of the life and you want more. But... come on. A free show on the internet has never taken a dollar out of your pocket. It's never kept people from coming to shows. It's never kept them from buying your albums. It's grown your fanbase beyond what you might have otherwise have expected. Is making yourself like every other band worth an extra couple hundred dollars in download revenues?

On the archive.org page, there's a note from about a year ago, explaining the policy change. They tell people they're welcome to record the show themselves, using whatever crappy audio equipment they can bring into the show. Even more, they claim the shows are BETTER suited to not be through the soundboard (because, you know, shows always sound better when you've got the drunken frat boy next to you screaming along and ruining the audio).

I dunno... maybe there are suckers out there who will pay top dollar for repackaged and recycled material. God knows the labels have already figured out that they can toss a couple new tracks onto a Greatest Hits album to boost sales--although that's been countered by single-track download options like iTunes and amazon.com. But it really does a disservice to your fans to take away a nice option like that in the name of greater profit.

Then again... I didn't buy their last album, or buy a ticket to their last show in the area, because they've started to take a new musical direction, so I guess they're not marketing to me anymore.

(Oh, and by the way... OAR? Jerry is supposed to be a saxophonist, not a guitarist.)

Owwww.

It is a well-documented fact that I'm an idiot. While I am of reasonable intelligence, I sometimes do things that make five-year-olds shake their head in disbelief. But occasionally, I wonder if the universe is conspiring against me.

There are three Token Pets: two cats and a dog. The dog believes that cat food is the most tasty thing she's experienced since... well, cat poop. While we have broken her of her tendency to go litter-box diving, we haven't figured out how to keep her from gobbling down the Purina One Weight and Hairball Control formula (which does not help with her weight, but I have not noticed her having problems with hairballs). Our current method of prevention is to put the cat food dish in the bathtub in the master bath, then keep the door wedged mostly shut with a doorstop.

A key component to this story is that the door to the bathroom opens outwards, so keep that in mind. For those of you who are having a hard time visualizing the scenario, below is a detailed artist's rendition of the room:

With this scenario, the cats can get in and eat, but the dog cannot wedge her way in to chow down on $8-for-7-lbs cat food, rather than her $14-for-3-metric-tons dog food.

Of course, we can remove the doorstop once we're home, as she's not bold enough to actively sneak food while we're there. So when I come home after work, I go upstairs to change clothes and remove the doorstop; it's an automatic routine at this point.

Yesterday, I was in a bit of a hurry as I desperately needed to take a piss (pardon my french) when I got home. So I kicked the doorstop to the side, swung the door open, and stepped towards the bathroom, all in one incredibly graceful and ballet-like motion.

99.999999% of the time, this is a very simple process.

Apparently, once in a gajillion times, it will work like this:

1. Instead of scooting well out of the way, the doorstop will tumble a time or two and then stop.
2. When the doorstop stops, it will be sitting upright (i.e. in proper doorstop fashion).
3. It will also, coincidentally, be facing in such a manner as to stop the opening door.

And, if one is hurriedly opening the door and the doorstop engages in the above process, the door will stop abruptly.

If one is already in the process of walking into the bathroom, anticipating that the door will open fully, one will collide with great force with the edge of the bathroom door on one's temple, creating a cartoonish "BOOOOOOOOOONG" sound on the door and creating a two-inch ridge along one's temple in the process. One will also curse and swear and smack the door, because it was obviously the door's fault. One will also kick the doorstop across the room, as it was a co-conspirator in the assault.

In an unrelated note, does anyone know what a concussion smells like because butterflies have garble clown foxtrot woop woop asfxcv;waerwa.

A certain level of comfort

This morning, as I'm leaving for work, the following conversation takes place...

Me: Okay, I'm leaving.

Token Wife: Good. Go earn your paycheck, so you can support me in the style to which I've become accustomed.

Me: You mean the white-collar equivalent of poverty, brought about by the mortgage crisis in America?

Token Wife: Yep, that's the one.

Me: Can do.

I'm just smart enough to feel stupid

I'm moderately intelligent, when it comes to techie stuff. I've been around computers since 2nd or 3rd grade, back when our Apple IIe was high-tech (with its 5.25 floppy drive and whopping 64 kB of RAM). I'm the de facto IT guy at work while we lack an actual IT person, and I often get tabbed for projects that involve fiddling with computer-y stuff.

And in typical man-fashion, I hate asking for help... which means that I hate calling customer support at home when my internet connection goes out. Our Road Runner service has been erratic over the past four years; in fact, it's even erratic in its erraticity, often going for months without a hitch then getting goofy a couple of times in a month for no reason.

If something goes wrong, I've always done the basics: I unplug and replug the cable modem (both the power cable and the cat-5 cable, just in case). I reboot the computer. I check my Network Connections page to see if there are any klaxons and red flashing signs of impending doom. I don't want to call tech support and be the "oh, wait, I have to turn the power switch ON?" person.

When we came back from a glorious Easter Sunday in Dayton, I found the internet connection to be somewhat lacking in... well, connection. I did the usual routine, but no dice. Because I know that sometimes the connection in Delaware sucks because it's Delaware, I played some spider solitaire and let it sit overnight. (My win percentage is currently 40% on medium difficulty, if you really must know.)

Today, when I came home from work, the problem still remained. So I re-unplugged the modem, re-replugged, and... nothing. So I took a deep breath and called Road Runner. I quickly ran through the automated system directly to a live person. This man referred to himself as "Jay," which I can only assume is short of Jaymundabahacraplakistanamajad, based on his accent. We discussed which modem lights were lit and which were flashing. I mentioned I'd run through the reboot routine already, to save us a step. He asked if my computer was connected directly to the modem. Since I was on the desktop and not the laptop (which runs through a wireless router), I said "yes." We went through a couple more things, then he had me go to my Network Connections.

While there, he asked for the IP address. I rattled it off.

Pause.

"Oh, are you using a router?"

Bugger.

Yep.

When he asked if I was connected directly, I said "yes" because I was thinking in terms of wired vs. wireless.

But of course, the wires run from the wall, to the modem, to the router, then to the computer.

I froze like a deer in the headlights. Crap crap crap. I had rebooted the modem, but not the router. Jay, with that "you idiot" voice, asked me to unplug the router. Of course, I instantly knew that would fix the problem. As soon as I plugged the router back in, everything would be fine. I knew it, and he knew it. He sensed my hesitation and knew he'd hit a nerve. He very nicely asked me about the router while we were letting it restart, asking what brand it is, blah blah. You know, on the one-in-a-billion chance it was NOT going to be fixed by me doing the most basic task on the router possible.

As soon as the router got power, I saw my weather plug-in pop up on my desktop with the current conditions. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. It was working. I knew it. He knew it.

He asked me to check and see if my browser was working. I went ahead and clicked it, knowing full well it would. "Yeah, it looks like," I said.

With what might have been a touch of gloating in his voice, he asked me to visit ANOTHER page, to make sure. Like somehow my connection had been restored to Google, but not the rest of the intertubes. But I lost the game fair and square, so I went to Yahoo! and naturally, it worked.

"Yep, it's all good," I muttered, trying to end the conversation.

"Great! I'm sorry about the inconvenience in the loss of your internet connection," he said, twisting the knife one more time. I mean, technically, my connection was never lost... the internet was always there, waiting for me to pull my head out of my ass. "Is there anything else we can do for you today?"

"Nope, that'll do it," I said.

"Fantastic! Thank you for calling and have a nice day," he said cheerfully.

"Thanks, you too," I replied.

"Thank you, you also... umm, have a nice day," he said, stumbling over his response.

Whoops. Apparently we skipped to the wrong part of his script. He knew it, I knew it. I smiled at his small flub, and gloated for a moment. Sure, I made a boneheaded rookie IT mistake, but he made a boneheaded grammatical error! So we're even! Err, sort of. In my mind.

I think next time I'm just going to flip the switch on the entire surge protector.

I spent $8 on a bag of crap. Err, magic beans.

I am proof positive that males of our species never entirely grow up.

We believe we're capable of playing professional sports and of attracting the attention of beautiful women even when reality has punched us in the face repeatedly to tell us otherwise. We laugh at farts and stare at boobs long after it's even vaguely socially acceptable to do so. Most importantly, we love toys; eventually we just trade out action figures for power tools, and video game systems for home entertainment systems, but we love things to play with (other than boobs).

Recently, the toy-loving side of my persona wisely invested $8 in a bag of crap from Woot. I spent days wondering about its contents, dreaming of vacuuming robots and scores of refurbished mp3 players and USB-powered pole dancers. I tracked my package's progress on FedEx's website like a less-paunchy, less-balding, less-mulletted version of Dog the Bounty Hunter.

When my bag of crap arrived, I was ecstatic. I may have possibly skipped to the front porch to get my package, throwing caution (and the rest of the mail) to the wind. I lugged my not-inconsiderable box into the kitchen and tore in with a Christmas-orgy-esque glee.

Unfortunately, my bag of crap was missing some things.

Like, umm... a bag.

And two or more items to accompany the single item that had shown up at my doorstep.

Which was a Philips speaker system for a computer or gaming system.


Oh, also missing: instructions for the speaker setup. And an adapter to connect it to a gaming system. And a 3.5mm cable to connect it to anything.

At which point my $8 was starting to seem a little, umm... ripped-off.

Now, granted, Woot warns you that you're going to get random crap. Some people get installation disks for products (without the product). Sometimes they get mounting brackets without anything to mount. Products sent may be non-functional, refurbished, or... y'know, missing cords.

That being said, since this was the ONLY product I was sent for my $8, I was a little put-out. I immediately fired off a pair of emails: one to Philips, asking if they could hook me up with the cable, and one to Woot asking if they had mistakenly not sent additional items and a bag. Not expecting much, I got slightly glum about my virgin bag of crap being a bust.

After a day, Philips responded saying they couldn't ship parts individually and to return it to the store. Whoops. I replied that I had had the speakers shipped to me as a gift (not technically untrue, in a sense) and wasn't there ANY way I could get the cables? They replied back, suggesting I try to buy them at Radio Shack or similar.

Being a resourceful fellow, I procured an unused cable from [REDACTED, BUT DEFINITELY NOT MY OFFICE], and plugged in my new speakers. I fired up iTunes, just to see if everything would work out okay. I queued up Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance" (because if this isn't the song that instantly comes to YOUR mind when you go to test out your music player, something is wrong with you), and...

Okay, I won't lie.

I started giggling.

'Cause... the subwoofer started, well... VIBRATING things.

Things across the room.

Now, I should say that while I did have a brief hip-hop music phase in high school, I was never the "bumpin' sound system that pisses off every other car on the road" type. Bass doesn't particularly impress me. But to hook up a pair of $8 speakers to your computer and be able to hear your iTunes outside the house (with the WINDOWS CLOSED)... it's pretty much awesome to the male mind.

Of course, my next step was ooooooobviously to create a "party mix" that would allow me to use my new-found toys properly.

And within a matter of minutes, I had a playlist.

That was 12 hours long.

You know, in case I needed music for a kegger that lasted longer than the number of daylight hours in a day.

I haven't even turned on the stereo downstairs in days.

Oh, and... as a result of my email, Woot sent me a second package with a camera bag, an mp3 player, a multi-tool/screwdriver combo, and...

...an action figure.

Poor Michael Phelps

If you thought the Kellogg sponsorship loss was bad for Michael Phelps, check this out: no motivational speaking tour in Canada.

Yes, yes, we know. Drugs are bad, mmmmmkay?



But can we be serious for a moment?

The speaking engagements were "well on their way to selling out" because of the speaker. People love Michael Phelps. They want to have his babies. They believe his tears can cure cancer. He can whip Chuck Norris' ass.

Does the fact that he took hits from the bong change that?



Can he still not speak to the benefits of hard work and dedication? Moreso than Alex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds?



While it's great to have role models who are paragons of virtue, it's also important to have role models who are ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS. People are fallible. People mess up. People do things that aren't always in their best interests. Then they (hopefully) learn something and move forward in life.

But I guess since the tickets are non-refundable, the promoter really doesn't care. He's got his money, and that's motivation enough for him.

(PS--Martin Sheen, Phelps' replacement on the tour, struggled with alcohol in his younger days; his heart attack on the set of Apocalypse Now was likely due at least in part to his alcohol use. So if the promoter's trying to take the moral high ground on substance use, that might not have been the way to go.)

At the intersection of circumstance and coincidence

Concepts like "karma" or "fate" require a greater belief in a higher power than I, as an avowed atheist, am willing to personally invest; while they may not require the Judeo-Christian singular white male God, they at least imply some sort of cosmic driving force with a minimal level of sentience and plan-making capability in order to line up the universal dominoes properly.

The human brain is set up to recognize patterns, sometimes even where none truly exists. That's how people wind up seeing Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, or Jesus in a rock outcropping. What they interpret as a divine sign is really nothing more than a collection of lines that the mind tries to make sense of. Of course, this inductive pattern recognition isn't simply limited to pure sensory phenomena; it's how we wind up with old wives' tales ("no, seriously, if your pregnant belly is high, it's a boy!") and concepts like "what goes around, comes around." Because we want to see the wicked punished, any negative outcome is rubber-stamped with "that's karma." (Of course, if bad things happen to good people, it's because "the Lord works in mysterious ways." But whatever.)

That being said, sometimes the timing of events is enough to make anyone pause. The idea of things in groups of three probably goes back as far as humans (or chimps) being able to put their opposable thumb and pinky finger together; we have a holy trinity to show for it, as well as about a billion other things. When someone notable dies, some people begin looking around nervously, waiting for two others to fall. And in a notably dark week in my personal history, I've had two family members go to the hospital.

On the flip side, there have been just enough positives in the week to keep a sort of mental and emotional equilibrium: a bag of crap (which is better than it sounds at first, believe it or not), an unexpected email, a friend stepping up to the plate. Not to suggest that I'd be going off the deep end without a few bones being tossed my way, but if ever there were an occasion for some well-timed smiles, well...

I see patterns. But what I see are the touches of man, overlaid upon the body of randomness that is life; a carving of marble, that incorporates the whorls and imperfections of the stone into the overall design.

So to all of you who hold chisels in my life: thank you.

Thank you, CNN, for making the concept of "news" utterly meaningless.

During my lunchtime today, I hopped on the CNN website. I occasionally like to know what is going on in the world (unless it involves women who are having octuplets while on welfare), and CNN seems as good as place as any.

Or it had, until today.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the following front page:




Now, admittedly, I hate the concept of iReport... which is essentially, "Hey, you've got a camera and an internet connection, do you want to pretend to be a journalist?" There's a reason people go to journalism school, kids. They teach things like "journalistic integrity," "writing skills," and "staying the fuck out of the police's way."

However, CNN has put this link in their top stories, so I figure it's worth a go. Thus, I click on the link and find...

...an iEditorial.

From a guy named "Chuck."

Chuck, whose qualifications apparently include "owning a webcam" and "having a pulse," goes on at length about his personal feelings regarding our President's plan to revive the economy. There is no reporting, here. There is no expert opinion. Chuck seems to know as much about the economy as I do. However, he felt the need to express his thoughts about how the stimulus package should be "perfect," in contrast to our President's admission that the package will not be perfect. This expression is Chuck's constitution-given right; he can rail all day about pork in the stimulus bill. But... really, CNN? This is a front-page story?

My favorite part is the following:

"If you need to, draft the bill yourself... or how about letting the American people decide what should be in this stimulus bill, rather than your cronies in the House..."

Apparently Chuck forgot his Schoolhouse Rock...



The President cannot draft the bill. The American people cannot vote directly on legislation.

Chuck's rant is full of vague generalities, gross oversimplifications, and unreasonable (and unrealistic) demands for action that might work in a dictatorship, but don't work well in a democratic republic with a sturdy set of checks and balances.

Maybe it's time to check out MSNBC; hopefully they're not putting Amateur Night front and center on their webpage.

Cheap movies, cheap pizza, cheap women

Recently, I took a few minutes to analyze the search engine keywords that have led people to my blog. I'm sure this is useful to legitimate websites/bloggers who wish make sure that their content matches up to what their customers/readers want. For me, it's just another gadget to make me giggle. What follows is a list of the most popular terms that led people to my door; note that I've sometimes lumped together searches that are technically different (wal mart $5 bin and $5 movie bin at wal-mart, for example). This is what qualitative data experts call "coding." Or something. At any rate, here is the list:

"Pizza Hut lunch buffet": 11. Although one of those was actually typed as "lunch buffet sever;" I really hope they misspelled "server" with that one, otherwise I'm never eating at Pizza Hut again.

"5 dollar movie bin at Wal-mart": 9. I knew the bin was popular, based on the number of people burrowing through it. What I didn't know was that people were doing Google searches about it.

"Token Liberal": 4. Of course, in looking at Google myself, there are other "Token Liberals" out there. One of them even snagged the eponymous URL for his blog. IDENTITY THEFT!!!

Some combo of "John Belushi" and "Jack Daniels": 4. Everybody wants to know what Belushi chugged in Animal House. The world may never know.

"Hummus homeland security": 2. Does this come up a lot? Are you bringing hummus through customs, or trying to bribe TSAs with bagel chips?

And finally...

"toplesswomen.blogspot.com": 1.

As Bill Simmons says... "Yep, these are my readers."

(P.S. You know you're going to go look at toplesswomen.blogspot.com after you finish reading this.)

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Now playing: Jimmy Buffett - The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful
via FoxyTunes

The Mountain Dew Incident

Saturday night, the Token Father-in-law asked us to go to the store to pick up some pop. We were in Dayton to visit our respective halves of family, and we would be near the store while visiting my parents and grandma. Being complete idiots, we forgot while out; therefore, I offered to go back out and get the pop at 10 at night. And this is what happened...

The father-in-law, being out of Diet Mountain Dew (which is a precious commodity in our family, not unlike gold or President Obama collectible dinner plates), hands me $12 and asks me to pick up some pop. He has seen an ad advertising 3-for$11, which is what passes for a good deal now (gone are the days of 4-for$10; curse you, shoddy economy). He asks for two Diet Dews and one Pepsi.

I drive to the store, head to the pop section... and the labels on the shelf say $4.69 each. While I'm no math whiz, that seems like slightly more than 3-for-$11, so I call the house (yay cell phones!). I tell him the price, he says "just pick up one Diet Dew." I tell him I can go ahead and still get what he wants, I just wanted to make sure I hadn't maybe gone to the wrong store or something--because it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he said "K-Mart" and I heard "Kroger." I'm kinda stupid like that. "No, I must have misread or something," he says. "Just get the one."

I take my one 12-pack of Diet Dew to the self-checkout area, which is arguably the greatest invention of the past 10 years. When I swipe my pop over the scanner, it comes up $3.67 (which of course is one-third of 3-for-$11, for those of you keeping score at home). I say "Woo-hoo" and press the "cancel order" button. The lady at the kiosk asks if I want to cancel. I say "Yes, I want to go get some more." She cancels it, and I walk back to the pop section. I grab another Diet Dew and a Pepsi and walk back to the self-checkout.

I ring up the two Diet Dews at $3.67 apiece. The Pepsi... rings up $4.69. I ask the lady at the kiosk what the hell the deal is. She says she doesn't know, but asks another lady who is currently self-checking-out also, who apparently is a store manager... either that, or she simply has an uncanny knowledge of the pop sales that Kroger features. Either way, she's the one to ask. The lady says, "Oh, the 3-for-$11 is only on Mountain Dew products. But if you buy three, you also get one of the blue boxes free, so it's kind of 4-for-$11 then."

So I pause my order, walk back to the pop section again, return the Pepsi, and pick up another Diet Dew and a "blue Dew" (which is Raspberry and Ginseng or some crap; I'm not sure, but I don't care, because it's free and I must have it). Back to the self-scan, where it rings up right for my third Diet Dew... but also rings up $3.67 for the blue one, which should ring up somewhere in the vicinity of... oh, say $0.00. I ask the manager/pop sale lady, and she says it'll take the cost off when I'm ready to pay. So I put the blue one down on top of one of the Diets... and it slides to the side and half-falls off, bonking against the counter. The manager instantly says "Let's get you a new one of those." I say, "It's okay, it's no big..." and then look down, where there's a puddle of blue Dew on the floor. It fell less than six inches, but somehow ruptured a can. And it's not a little leak... oh no. There is blue liquid EVERYWHERE.

So I go back to the pop section AGAIN and get another blue one, come back, and put it on shelf... and the self-scanner gets mad, because I put something on the counter without ringing it up (being weight sensitive and all, it knows I'm trying to steal pop from Kroger). So the cashier fixes it and I go to pay. When I hit the "pay now" button, the total drops to $11. Awesome. So I stick in two five dollar bills, look at the screen, and it says "$2.03 remaining." I only have $2 cash left; apparently tax put me beyond my $12. Of course, I don't have any of my OWN cash; I own a debit card! I don't pay cash for SQUAT, these days. The odds of me having a dollar bill in my pocket are slightly less than me having a rabid badger in my pocket. So I stop, pull out my debit card, and pay for $2.03 with it. I grab my four 12-packs and walk to the car. I put the pop on the grounds next to my car down to grab my car keys and... pat what appear to be empty pockets. Nope. No car keys.

I walk BACK inside, leaving my pop next to the car, hoping some random serial soda-thief doesn't pick that particular moment to strike. I go over to the register (the checkout lady is gone, of course), and find my keys sitting on the self-scanner; I apparently left them during all this, possibly even as I was going back and forth to the pop section repeatedly. Yay key security! I grab the keys, go back to the car, load up my pop (which thankfully has escaped the lecherous eyes of Dewmongers), and drive away... feeling like the world's biggest moron.