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Welcome to my blog. This is the newest stuff, but the old stuff can be found by clicking on the archive links to the right.. As always, I accept any and all comments, arguments, rants, and other assorted e-mails at this address. I don't respond to everything, but if you make a good point, provide something to argue about, make fun of me, make fun of yourself, make fun of someone else, or send in naked pictures of yourself, you stand a pretty good chance of seeing your letter in these not-so-illustrious pages. As for funny, check out Drake's page using the link on the Navigation Menu called 'Drake'. Thanksgiving- the Holiday that doesn't matter It seems to me that every year Thanksgiving becomes less and less about being grateful (to whom?) for all that good stuff in our lives, and more and more about eating turkey and planning the next couple of weeks of shopping. Where are the decorations? The Pilgrim hats and bad Indian impressions? These things have been a staple of Thanksgiving since my childhood. But as I look around me today, I see a few Christmas decorations and a lot of the same-old, same-old. I want to see paper plates with outlines of hands turned into disfigured turkeys. I want bad history lessons about the first Thanksgiving, and cornucopia-stuff. Where's the celebration of Autumn? Leaves of brown and gold and red should decorate the halls (or whatever). Village People rejects should walk around and say 'How' to Amish guys with buckles on their shoes. Muskets should be passed out to strangers on the street. Come on, people- celebrate!
It is in the finest Thanksgiving tradition that we all go out and shoot Turkeys and then push Native Americans off whatever land they happen to be on at the time. Seeing as how there aren't enough Native Americans around for everyone, though, we should choose other classes of people to push around; I propose really tall people and really short people should be first. Damn people always getting slam-dunks, or jobs as carnies, taking these honest professions away from us moderately-heightened people. Then, we can take on the long-hairs, the chin-strappers, the tight-pant wearers, and people who wear socks with Flrip-Flops. After we've confiscated their livelihood, we can all dance around to Men Without Hats and congratulate ourselves on our ability to form a mob and push people around. We can eat and dance until our heads explode, and then whoever we didn't wipe out with our racial purging can inherit the earth. See, it's all just plain old Thanksgiving fun! Updated: awhile ago, 12/05/2003Content. Where's the CONTENT? Yes, I get the irony that I'm bitching about shitty webpages on my own shitty webpage. Screw off, I don't give a damn. It's my webpage, I do what I want. I love the internet. Free information, great ideas, and sometimes really creative projects. Stuff like Strong Bad, Mindless Nothing, and maddox.xmission.com are great sites to visit, but updates on these pages are too far between. What do I have to amuse myself with in the meantime? I tried Evil Empire, I hit up the Onion, and sometimes I browse over to I, Cringley. But this is not enough. I am an Internet junky, and I need more sites. Fill my void, you damn Internet! Give me stuff to read. Make me laugh, make me think, make me cry (it's easy- a poke in the ribs always works), but don't make me go outside and actually have a life of my own. Sunlight is evil. Updated: awhile ago, 12/05/2003I don't want you to call me. EVER. Unless you're one of them.
Don't call me, IM me. If you don't have my account names, then I probably don't want to talk to you anyway. You are just going to have to deal with the fact that I don't like you (and if I don't like you, nobody does). Oh, and if you ever feel the need to IM me and tell me to get offline so you can call, I want you to fall down a flight of stairs and break something. Some people think there are disadvantages to an all-IM lifestyle, and I will agree. Business calls, quick arrangements, and sensitive personal information are the kinds of things phones are good with. But I don't want to spend an hour on the phone with anyone, not even my relatives. I especially don't want to waste an hour of my time with a bunch of circular "So, what do you want to do tonight"/"I don't know, what..." filler phrases and explanations of why I'm breathing heavy. If I wanted you to know, I'd just fucking tell you. To recap: IM me, don't tell me to get offline so you can call, and I am probably naked at any given point in time. Thank you. Updated: 17:46, 11/17/2003Why Filesharing is NOT stealing
I can admit that file sharing has probably been one cause in the drop in CD sales the past couple of years. But file sharing is only one of many reasons CD sales are going down. Here's a partial list of why I think CD sales have dropped:
Don't let anyone fool you into thinking economics is difficult to understand. Here are the basics everyone should know. Of course, if everyone knew what everyone should know, there would be far fewer problems in the world. Like AIDS, or Rocky Road ice cream. Back to economics, but without another list because I've done two on this section already and I refuse to do a third. Something is only worth what other people are willing to pay for it. If someone offers your product for a better deal, or includes some sort of incentive, you have to match that or go out of business. Roses are bought on Valentine's day only by saps who are desperate to get laid but have no originality. See, that wasn't so hard. How does this apply to music? Easy. What are people willing to pay for CDs? Apparently not $17.99. Who is offering a better deal? Apple iTunes for starters (even though hey do have a shitty, shitty name (but at least the i stands for something relevant)). They let you buy just the tracks you want, and burn them to CD. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) sucks, and the fact that the format isn't the standard MP3 or Ogg Vorbis sucks. Oh, and I disapprove of DRM on a moral ground. But otherwise, good service. Now, a bunch of people are offering the same sort of service: Napster v.2, the proposed 'for-pay' Kazaa, and some others I don't feel like researching. Fuck, here is a link to google, look it up yourself. What is the RIAA's response to their own obsolescence? Sue their customers. I love that idea. Whichever dipshit in the mailroom who came up with that idea should pat himself on the forehead with a .45 before he pulls the trigger. The world is better off without dumbasses who think the best way to keep customers is to sue them. Maybe he'll get promoted to president and take the whole company down the drain when he decides to start a company that cuts those plastic tabs off of shoelaces for all those people who hate them. Yeah, that'll get a lot of customers. Dipshit. And there you have my rant about the RIAA, and shoelaces. The best way to keep customers is to give them an incentive to stay (not mob-like "Buy our insurance so nothing happens to you" incentives, actual market incentives) customers. Change your outdated business model or go
quietly into the night. Finally, fire that craphead in the mailroom and whichever Vice President who let him make all those bad decisions. Crap, is the RIAA being run by monkeys rejected from the handicapped-helper training farms for being too retarded? |
I have an "always on" internet connection. It's the best thing in the world, after sex and the Olsen Twins (but very far behind sex with the Olsen Twins; nothing can even hold a candle to that). I also have an IM account- three of them, actually. This is my preferred method of communication. There are so many advantages to IMs when it comes to personal conversations that phones are becoming irrelevant. Advantages such as:
Every time I hear someone try to describe filesharing with a metaphor, they invariably use some sort of physical object to represent the song, a giant
warehouse to represent the RIAA, and some poor sap with money-bleeding gaping wound in the side to represent the artist. This is bullshit, through and through. A digital copy of a song is not a physical thing, should not be represented as a physical thing, and can't be considered in terms of physical things when it comes to theft. What everyone is leaving out of the discussions on piracy is the fact that this is all potential theft. Let me explain: