Archive - May, 2005

Rivers Cuomo Owes Me Twelve Dollars

May 23, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 1 Comment

Make BelieveOk, technically he owes my sister twelve dollars, seeing as she is the one that bought me the latest Weezer album for my 27th birthday two days ago, but the point is that as a Weezer fan, I feel ripped off.

Let’s cut right to the chase, shall we? The heavy suckiness of Make Believe is just barely supported by the mediocrity of the main single Beverly Hills, in which Cuomo takes what could be a nearly tolerable sing along summer song, and thoroughly gays it up with an uncomfortably misplaced soliloquy about three and a half minutes in. Conveniently, Beverly Hills is the first track on the disc, and you may as well stop there. It only gets worse with songs like We Are All On Drugs, and a song called (I shit you not) My Best Friend, with brilliant lyrics like…”There is no other one that can take your place, I feel happy inside when I see your face“. How did we go from El Scorcho to this? Someone please tell me how this transition happens.

I wish Make Believe didn’t suck, I really do. I think Pinkerton is brilliant, I am on my second copy of The Blue Album (I played the first literally to death), I was ok with the 28 minutes of poppy randomness that made up The Green Album, and I really do think Maladroit, although a little off, was overall not a bad album. Hell, I even have that one random Rentals album that Matt Sharp put out in 1995..but Make Believe has ruined it. I think it might be over.

To sum it all up, Pitchfork Media (who admittedly is a bit self important with most of their reviews) gave the album a 0.4. On a scale of 10. A 0.4. And I think they were being generous.

Considering Weezer supposedly went through hundreds of songs and several discarded albums to arrive at this final product, the laziness of this songwriting borders on the offensive. Whether recycling dynamics from the band’s back catalog (see: “Perfect Situation”) or taking the easy Mother Goose rhyme (see: every fucking song here), these 12 tracks sound as if they were dashed off in an afternoon’s work, maybe with Rubin holding the band at gunpoint.

Howard Stern Podcast

May 17, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 14 Comments

Listen To Howard Stern Now
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Howard Stern podcasts. I’m sure that I am not the first person who has thought of this idea, but I want to throw it out there and explain why this makes sense for Howard Stern, Adam Curry, and everyone in between. Here is why I think the king of all media, and the newest of all mediums, should meet in the middle and give each other a boost.

Pod Casting Needs A Hero

I know, Adam Curry is doing just fine. But come on…I think what little mass appeal he had, went out with Boyz II Men in 1995. Are you telling me that you didn’t say “Adam Curry? Adam Curry from MTV? That guy?” when you first heard that he was the man behind the pod casting revolution? Trust me, for now he is best suited to be the unsung hero in the background. Pod casting needs someone who can carry this torch and singlehandedly bring this medium to the masses, transforming it from geek toy into must have. Howard Stern is the self-proclaimed king of all media, and rightfully so. Movies, radio, tv, books, and most recently the web…he has the Midas touch when it comes to new media. Offering his uncensored show via pod cast for download on the web, would instantly bring the concept of pod casting to millions of iPods that now sit filled with Dave Mathews albums simply because their owners don’t know any better.

Stern Needs A Boost
Come this winter, when Howard Stern makes his much hyped move to the wild west that is satellite radio, he will be in a position that he has not been in for a long time. He will be losing listeners, and will be facing an uphill battle, the likes of which he has never faced. Uncensored and living it up on FCC free, paid radio, Stern will no doubt lose millions of listeners who decide that hearing his show for 20 minutes each morning on the way to work, just doesn’t justify the equipment costs and subscription fees that come with following Stern to his safe haven. One has to admire his willingness to move and take a chance on satellite, but you can’t help but wonder if he is overestimating the number of people that will choose to go with him. Adding Stern pod casts to the mix will allow potential listeners to still enjoy Stern’s show (for a fee… see below) without committing to the whole Sirius package. Despite what some say, content is still king, and in this new media world, people love getting this content a la carte.

Closing Argument
Most people listen to Stern during their morning commute, which leaves about 4/5 of each show, missed by his core audience simply due to time and place constraints. In my case, I am lucky to catch 8 minutes of the show between my front door and my office. If I get in the car during commercial time, forget it. I get none.

I would however, happily download Stern pod casts and listen to them at work, or at the gym, or anywhere else on my iPod…at my leisure. They already offer free streaming versions of their content if you are a subscriber, why not offer pod cast versions to subscribers as well, and allow non-subscribers to buy content a la carte as well? If Sirius were smart, they would offer the ability to download Stern pod casts (or any of their shows via pod cast for that matter) on a one day delay and charge a nominal fee of $0.50 to $1.00 per download. Under this setup, if the typical user downloaded 2/3 of the Stern shows in a given month, that is $14 per month, or $2 more per month than the standard Sirius subscription. I would be much more likely to do this than I would to purchase a Sirius subscription and applicable hardware.

No One Cares About Bangor, Maine

May 13, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 1 Comment

As you may or may not have noticed, my posts have been few and far between this week. Things have been a bit hectic personally and professionally. Basically just been crazy busy and didn’t have a lot of time to spend spitting my normal propaganda in blog form. I did think about and come across some random things though, and none of them really warranted a full post all by themselves. Anyways, here is what’s been on my mind.

UPDATE: Looks like this is happening. More from MediaPost
I think I am ready for a Google portal, a “MyGoogle” if you will. They (Google) own the domain mygoogle.com, and it really just seems like the last logical piece that would bring it all together. Take news, search, desktop search, gmail, maps, dodgeball, orkut, froogle, local, picasa, and blogger, roll em all up, and package them nice and neat MyYahoo style and take over my desktop once and for all. I’m here, I’m willing, just take me.

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I recently saw an ad for YASNS (yet another social networking site) called FriendCircles.com, and decided to sign up. Not because I cared much about being a part of the site, but more because the graphics looked like they were straight out of Friendster’s dumpster and I wanted to see if this was really the tent-show operation it appeared to be. Not surprisingly, it was. Basically FriendCircles.com is takes mesh of MySpace and Friendster’s look and feel and wraps it around an oddly inactive seeming community run by FriendSearch. I guess it was just a matter of time before social networking scene followed the model of turnkey dating sites and just began slapping different skins on a shared back end.

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If you liked beer.com’s virtual bartender, check out this one from Bavaria. Basically the same thing, but for some reason it is slightly hotter when it is not in English. English commands still seem to work though.

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A great slideshow of innovate products from this week’s Onion. If you are somehow unfamiliar with The Onion, check it out. These guys bring it every week and it is always hilarious.

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No one cares about Bangor, Maine. Whenever there is a suspected terrorist on board a flight coming from overseas, we send them to Bangor, Maine until we figure out what is going on. No body checks the no-fly lists BEFORE the planes take off, so poor Bangor, Maine gets the shit end of the stick and acts as the eastern seaboard’s toll booth for incoming problem flights.

Air France has Cat Stevens on board? Bangor, Maine.

A plane full of Iraqi insurgents? Bangor, Maine.

747 hijacked and out of control? Shoot them down over Bangor, Maine.

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As you may have noticed, I have a banner up on the right side of the site for BustedTees.com. I try my best to only put up ads for cool companies that I would buy from or have bought from. BustedTees has some pretty awesome t-shirts that I highly recommend. I just bought my sister one for her birthday. Check ‘em out.

CAPTCHA Is Hard

May 9, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 1 Comment

Ok, seriously. I think the CAPTCHA stuff is getting a little absurd. I would not be exaggerating if I said that I get about 2-3 of these wrong per week lately. I mean, what the hell is this?

I understand the need for things like this, but they are beginning to make me feel stupid.

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