I hear a lot of things about the media these days. Heck, I say a lot of things about the media. There's a lot of talk about bias, how the mainstream media needs to get rid of their bias. That's a bunch of crap. The academic community discovered about 15 years ago that bias is inherent in any form of observation. This includes scientists, who are finally ditching the old-school concept that science is objective. Forget about it.

Let's look at this realistically: it's not a very good idea to preach an overhaul of the entire media system. Personally, I think that would achieve the best results, but let's not go there. It's not feasible. What is feasible, though - and precedent has again been set by the academic community - is disclosure of bias.

When doing a piece on a controversial subject, don't try to present both sides equally. (I guess this is a moot point since nobody really tries to do this anyway.) Stick your neck out and state your position. Everyone has an agenda. The New York Times should proudly proclaim itself a bastion of liberal progressivism. The Wall Street Journal should be printed on sheets of money. CNN should put a little picture of Ted Turner in the corner with the caption, "We Do What He Says." NPR should announce at the top of every hour that their programming is made possible "by pseudo-intellectual rich white people, for pseudo-intellectual rich white people".

Let us know exactly what you think. Don't try to obscure any semblance of subjectivity with statistics and sound bites. And when you make your opinionated arguments - which I hope you will - don't go all ad hominem on us. The other side is not morally corrupt, or evil, or idiots. (Although I have to digress for a minute and say that Sen. Sam Brownback has got to be the biggest idiot I have ever laid eyes on. You're gonna try and tell Arlen Specter that he's not allowed to look for a cure for cancer because you have too many hang-ups about experimenting with embryos that were just going to be destroyed anyway? Arlen Specter is from TEXAS, man! He does not play around! If I was him I would have reached across the table and done a Rick James across your face, with George Stephanopoulos cheering me on. Next time, keep your big dumb Kansan mouth shut.)

Note: the above in no way constitues an endorsement of Sen. Specter, although his website paints him up as a pretty cool dude. Also, he's not from Texas. My bad. But since Pennsylvania doesn't have the same ring to it, and also because it is currently unknown whether people from Pennsylvania "play around", I have decided not to correct this mistake. Also, strangely enough, Sen. Specter was born and raised in Kansas. At this point, any legitimate reporter or political commentator would have stricken the entire parenthetical aside from the record. But I just don't roll like that. I keeps it real.

Another note: Rick James has some cool music, man. I'm not talking about "Superfreak", I'm talking about "Give It To Me, Baby" (which Jay-Z and the Neptunes shamelessly ripped off!), and "Mary Jane", and "Cold Blooded". Check him out, all you paid-monthly-music-subscription-subscribers!

I hereby propose that Guns N Roses were the Limp Bizkit of their time. Don't believe me? Here's the facts:

-Both bands played loud and flashy music
-Both bands were only popular for a short time
-Both bands have a small but fanatical fanbase that insists they are still popular
-Two less-than-brilliant frontmen
-Two freaky-looking guitar players
-Both bands shared a tendency to do terrible covers

Need I say more?

Orson Scott card is funny, like a clown. He is here to amuse you.

Commentary (Farkentary? Frankenberry? Mmm, Frankenberry)

There are some good points in there, somewhere. I just wish they weren't obscured by all the jingoism. And what's that stuff about CBS hating Mormons? Methinks someone has been exposed to science fiction for too long.

I have forgotten how frustrating recording can be. I'm trying to make demos for all the new songs I have, and it's going very slowly. I still got the dope skillz for the phat beatz, so that's good. And I've figured out a better way to record and mix them. But I spent like an hour trying to experiment with this idea I had for recording guitar that just didn't pan out. I think my delay pedal has serious problems because I can never get reasonable levels out of it. I wonder.

That's about it. My life has slowed down considerably since school let out. It picked up yesterday because I got the Chappelle Show Season 2 DVD. I've watched everything except the special features. It's great.

Ok. Well, it's time to get back to "work". I'll post stuff here if I manage to produce something remotely listenable.

Here's an update for you: I don't know why I like this record. It's very preachy and self-indulgent, Conor's voice is super-shaky (almost as if he doesn't like the idea of singing at all), and the songs themselves are all pretty similar. (There's even a fabulous pun involved when I realized the familiar tune that closes the disc was appropriately titled "Road to Joy".)

But ... I like it. I imagine this is the exception rather than the rule, because I have Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I think that one is a giant turd. Cool electronic sounds, but basically still country songs. I guess I can applaud the effort.

Ok, Conor, you Midwestern freak show. You win this round.

Does anyone else find it curious that movies - which are a passive form of entertainment - are continuously re-released and preserved in multiple formats, while video games - which are an active form of entertainment - are discontinued very quickly and considered obsolete every few years? If someone wanted to do a report on the movies people watched in 1935, they could easily locate information on every movie that was released that year, and probably get a good number of them on VHS or DVD. On the other hand, if that same person wanted to do a report on the video games people played in 1985, while it would be possible to find information on which games were released that year, it would be nearly impossible to procure working examples of a fraction of those games. Even limiting the scope of research to just PC games or just Nintendo games would still mean hundreds of games lost to history.

The holy grail among gamers is rediscovering the games of their youth. I got rid of my Nintendo long ago, and while I have a Genesis and a Super NES somewhere gathering dust, they are mostly useless since I preferred to rent games rather than buy them. Sometimes I just want to sit down and play Warsong, or Final Fantasy II, or Metroid. So what am I supposed to do? Some games have been reissued; the only significant ones have been the Final Fantasy series and Chrono Trigger, which were released for the PS1. Everything else is gone. PC Emulators have helped to fill this gap and also to preserve these games, which I think is certainly just as important as preserving the movies of our time. But they are tricky to use, some games aren't available, and emulation is not supported by the original manufacturers. It won't be enough until there is a centralized movement within the industry to recognize the importance of preserving video games.

We've come a long way since Pong and Atari and even Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. 25 years ago, gaming was a different story. The primary market was arcade machines, and home gaming was just beginning. The industry incorporated new technology as it was happening, and as a result games improved very quickly. New games rolled out every year that put the old ones to shame, and so the idea of tossing out the old to make way for the new became the standard that is still in place today.

The problem is, the fact that Timesplitters 3 rocks so much does not diminish the quality of the first two. If and when Final Fantasy XXII comes out, I will still cherish the time I spent playing the very first one. And I will still want to play it, no matter what. That's why I want to see old games preserved. It's beginning to happen - the Atari joysticks that plug into your TV, the various arcade collections - and I think the video game companies are starting to realize that preserving and reissuing games is both historically and financially beneficial to them.

There you have it, folks. My first recorded classical work. Sabrina and Tyler (the pianist) did a great job.

Now, to finish that opera ...

I realize it is a very controversial subject (with a lot of ins and a lot of outs), but I am willing to take the bad with the good and pronounce Episode III: Revenge of the Sith as the best movie ever made. Bar none.

I have my reasons, but I won't bother to go into detail. Suffice it to say that the entire experience was truly once-in-a-lifetime. Hats off to Mr Lucas - preferably tri-cornered pirate hats. Arr.

I had forgotten about Target. Rachel wanted to find some Star Wars shirts, so we went there last night. I almost made it out alive. Almost.

On the way out, I remembered that they usually have a rack of underground artists in the CD section. (J: I forgot to mention that this is truly the greatest perk of working there.) They don't have a lot of selection compared to a place like Best Buy, but what they have is amazing. In 30 seconds I had grabbed the new Van Morrison, both new Bright Eyes, the new Spoon, and Bloc Party. The one Bright Eyes record was a ridiculous $7 and the other was $9. Spoon and Bloc Party were on sale for $12 each and my man Van was marked down to $10. I haven't done any listening yet, but as always I will let you, my faithful readers, know.

Ticketmaster charges a fee to deliver tickets in electronic form. I've known about this for a long time, but today I realized how idiotic this is. Most airlines have gone the paperless route, charging if you want physical tickets. Credit card companies and banks have incentives in place for customers who choose to view their monthly statements online. But not only does Ticketmaster charge a fee to e-mail your ticket to you, it offers standard rate mail as a free option. (Free being relative of course, since no matter what you're paying $5+ in "processing fees".)

Let me break this down for you. Once I heard that my beloved Peacemakers were going to be in town, I went to their website to find out how to get tickets. I was directed to Ticketmaster. Bracing myself for the worst, I checked out the prices. $10 presale, $12 at the door? Sounds good. Even the $3.50 surcharge wasn't so bad. But by the time I had reached the payment screen, the charges had added up to create a $20 ticket. Twenty dollars! A $3.50 processing fee, some other $3.50 fee, and $3 to actually e-mail the ticket to me so I could print it out.

In a sweeping gesture of stupidity, Ticketmaster single-handedly defeated the whole purpose of raising ticket prices on the day of the show. By getting a ticket at the door, I would actually SAVE EIGHT DOLLARS. I didn't want to risk it being sold out, so I made a bold move: I got in my car and drove down to Kroger where they have a Ticketmaster outlet. That's right. Final ticket price: $14.16. I saved five dollars by getting in my car, killing our environment just a little bit more (if you subscribe to that philosophy), and standing around for 20 minutes while the cashier figured out how to work the Ticketmaster program, which looked like it was written in assembly code circa 1985.

I have no sympathy for Ticketmaster. I refuse to even link to their site like I normally do with my subject matter. I'm certainly in favor of ticket brokers being able to profit from sales, but this is ridiculous. So I'm signing off with a big fat "SUCK IT!" to the fine folks at Ticketmaster.

THE BEST BAND EVER is coming to Nashville! Finally, after so many years, I will get to see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers bring their special version of Southwestern rock right here to the Exit/In. Anyone who's in town on 6/1 should strongly consider joining me. If you're not sure you would like RCPM, go to their website (linked above) and listen to some audio clips. If you're still not sure, I would be happy to make a mix CD for you. If you're STILL not sure, then you are some kind of robot or alien or alien robot, but let me know and we can work something out whereby you go to the show and enjoy it immensely. In fact, IT WILL BE THE BEST SHOW OF YOUR LIFE OR MY MONEY BACK.

(I don't know what that means, but it's fun to shout.)

I am back. Florida was fun, but I am worn out. Props to everyone - Albert is cool. Adam is an author.

I am evaluating Trillian after a request to use MSN Messenger. I spent so long trying to remove that ubiquitous program from my computer that I no longer consider it a valid option. So Trillian it is. I haven't had much luck with third-party messaging programs. There was that little fiasco with Miranda IM a while back, and before that I had tried an early release of Trillian and found it to be very awkward.

Something has changed since then, because Trillian 3.1 is great. Multiple logins and contact lists, automatic e-mail checking (for screen names linked to e-mail accounts), and just a real sweet look to everything. Anyway, more updates as events warrant.

I'd like to thank everyone that made tonight such a resounding success. First of all, Alan gave me the idea. Secondly, Rachel really put things together and helped me to think big and feed the millions of people that ended up coming by for dinner. And last but certainly not least, Caleb, Johannes, Micah, Kim, and Clayton showed up and ate and laughed and watched the Big Lebowski even though it got really hot because we had to turn the A/C off in order to hear the movie.

Which brings me to my next point. Johannes and Micah went with me to get the movie (since I've lost my copy, we had to go rent it), and Micah requested that we stop by Tower so Johannes could buy a magazine for his brother (it was a copy of No Depression with John Prine on it, who I've only recently heard about - I thought it was amazing that someone in Germany was interested in an American alt.country magazine). I told them about my purchasing extravaganza the other night, but felt a bit sheepish when we went inside and the amazing sale was no longer going on. In fact, about 60% of the CD's in the $9.99 rack were gone, and the signs had been taken down. Anyway, I told them it was dangerous to let me in there because I was liable to buy something. This proved true when the clearance singles rack caught my eye. I saw a sweet Morrissey single slashed down to $1.99, but upon closer inspection I found two singles in the regular rack that were priced higher, but included more tracks. So I got those instead. "Redondo Beach" is quite weird, it being a Patti Smith song, and not a very good one in my opinion. Also, it's a live single - the other tracks are "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and a new original called "Noise is the Best Revenge" - but it doesn't sound like Morrissey singing at all. Maybe they produced it differently or something (it was recorded for a BBC Radio 1 session), but his voice sounds almost normal. Kind of disappointing.

The other thing that's stupid about it (and this applies to the live DVD too) is that live performances need to reflect the spirit of the original studio track. What this means to me is if you are keeping the same basic arrangement, you must play the song up to tempo. Faster is ok, although groovier stuff will suffer. Slower is absolutely never acceptable. On this single, "There Is A Light" is at least 20 clicks slower than the studio version. I can't bear to listen to it; it feels like the band is just crawling through a huge muddy field, or all spaced out on Valium or something. The emotion and intensity is completely lost. The good news is the DVD is definitely up to speed, although the band always feels like they want to lay back too much on this number. The bad news is the DVD features "The Headmaster Ritual", which I thought was going to be great, but again it's way slower than the studio track and so it just ruins the experience for me.

I also bought "The First of the Gang to Die" single, which I think is a different (studio) recording than the album. (Update: from what I can tell, it's the same recording.) It really rocks - the band likes to slow this one down live, too. Bleah.

The Police never had this problem. That's one thing I think they always did right.

Those of you that know me know that I am hardly an alarmist of any kind. Except when it comes to really cool concerts and new releases by my favorite artists. I can get excited about those. But I saw this today, and I couldn't help but wonder what is going on:

REAL ID
REAL ID and judicial review
Special bonus tinfoil hat thread for TotalFarkers

So what this means is that a bill establishing a national ID card for the U.S. was passed unanimously by the Senate without any debate whatsoever - simply because it was added on to an appropriations bill to fund military actions in Iraq. (Don't forget about the delicious restrictions on judicial review that were also tacked on.)

I really don't care what it is; anything that passes the Senate unanimously worries me. Unless it's a motion to establish Ronald Reagan's birthday as a national holiday.

Where are the crazy liberals and/or libertarians when you need them?

Go to the link above. DO IT NOW! Click on the video for "Playa Azul". It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. These guys are great. Plenty of stuff to see and do on their website, too - the bio is a good read.

Yet another thing I have David Byrne to thank for.

Finally ... some good concert news. My man Van will be performing in the UK in July. I found a show about 40 minutes outside of London - on a Saturday, even - but ticketmaster.co.uk is crapping out errors left and right, so I can't even see how much the tickets are.

So we went to Chili's, and then Tower Records - two places I wasn't very keen on going, but Caleb had gift cards for both. So we have a bang-up time at Chili's talking about the death of pop music (it's a nice thing to think about) and then saunter over to Tower. I did not expect to find anything worth buying; rather, I should say I did not expect to find anything reasonably priced. But they had 4 entire racks of recent stuff for $9.99. I couldn't believe it. My initial choice of about 12 records was whittled down to Wilco's "Being There" (an even greater deal since it's a double record), Gram Parsons' "GP" and "Grievous Angel" (another double disc!), and the best of Van Morrison, vol. 2 (since I already knew most of the songs on the first one). On the way out, I saw the new Morrissey DVD and ... THE NEW RYAN ADAMS!!! FOR ONLY $12.99!!!

Three double albums later, I am in the mood to clean this place up. And that's a good thing, because, man - it sure does need it.

This is my assignment from class today. I kid you not.
[Note: after my hosting account was hacked and reset, I was unable to find a copy of the picture in this post. Sorry.]