Time Being

I've Moved!

2005-04-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

Update those bookmarks, redirect those RSS feeds, Time Being has moved to it's new home at blog.vugmedia.com. Yup, blogger is dead. It was a good two year run here, but the new digs are so much nicer. Make the leap...

From now (April 16, 2005) till eternity this site will remain a static archive.
PLEASE VISIT THE NEW SITE!
~Rick

Fire and Motion

2005-04-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

I like articles like this. They make me feel a lot better about myself. Oh, and I made it through the paper hel stage. Two of them are C level (maybe if that!), but they are done. Gone. Now I can actually be productive, doing what I want to do!

MP3 March #10: Radiohead Plagerism

2005-04-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

Plagiarism is tempting at this time of year.

Actually, that's a lie. However, that is not to say I have not
imagined that "wouldn't it be nice" scenario about term papers more
than a few times...

Rather than plagiarize academically, I'll do it here where it doesn't
matter. I've got to keep this thing chugging along somehow in the
midst of a scary school workload! Enjoy the Pitchfork review of the
new (NEW!!) Radiohead (RADIOHEAD!!) in all of its bootlegged glory.

Rick

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood
[ft. the Nazareth Orchestra]: "Arpeggi"
genre: rock/IDM

On Sunday, Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke performed a song called "Arpeggi" backed by the Nazareth Orchestra. By Tuesday, thanks to rabid Radiohead fans and a bevy of YouSendIteers, this performance was available to, and heard by, anyone who could click a mouse. There's something amazing and crass about the way an unreleased demo or an album advance or a live track can be downloaded and uploaded and passed on to an exponentially expanding circle of strangers. In some cases, taking advantage of this unbounded access is like seeing your parents put Christmas presents under the tree for the first time.

On this track Greenwood plays the Ondes-Martenot, an electronic keyboarded developed by Maurice Martenot, a colleague of Leon Theremin. The Ondes-Martenot produces elegiac tones that sound like a cross between the warm buzz of a Rhodes piano and the resonant blare of a pipe organ. Such tones are perfect for Yorke's tremulous voice and his equally tremulous words-- "Your eyes, they turn me/ Why should I stay here?" The Orchestra joins the fray slowly, xylophones and trumpets giving way to gliding gilded strings bowed and plucked. The confluence of these swirling bits produces a bit of dissonance, with Yorke's voice rubbing awkwardly against the Orchestra near the end of the performance. Given that "Arpeggi" ends on a questioning tone-- Yorke repeating the word "escape" in a weak, wispy manner as a two-note pattern is repeatedly plucked-- that friction is no doubt intentional.

And then it's done. Except that it's not done. Like I said, there's little doubt that this is a work in progress, and the chatter amongst webheaded Radiohead fans corroborates this notion. Poet and critic Richard Hugo wrote a book about the concept of "the triggering town," a word or phrase or some other catalyst that begins a poet's journey towards a completed work. Hugo says that where a poem begins and where it ends up are often two separate and disparate places. In order for the completed work to truly succeed, he claims, the triggering town is discarded. By the time this song finds itself on an officially sanctioned Radiohead release, it could be completely different. Or it could just be a springboard for something else, end up discarded and forgotten. But I'll stop with the architectural boxstep and take this line from this gorgeous song to heart: "It's over by the words." [David Raposa]

**** [4 stars]

MP3 March #9: In Medias Res

2005-04-06T18:10:00.001-07:00

Alright, since In Medias Res is playing tonight, I thought now would
be a great opportunity to pass this link along:
http://www.amoaudio.com/media/

These files are all off of AMO Audio's site. A bunch of you might
remember Adam and Matt from high school; this is their home-recording
studio's site. Apart from the 30 second demos, The new redone version
of "Idee Fixe" is great and the full version of "We Are Everywhere" is
a good listen. The song always stuck out to me when they played it
live. Anyhow, I'll see at least a few of you tonight.

MP3 March #8: Show @ TWU!?!

2005-04-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

Alright,

First, thanks for all the Sabbath feedback, I'm enjoying it. Klammer,
you weren't kidding around about that Stars album! I'm loving the
retro keys, strings and the female vocals aren't hurting either.

Next, today's issue features Damien Jurado, who just so happens to be
playing with the always interesting In Medias Res. The show is at
Trinity of all places. There are a bunch of us going already, so if
you like what you hear, tag along. "Lion Tamer" and "Letters and
Drawings"(thanks Jer!) are attached.

Lastly, Thursday heads off what could easily become a concert binge if
time and money allow. My "gig guide" is attached if you want to tempt
me...

Rick

::::::: Shows (now with a tres-geeky probability legend!):

! - I'll be there
% - There's a good chance. (ie. I'm sure that I can be convinced)
? - Longshot, but I wouldn't mind.

! 3-24: Damien Jurado, In Medias res @ TWU. Tix $10 at the door.
% 3-26: Pedro & Low @ Richards on Richards
% 3-31: Stars, Feist & Apostle Of Hustle @ The Commodore
? 4-09: String Cheese Incident @ the Centre. Tix $37 at TM.
? 4-07: Metric, Elizabeth @ the Commodore
? 4-07: The Microphones @ Mesa Luna
? 4-22: Killers and Tegan & Sara @ the Vogue
% 4-24: Sound Tribe Sector 9 @ Richards on Richards
? 4-26: Weezer @ the Commodore
? 4-27: The Weakerthans @ Mesa Luna
? 4-28: Steve Kimock Bad @ Richards on Richards
! 4-30: Maplewood Lane, Secret Three, a bit of Radiogram @ The Railway Club
% 5-06: Magnolia Electric Co. (Songs Ohio) @ Richards on Richards
% 5-06: Doves & Mercury Rev @ the Commodore
! 5-12: Umphrey's McGee @ Richards
% 8-14: Jack Johnson @ Deer Lake Park in Burnaby
% 8-19-21: DMB @ The Gorge
? 8-29: Brian Wilson @ The Queen Elizibeth Theatre
! X-XX: The Decemberists @ Richards on Richards (rescheduled,
whenever it happens)

MP3 March #7: The Seventh Day

2005-04-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

"And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in
it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
Genesis 2:3, KJV

This is my Sabbath Issue. And I'm not talking about the Ozzy Osbourne
kind. I'm taking this issue of "MP3 March" (or was that April?...)
off and leaving the music to you, oh faithful readers.

Here is your simple assignment: Send me some music that you are into
that might not be common knowledge. This could be links, MP3's, band
and song names - whatever. Just send it. Now. I'll report back on
the music I was sent (or lack there of) soon.

Until Issue 8
Rick

PS: here are some resources from around the web, if need be:
pitchfork.com
epitonic.com
tinymixtapes.com
Discorder Magazine (http://discorder.citr.ca/)

MP3 March #6: Iron and Wine

2005-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

While Iron & Wine is fairly well known within the crowd that I am
sending these emails out to, I don't think that any of you have have
yet to hear anything of his new EP, the Woman King.

Like his previous three releases, the sound has slowly evolved and
stretched. This release still maintains the warm feel of the last
albums but adds much instrumentation and layers. The layered
percussion would seem at home on a Simon and Garfunkel record (think
of Cecelia or Mrs. Robinson).

Although evolving, I find the EP to be a bit of a rehash of previous
material - which isn't a bad thing as I love everything Mr. Sam Bean
has ever done. However, there is only so much I want whispered into
my ear with that Southern tinge, over genteel acoustic guitar. Maybe
the last song on the EP - which is positively rocking in comparison -
points to what is to some. If so, I will applaud the leap.

To reference Simon and Garfunkel again, I give you the "bookends" of
the album: "Woman King" and the rocking "Evening On The Ground
(Lilith's Song)".

MP3 March #5: American Baby

2005-04-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of a big assignment that must be done in the next 20
hours, so I really don't have time to send much.

However, today's song is extra special. Hot off the press (ie. this
hasn't even been out a day) is Dave Matthew's Band's new single
"American Baby". I haven't had much time to digest it yet, although
it is obviously a departure from earlier albums.

Right now, my gut is telling me that they should have stuck with Steve
Lillywhite producing. I'll let you guys have the final opinion.

It's 6am and I see no sign of slowing down...

2005-04-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, it must be crunch time again because it is 6am and I'm still alive and kicking. I have a paper due first class (1pm) that I haven't touched and I'm actually proud for once. Why? Because right now, I have a completed DVD compiling in the background.

In the past week I have taught myself how to use Final Cut Pro and edited two short videos. I completed the vids tonight in a panic as I had to revert to old copies and finish things off. From there, starting at about 3am, I created a DVD menu in Photoshop and learnt the basics of DVD Studio Pro and came out with a finished product by 6am! That is why I am proud.

Now that I've got myself typing, I'm going to go and whip up that paper...in all seriousness, if you read this in time, pray for me!

My Room Is Completely Spotless

2005-03-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

This must mean that the pressure of school is really getting on me - it is my last stand of procrastination!

In the last 24 hours, here is what I've done:
- sorted and recycled old papers
- cleaned my room
- Folded my laundry
- Did the dishes (x2!)
- Registered and set-up a domain (more on that later)
- Typed up a few meandering emails
- updated this blog
- read about a millions different things online
- checked my RSS feeds
- loaded more than a dozen CD's into iTunes
- reformatted my iPod
- learnt a few Hootie and the Blowfish songs on guitar
- Watched the OC...and typed maybe a few pages of homework up.

Hopefully this link will help me out. It seems to be about the only thing that has helped out my homework situation.

This airport is turning off now. Music on hold. Food in my stomach. Seriously, pray that I get this stuff done...

PS: ADD Sucks. Here are two other helpful hints: [1] [2]

DIY iPod Stand

2005-03-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

Check it.

How Do You Stop Teens From Becoming Murders?

2005-03-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

How about giving teachers guns? At least that is what the NRA suggested in the wake of the mass murder in Minnesota. This is one of those stories that boggles my mind. How can an organization such as the NRA be so blind to the roots of the problem? This is just like when they showed up to Little Rock right after the Columbine massacre. It is tasteless and short sighted.

What do I think the root of the problem is? Well, I don't claim to have any supernatural insights or academic studies to back me, but I believe that the reason behind this is simple hate. More than that, a culture of hate. As was revealed to me on kottke, the killer was part of a neo-nazi online discussion board - you can even read his posting here.

More than that, he also posted flash animations of a gunman killing four people and a policeman before turning on himself, committing suicide. The problem here is not that teachers couldn't shoot back. A culture of violence and retaliation in itself is the problem. Inequality is part of the problem - the shooter was a Native American. Also, by looking at the animation, I think it becomes clear that media portrayals of violence are also part of the equation.

There. It felt good to get that off of my mind. I think that Jack Johnson's simple song about the blame for media violence - "if we want hell then hells what well have".

"Cookie Jar"

I would turn on the TV but it's so embarrasing
To see all the other people I don't know that they mean
It was magic at first when they spoke without sound
And now this world is gonna hurt you better turn that thing down
Turn it around

"It wasn't me", says the boy with the gun
"Sure I pulled the trigger but it needed to be done
Cause life's been killing me ever since it begun
You cant blame me cause I'm too young"

"You can't blame me sure the killer was my son
But I didn't teach him to pull the trigger of the gun
It's the killer on this TV screen
You cant blame me its those images he seen"

Well "You can't blame me", says the media man
Well "I wasn't the one who came up with the plan
I just point my camera at what the people want to see
Man it's a two way mirror and you cant blame me"

"You can't blame me", says the singer of the song
Or the maker of the movie which he based his life on
"It's only entertainment and as anyone can see
The smoke machines and makeup
Hey you cant fool me"

It was you it was me it was every man
We've all got the blood on our hands
We only receive what we demand
And if we want hell then hells what well have

And I would turn on the TV
But its so embarrasing
To see all the other people
I don't even know that they mean
And it was magic at first
But it let everyone down
And now this world is gonna hurt
You better turn it around
Turn it around

MP3 March #4: A Peak at the (Black) Mountain

2005-03-22T01:13:00.000-08:00

pening Rant:

Have you ever been one of the first to discover some jaw-dropping new
band (or maybe movie), only to have the rest of the world wake up and
catch on to the brilliance? No longer is the band special, only
yours. Your music buff credibility is shattered, you know longer feel
like a hipster... Everywhere you go, you hear people talking to YOUR
band, like THEY found it. Not only that, just to heap on the spite,
these people seem robotic: just cogs in the machine that is cool.

To me, sometimes sharing music feels like birthing and raising a
child. All of the sudden the baby that you nursed to health and cared
for lovingly is thrown to the World and ravaged. Yet as a parent,
there is nothing that you can do - you're baby is now grown up.

Enough mad ranting; onto the music. I feel that this band - Black
Mountain - is going to be the next baby of mine to grow up. The
pitchfork review, the Province review, The Straight cover this week,
the big tour. Be sure to take good care of her.

The Music:

While there are shorter and more engaging songs on this album, "Set Us
Free" defines why I love Black Mountain: subtlety and restraint. The
song takes it time and expands slowly. The keys drone in the
background, sensitive to musical direction and filling in the gaps.
If you listen intently, you might find yourself quickly become drawn
into the music, entranced by hints of psychedelia. This is classic
rock at its core, although Like a good Zeppelin album, Black
Mountain's music needs to be seen in the context of the whole. Their
debut is a scant 8 songs, but fills a good 46 minutes, shifting gears
throughout.

I recommend catching their show tonight at Richard's (give me a call -
I might just give into the temptation...). This city's baby has
graduated into the world of international accolade, cherish them at
home before we all become empty nestors.

MP3 March #3: You've Come a Long Way Babe

2005-03-21T22:40:00.000-08:00

As today is is International Women's Day*, here's my favorite new song
by the "Righteous Babe" Ani Difranco. "Recoil", like the rest of Ani's
new album, is much less angry than one might be used to from her.
Maybe there will be more angry Ani to send later. Until next time..

*Yes, I know that I am very behind in posting these. Like anyone's really paying much attention.

MP3 March # 2: Power Out

2005-03-14T01:43:00.000-08:00

Due to complaints about the "cc" of the last message, this message is
dedicated to you, Viv. Also, due to your "issues with didactic
email", I'll try to strip this issue of unnecessary wordiness.

On to the point. To side step the sophomore slump, I am sending out
none other than my most played iTunes song - my favorite track from my
favorite album of last year. None other than Montreal's* own Arcade
Fire, with "Neighbourhood 3: Power Out". My verdict? Kick Ass!

Until next time.
Rick
*the Montreal comment is just for you Viv, with your Quebec fetish and all

MP3 March # 1: Get It Started In Here

2005-03-06T22:09:00.000-08:00

Rather than blogging, my online procrastination this month will take the form of ludicrous MP3 filled emails to friends. Enjoy the copy-and-paste chaos, sans the actual music. The fuzz wouldn't like that.

According to Chris, I review music as if it was a fine wine. He couldn't be any more right.

---------------

Ok Sharelle,

The mix CD is only 4 or 5 months overdue. As "consolation", get ready
for a month of semi daily messages filled with MP3s, fully annotated.
To you "cc" folks, I know that you guys like music as well, so I
thought that I may as well send this to ya. Let me know if you want
me to stop filling your inboxes full of copious amounts of music.

This "premier issue" features two of my favorite tracks from the last month:

First is "Searching For My Love", by Ted Hawkings. This is the
opening track to a highly recommended CD given to me by my uncle Rob.
He was right - Ted Hawkins voice drips with the soul and the track is
a throwback to days past. Hawkins was a famous busker from Venice
Beach who tragically died the year he was discovered in the early
90's. This song is culled from a CD released posthumously of his
busking songs.

Second is "Leslie Ann Levine" by the Decemberists, off of their first
full length. Last years Decemberists' album "Her Majesty's..."was in
my top 5 last year, so I decided to download some of their earlier
stuff, only to find that it was AT LEAST as good as the last. This
song stands out as a demonstration of the quirky lyrical style of the
band. The vocals are fairly nasally, which I find actually
compliments the bands well read demeanour.

3M Puts Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

2005-02-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

Literally. This is creative marketing at its best.

A Scanner Darkly

2005-02-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

I have never, ever watched a trailer more than 5 times on purpose. Let alone in a row. The animation in this will surely be hailed as "groundbreaking" When it premiers.

Apple to buy TiVo?

2005-02-24T00:55:00.000-08:00

I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of a mac fanboy and this seems to be the shrewdest business move yet by the company. Kudos to you Steve Jobs if this rumor proves to be true. Rather than summarize why I think this is such a good investment, I'll let a post that I stole from Mac Rumors do the talking:

You guys haven't seen what's coming. Do you think Verizon is laying Fiber to the premises just because people want 30Mbps download speeds? NO! The Baby Bells are laying the infrastructure for video services over broadband. Video over IP will be the next "big" thing when the pipes to homes get much fatter. The FCC has already made sure that Cable Ops have to keep their services open enough.

Imagine-

I have a box sitting on top of my TV in 2007. I have one remote for this device. The device has:

Sony/IBM/Toshiba Cell processor- I need Multimedia grunt to encode/decode AVC and MPEG2 in HDTV quality.

Hard Drive Space- 500GB and with AVC at 12Mbps for HD I can record 50 hrs of HD quality or 120 hrs of DVD quality video.

Quicktime - It uses Quicktime so not only can utilize my video codecs but I can play back my Garageband, iPhoto and iMovie files with ease.

Wireless - I have 802.11n with 80Mbs throughput wirelessly. The future may offer Ultra Wideband(UWB) for double the speeds.

Wired Networking - Gigabit and possibly Homeplug AV using Zeroconf for easy network discovery.

iTunes Music Store - Not only can I download iTunes music tracks but I can also download special movie trailers that play in their full glory on my television thanks to the efficient AVC codec. Precursor to movie downloads.

View Photographs- I can view my Photographs in HD glory and watch slideshows from iPhoto.

Music-- Not only can I play back all my files but I can take advantage of multichannel aac files now on iTunes. They play just fine through my AV system.

Guide Data - is free now but the hardware isn't subsidized anymore. I'll pay $250 for a basic machine the Top model includes Wireless access. Bluetooth 2.0 remote and a built in Blu Ray or HD-DVD recorder for $999

This isn't about duplicating Tivo's "Money Pit" people. This is about realizing the change that is coming to the "connected home' and capitalizing on this. People don't even realize that in 3-5 years they will suddenly see their TV Entertainment options go from a few providers to dozens.

Apple knows this..hell Tivo knows this but most consumers do not.

I always knew that politics were slimey

2005-02-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

The news today that Bush did indeed do coke and smoke pot is small in my mind when compared with his discussion of how to rally support from his Christian support base. Nixon had his tapes aired, now Bush's are out of the bag as well.

My Wacky Mother

2005-02-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

Did anyone else get those "So Good" magnets in the mail? My mom is having a bit too much fun with these...

PS: Thanks for the pic Jess!

My Wacky Mother
Originally uploaded by Jessica Nicole.

The Theory That Self-Interest Is the Sole Motivator Is Self-Fulfilling

2005-02-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

This article is basically stating the obvious - one's social surroundings and perspectives will influence the way that they live - but is revealing none the less. A lot can be said about the culture that we live in today and our own selfishness.

"Does what we believe about human motivation matter? In an experimental study of private contributions to a common project, two sociologists from the University of Wisconsin, Gerald Marwell and Ruth Ames, found that first-year graduate students in economics contributed an average of less than half the amount contributed by students from other disciplines.

Other studies have found that repeated exposure to the self-interest model makes selfish behavior more likely. In one experiment, for example, the cooperation rates of economics majors fell short of those of nonmajors, and the difference grew the longer the students had been in their respective majors."

Gmail Invites: Round Six

2005-02-15T17:47:00.000-08:00

Ok, this time I've got the mother load of invites.

Just like the last five times I've given these way, the first 50 to comment on this post will get a G-Mail invite. If they are all gone, check gmailswap.com.

So My Mom is a Conspiracy Theorist...

2005-02-13T01:48:00.000-08:00

This link wouldn't be so interesting if it wasn't sent to me by my own mother. Who would have thought?

Happy February!

2005-02-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, so my post frequency was a bit all-over the place – Sometimes I post every 2 days, while right now it is about 2 months since the last update. I was planning a big year in review, movies lists, best albums of 04 etc.. but life got the best of me. On that note, here is what I have been up to:

1. School, School, School: This has been one of the busiest semesters of my life. Add onto this a job and a girl friend and my amount of free time becomes a negative number. Trust me when I say that I am looking forward to the reading break.

2. I just picked up a brand spanking new iBook, making the big switch. Let me tell you that I am loving it, especially considering that there is free WIFI at school, work and home. Keeping with this lack of time theme, I’ve actually downloaded and installed programs during lectures. Welcome to 2005!

With the deluge of work, I can tell you what I haven’t been doing:

1. Blogging. Lets start with the obvious…

2. Playing music. This has really sucked. No guitar for at least 3 weeks and I can’t even record anymore as I need a new recording soundcard (hopefully this is in the works…).

3. Listening to music. Beyond background music that is. No new records in the past month, although January did have a few winners (Hello Fiery Furnaces! What a masterpiece).

4. Photography. I still haven’t even processed my shots from the Arcade Fire show in December, which was in my top 5 of all time list by the way. While I haven’t been taking many shots as of late, I think that I might just have to step it up – I think that I am actually shooting a wedding this summer! No pressure or anything….

5. Reading. My “books to read” list is starting to really expand well.

Finally, something random: The Super Bowl! Ads that is… Check out Budweiser’s censored ad, all of the spots and a list of the best and worst of the pack. Enjoy!

Boxing Day is Great.

2004-12-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

So is Christmas. I'm having some downtime right now, so I guess that this blog is going to be falling to the wayside. Although I did just get a wireless internet outfit for the house at dirt cheap boxing day prices. This is being posted from my room right now. More to come later (maybe a top music of 04 section...

"On the Virtues of Idleness"

2004-12-15T02:18:00.000-08:00

Like much of life, complaining about not having enough time is a truth that borders on cliche. Not to beat a dead horse, (cliche, I know) but this article that I found is one of the most brilliant condemnations of the fast paced life. I guess this is something to remember with myself working two jobs and the Christmas season approaching. Some of my choice quotes are pasted below:

"Ah, but here's the rub: Idleness is not just a psychological necessity, requisite to the construction of a complete human being; it constitutes as well a kind of political space, a space as necessary to the workings of an actual democracy as, say, a free press. How does it do this? By allowing us time to figure out who we are, and what we believe; by allowing us time to consider what is unjust, and what we might do about it. By giving the inner life (in whose precincts we are most ourselves) its due. Which is precisely what makes idleness dangerous. All manner of things can grow out of that fallow soil. Not for nothing did our mothers grow suspicious when we had "too much time on our hands." They knew we might be up to something. And not for nothing did we whisper to each other, when we were up to something, "Quick, look busy.""

-----------------------

"Time may be money (though I've always resisted that loathsome platitude, the alchemy by which the very gold of our lives is transformed into the base lead of commerce), but one thing seems certain: Money eats time. Forget the visions of sanctioned leisure: the view from the deck in St. Moritz, the wafer-thin TV. Consider the price.

Sometimes, I want to say, money costs too much. And at the beginning of the millennium, in this country, the cost of money is well on the way to bankrupting us. We're impoverishing ourselves, our families, our communities – and yet we can't stop ourselves. Worse, we don't want to.

Seen from the right vantage point, there's something wonderfully animistic about it. The god must be fed; he's hungry for our hours, craves our days and years. And we oblige. Every morning (unlike the good citizens of Tenochtitlan, who at least had the good sense to sacrifice others on the slab) we rush up the steps of the ziggurat to lay ourselves down. It's not a pretty sight."

Google To Scan Millions of Books and Post Them Online

2004-12-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

It is news like this that makes me love the Internet. Now the question seems to be what do we do with all of this information?

T-Shirts!

2004-12-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I'm 22 as of 23 minutes ago (woah, weird!). While I'm totally set for my Birthday and Christmas gift wise (yes, I got one!), I still wouldn't mind a few new T-Shirts. You see, I haven't bought any clothes in a long while and I've had an itch for months to get some small-run T-Shirts from independent companies. I want to show support to some small shops who put most big name designers to shame. Here's a little collection of companies who could:

Threadless

This place has the best collection of shirts in comparison to the others I could find. Some of the designs are just amazing and the prices are ludicrous - $10 each! I might just have to stock up and order a few to save on shipping.

Stompy PowPow

Not only are these shirts cool, all of the proceeds go to The Youth Millennium Project at UBC. Z, the shirts you see above are the ones I'm interested in, have them ready! My only wish is that you printed one with this design posted on the site.

Slow Loris

I've lurked around this site for ages. It always seems that by the time I get around to purchasing a shirt, it is already sold out. I'll have to keep my eyes pealed.

Diesel Sweetie

I love the old school design of these. Bitmap fonts, old Atari games and the like. I really like the tape (it reminds me of tiny-mix-tapes!)

There you have it. It looks like I have a fetish for old technology. I'll have to go down to my Opa's for his 70th tomorrow and bust out the old Super 8.

Another Late Night

2004-12-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

Almost done the long haul. m..u...s...t... .s..l..e..e..p...ZzZzZz

I'm off to bed. I can't wait till the weekend. Also, isn't the Flickr thing on the sidebar the greatest? Another late night, a bit more procrastination = another thing added to the old blog.

"Spruced Up"

2004-12-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

If you haven't noticed, the site got a (very) minor overhaul this morning. Hopefully I'll get around to some more major changes soon. Nothing like all nite long paper procrastination! I feel gross right now and it is not going to get any better.

Bush is Canada...

2004-11-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

Yuck. Let Harper talk to him. I'm super busy right now (crunch time) but I couldn't resist putting something up. For some reason, the guy just irks me. It's more symbolic than anything else. The news is on CBC [1] , The New York Times and Ottawa Indymedia [1] websites.

"Most Canadians support taxing pot, poll finds"

2004-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

This is all over Google News. What do you say to that? It's not like NORML would have a bais or anything...

For Rick

2004-11-23T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hey Rick (and everyone else, even though no one knows me). My own online thingus (aka blog, but I hate that word), can be found at: myminiskirt.blogspot.com. Feel free to leave a comment, because I just want one on there. And sadly, I have none so far.

See you there!

1000 Hits (Or So)

2004-11-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm not about to put up some sentimental retrospective or nothing, now that this page has been viewed a thousand times since the summer (that is, if my data is even right). I've got other things to do.

Like fix my fried computer when I get home. I also just landed a temp job at a Yaletown research firm as a supervisor of all things. That should keep me busy, not to mention the school time crunch, the other two jobs I'm vying for and the inevitable Christmas madness.

Yikes. Back to the 20 page paper. Don't expect much to pop up here (as per usual...) until after the 4th.

Support For Creationism?

2004-11-21T01:43:00.000-08:00

The Gallup poll is interesting stuff. I still have to read the big and controversial National Geographic article as well as the review the article I saw in Wired last month.

Canada to Cut Car Emmisions by 25%!

2004-11-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that Kyoto is coming into effect - finally our government is taking environmental issues seriously and not caving into industry pressures. Having Arnold Schwarzenegger's help doesn't hurt either! The story is at the CBC, The Independent and New York Times Websites.

Wilco: "Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread"

2004-11-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

Wired Has a fantastic interview with Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy on the band's openness to Internet music sharing. I'm glad to hear an increasing amount of artists "get it". Specifically, I like how he likens file sharing today to yesterday's radio. I find new artists through the net all the time and actually buy their music. I also download a ton of albums that I would never buy, but none the less listen to now and again. Anyhow, read the article if you wish, I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

WN: What if the efforts to stop unauthorized music file sharing are successful? How would that change culture?

Tweedy: If they succeed, it will damage the culture and industry they say they're trying to save.

What if there was a movement to shut down libraries because book publishers and authors were up in arms over the idea that people are reading books for free? It would send a message that books are only for the elite who can afford them.

Stop trying to treat music like it's a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can't be cheap, either.

Random Ramblings

2004-11-14T19:11:00.000-08:00

OK, I wasn't really planning on posting today because I don't really have anything interesting to say...as always...but I just had to save the loyal readers of TimeBeing from the boringness of recent posts about Firefox 1.0, TV turner-offers, and other equally non-interesting things. Well actually, they are quite interesting if you're a nerd (Rick!), but it's okay because it works for you.

However, anything I have to say will most likely be equally boring. Things on my mind lately:
1) Getting a flight to Ontario to see Emily
2) My spending habits, which are constantly in need of repair
3) Christmas shopping (in close collaboration with point #2)

I have been investing heavily into the textile industry as of late, this caused by a recent (4 month?) surge in funds due to the new job, as well as the prompting of my mother to go shopping (which is due to her viewing of the show What Not to Wear), and my love of Christmas shopping. I totally love buying things for other people! It's a blast. I'm a "single black female, addicted to retail" as Kanye West would say (except substitute white for black).

I don't know what I want to do with my life, is that bad? I know what I love, and what I'd love to do if I had the chance, but I don't know if that will happen, or how exactly to go about it. I want to be a professional singer first off, which will most likely not happen, although it definately should, I'm a hell of a lot better than Hilary Duff. But hey, life's not fair is it? Second choice would be a travel photographer and journalist for National Geographic. Also a hard thing to be. All of my dreams are difficult to attain and can only be achieved with bast amounts of hard work. But I guess those are the only dreams worth working for anyways.

Much to the chagrin of my brother and everyone of integrity who I am in aquaintance with, I have purchased the Britney Spears CD. But I don't care! I love good music, but you just can't dance to indie CD's. And I dance to Britney, I dance up a storm. It's so fun though! You gotta love a little Britney every once in a while, no matter who you are.

Oh yeah, I promised to update on recent books (Turns out I have a little of nerdism my brother has...). So if you don't care, tune out now, if you haven't already. I expect most of you have...

The last book I read was Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, one of my new favorite authors. I loved Pride and Prejudice, so I went out and bought the other book by her. They're definately both fantastic, but Pride and Prejudice is better. I am embracing my inner complete dork right now, because I live for this stuff. Loves it! As Paris Hilton would say!

Anyway, I'm out of things to say to keep you people entertained. Good luck Christmas shopping, everyone.

A Quick One

2004-11-14T17:00:00.001-08:00

Being occupied with homework/life is sometimes more important than a blog.

Here are a few quick notes and links:

- Check out the Global Rich List. Pretty crazy stuff.
- The new U2 is kicking around the net. I'll post a review when I have time and it is digested. My gut feeling right now is that it is good but lacks anything new from U2. It feels kind of like U2 playing songs inspired my their greatest hits cd.
- I finally saw Garden State. It is excellent.

Playlist for the Last Few Weeks:

Devendra Banhart- Nino Rojo
Dave Matthews Band - DMB Live Vol. 1
Mirah - Comon' Miracle
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Nick Drake - 3 albums worth
The Arcade Fire – Funeral
V/A - The Golden Apples of the Sun
V/A - Garden State Soundtrack (almost as good as the Almost Famous soundtrack)
Miscelanoueous K Records MP3's
+ Lotsa other stuff

Firefox 1.0 Is Out!

2004-11-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

Even if you aren't a geek, take it for a spin. A historic day for open source projects. I'll have to post my favorite tricks sometime in the near future.

Ouch.

2004-11-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Thank You In Medias Res for this one. Right click and save-as.

MTV, Rolling Stone list of top 100 pop songs since 1963

2004-11-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

They are on crack.

I decided to clean out my documents folder (what a mess!) the other night and found a ton of random post fodder. This is one of them. It's a good list (I have some downloading to do...), but some of the choices are just stupid. Britney Spears, Backstreet HANSON all before Elton John's Tiny Dancer? What are they smoking down at RS these days? Some of this isn't even Pop - Gun's and Roses? Pfftt..

1. "Yesterday," The Beatles (1965).
2. "(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction," The Rolling Stones (1965).
3. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nirvana (1991).
4. "Like a Virgin," Madonna (1984).
5. "Billie Jean," Michael Jackson (1983).
6. "I Want to Hold Your Hand," The Beatles (1964).
7. "Respect," Aretha Franklin (1967).
8. "One," U2 (1992).
9. "I Want You Back," The Jackson 5 (1969).
10. "I Want it That Way," Backstreet Boys (1999).
11. "Hotel California," The Eagles (1977).
12. "Where Did Our Love Go?" The Supremes (1964).
13. "Sweet Child O’ Mine," Guns N’ Roses (1988).
14. "Brown Sugar," The Rolling Stones (1971).
15. "Imagine," John Lennon (1971).
16. "Nothing Compares 2 U," Sinead O’Connor (1990).
17. "Superstition," Stevie Wonder (1972).
18. "Losing My Religion," R.E.M. (1991).
19. "Vogue," Madonna (1990).
20. "Like a Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan (1965).
21. "Brown Eyed Girl," Van Morrison (1967).
22. "Beat It," Michael Jackson (1983).
23. "Oh, Pretty Woman," Roy Orbison (1964).
24. "What’s Going On," Marvin Gaye (1971).
25. "...Baby One More Time," Britney Spears (1998).
26. "Go Your Own Way," Fleetwood Mac (1977).
27. "When Doves Cry," Prince (1984).
28. "In My Life," The Beatles (1965).
29. "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen (1975).
30. "Your Song," Elton John (1970).
31. "Smooth," Santana featuring Rob Thomas (1999).
32. "(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay," Otis Redding (1968).
33. "My Generation," The Who (1965).
34. "You Oughta Know," Alanis Morissette (1995).
35. "Born to Run," Bruce Springsteen (1975).
36. "Waterfalls," TLC (1995).
37. "O.P.P.," Naughty By Nature (1991).
38. "Changes," David Bowie (1972).
39. "Iris," Goo Goo Dolls (1998).
40. "I Will Always Love You," Whitney Houston (1992).
41. "Proud Mary," Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969).
42. "Every Breath You Take," The Police (1983).
43. "Miss You," The Rolling Stones (1978).
44. "Dancing Queen," ABBA (1976).
45. "Tears in Heaven," Eric Clapton (1992).
46. "The Tracks of My Tears," Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1965).
47. "Jump," Van Halen (1984).
48. "Jeremy," Pearl Jam (1992).
49. "Tangled Up in Blue," Bob Dylan (1975).
50. "Little Red Corvette," Prince (1983).
51. "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)," The Temptations (1971).
52. "Maybe I’m Amazed," Paul McCartney (1970).
53. "Faith," George Michael (1987).
54. "Under the Bridge," Red Hot Chili Peppers (1992).
55. "Bye Bye Bye," ’N Sync (2000).
56. "I Will Survive," Gloria Gaynor (1979).
57. "Our Lips Are Sealed," Go-Go’s (1981).
58. "One Headlight," The Wallflowers (1996).
59. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," Stevie Wonder (1973).
60. "Just the Way You Are," Billy Joel (1977).
61. "The One I Love," R.E.M. (1987).
62. "Papa Don’t Preach," Madonna (1986).
63. "MMMbop," Hanson (1997).
64. "Bennie and the Jets," Elton John (1974).
65. "Just What I Needed," The Cars (1978).
66. "Time After Time," Cyndi Lauper (1984).
67. "My Name Is," Eminem (1999).
68. "Only Happy When it Rains," Garbage (1996).
69. "Just Can’t Get Enough," Depeche Mode (1981).
70. "Good Vibrations," The Beach Boys (1966).
71. "I Wanna Be Sedated," The Ramones (1979).
72. "Free Fallin’," Tom Petty (1989).
73. "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" Culture Club (1982).
74. "Tiny Dancer," Elton John (1972).
75. "Hot Fun in the Summertime," Sly & The Family Stone (1969).
76. "Creep," Radiohead (1993).
77. "Let’s Stay Together," Al Green (1971).
78. "Longview," Green Day (1994).
79. "Nasty," Janet Jackson (1986).
80. "I Need Love," LL Cool J (1987).
81. "Don’t Speak," No Doubt (1996).
82. "Rock With You," Michael Jackson (1979).
83. "I Want to Know What Love Is," Foreigner (1984).
84. "Wonderwall," Oasis (1995).
85. "Surrender," Cheap Trick (1978).
86. "Don’t You Want Me," The Human League (1982).
87. "Brass in Pocket (I’m Special)," The Pretenders (1980).
88. "Gone Til November," Wyclef Jean (1998).
89. "Careless Whisper," Wham! Featuring George Michael (1984).
90. "The Boy Is Mine," Brandy & Monica (1998).
91. "No Diggity," Blackstreet (1996).
92. "You Shook Me All Night Long," AC/DC (1980).
93. "Stayin’ Alive," The Bee Gees (1977).
94. "All the Small Things," Blink-182 (1999).
95. "Good Times," Chic (1979).
96. "Photograph," Def Leppard (1983).
97. "Love Shack," the B-52’s (1989).
98. "She Drives Me Crazy," Fine Young Cannibals (1989).
99. "Just a Friend," Biz Markie (1989).
100. "Tainted Love," Soft Cell (1982).

The Final Word.

2004-11-05T01:28:00.000-08:00

I know the trip Jeremy and I took is long over. I've needed to change the header at the top of this site for a long time now. I vowed to change it before I would let myself post the last photos of the trip.

Let these shots that I just put up on flickr be the final word on what went down. A few of my favorites are pasted below for posterity's sake. "best trip ever!".

we saw this view a few too many times...

location: the thunder bay hostel. this place has character.

at the Ottawa Hostel. The most friendly faces of the trip.

Ottawa used book store: there were four floors packed full like this!

coolest thing ever!

roughing it.

"we're stuck"

I love this shot.

Nov 2 Is Here. [Update: This sucks.]

2004-11-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Today's the day I find out if I will be whining for four more years. I'm taking a nap and hoping that I wake up to good news...everything goes down on CNN and the electoral vote predictor.

Oh, if any yanks just so happen to be reading this (my log says that there are a few...) listen to Eminem, alright?

[11/3 - Update: This sucks. I'm glad that I'm not in the States. I just don't get it, especially since white Christians put him in there, that's a whole other issue. I'll get over it. Yeah Haw Dubya!]

It Looks Like The "October Surprise" Has Shown Up!!

2004-10-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Many have said that the US election would be determined by a surprise in the news. I guess that the Osama Bin Laden tape is that surprise. I'm at home right now, Kerry and Bush are about to make statements. This should be very interesting. It could go either way...

From ABC News:

"Osama bin Laden, reading a statement to the American people in a new videotape aired Friday, directly admitted for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks and said "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" was to stop threatening Muslims' security.

It was the first footage of the al-Qaida leader to surface in more than a year. The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera, showed bin Laden with a long gray beard, wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a golden cloak reading from papers in front of a plain, brown curtain.

In Washington, the FBI and Justice Department had no immediate assessment of the meaning of the bin Laden tape. Officials said one part of their analysis will be to discern whether there may be hidden messages or clues about a possible future attack against the United States. But they said it was too early to know that yet.

There was no way to determine when the tape was made, although it did refer to next week's presidential elections in the United States.

"We decided to destroy towers in America," bin Laden said, referring to the World Trade Center.

"God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind," he said.

He accused President Bush of "misleading" the American people since the 2001 suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Your security is not in the hands of (Democratic candidate John) Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands," bin Laden said.

"To the U.S. people, my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster," he said. "I tell you: security is an important element of human life and free people do not give up their security."

"If Bush says we hate freedom, let him tell us why we didn't attack Sweden, for example. It is known that those who hate freedom do not have dignified souls, like those of the 19 blessed ones," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

"We fought you because we are free .. and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."

The image of bin Laden reading a statement was dramatically different from the few other videos of the al-Qaida leader that have emerged since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the last videotape, issued Sept. 10, 2003, bin Laden is seen walking through rocky terrain with his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, both carrying automatic rifles. In a taped message issued at the same time, bin Laden praises the "great damage to the enemy" on Sept. 11 and mentions five hijackers by name.

In December 2001, the Pentagon released a videotape in which bin Laden is shown at a dinner with associates in Afghanistan on Nov. 9, 2001, saying the destruction of the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded even his "optimistic" calculations.

But in none of his previous messages, audio or video, did bin Laden directly state that he ordered the attacks.

The last audiotape purportedly from bin Laden came in April. The speaker on the tape, which CIA analysts said likely was the al-Qaida leader, offered a truce to European nations if they pull troops out of Muslim countries. The tape referred to the March 22 assassination by Israel of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Al-Zawahri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, has spoken on three recent audiotapes that emerged on June 11, Sept. 9 and Oct. 1 this year. In the latest, he called on young Muslims to strike the United States and its allies."

TV-B-Gone: Freeing the World from Television Slavery?

2004-10-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

I'm suprised that the TV-B-Gone, a key chain that can shutoff nearly every type of televsion built, wasn't invented by Adbusters years ago. I can't believe that no one thought of this. Will all of the talk about internet hacking, maybe everyone forgot that telivision sets are the most vulnerable of all. I'd love to walk into Future Shop with one of these things...

Wired broke the story, but there has also been alot of media attention on other sites.

I love the WHY part of the Press Release:

"Because a tv that is powered on is like second-hand smoke. It fills the room with its sights and sounds, impinging on everyone in the room. If someone were smoking a cigar in a public place, you would probably leave or ask them to extinguish it. With TV-B-Gone^TM, you have the power to turn any tv off, with others' approval."

Manifesto = Open For Business*

2004-10-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

As of NOW, TimeBeing has an open-contributer / open-submission policy.

Do you have something say? Do you know me? Post your own ideas here! Email me** and I'll set you up. Do you not know me and want to post? Maybe - email me and explain why.

Hopefully this will mean more diversity in opinions/ideas/readership. I can't always keep this thing going - real life always comes before the Internet. Right now, things aren't super stressful, so I update often. Soon things will be different.

If you haven't noticed, Jess*** is the first to join in this little experiment. Maybe you'll be next?

* Notice the mix of Communism and Capitalism. Hmm...
** rickvug [at] gmail [dot] com
*** cat lover. poet. lit buff. righteous babe. loud-mouth. sister.

Not Your Average Patriotic Daughter

2004-10-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Well this is going to be my first post, brought on by a little prodding and peer pressure from my dearest brother, Rick, who you are all familiar with. I'm confident that between the two of us we'll be able to satisfy every reader's need for legitimate writing--he'll cover the political, anti-Bush movement and the complex proceedings of his brain, while I could be writing about anything from a recent shopping trip to a rant against sexism to a post filled with biting, sarcastic remarks aimed at who-knows-what. While Rick reads newspaper articles and books by Michael Moore, I read classic English literature and poetry. So there's bound to be something interesting for you at TimeBeing. Or, if you're one of those dumb, doesn't-like-to-use-their-brain people, there will always be something that goes right over your head.

On today's agenda is a little of everything, because nothing too extravagant is happening in my life right now. Maybe I could just fill you in on recent goings-on in the world of Jessica. The biggest influence on the way I write and what I think about is what I'm reading, and the biggest influence on what I sing is what I'm listening to (which happens to be Lauryn Hill lately). I'm reading A Passage to India right now, by E.M. Forster, and so I've been thinking about racism and travel and British arrogance and of course, the way that women are portrayed in the book. It was originally published in 1926 and the way that the men react to the women seems ridiculous to me, although I know that's how women were received in those times in real life. The smart women are supressed and held back because the men feel threatened by them. They're seen almost as a joke, as puppets, and their husbands are almost ashamed if they have an intellectual wife! They'd rather have some 'dumb broad' that looks pretty and fulfills her household duties without so much as a whine or a whimper. It's good to see that things have changed today, but there will always be pompous, self-righteous men who think that they're superior to women. I hate those jackasses.

Maybe I should start off with a post that's a little less in-your-face. Sorry to put my opinions out there, but whatever. Take 'em or leave 'em. I'll probably post some poetry or something one of these days, hope no one minds! Anyways, Ricky says he needs to compute, so I'll leave you be. Until next time...

The Golden Apples Of The Sun

2004-10-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

The grass always seems to be greener on the other side... it's the pre-imminent cliche, but true. I just bought the Essential Miles Davis and the new Roots as well as downloaded about 8 albums in the last week*, yet I still have the urge to buy an album that is currently out of print.

Not that I can blame myself, after I stumbled on this review at Pitchfork. Possibly my favorite new artist of late, Devendra Banhart, created The Golden Apples of the Sun, a limited edition compilation, that is seen as the best guide to the neo-folk ("freakfolk") scene that is sprouting up. It is full of hauntingly raw songs that are stripped bare, revealing a warm, off beat character. If the inclusions of Iron & Wine and Little Wings is any indication of the other musician's talents, this should be a must have.

Luckily, the album can be heard in its entirety via this stream. Blogging a post is a good excuse to listen to listen to new music if I ever head one.

* Slowly but surely, I'm warming up to the idea that the Internet is bad for music because it breads a "fast food" consumption pattern of music. Since the days of mp3s, I can only think of a few albums that I know inside and out like in the days of old. I think media overload may be another topic for another time.

Faith In The White House

2004-10-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

I came across this article, which I find very fitting with the last post. A long read (I admit that I skimmed parts) , but great none the less. What place does faith have in decision making? How is Bush more right than those he apposes?

Hallelujah!

2004-10-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's confessional time - I've been following the American election WAY to closely for my own good. I've watched all three debates, read the candidates propaganda blogs, read the New York Times Op-Ed's every day, checked the electoral college breakdown of Florida...you name it. What's the problem? I'm a Canadian. However, I think that this election will shape much more than the US. It is truly about the world that we wish to live in.

If you haven't noticed by the content of this site, I am more anti-Bush than I am pro Kerry. This may seem odd, seeing that I'm a white, middle-class Christian male. The demographics don't fit.

Thankfully, I finally stumbled on some reassuring tonight: I am not alone in my thinking. Like it or not, Faith has become a huge issue in this campaign. However, the debate has mostly limited to abortion and gay rights. The problem is that the Bible says much more about other issues, poverty being a prime example. To limit the discussion of faith to supposed moral issues, is extremely dangerous in my mind.

I just wish that more Christians agreed with me. Enter Sojourners, a Christian magazine/think tank/organization for social justice. I stumbled in on a random link and nearly leaped for joy when I saw it. The text of their election ad made me grin from ear to ear:

We are not single-issue voters.

"We believe that poverty - caring for the poor and vulnerable - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' budget and tax policies reward the rich or show compassion for poor families? Do their foreign policies include fair trade and debt cancellation for the poorest countries? (Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 10:1-2)

We believe that the environment - caring for God's earth - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies protect the creation or serve corporate interests that damage it? (Genesis 2:15, Psalm 24:1)

We believe that war - and our call to be peacemakers - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies pursue "wars of choice" or respect international law and cooperation in responding to real global threats? (Matthew 5:9)

We believe that truth-telling is a religious issue. Do the candidates tell the truth in justifying war and in other foreign and domestic policies? (John 8:32)

We believe that human rights - respecting the image of God in every person - is a religious issue. How do the candidates propose to change the attitudes and policies that led to the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners? (Genesis 1:27)

We believe that our response to terrorism is a religious issue. Do the candidates adopt the dangerous language of righteous empire in the war on terrorism and confuse the roles of God, church, and nation? Do the candidates see evil only in our enemies but never in our own policies? (Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 8:12-13 )

We believe that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious issue. Do the candidates' positions on abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS-and other pandemics-and genocide around the world obey the biblical injunction to choose life? (Deuteronomy 30:19)"

PREACH IT MY FRIENDS! I always thought that the Republican Party and Christianity were strange bed-fellows.

I also came across a blog entry in "Drowning in the Current" that hit the nail on the head as well, although this time it got to the true root of why I can not support this president and am worried about the possibility of his re-election: Ideology.

"To the detriment of us all, this Administration has compiled a record of actions, whether in terms of the economy, healthcare, the environment, international relations, gun control, taxation, foreign aid or dozens of other issues, that stands in stark contrast to traditional Christian values. In a manner both bold and alarming for its unadulterated cynicism, the President and his attendant Radcons routinely use the religious rhetoric as a Trojan Horse to secure the support, loyalty, and ultimate obedience of the Christian Right.
[...]
Rather than a battle between a secular and a religious vision, the conclusion I’ve arrived at after more listening, reading, and digesting than I care to admit, is that we’re smack dab in the middle of a large-scale, high-stakes battle between the two fundamental and competing philosophies of American society: Democracy and Capitalism.

Embedded in the very fabric of our history and national character, the U.S. itself is a sort of bold experiment between these two grand modes of organization and action. In recent history this battle has played itself out in the form of robber barons versus labor unions, Great Depressions versus New Deals, a Great Society versus Reaganomics, industrial pollution versus the Environmental Protection Agency, and even the military-industrial complex versus compulsory military service.

In essence, a never-ending struggle to use the inherent stability and legitimacy of Democratic institutions to anticipate and constrain the more dangerous consequences and inevitable excesses of unfettered Capitalism.

It’s a contrast that takes on many forms and encompasses many different conflicts but is so common that it virtually escapes notice."

There you have my justifications. I think all I needed was a bit of validation. Next up, Bush Bashing, as per usual.

"Hey Allah!" (best thing ever!)

2004-10-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

Pearl Jam Plays With Neil Young, Peter Frampton

2004-10-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning and decided to check up on the setlists for Pearl Jam's Vote For Change Tour to see the set below posted up at The Sky I Scrape. All I can say is wow. I can't wait to hear the bootleg of this!:

October 3, 04 @ Toledo Sports Arena in Toledo, OH

soundcheck: Act of Love, All Along the Watchtower, Cortez the Killer, Rockin' in the Free World (All with Neil Young)

ed preset: I am a Patriot, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

setlist: Long Road, Corduroy, Hail Hail, Save You, The American in Me (The Avengers), Cropduster, I am Mine, Wishlist, Better Man, I Believe in Miracles, Even Flow, Bleed for Me (The Dead Kennedys), Alive
encore 1 (acoustic): Thumbing My Way, Elderly Woman, Black
encore 2 (acoustic): Harvest Moon (Neil Young, Ed, & Peggy Young)
encore 3 (Neil Young w/ Pearl Jam & Peter Frampton): All Along the Watchtower, Act of Love, Cortez the Killer, Rockin' in the Free World

Notes: After the acoustic encore, the crew brought three chairs to the front of the stage. Ed came out, introduced Neil and Peggy, and Neil stole the rest of the show.

Ed and Peggy supplied backing vocals on Harvest Moon, and Ed also played acoustic guitar. The rest of the band came out for Watchtower, with a very extended intro. Ed and Neil traded verses on Watchtower. Mike introduced Peter Frampton after the song, and Ed remarked that this would be Peter's first time voting in America - reminding us to appreciate our voice. Ed and Peggy sang backup for Act of Love, and Ed wasn't even on the stage for the incredible performance of Cortez. He returned to sing for RITFW, but this was definitely Neil's show by now. RITFW finished with Neil and Matt playing off each other. The band left the stage just about as awestruck as the audience; Mike took some polaroids of Neil, and walked out with his arm around him.

Act of Love makes a live appearance for the first time since 9/19/1998. Harvest Moon and All Along the Watchtower make their live debuts at a Pearl Jam show, while Cortez had not been played since the '95 Neil Jam tour.

Kyoto!! (Finally!)

2004-09-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

As of late, things have been super busy and crazy (wink), so this whole "blogging" business has fallen by the wayside and turned into a steady stream of links...today is no different.

Actually, today is a bit different - it's historic. After years of debate and a lot of lost hope, the Kyoto Accord will finally be enacted! Thank you Russia. After be inundated with bad news about the worlds state every day at school, it's refreshing to have a bit of good news and progress. Greenpeace is pleased, as is the David Suzuki Foundation. Maybe this will mean some new ideas about environmental responsibility. I know I'm a hypocrite, but at least I'm using a U-Pass now.

Full Story in the New York Times.

Newsweek: Bush's IQ is 67, Kerry 193?

2004-09-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

I can't even believe that this is true. I checked the url on this a few times, but it appears to be legit. Scary stuff, I can't wait till the debate.

[update: who's the one with an IQ of 67? I'm way to freaking gullible.]

Have Four and a Bit Hours to Spare?

2004-09-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

The new King in LONG. The Return of the King Extended DVD has just been announced and it's a mammoth 250 minutes long! I'm sorry, that is bit much...

Gmail Invites, Round Five

2004-09-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, they really need to stop giving these things to me! At least they seem to go really fast...

Just like the last four times, first 4 comments on this message get a G-Mail invite. If they are all gone, check SpreadFireFox website - they are giving away 2000! There's also gmailswap.com if you get stuck.

[Update 9/25 - They are all gone. Maybe next time?]

Concert Calendar III

2004-09-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do one of these for a long while. I have never seen a better lineup than this. Tegan and Sara put on a decent show on Sunday. I should have gone to Jack Johnson yesterday. Maybe Muse Tomorrow? Saturday is looking good too...

Sept 24 - Muse @ the Commodore
Sept 25 - Michael White and the Whites @ the Commodore (Zeppelin Cover Band)
Sept 25 - Jonathan Inc, Hinterland @ The Pic
Sept 25 - EndFest w/ Franz Ferdinand, Muse... + more @ Seattle ($11 US!)
Sept 25 - West Coast Guitar Night @ the Vancouver East Cultural Center
Sept 25 - John Vanderslice + Guests @ the Department of Safety
Sept 26 - Franz Ferdinand @ the Commodore
Oct 5 - Badly Drawn Boy@ the Commodore
Oct 8 - RAQ @ the Media Club
Oct 14 - Garaj Mahal @ Richards
Oct 26 - Hayden @ the Vogue
Oct 27/28 - Michael Franti & Spearhead @ the Commodore
Oct 30 - Mount Eerie + Guests @ the Department of Safety
Nov 3 - Medeski Martin & Wood @ the Commodore
Nov 9 - Wilco @ the Orpheum
Nov 12 - Death Cab For Cutie @ the Commodore
Nov 21 - REM @ The Orpheum
Nov 26 - MOFRO @ Richards

A Digital Generation's Analog Chic

2004-09-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

With all the conversations about hi-tech cellphones that I've been having lately, I found this article (and a story on Slashdot) Amusing. I didn't even know that you could still get service for those old clunkers. Suddenly my cellphone doesn't seem so crappy.

A Digital Generation's Analog Chic
By JULIET CHUNG
Published: September 9, 2004, in the New York Times

WHEN most people shop for a cellphone, considerations like aesthetics, size and features usually top the list. For most, the sleeker, the smaller and the more fully loaded the phone, the better.

But when Eugene Auh went trawling at eBay for a cheap cellphone last month, he searched for one with a decidedly anachronistic bent.

"I wanted the biggest cellphone I could find," said Mr. Auh, a 27-year-old investment manager in Philadelphia. His winning bid of $25.95 bought a Motorola DynaTac, a 1980's-era "brick" cellphone that fits more comfortably in a backpack than in a suit pocket.

Rather than subtracting from its charm, the phone's cumbersome size - it is roughly eight by two by three inches - is its main attraction, Mr. Auh said. Indeed, he plans to take the phone to work, to the gym and even to his nighttime haunts.

"Imagine this: I'll walk into a bar and ask for a girl's number, then break out my phone," he said. "How could you say no to that?"

While his attraction to digital relics may seem unusual, Mr. Auh is part of what appears to be a growing group of 20-somethings embracing yesterday's designs. These fans of retro technology are using ingenuity to find or fashion the perfect cellphones, gaming systems and computer cases - in effect ushering back a time they experienced only barely, if at all.

Take Ali Rahimi, 28, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Rahimi became so fed up last year with what he called the "impersonal, unthinking" nature of modern communication that he attached an old-fashioned handset to his cellphone. The result was a cellphone-handset whose receiver restored the deliberate nature of communication, he said.

"When you're talking to your grandma on an old-style handset, you're very aware of its presence," Mr. Rahimi said. "The handset has been going through about a hundred years of evolution in design and, pretty much for what they do, they have the perfect shape."

In contrast, he said, the rectangular design of modern cellphones encourages talking at the phone, rather than into it. "You just talk and the cellphone picks up the sounds," he said.

The easy, ironic social commentary that ownership of such a device allows caused Amanda McCorquodale to pay $36 for a Pokia handset in a kitschy avocado green. The Pokia line, an assortment of vintage handsets that plug into cellphones along the same creative lines as Mr. Rahimi's model, is produced in limited quantities in Britain and is sold at eBay.

Stating an opinion that might warm the hearts of an older generation, Ms. McCorquodale, 25, a textbook editor who lives in Brooklyn, said, "I just think people use their cellphones a ridiculous amount." The handset is an easy way of mocking the phone's ubiquity while also allowing her a quiet protest "against having to use a cellphone all the time, but not wanting to."

The popularity of retro technology simply reflects, in part, how sophisticated modern technology has become, said Steven Lubar, a Brown University professor of American civilization who specializes in the history of technology.

When the available technology converges at a certain performance threshold, Dr. Lubar said, consumers begin to base their choices on nontechnical considerations like fashion to express their identity. Thus the appeal of retro gadgets.

"There's something liberating about picking and choosing technological styles from the past as a means of self-expression," Dr. Lubar said by e-mail. "Perhaps there's a bit of self-conscious irony here, too."

For some, retro joy comes in bulkier, less technologically advanced packages. At eBay last year, John Henry Flood, a 21-year-old Harvard sophomore, bought the 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System along with the Atari 2600, a console that makes the Nintendo system appear positively cutting edge. Covered in wood-grain paneling and plastic molding, the first Atari 2600 made its debut in 1977 and was the first widely popular gaming system, used to play video games like Space Invaders and Asteroids.

Another reminder of its age is a switch that gives gamers the option to optimize color resolution for black-and-white televisions.

But the vintage nature of the machines means that games are cheap and easily grasped by a wide audience. Mr. Flood bought the first-generation consoles mainly so he could play video games with his college friends, who he said were more inclined to play low-tech games like Super Mario Brothers than to invest the time needed to play today's more complex games.

Then there is the "wow" factor.

"Everyone's like, oh my gosh, where'd you get these?" Mr. Flood said. While he also owns a Microsoft Xbox and a Sony PlayStation 2, the retro consoles see far more playing time in his dorm room, he said.

For those who prize the convenience of today's technology while preferring the look of their parents' gadgets, several manufacturers have stepped in with hybrid alternatives.

Polyconcept USA offers a line of retro turntables distinguished by the abundance of wood and vintage touches like analog radio dials. But closer inspection reveals discreet CD slots, light-emitting-diode displays and built-in stereo speakers.

The subtleness of the modern amenities is part of a larger effort to evoke the look of bygone eras, said Brian Tompkins, Polyconcept's national accounts manager for electronics. For example, the product teams that oversaw the design of the RCA Newport Turntable fussed over the smallest details - "down to the control knobs and the brass faceplates that have representative etchings and designs," Mr. Tompkins said.

The Victrola-style turntable even has a functioning metal horn, as well as a decorative crank (the turntable is AC-powered).

And for something retro to put into those CD slots, Verbatim has come out with a series of inky-black recordable compact discs that look like miniature 45-r.p.m. vinyl records, complete with the discs' grooved look and brightly colored labels.

A more homespun effort is being undertaken by Andrew Fader, 15, and Karthik Seshan, 16, two high school students in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. The pair recently founded Facade Computer, which builds modern computers into retro casings.

Consumers can order desktops or laptops while customizing specifics like the size of the hard drive and memory. After ordering the components wholesale - Mr. Fader estimates that such customized computers would cost $500 to $1,000 depending on the specifics - the students build the parts into the customer's retro casing of choice.

"The idea is to get the aesthetics of older technology and mix it with the functionality of newer technology," Mr. Fader said. "Companies today like to make you think that cases that are sleek and gray and beige look good, but they don't, really. It's things that look more natural, that go with your house and are made of wood, that are more appealing."

The pair's first conversion, at their Web site (facadecomputer.com), is of a computer built into the mahogany casing of a 1937 Emerson 215 tube radio that they rescued from Mr. Fader's attic. Other possibilities for casings include old briefcases, typewriters and televisions. "The idiom 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' really applies here," Mr. Fader said. "There's a lot of stuff that people really don't realize the value of."

The rebellion against today's gadgets may only go so far, though. For those who prefer vintage technology, a major drawback is the hassle of dealing with technology that is, well, vintage.

For Mr. Flood, that means blowing the dust out of old Nintendo game cartridges. Today's games, which come on CD's, do not require such exertions.

Mr. Auh, meanwhile, is holding off on his romantic overtures until he finds a service provider that can support his antiquated cellphone. But once he does, the women of Philadelphia will need to act quickly, Mr. Auh warned.

"This cellphone only stores nine numbers, ladies," he said, "so it's first come, first served."

Cats: Beware of Lime Football Helmets

2004-09-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

What happens when you:

1) have nothing to do
2) own a sharp knife
3) have a large lime
4) own a patient cat
5) drink too much tequila
6) and it's football season?

Cats: Beware of Lime Football Helmets
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Firefox Reaches 1.0 (kinda)

2004-09-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, Mozilla wants some grassroots help spreading the news about it's Firefox browser: it finally hit version 1.0 ("PR" edition). They are shooting for a million downloads in 10 days. After falling in love with such a great project, I owe it to the volunteers (yes, I said volunteers) who made this open source project possible. It seems like 500,000 people have agreed with me in the last two days.

So, if you haven't tried it yet, do so NOW! I'm not going to bother explaining everything about the popup blocker, improved security, tabs, advanced searching, themes, extentions, support for web standards, RSS implementation or download manager. If I haven't convinced you, maybe this will. Yes I'm a nerd, but seriously, just try it.

PS - Did I mention that it's not Microsoft? :)

Free G-Mail Invites, Round Three Four

2004-09-14T15:19:00.000-07:00

~~Here we go again, same deal as before (see the last post) but this time I only have 3 accounts. First come first serve.~~

~~[9/19 - update: Round three is over, welcome to round four: next 5 emails left will get an invite.]~~

[9/20 - update: They're all gone again. Sorry folks.]

Today is Save Beta-Max Call In Day.

2004-09-14T15:03:00.000-07:00



I would phone in, but the US isn't my country.  See Downhill Battle and the EFF for more info.

Better than G-Mail: Free Music!

2004-09-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, an article that compiles most of the great free and legal places to get music on the internet! I especially love that it mentions sharing the groove, etree and the live music archive...the only vagrant omissions that I noticed were Pitchfork, Nugs and Grateful Dead Live. This is not to mention all the interesting radio stations out there, my favorite being Radio Paradise. Long live net music!

[the article is pasted below for posterity's sake]

No Fears: Laptop D.J.'s Have a Feast
By JON PARELES
Published: September 10, 2004 in the New York Times

DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and — most important — worth hearing.

That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.

Recording companies have tried and failed to shut down decentralized file-sharing networks the way they closed the original Napster. (That name is now being used for a paid-download service.)

Courts have ruled that the services can continue because they are also used to exchange material that does not infringe on recording-company copyrights. At the same time, a bill before Congress, the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, seeks to restrict the way file-sharing programs are constructed.

While the recording business litigates and lobbies over music being given away online, countless musicians are taking advantage of the Internet to get their music heard. They are betting that if they give away a song or two, they will build audiences, promote live shows and sell more recordings.

As with the rest of the free content on the Internet, there's no guaranteed quality control. Lucas Gonze, whose webjay.org lets music fans post playlists that connect to free music and video, describes free Internet music as "a flea market the size of Valhalla."

The first place to look for free music online is at musicians' own sites. Many performers, from Bob Dylan (www.bobdylan.com) to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (www.yeahyeahyeahs.com), post hard-to-find songs for listening: some as free downloads, some as streaming audio (which can be recorded with a free program like StepVoice at www.stepvoice.com). A next place to look is the labels, particularly independent rock and electronic labels like Matador (www.matadorrecords .com/music/mp3s.html), Vagrant (www.vagrant .com/vagrant/audio/audio.jsp), Barsuk (www.barsuk .com), Saddle Creek (www.saddle-creek.com) or Tigerbeat6 (www.tigerbeat6.com/html/catalogue.htm).

Many public radio stations also maintain music archives for streaming or downloading. Among them are the classical-music station WNYC (www .wnyc.org) and eclectic stations like WFMU in Jersey City (www.wfmu.org) and KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif. (www.kcrw.org), all of which have troves of live performances. MTV (at www.mtv.com) presents an entire album each week as an audio stream.

Following is a selection of sites offering free music online. Most of them are best used with a either a broadband connection or nearly infinite patience. While major-label recordings are largely (but not entirely) off limits, there's more than enough available music to satisfy every listener.

Epitonic

The first and best place to look for any band with an independent recording is www.epitonic.com, a superbly organized site that is likely to have music from nearly everyone heard on college radio. It includes not only downloadable songs but also biographical information and links for hundreds of acts, grouped under genres and subgenres. And it has an invaluable "Similar Artists" feature that can direct fans of one band to dozens of potential new favorites. Within Epitonic's huge roster is at least a song or two from some major-label acts, among them the New York band Secret Machines, the Texas band Sparta and the English bands Radiohead and Spiritualized. But independent bands like Bright Eyes or Godspeed You Black Emperor are every bit as good.

Webjay

At www.webjay.org, music fans share their Web finds with the world. There's no music on the site, just lists of links that allow users either to play entire lists or to download items directly one by one; it also includes links to videos and news sound bites. Webjay is something like the lists submitted by customers at www .amazon.com, but with connections to the music itself. As such, it's only as good as the widely varied skills of its contributors, and its links aren't always dependable. But it is a way for musical obsessives like bigwavedave to share his fondness for garage-rock or for OddioKatya to point listeners toward a wide assortment of Brazilian songs.

Furthurnet

Before the Internet became ubiquitous, the Grateful Dead's fans built up their own network to exchange concert recordings, a network that expanded as other jam bands sprang up. The logical extension of the process is Furthurnet (www.furthurnet .com). It is a peer-to-peer network that trades only recordings of bands that encourage listeners to record concerts: not just the Dead but Phish, Gov't Mule, Dave Matthews Band, Los Lobos, Wilco and David Byrne as well. Users need to install a program available on the Web site. Most of the available concert recordings don't use MP3 files, but a better quality audio format, SHN, which also requires some software installation. It's easy; information on the site explains all the technicalities.

Another connection for jam bands is www.etree.org, which points listeners toward recordings stored online and is equally fastidious about high fidelity. Meanwhile, concert recordings of all sorts, from vintage 1960's bootlegs to music only a few days old, have been traded at www.sharingthegroove.org, although the site is currently undergoing maintenance.

The Library of Congress

Through the years, tax dollars have supported researchers like Alan Lomax on excursions to collect music from every nook and cranny and tradition they could discover across the United States. The Library of Congress has made a considerable amount available free online. A place to start is the American Memory Collection (http://memory .loc.gov/ammem/audio.html), with fiddle tunes, American Indian music, border music from the Rio Grande, Dust Bowl songs and more.

Folkways Records

In 1987, the Smithsonian Institution bought the catalog of Folkways Records, which had set out to document every sound in the world and continues to support projects like a 20-disc collection of Indonesian music. Many of the Folkways recordings can be heard on the Web at www .folkways.si.edu, from "Classical Music of Iran" to "Creole Music of Suriname" to "Music of Indonesia Vol. 1: Songs Before Dawn."

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive (www. .archive.org) has set out to preserve material that might otherwise disappear from the Internet, including Web pages, documents, books and video clips as well as audio, and it includes a Live Music Archive with more than 10,000 concerts via etree.org. Most are from jam bands, but there is plenty to choose from. (More than a million people have downloaded Grateful Dead music from the archive.) The archive also includes an assortment of other audio under All Collections, which has 131 songs from 78-r.p.m. discs, and more than 3,000 songs on what it calls netlabels, most of them releasing electronic music. Try the exotica-tinged selections from Monotonik.

Iuma

The Internet Underground Music Archive (www.iuma.org) was a pioneer of free Internet music. It was founded in 1993 as a place for musicians to post their own music online, and it just keeps on expanding. Unfortunately, it is both overwhelming and overwhelmed; finding a good song requires extraordinary luck, and downloading it will take a while. Like the other send-it-yourself sites noted here, Iuma can make a user appreciate what record company scouts do.

Garageband

Hopefuls face Darwinian competition at www.garageband.com, where musicians are encouraged to rate 30 songs before submitting one of their own (or pay a $19.99 fee instead) and other listeners are also assigned tracks to rate. The songs that rise to the top of the charts have a chance to be heard on Garageband's radio outlets or collected on its compilation albums. Garageband demands original songs, not cover versions, and its top-rated ones tend to sound more professional, if not always more distinctive, than those at other mass upload sites.

CNet

The computer experts at CNet include an extensive selection of music among their software downloads at http://music.download.com. A vast bulk of the music is submitted by musicians themselves, so there are a lot of derivative sounds to wade through, but the well-organized site also includes worthwhile bands as Editor's Picks, currently including Dios and Ex Models.

Vitaminic

A huge site based in England, www.vitaminic.co.uk, offers tens of thousands of aspiring bands and a smattering of better-known acts, although brand-name bands like Franz Ferdinand tend to offer only streaming audio rather than downloads. But the site is well organized and also includes video clips from the likes of Nick Cave.

BeSonic

<> A European site where musicians can place their songs online, www.besonic.com has a slightly more international perspective than the other newcomer sites. Rankings and recommendations help visitors sift the material. Registration is required for downloading.

Pure Volume

More than 76,000 songs are available at yet another site for aspiring musicians, www.purevolume.com, which is strongly weighted toward rock. To winnow the site, try the Pure Picks column or look under the category Music for Top Artists (Signed).

DMusic

Musicians can also post their own songs on DMusic (www.dmusic .com). It helps users wade through more than 17,000 acts — an overwhelming majority categorized as alternative or rock — by listing DM Picks and by having users give songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down and append comments. As with Iuma, most are amateur submissions, with plenty of jokes, but there are some enjoyable tracks scattered among the picks.

Smart-Music

Dance-music experimenters dominate at www.smart-music.net, a selective site that draws its downloadable MP3's from hard-to-find small labels. Dipping into the genres and subgenres of electronica, Smart-Music has about 300 songs available from (relatively) well-known groups like Mouse on Mars and Zero 7 as well as basement laptop obsessives, and a high percentage of them turn out to be worthwhile.

Ragga-Jungle

Slow, deep reggae bass lines are the foundation for whole families of dance music represented at www.ragga-jungle.com. It's an outlet for amateur and professional producers and toasters (rappers), and the downloadable songs, available free after registration, include echoey dub-reggae vamps, sparse dance-hall productions and frenetic jungle tracks. Each track has ratings and comments, and quick streaming allows users to sample tracks before committing to a download. Contender for best title: "A Waste of Half an Hour of My Life, and Four Minutes of Yours" by the Archangel.

Classic Cat

With so much classical music in the public domain, it's a surprise that there aren't more free downloadable sites offering it, although the length of classical compositions can make them inconvenient to download. At www.classiccat.net, it's possible to search by composer, from Monteverdi to Messiaen. The selection is spotty and links don't always work, but it's a start.

Asian Classical

Need some Indonesian gamelan music? On the Internet at www .asianclassicalmp3.org, a dedicated collector of Asian music has transferred recordings from cassettes to downloadable MP3's. The site includes music from nine countries, including 28 minutes of gamelan music from Java.

Iraqi Music

The straightforwardly named www.iraqimusic.com is a resource for both the classical Iraqi improvisations called maqams and more recent Iraqi recordings based on traditional (and thus noncopyrighted) songs. "Sister Sites" provides links to other sites with Middle Eastern music.

Trama

A Brazilian record label, Trama (www.tramavirtual.com), offers about 10,000 MP3's, primarily from local Brazilian bands. The site is in Portuguese and requires users to sign up, but after that, it is fairly easy to navigate. "Baixar" means download.

Micromusic

The Internet is home to countless obsessives. The ones gathered at www.micromusic.net make their electronic music from the sounds of the first primitive video games. Proud of what they can generate from eight-bit gizmos, they have placed hundreds of blipping, buzzing ditties online, garnering the attention of Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols' manager, among others. Registration is required, but it's a modest inconvenience on the way to tunes like "How Bleep Is My Love."

Free G-Mail Invites, Round Two

2004-09-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

That's right, the invites keep coming...

The first 6 people to comment on this post (click "comment" button below) get them. Obviously, make sure to leave your email, but I didn't have to tell you that, did I?

[9/12/04 Update: they are all gone. I'll post the next ones I get as soon as they arrive. Enjoy!]

Jess' Osoyoos Pictures Are Up

2004-09-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

Go to the PhotoSet if you dare...

2004-08-20 - Osoyoos 008
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

In Honor of Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge

2004-09-02T02:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's late, I can't get to bed. One more sleep till the Gorge.

Hopefully rides and finding tickets down there works, it looks like I have the money now (no more San Fran). With the paper (leave it to the province) reminding me of the unfortunate "poo" incident* with the band, I can't help but see DMB everywhere. At least the news is sensational enough for a few laughs.

*in case you were wondering, it looks like the bus driver for DMB dumped around 800 pounds of septic-tank waste off of a bridge in Chicago, only to land on 100 people below.

A Quick One

2004-08-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm back from Osoyoos and am leaving for the Gorge in a few days. This isn't much time, so I don't plan to spend it all on the Internet. Expect some more photos from both trips (I have rolls and rolls...), including some black and whites I just processed myself. There's nothing like a fresh batch of Kodak D-76 :)

In the meantime, I have four G-Mail [update: make that 6] invites to give away. The first six email requests or blog comments get them, so don't slouch if you want to be rid of hotmail.

Back for the Day . Two Last Links.

2004-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sitting in a bus for 74 hours is one of the most horrible things ever. Especially when you find out you could have flown for the same price.

Since I had a bit of time to kill today, I thought that I would throw up some final Coventry stuff before I leave for Osoyoos tomorrow morning. I just downloaded the last show (here's the link if you are interested in hearing it for yourself) and soundcheck (ditto on the link) and am enjoying them thoroughly despite the mistakes.

Two of the most memorable moments from the show were the emotional Velvet Sea, with Page not even able to sing because of the tears and the monumental Down with Disease jam and glowstick war. I've put up an mp3 of Velvet Sea and a video I found of DWD. Neither of them do the actual events justice, but at least it gives you an idea.

Wading in the Velvet Sea (MP3 - right click and "save as")
Down with Disease (Quicktime video - right click and "save as")

Enjoy.

Glowsticks and Other Photos

2004-08-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

Gotta love the time lapse photography. Follow this link to a bunch of my favorite photo's of the weekend (as well as the trip and a few random shots).

Also, look to the Burlington Free Press, Phish.com and these two fan websites for more shots.

Glowstick War
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Coventry Traffic

2004-08-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

This is just a small taste of the traffic jam. Picture this but 30 miles long. Things were at a dead stop for hours and hours.

Coventry Traffic
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

From Montreal to Coventry and Back

2004-08-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

Hey guys.

It looks like we are going to make it back... I guess that the last time I updated this we were in Ottawa. We went through Montreal and that was great. I don't have the time to update you on that but just assume that the city is everything that I hoped for. It felt like a mini France (at least my French stereotype of it). The highlight was being a few hundred feet from lightning hitting a church downtown. It was one of the loudest and most intense things that I've ever seen.

On to Phish...

The shows were epic - about four and a half hours long each. They busted out some huge jams (we're talking half an hour songs here!) and even cried. There were a few insane glow stick wars - think 70 thousand people with what must have been thousands of glow sticks flying through the air. I'm glad that I went - this was my last chance to experience Phish.
The real story was getting into the show: the 91 Interstate was backed up for about 30 miles. People were stuck in traffic for literally days. This was due to thunder storms making the concert site a giant mud pit.

After sitting in traffic for 14 hours, the announcement came that everyone on the highway has to turn around and go home. After spending hours waiting, no one wanted to miss the show so most of us parked on the side of the road and proceeded to walk 15+ miles to the show. It was mass exodus and chaos. Check google from the news, I'm sure that there are tons of photos. 70 thousand people is a lot.

Right now we are out hanging out at Shawn and Marie-Eve's house...they are a young couple that picked us up and opened up there house to us. In fact, I'm off to have my first shower in around 5 days. Yes, it's gross. I'm covered in mud. I'll be back in 3 and a bit days, then I'm strait to Osoyoos.

The start of the journey

2004-08-12T08:35:00.002-07:00

Thank you Bryant. Seriously.

The start of the journey
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Montreal Street Performer

2004-08-12T08:35:00.001-07:00

This guy was great! Oh ya, we're in Montreal now...

Montreal Street Performer
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Jeremy Getting his characture done.

2004-08-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

.	Jeremy Getting his characture done. Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Jeremy in Ottawa.

2004-08-12T08:26:00.001-07:00

nuff said.

Jeremy in Ottawa.
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Sleeping at Wal Mart

2004-08-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's our stuff in the Soo (Ontario). It doesn't get more derilict than this!

Sleeping at Wal Mart
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Willa teaching Suzie to read.

2004-08-12T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is Willa, one of the hostel hosts in Thunder Bay. She's been taking in refugees such as Suzie for 30 years now.

Willa teaching Suzie to read.
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Mark

2004-08-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

This is Mark from Thunder Bay. He was a huge Deahead and had a buch of funny stories from tripping out on LSD. Yikes

Mark
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Thunder Bay hostel

2004-08-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

I just got back a few rolls of film and they came with a photo cd. Just thought that I would chuck a few of the shots up. Enjoy.

Thunder Bay hostel
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

Ottawa Now...

2004-08-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I have been in Ottawa for a full day now and are loving the city. It feels like Vancouver just a bit smaller and older. The Parliament buildings are gorgeous [editors note: can buildings be gorgeous?]. We went to the Contemporary Photography Gallery and the National Galleries today. Both were free, although the later was much better than the former.

The hostel here is great - it's in a old heritage home and houses about 30 people total. Everyone is really friendly - in fact, I'm heading to the light show at the Parliament buildings with a bunch of new friends in a few minutes.

Coming to Ottawa on the road was another adventure...at one point we got picked up by a two guys in a Firebird who were completely broke and trying to get across the country. To get gas, they would beg for cash at every gas stop. In was an interesting and uncomfortable ride as there was no room in the back, especially considering that there was a 12 inch Sub Box in between Jeremy and I.

Oh, and we slept in a Wal Mart parking lot. I'll tell you the story when we get back. It was the most derelict thing I've ever done.

Gotta Run!! Montreal is up next...

Thunder Bay Hostel, Our First Ride and Hutterites...

2004-08-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Another update, hopefully this one will have a bit more info.

We're still in Thunder Bay right now, as we decided to stay the night and relax a little since we are making such good time.

While it's on my mind, I have to tell you about the place that we are staying in right now, the Thunder Bay International Hostel. A Christian couple, Loyd and Willa, have been running this hostel for around 30 years. You can sleep in abandoned buses, a cabin room, the house or one of the mobile homes. Everyone is extremely friendly - it's a home that doubles as a hostel rather than the other way around.

The couple is very interesting in that they take in refugees - lots of them...over the years over 1500 have passed through this place and their church. Not only are these two people hands and feet in a very practical way, they are also amazing me in they're openness and "with-it-ness". I'm sure I'll be talking about this place for a while when I get back.

Oh, and to boot I'm hitting it off with an old Deadhead staying here named Mark. We were talking Phish and Dead for a while and he was telling me stories about "the scene" back in the day, run ins with the police and LSD trips. There's also a Dutch guy, a couple from Montreal and a refugee family from Montreal here right now. They just arrived yesterday and ate their first McDonalds meal :)

Finally, I thought that I'd share a few of our rides:

Our first ever was extremely sketchy - a Native woman (note: being Native is rad, this is not the sketchy part) who was doing a cigarette run from Chilliwack to Hope. The first sign of trouble was the beet up pickup. The second was the Marijuana Party sticker in the cab.

Still, we hoped in the back of her truck to find that she had already picked up to other people. Good times. Luckily, the joint that she had while driving didn't seem to affect her driving skills...

Since then, there has been no sketchy rides, although some have been interesting...I like Art the older trucker who delivered Chickens to Hutterite colonies. However, my favorite is still John the Romanian womanizing trucker. He kept me laughing with his womanizing stories. Some bad stuff, (like how he has children around the world) but with the accent, you just had to laugh.

Oh, and another interesting thing I just found out - we missed being in a Twister in Medicine Hat by a few hours...got lucky (luck?) on that one. It was funny to see the headline and photo in the paper today.

I'm bursting at the seams with stories, but I have to go. I'll bore you with them in person soon enough. Things are great here and looking up.

2004-08-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

Sorry about the long delay before updating this thing, but it's kinda hard finding net access when you are sleeping beside truckstops or in camping grounds. I guess you probably want to know where we are - THUNDER BAY!

We've been really fortunate with rides so far, although we for sure thought that we were stuck a few times. Yesterday we spent all day trying to get out of Winnipeg. We ended up way outside of town in the middle of no where waiting for ages. That was kinda freaky.

John, the trucker that picked us up, was amazing though. Super funny Romanian man with lots of stories...I like the one about hitting a dear at 130 clicks! I only have a few more minutes (I'm at an Econo Lodge and paying for this), so I'll have to summarize our rides:

Day 1: Vancouver > Calgary
Day 2: Calgary > Swiftcurrent
Day 3: Swift current > a bit outside of Winnipeg
Day 4: Winnipeg > Thunderbay

So far, we are completely on track to have time for New York - Geoff, if you're reading this email me the "where to go" and "where not to go places".
Sorry for the lack of stories: I'm sure next time I'll type up stories about sketchy rides and funny stuff. Take care and thanks for the prayers - they seem to be working. ciao.

So Here's the Deal...

2004-08-01T00:39:00.000-07:00

Since not everyone knows the plan, I'll recap: Phish is playing their last show ever,Coventry, a two day festival in Vermont on August 14 and 15th. Jeremy and I were already planning on travelling around hitch hiking for the first 3 weeks of August anyways. Obviously, we put two and two together and decided to try and get all the way across North America in time for the shows.

All we have is two backpacks full of our stuff and our thumbs to get us across the country in two weeks. We do not know where we are staying or where we will be in a few days. Be sure to check back for updates from the road, as we leave on Monday. who knows when we will be able to get to a computer.

Our rough itinerary is to cross a Province a day and get to lower Ontario at the end of the week. If we have a few days to kill before the show, we plan to go see New York, as it's close (relatively) to Vermont.

At the show, there will be thousands of people from all over. The plan is to scout out licence plates from the West Coast and get a quick ride back to BC for the 23rd or so.

I hope you guys enjoy reading about us...feel free to pray for our souls and safety. I know my mother is :)

T-Shirt runner up
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

This thing is going to be huge

2004-07-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

70 thousand people is A LOT.

the crowd
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

There has to be a few rides in there somewhere! See the Phish Photo Gallery for an idea of what we are getting ourselves into.

the Lot
Originally uploaded by rickvug.

$100,000+ for charity

2004-07-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to say that it looks like Coventry will benefit some great causes.

Welcome [v.2]

2004-07-31T19:39:00.000-07:00

Hey People. Welcome to the TimeBeing blog, my second try at this whole blogging business. You might be wondering "what the heck is a blog? A tech nerds journal?". Well, it is partly a journal but not quite: it's public, so I don't expect extremely private stuff. It is also participatory - please leave comments and create dialogue. Read this article for some self serving commentary on what a blogs can be and there importance. They may not be as important as the Gutenberg press, but I don't think that we have enough perspective yet to realize the power and cultural change that comes in this Internet era (maybe I'll write an essay on this one day).

First off, a few ground rules:
1. This is not Rick's journal. Don't expect it to read like one.
2. Do you like to write? Have something to say? Please do! Let me know and I'll send you an invite. Let's make this thing communal.
3. I don't always have something to say. Expect links to what others are thinking.
4. Expect music, more music, politics (sorry for the Dubya hating...), life commentary, geek stuff and sometimes something funny.

Finally, I thought I'd explain why this thing is called TimeBeing without getting to pretentious. First, life is always changing, always for short moments. Hopefully, like a photograph, this site will capture a few of those moments. The second reason has to do with constraints: Time and Being, that is what you are. I wont bother getting philosophical and explaining. Lets just say that one day I hope to be constrained by neither.

The Passion vs. Fahrenheit 9/11?

2004-07-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the ideological divide between the left and the right a bit lately, mostly because of my odd position as a left leaning Christian (more on that some other time...).

Two movies have transfixed North America this past year: the Passion and Fahrenheit 9/11. One former caters to the religious right, the latter to the "heathen" (or critical perhaps critical thinking) left. I thought both were great.

As different as these movies are, they have a lot in common and are both very culturally important phenomenon. This article below, published in today’s New York Times, gets to the bottom of the parallels and importance of film in cultural discourse better than anything I've read in a while. Enjoy.

-----------

A New Market for Bravehearts?
By A. O. SCOTT

Published: July 11, 2004 in the New York Times

AS of this writing, "Fahrenheit 9/11," having won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, having landed its director on the covers of both Time and Entertainment Weekly, having dominated talk radio, the op-ed columns and the cable blusterfests for the last month, has just concluded its second weekend in theaters, where it has made more than $60 million so far. By the time you read this, that number will have grown, as the movie, which became the top-grossing documentary ever by the end of its first day of national release, ascends toward the $100 million mark.

By any available measure, and whatever you think of Michael Moore or "Fahrenheit 9/11," these numbers represent the climax of an extraordinary story: a filmmaker, shunned by a major studio, uses his contentious celebrity and his controversial subject matter to turn his movie into a major news story. Arguments rage and opinion hardens before most people have had a chance to see the movie. Once they do, the controversy grows hotter as the grosses expand. Film critics, meanwhile, scratch their heads, alternately bemused and amazed to witness the affirmation of something they often say and rarely believe: that movies have the power to influence political debate, to engage issues of paramount public importance and even to influence the course of events.

But what may be most remarkable about "Fahrenheit 9/11" is that it is the second movie released in the last six months to generate this kind of attention. It has become something of a commonplace to note the symmetries between Mr. Moore's movie and Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," and to see them as equal and opposite cultural phenomena, converging on the public from the left and right ends of the ideological spectrum. Their similarities, however, are if anything more striking, and not only because the main character in each case is a fellow who went into his father's line of work.

For an R-rated political documentary to make $100 million would be a show business anomaly, surpassed in strangeness only by an R-rated scripture-based foreign-language film making three times that much. It is unlikely that either picture signals the beginning of a trend, since the success of each was leveraged by the stardom of its maker. But Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibson did not succeed simply through their fame or their knack for using the news media as an engine of publicity. It was clear long before anyone had seen a frame of either "Passion" or "Fahrenheit" that what audiences would witness was the uncompromised, unfiltered vision of a strong-willed, stubborn and bloody-minded director.

Is it too idealistic of me to think that this freedom from compromise is part of what attracted audiences? Perhaps more than ever before, the movie studios are ruled by timidity, anxiously tailoring their releases to avoid giving offense. Yes, they sometimes engage in the mock-provocations of sex and brutality, but these tepid buttons are pushed much less forcefully than they were 30 years ago. For the most part, movies, intent on maintaining an illusion of consensus, tread cautiously around the thornier thickets of our civic life. Homosexuality no longer need be euphemized out of existence (though it's best not to place too much emphasis on the sex part), but abortion can scarcely be mentioned. War can be depicted with unvarnished savagery, but also with lump-in-the-throat speeches about valor and sacrifice (and also with period costumes to camouflage any uncomfortably topical implications). The social injustices of the past are ringingly opposed and soundly defeated, enforcing the view that the present is a land of eternal sunshine. Above all, the local multiplex follows the code of an old-line country club, in which religion and politics are not to be discussed.

The justification for this kind of bland cowardice is economic, and follows a marketing logic that is hard to refute. Why risk alienating potential customers? But the movie-going public can be alienated as much by boredom as by distaste, and it may be that the studios should be more afraid of our indifference than of our anger. At the moment, we are in a state of spiritual and political agitation, and while we may still be looking for entertainment to distract us or calm us down, we also clearly have an appetite for entertainment that does the opposite, that focuses our attention and raises our blood pressure. We worry about the health of the body politic and the state of our immortal souls and, at least some of the time, we want a culture that responds to these concerns. In other words, we are willing to pay good money to be provoked, enraged, exalted and challenged.

Change in the Air?

2004-05-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been finding TONS of new music (I'm sure I'll write up a few reviews soon). I just happened to come across this article, which put a few things in perspective. Is it a possibility that change is in the air in the music industry? I know that I've been dis-enchanted with the current mainstream music scene for years now. The last few bands that I've found out about and love seem to have a two things in common:

1. They are indie
2. Everyone else seems to be catching on as well.

Maybe we do have the next big thing here...I know that Franz Ferdinand just got signed for $2 million..

Rock's Big Bounce

In the 10 years since Kurt Cobain died, a once thrilling genre has struggled. Now a new community of bands is emerging and finally making it safe to go back into the mosh pit.
John Shearer / WireImage.com
Indie outbreak: Wayne Coyne's Flaming Lips are at the vanguard of a new golden age in rock

By Devin Gordon
Newsweek

May 17 issue - Have you ever been outside in 106-degree heat? The air is crushing. You dehydrate instantly. You fantasize about cooler places, like Arizona. In 106-degree heat, the average indie-rock fan—thin, brittle, white as chalk—will spontaneously burst into flames. So it was a shock when 60,000 of them braved the elements recently for the Coachella music festival outside Los Angeles. Two days, all outdoors, all to see 82 bands with names that sound like parodies of band names: Death Cab for Cutie, Broken Social Scene, the Flaming Lips and one that could've been the festival's motto: ... And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead. (Yes, that's a real band. And yes, they're good.) Two years ago, the indie-rock scene was sputtering. Coachella was a quirky, decently attended event. And now? "I had no idea it was such a big deal," says Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard. "We were touring in Japan beforehand and people kept telling us they were flying from Japan to be at Coachella."

After a grim decade, the rock scene is once again producing music—lots of it—that's worth getting on a plane to hear. And better still, people are buying it. Last month, Seattle bizarro-rockers Modest Mouse turned heads when their new CD debuted at No. 19 on Billboard's album chart, selling 80,000 copies in a week. Gibbard has become such an indie rainmaker that his side project, the electronic-pop duo the Postal Service, has sold 250,000 copies of its first CD, "Give Up." "Five years ago, a record that sold 50,000 copies was a huge success in our world," says Rich Egan, president of Vagrant Records, home of punk pinups Dashboard Confessional. "The standard has totally changed." File-sharing, once thought to be the death knell for the music industry, has actually helped trigger a spending spree. Even MTV and big radio are starting to notice, playing artists they wouldn't have touched three years ago. Does the current scene have a Nirvana, an R.E.M., a U2? Not yet. "But I've talked about this with friends a lot lately: something amazing is about to happen," says Gibbard, 27. "I don't want to guess what it'll be, but you can just feel it coming."

If you tuned out on rock music a few years ago because you just couldn't stand to hear another Creed song, it's time to come back to the flock. For too long that giddy sense of digging up buried treasure that comes with discovering a new band was a once-, maybe twice-yearly occurrence. Now, thanks in part to file-sharing and iPods, which have turned even graying rock fans into music collectors again, it's hard to get through the week without making a find. We're in a golden age for pure songwriting, with rare talents like Gibbard, the Shins' James Mercer and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy revitalizing the four-minute pop song and making a case that, in fact, it hasn't all been done before. If there's one knock against this new school of rock, it's that no one seems willing to step up and become class president. "At some point, Bono looked at Elvis and said, 'Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do,' " says former Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. A fractured pop climate and a general cynicism about musical saviors, he argues, has made young bands even less likely to pursue grand visions than Pearl Jam and Nirvana were. "There's just as much talent in this generation, but the constant message to kids starting new bands is: this is really not that important."

For a decade, that message was reinforced by the marketplace. Hip-hop grew dominant. And it didn't help that rock's last ruling age—the early ' 90s—ended so bitterly. If Kurt Cobain is your model of stardom, maybe selling 150,000 CDs is plenty, thank you. But lately, mainstream hip-hop has been bogged down in egocentric emptiness. And major-market radio, dominated by Clear Channel and drab rock acts like Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd, has bored listeners into experimentation. There's a refuge ready and waiting for them. Online music has coalesced from a loose band of pirate Web sites into a full-on industry. "Each month we get our statements from Apple—for our music bought on iTunes—and we're starting to make some serious money there," says Jonathan Poneman, founder of Nirvana's original label, Sub Pop Records, whose roster now includes the Postal Service, the jangling guitar rockers the Shins, and Southern-smoked folkie Iron & Wine. "If that model's working, and it appears to be, that changes everything."

It's already beginning to. The "alternative rock" genre has increased its industry market share for five straight years, according to Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield. (Even rap hasn't performed that well.) Last week MTV, the high court of bling videos and Britney Spears, added five rock clips to its coveted "Buzzworthy" stable. According to MTV programming chief Tom Calderone, that's a first in his four years at the network. "The system is being reinvented without the permission of the major music labels," says Nic Harcourt, host of the tastemaking KCRW Santa Monica radio show "Morning Becomes Eclectic." "Now that it's started, it won't stop. That means we'll be getting a healthy batch of new artists for years to come—and there'll be lots of people who want to hear them."

Another refreshing change is that today's rock bands are less sanctimonious, and much savvier, about money matters. "They're taking their cues from hip-hop," says Universal Records president Monte Lipman. A decade ago licensing a song for a commercial would've been sacrilege for an indie rocker. Today only a few purists blink when a Shins song pops up in a McDonald's ad or when Delta lifts a track by the British songstress Jem. "The Clash has licensed stuff. The Who's done it," notes Vagrant's Egan, who was reared on uncompromising hard-core acts like Fugazi. "So you think, 'What, exactly, am I fighting against?' " Today behavior that used to constitute "selling out" has become a way to fend off the siren call of a corporate deal. If your band makes enough money off an ad, then there's no need to bolt your indie label for a major. Signing a major-label deal is "more like a sentence than an agreement," says singer Todd Baechle of the Faint, a dark, tech-y punk band on the influential label Saddle Creek Records. If you want your CD all over chain stores like Best Buy, majors provide the muscle. But for most indie rockers, nothing beats being free.

With Bret Begun, Jac Chebatoris and Jennifer Ordoñez

Chomsky's speach

2004-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

I should have put this up a while ago. Here's the speach that I heard Noam Chomsky give at the Peace Rally last month. Enjoy.

2004-05-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

I saw this up on slashdot today and it made me laugh. Good times.

"The list of items and tasks for the 2004 version of the infamous University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt (or scavhunt for short) is up as a PDF. As a veteran of the first hunt in 1985, I'm glad to see the youngsters carrying on the madness. Some of the highlight items - the URLs of the blogs of the judges, five pages of Queer Eye for Doctor Doom, A McDonald's Sad Meal, Mrs Potatohead giving Mr. Potato head, Eudaemonia (300 points!), and a permanent tattoo that says 'Sorry about the syphilis, can we still be cousins?'"

2004-04-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

this needs to be passed on...

Save Canadian Music.com

On March 31, 2005, FACTOR's contract with the Department of Canadian Heritage expires. So what.

So what? So lots!

Effectively, this means that the current Government of Canada has announced its intention to stop its investment in the Canadian Music Industry. In the 2002/03 budget year, this investment was almost $14 Million dollars.

This investment directly assisted:

- more than 450 Canadian Artists, Bands and Songwriters across all genres from classical to rock, produce music in Canadian Studios

- more than 400 Canadian Artists with support for Live Performances, either Showcasing at a Canadian or International Music Industry Festival / Conference, or Touring across Canada or Internationally to support a new release

- in the production of world-class Music Videos for more than 50 songs by Canadian Artists utilizing Canadian Video Production Teams and Crews

- more than 250 initiatives by Canadian Record Labels, Festival Organizers, Distributors and others Companies in the Industry for marketing, promoting, developing and growing Canadian Music here in Canada and around the World

Since 1986, the Government of Canada has supported the Canadian Music Industry with Loans and Grants, most recently through the Department of Canadian Heritage and Canada Music Fund Council which are administered through FACTOR.

As it stands today, this investment will expire on March 31, 2005?

So, what will happen to Canadian Music and the Canadian Music Industry?

Clearly, the future of the Canadian Music Industry is in jeopardy. This expiration of funds will affect absolutely every facet of the industry.

The Artists will be affected the most. Many great albums won't be recorded; domestic and international tours will often be impossible. Canadian Music won't be showcased and supported internationally to the degree it is today.

And then there's the trickle down effect that includes recording studios and engineers, video producers and directors, agents and managers, independent labels, publicists and publishers, concert promoters and club venues from coast to coast, cd manufacturers and distributors, live production companies and crews, vehicle rental companies, hotel and accommodation providers, equipment manufacturers and retail music stores.

Think about it. Canadian Music is a significant contributor culturally and economically to Canada. What rationale does the Government have for allowing its 20+ year investment in this sector to expire?

If you care about Canadian Music, Canadian Culture and the Arts, then you need to act to save it... NOW.

Coolest site ever...

2004-04-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

After not bothering with this blog for a long time, I think that it is time for it to "rise once again". I'm not going to promise any updates, (they never seem to work out...), but keep your eyes peeled!

In other news, I just realized that the Grateful Dead is now on archive.org. Go check it out if you don't already understand how cool this site is. Over 10 thousand concerts by over 500 artists up for download - all for free!! This is a cultural and musical goldmine. I'm in love.

2004-02-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

So, I've been promising to write something interesting for a while...I lied. I also promised not to post something else on Dubya (I've been hard on the guy...) I lied. Here's another cut and paste article, see the slashdot article for some interesting conversation about this. Till next time.

Bush 'bending science to his political needs'

Scientists accuse US of manipulating research

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Thursday February 19, 2004
The Guardian

The Bush administration is guilty of misrepresenting scientific knowledge and misleading the public, a group of America's most senior scientists claimed yesterday.

They said the government had manipulated information to fit its policies on everything from climate change to whether Iraq had been trying to make nuclear weapons.

The open letter from the independent Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said: "When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions.

"This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government's own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice."

The letter was signed by 60 senior US scientists, including 20 Nobel prize winners, such as the physicists Steven Weinberg and James Cronin and the biologists Eric Kandel and Harold Varmus.

"We are not ... taking issue with the administration's policies. We are taking issue with the administration's distortion of the process with which science enters into its decisions," Kurt Gottfried, a professor of physics at Cornell University and chairman of the UCS, told reporters.

Russell Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under the former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said that during his tenure: "I do not recall ever receiving a suggestion, let alone an order, from the White House as to how I should make a regulatory decision. How times have changed."

Neal Lane of Rice University in Houston and a former science adviser to ex-president Bill Clinton, said scientific findings were being kept from decision-makers.

"I am afraid that our leading policymakers simply don't know what they don't know, given the manipulation of the science advice process," he said.

Last night, the White House denied the accusations. "I can assure you that this is an administration that makes decisions based on the best available science," said a White House spokesman, Scott McClellan.

The UCS letter was published on the same day as a new report from the National Academies of Science, which expressed serious concern that the US government's plans to deal with climate change could be scuppered by a lack of funds.

The US equivalent of Britain's Royal Society, the NAS focused on the Bush administration's latest plans for the environment, coordinated by the US climate change science programme (CCSP).

The NAS conceded that the new research plans were a significant improvement on the CCSP's original strategy, which was the focus of much international criticism when it was published in November 2002.

At the time, scientists around the world said that the draft strategy flew in the face of international climate change research. It ignored existing science and a great deal of its planned research would merely repeat work that had been done already.

The strategy had followed the US withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol, which commits countries to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

It also raised fears among environmentalists that the US would refuse to play its part in addressing the problems associated with climate change.

The NAS reviewed the draft strategy and gave the CCSP a chance to improve its plans. Yesterday's report is an evaluation of these revisions.

"The plans are quite good now actually, it has been quite responsive to the scientific community," said Diana Liverman, director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University and a co-author of the NAS report. "But the academy's concerns are mostly about whether the resources will actually be there to implement it. And if the resources aren't there, which bits of it are going to be implemented?"

Linda Mearns of the national Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, agreed: "I think it does indicate that they have been certainly pressured by the criticism by the scientific community."

Writing in today's Guardian Life section, Prof Liverman said scientists in the US were increasingly complaining of political interference with their work. She outlines the increasing suppression of research that goes against government policy on global warming. "To be a scientist working on climate change in the US is to be frustrated by the backlash against environmental science, research budget cuts and by the American media's general lack of interest in environmental issues," she writes.

One group of scientists had federal lawsuits filed against them by lobby groups for producing reports on the effects of climate change across the US.

The UCS has long been critical of the Bush administrations attitude to climate change. "The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease if the public is to be properly informed about issues central to its well being," its letter said.

"miserable failure"

2004-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

I guess you learn something new every day, follow these steps:

1. go to Google
2. type in "miserable failure"
3. Press the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

Maybe I'm being hard on the guy...next time I promise to put up something nice up about Dubya...

It's 2004 (I know it's late) and I have eBay mania!

2004-01-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

2004! Right on! I know it's a bit late, but I guess that's better than never. Still have to get those resolutions done: I have a draft right now. Hopefully I'm not breaking any resolutions yet...

In other news, I am super busy. TWO jobs, totaling around 50-60 hours per a week PLUS my photo class! Damn. Either way, I'm not too stressed yet. Just a bit tired. I might dump Save-On in a month if the Box Company (my new job) works out. I REALLY don't want to hit 4 years at Save-On - I told myself that I wouldn't last that long.

Also in other news, I'm pretty broke (as per usual). This time however, I have a plan. One word: eBay! I set myself up a sellers account and I've put up a ton of junk up there to see if anyone will buy. See what I've got for sale right now.My sisters Babysitters Club books? Ya, I know that's low. With my two jobs and this "extra income" I should be out of debt and buying stuff once again. I think that my first big paycheck is going to go towards a new Camera. I'm thinking Nikon.

Speaking of photos, I took a bunch at the Garaj Mahal show the other night. There up here if anyone wants to see them.

Until next time...

Merry Christmas!!

2003-12-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Now that school is over for a bit, I'm back to blogging after my self imposed exile. I have some great ideas (if I don't say so myself...) and I hope to have the time to bring them to life. Hopefully having Dreamweaver and Photoshop in my room now will be inspiration.

I hope that the image above brings the context of the day back into focus. It’s the best and most important day of the year, but it often gets overshadowed by "stuff". Now is not the time to rant however - I'm going to go and spend time with my family. So, God bless...to any friends and family reading this, I hope to see you soon.

And for all of you tracking santa on Norad, here's something a bit lighter:

The Physics of Santa and His Reindeer

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total — 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 751/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000/3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see above) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload (not even counting the weight of the sleigh) - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.

In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

I'm Lazy....

2003-11-29T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from writing anything of substance (as if what's on here ever has any..) till once school's over. I came across this article in the Strait this week and wanted to pass it on. Take it for what it is: food for thought.

WTO Beats Plowshares Into Penknives
By Guy Babineau

Tiered rice paddies, graceful woodlands, and pagodas rest against blue-green mountains rolling toward the horizon like cresting waves about to crash. It's the kind of postcard landscape that fuels our romantic view of rural Eastern Asia. But the apparent serenity of South Korea's North Cholla province is misleading. Like the yin-yang symbol on the country's flag, existence there is a locking together of stark opposites.

In a wealthy nation, with the world's 11th-largest economy, the mainly small-scale tenant farmers inhabiting the tough-to-tame terrain endure terrible hardship. Not surprisingly, their ranks are shrinking. According to statistics in a September 2003 Los Angeles Times story, the number of people employed in agriculture has dwindled to about 3.6 million last year from 16 million in 1965, even though the country's population has doubled in that time period.

In recent years, globalization's stumbling but relentless march has broken through the country's once-sturdy barrier of protectionist trade policies. A mixture of EU, U.S., Japanese, and Canadian agricultural subsidies, tariff imbalances, factory farming, the importation of cheaper produce from China (which has deplorable labour and farming standards), and South Korea's miraculous industrial expansion have made things more difficult. Lee Kyung-Hae spent his life trying to improve economic conditions for farmers in the region, becoming a local hero. Now, to some people, he's a martyr.

Born in 1947 into a family of rice traders near the town of Jangsu, a two-and-a-half-hour drive south of Seoul, Lee studied agricultural science at university. He returned home in the mid-1970s to claim 16 hectares of mountainside he had inherited, with the ambitious goal of transforming it into bountiful farmland. It took five years to accomplish. He introduced a special breed of cattle to graze the property's vertiginous incline between paddies of an especially hardy, if low-yield, strain of rice that could withstand the elevation's cold winter temperatures. With the help of German technologists, he constructed electric fences, previously unheard-of in the area, and a cable-car system for transporting livestock feed.

Renowned for its agricultural innovations, the profitable Seoul Farm attracted farmers and students from across the country. Lee shared his successes with his wife, who died in a car accident in 1993, and three daughters. He was elected four times to North Cholla's provincial legislature. In 1988, the United Nations gave him an award for rural leadership. Nonetheless, in the mid-1990s people in the area began losing their farms for the reasons mentioned above. Several took their own lives, reflecting South Korea's higher-than-average rate of suicide among farmers worldwide. Lee lost his farm in a foreclosure sale in 1999 when his herd became almost worthless following the importation of Australian cows and the collapse of beef prices in Korea.

On September 10, the opening day of the World Trade Organization's Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, Lee and 150 other Koreans tried to pull down the security barriers separating protestors from the WTO's host resort. Lee climbed atop a barrier, and, wearing a sign that said The WTO Kills Farmers, he shouted a speech condemning indifference to the plight of farmers, then pulled out a penknife and thrust it into his chest. It penetrated four centimetres, piercing his heart. He died in hospital a few hours later.

Most people would consider farming an honourable profession, frequently heroic when faced with the whims of nature and, nowadays, humans. The next day, hundreds of mourners paraded through the World Trade Organization's host city, carrying Lee's coffin. The mayor of Cancún proposed a memorial in his honour.

Despite its stigma of shame and disgrace in western society, suicide is seen by some as the only way they have of confronting dishonour and injustice, even if their reasons seem skewed and mysterious to the rest of us, or even mystical. From the biblical self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the hunger strikes of Mahatma Gandhi during the British occupation of India to the self-immolation of Buddhist monks during the French and American occupations of Vietnam, suicide has furnished a potent, and sometimes poetic, form of protest against oppression, notably in agrarian-based cultures. By all accounts, Lee was not motivated by spiritual faith but by something equally fundamental: the preservation of a way of life.

Every one of us on the planet, regardless of nationality, is tied to the land by ancestry. The late historian Arnold J. Toynbee, author of the 10-volume A Study of History, believed that history comprises the rise and fall of civilizations, not individual nations. From the perspective of Lee and his compatriots, the WTO, which reached an impasse in Cancún when member countries broke off into factions that refused to cooperate, was a forum pitting the civilization of agribusiness against the civilization of agriculture. It's a familiar theme in Canada, a country even richer than South Korea. Recently, a majority of farmers in the wheat belt raised their voices in opposition to the introduction of factory farming's newest darling, genetically modified grain. This is on the heels of a mad-cow-disease scare that shut down the U.S. border and lit up crisis-centre phone lines with calls from suicidal farmers across the West. Their voices deserve to be heard.

There was little mainstream-press coverage of Lee's death. News about the WTO ministerial conference itself was minimal. The media was preoccupied with the anniversary of 9/11, which, with its endless accompanying speechifying, handwringing, and talk-show chatter, is steadily being degraded from a horrific tragedy into a massive annual group encounter and self-help session as we endlessly ask ourselves "Why?"

To begin to understand why, we would do well to look up from our navels for at least a cursory glance at what happened in Cancún and ask ourselves another question: who handed Lee Kyung-Hae the knife? Even better, let's ask the farmers.

I'm still Alive.

2003-11-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still alive. This blog is dead for now...however..it will rise again. Keep your eye's peeled. I have ideas and half written posts and a massive concert calender update. Can't wait till the end of school (for a bit) - time and money is exactly what I need.