I made light of the appearance of a certain appointed official way back when things were just kinda bad. He isn’t very telegenic and we didn’t see him much until lately. My joke seems even less funny now.
Back in the mid 90s, I was visiting the house that I was in the midst of purchasing and while I was talking to the owner his kids were destroying his cherished record collection in the basement. I didn’t come to their defense at the time, but they are a lot like Frisbees.
I would advise anyone who has cherished music on vinyl to make digital backups. If you want to share the music, you can easily post it on YouTube. Use Windows Movie Maker and import the audio, grab a cool still image of the artist from Google and add the film aging effect and boom, you’re done.
The USB turntable pictured above makes the process very easy. Click the link to find out more about this innovative product. It’s where it’s at.
I mentioned in an earlier post that there are a lot of jobs that could be done from home that are still stuck in offices around the World. Workers often have a hard time selling the idea to a boss. I think someone in Hollywood could make a really cool fantasy sequence from the premise of a boss contemplating what could go wrong if he let his employee work at home.
Here is a blog post from TechRepublic that lists some solid arguments that might help convince your boss to send you home. I may have worded that badly, but you know what you want.
I bought my daughter a pair of counterfeit Converse sneakers.
Nobody died. I do feel a bit guilty knowing that there was no name brand corporation ostensibly overseeing the labor conditions and the environmental impact related to the creation of these less than marvelous replicas. I have read about lots of instances where real brand name products are produced without much regard for these concerns.
Counterfeit medicines have killed people. Counterfeit auto parts could conceivably have killed people.
In the wake of all the recalls from China it’s important to note that there will NEVER be a recall on any counterfeit product that you buy, regardless of the risks it may pose.
There are reports that counterfeit goods fund terrorism.
I am presently living in a country that has a flourishing counterfeit market. I am going to be very diligent about a few things that might pose a risk to my family, such as toothpaste and makeup. I am not going to lie to you and say that I will never again buy a fake pair of shoes.
A 2006 study said that 2% of the American workforce telecommutes full time while 9% do it at least part time. It went on to say that 25% of jobs could potentially be carried out at home and that the savings related to less commuting would be a whooping $3.9 BILLION. Since fuel prices have skyrocketed, it is safe to assume that the potential savings are much higher today.
George Bush asserted that reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil was an essential part of it’s plan for a more peaceful world. I think his angle was to press for more drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico so his buddies could get richer. I don’t pretend to be an expert on US energy or environmental policies I just think he’s a weasel.
Governments could easily put legislation in place that would incentivize companies and employees to embrace telecommuting. They could probably glean the best strategies from companies like IBM.
I am a very jaded person. When I saw this news item about McCain getting an endorsement from a rapper, I assumed that the rapper must be an ass. I was not familiar with Yankee Daddy or his work. My first impressions have dissuaded me from my assumption. I do think that it is a case of them seeing eye to eye on a single issue, immigration. My jadedness has me thinking that McCain’s immigration stance is all about courting voters. The people who are opposed to his stance will probably vote Republican anyway.
I understand that we now live in a global economy. I don’t understand why some items can’t be made by small local businesses and supported by loyal customers based on quality. I was looking around the blogosphere and I saw a picture of a nice freshwater fish caught by a nice lady in some nice American stream or lake…
The trout was over 15 inches long. Congratulations 
The ruler is made in China.
My parents have a wooden yardstick that was made decades ago in Canada. The three feet of wood contains more than inches, it is also printed with some advertisement. You may still be able to get this kind of thing at a farm supply store, I don’t know.
One exception to the virtual disappearance of small time manufacturing of household items is the washboard. The last washboard company left standing in the USA is doing well. They have a program where they take donations to go towards the cost of sending laundry kits to soldiers. Clean socks are pretty important to a soldier.
…When Prince complains.
I wanted to listen to an acoustic cover of Purple Rain on YouTube today. I found out that Prince and his record company have silenced all the videos (or forced the uploaders to silence them).
One resourceful guy who had produced an instructional video on how to play the song simply put an off-site link to his audio in the description.
Over the last few years, many musical artists have reacted to the copyright infringing reality in different ways. Radiohead let people pay whatever they wanted for their recent release. Metallica sued Napster and also some universities.
Some artists that are not in the mainstream have tried adding personal extras to albums that are purchased legally.
If you NEED to listen to a Prince song, you can do a keyword search and then sort your results by the date added. Prince has to sleep sometime.
A successful marketing campaign on other media, such as television, can have people flocking to Google with search terms that almost nobody is optimized for. It hasn’t happened to me yet. The Kimkins thing wasn’t an accident. I stumbled upon a blog today that is enjoying a peak in curiosity about ’silencing your rooster’ the site is called DeadRooster and it is just some guy trying to be funny. He owes a debt of gratitude to people who make drugs and create wacky advertising campaigns for them.
I live in a neighborhood with actual roosters and they wake me up sometimes. It’s not funny.
Frank Zappa was on CNN back in 1986. He was talking about censorship and he told Robert Novak that the USA was going down a path to becoming a Fascist Theocracy. Robert Novak appeared to be incredulous at the time. In recent years he has been a messenger boy for an administration lead by a guy who calls the constitution a goddamned piece of paper. George Bush is on a mission from God, that’s a bit theocratic. Frank Zappa is dead.
War veteran James Blunt is flying high on the US airwaves (occasionally), while in much of the rest of the World he is fucking high. Recording artists often self censor at the behest of their management in order to be radio friendly. Warning labels help steer responsible parents away from violent, explicit and/or profane music. Many parents who would claim to be responsible let their kids buy video games that have worse content than any music CD.
