Published April 26th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
It’s been pretty interesting to read about the economics of mass-market book publishing w/r/t Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarism to-do. Apparently there are these “book packaging companies” (a/k/a ghostwriters) that publishers outsource their best-selling series (i.e. For Dummies, Sweet Valley Whatever, etc.) to, in order to cut costs and boost volume.
It struck me that this is exactly what execs in most other media would *love* to be able to do, if it just didn’t take so damn many *people* to make a viable video game / movie / album / etc. Or am I wrong about this? Would releasing a new “50 Cent” album or “Michael Bay” movie every month make the “brand” more or less profitable in the long term. I’m kind of leaning towards the latter, but what do I know about the global economics of “entertainment?” (And how many quotation marks is too many, for that matter?)
And also… Yeah, of course this is already happening with stuff like “direct-to-video” Disney sequels and crap-tastic annual releases for successful video game franchises. And let’s not even get started with the glut of pirate DVD mash-ups available from street vendors and so on. And where does it all end? Is the market so starved for new content that they have to turn to these kind of cookie-cutter techniques?
And why does the content have to be “new” anyway? (Ok, I really have to stop extrapolating here, because I’m about one and a half jumps away from equating 2001 with Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream.) Anyway, I’m not trying to be a crotchety bastard here, just felt like floggin the ol’ dead horse for awhile. Thanks for your time! (And yes… Of course I want to try some Berries & Cream =P)
Published April 25th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
In the wake of some out-of-context diss on a celeb-gossip blog, Kevin Smith has spent the last few weeks posting the entire story of Jason Mewes’ decline into and recovery from heroin (and a bunch of other drugs) addiction. It’s a really great piece, and now that he’s finished posting, you can read the whole thing start to finish, beginning here:
Me and My Shadow, Pt. 1
Just make sure that you (counter-intuitively) click the << Previous link at the very bottom of each page to move forward through the chapters.
Published April 25th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
Go ask yer dad (or his friend at least)
Published April 20th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
Been putting up a lot of music lately, so why not keep it up? Today we’re going to the archives for some mid-70’s Neil Young. Tonight’s The Night is easily one of the top 2 or 3 albums he’s recorded and it holds up with zero apology today. Seriously, if you don’t have this, get it.
Neil Young - Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown
Neil Young - Mellow My Mind
Neil Young - Tonight’s The Night - Part II
Published April 19th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
Browsing the questions posted to AskMetaFilter by Anonymous can make for some good reading, in a PostSecret kind of way.
Published April 19th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
Since we’re sort of on the subject of music-biz ball-dropping today, let’s have a look at this new album (Seven Day Smile) from Jane Weaver. It’s not really new, is the thing. It was recorded several years ago and features production work by Andy Votel. Oh, and also you may have heard of the band that’s backing her on these tracks, they’re called Doves. So why did this not get released till now? Well the boss of her label died in 1999 and I guess nobody else could be arsed (pardon my british) to listen to the tapes and put the damn thing out. Or I dunno, maybe these tracks just plain suck? Right, that must be it… =)
Jane Weaver - Starglow
Jane Weaver - Once You’d Given Me Up
Published April 19th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
Now here’s an interesting article about evolutionary challenges faced by city-dwelling animals which inadvertently mines the same comic territory as indietits.com with phrases like “urban great tits” and “individual tits.” Other amusing news today includes this article detailing George Michael’s penchant for pot which is full of fun British slang like, “I hadn’t heard a dickie bird from anyone on George’s label” and “All that dope put paid to it!”
Published April 19th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
The Tyde are coming back with a new album out this week in the UK and “sometime this summer” here in the US. As with a lot of music, I’m pretty stupefied as to how this is not getting a fairer shake from labels here. OK, fine, it’s never going to be as big as Mariah Carey or anything, but there is stuff on here that could totally work in a “This week’s episode of Gilmore Girls featured music by” kind of way. Case in point:
The Tyde - The Pilot
I’m no marketing genius, but I tell you that song will sell fuckin’ jeans! (So to speak…) And the slow songs are as awesome as ever too:
The Tyde - Seperate Cars
The Tyde - Don’t Need a Leash
In conclusion, whenever this album *does* come out in your country, please get it! kthx =P
[UPDATE] And yes… you can buy it right now on Bleep.com. I am still pretty pissed at them, but they at least wrote back to me about my complaint and said something to the effect of “Sorry we are so dumb” so I guess I’ll let it slide. But just MAKE SURE YOU PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD if you’re going to buy anything there!! =)
Published April 18th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
This guy undertook the (nearly) thankless task of dissecting MySpace’s crazy-ass HTML and CSS markup, with the goal of producing a non-ADD-inducing profile page. The end result is pretty nice, although perhaps not quite as nice as this guy’s earlier attempt which demonstrated that disabling the banner ad Iframe is a real easy way to get your profile deleted. For CSS fans, there is some hilarious stuff in these articles, including rules like:
Not allowed: Using the # sign anywhere in your CSS. This is to avoid you messing with ID’ed elements, but its brute force removal also precludes you from properly specifying hex values. Instead, you must do things like color: FFFFFF or color: white. Note also that because the pound sign in missing, you cannot use shorthand like color: FFF.
Published April 18th, 2006
in Uncategorized.
You know, I’ve sung the praises of Warp Records’ Bleep.com several times on this site, because they always seemed to do the right thing. They let you preview entire tracks before downloading and when you *did* download you got non-DRMed MP3 files. However today they have pissed me off enough that I don’t ever want to deal with them again. When you check out, you have 2 options for payment, Credit Card or Paypal. I’ve always chosen Credit Card in the past, and things have gone smoothly. Today I tried Paypal because I didn’t feel like looking around for my credit card number. After I completed my transaction I never got forwarded to the “Download” page to transfer my music. I took a look at the BLEEP FAQ, and I found this bull-shit:
If you choose to pay PayPal directly from your bank account (they call this a PayPal eCheck), then this takes PayPal from 4 to 6 days to collect the money from your bank account. Once they have succesfully collected the money they then notify us. Only then will you have access to download your order.
Some people new to PayPal choose the eCheck payment method without understanding the delay it would cause and unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to speed up this process.
I am *not* new to Paypal! I have dealt with dozens of merchants on the internet who ship product upon completion of the Paypal transaction. This whole “waiting for the bank transfer” thing is prime, Grade A, 100% Bull-fucking-shit and if that *is* the way they’re going to do things, then that should be communicated to the user BEFORE they click the Paypal link! So *bleep* you Bleep, and the *bleep* you rode in on. I am through with the likes of you.
[UPDATE] Ok… slightly less angry now, b/c I found the album I purchased on Soulseek (yes, I am still paying for it) but it shouldn’t have had to come to that. Bad online retailers drive people to illegal downloads. Sounds like a business model to me!
Tags: music, mp3, ecommerce, customer-service
