matt y. asks, what is the deal with new media, anyways?

and i say, i dunno. i mean, actually i can say what i think it means, or what i'm starting to think it means, or what i'm interested in, anyways, but that's still all just forming in my head and is probably best saved for a later post when i'm not just blathering all over the place.

but anyway, for now, these are the main points i think are important:

new media is RSS.

new media is citizen journalism (and this does, to me, include blogging). also google ohmynews for reference.

new media is new distribution devices for media (ie electronic devices, cells, pdas, ipods, MAYBE electronic paper but i dunno, and stuff that is yet to be invented).

new media is transparency (as cliche a buzzword as that has become, it's still true).

new media is niche marketing.

new media is not being SO EFFING AFRAID of change and innovation. i've only been in journalism school for two weeks, and i'm not going to lie to you: there are a million brilliant people here, but there are just as many people who can't see why print journalism might one day die out. why the newspaper in its current form is a pain in the ass, physically speaking, to read. why subscriptions are falling. why staff reporters are being cut. why doing the NYtimes select is a bad, very bad, worst idea, ever. why blogs are FUN and awesome and good and filled with great personalities. why this bullshit standard about newspaper "accuracy" compared to bloggers is such CRAP! hello, um, didn't the new york times make at least two major errors in the past week? the crap with geraldo and saying some memo was written by john roberts when it, uh, wasn't? how many people read the corrections pages newspapers? NO ONE WHO IS NOT 95 AND CANTANKEROUS. so you might never know an error was made unless the error itself makes the news. blogs make errors, it's true, but they're almost always immediately called out and corrected in such a way that the original error and the correction stand so that everyone can see the process.

new media is yahoo and google becoming content creators. seriously, yos. they are going to rival major newspapers within 10 years for content and news that they provide. think i lie? yahoo has already hired kevin sites to report for them on war zones, and hired a number of financial columnists to write for them. don't doubt that google maps is thinking about the day they can integrate their local search with some sort of entertainment database - you'll search an area for "bars", the options will come up, and you'll be able to click on the bar names to read google reviews about them. maybe they will integrate user content. probably. who knows. but yahoo and google are not just going to be leaping off points for the internet ; they will become major content creators, and major destinations.

new media is not:

trying to define what a blog, or blogging, is. IF ONE MORE PANEL IS HELD I WILL THROW 72-POUND MELONS AT EVERYONE'S HEAD. see jeff jarvis for more.

new media is not merely putting the content from print papers online and hoping that the act of putting it online with, like, a photo will make it hip and awesome and readable.

new media is not about overthrowing traditional media entities and having BLOGGERS RULE THE EARTH. seriously. trad media people are TERRIFIED, is what i have learned, about blogging. it is almost funny. hello, it is a complement to what yall are doing, and a way to enhance your product and draw more readers in.

new media is not about shitty blog reporting. good reporting will ALWAYS have a place in media, in my opinion. that's why the nytimes is fucked when it locks its pundits up in a pay-for-play castle - sorry, but anyone can say what they can say, since they are basically just bloviating out of their butts. i can hear that stuff from people for free, people who love and know so much about what they're writing that they do it for the joy of it. what i CANNOT get from bloggers is accounts from across the world or tips from major highup sources in the know. maybe one day, but not now. i need good, intelligent reporters for that.

...

wow. i went on a bit of a rant there. blame it on the drinks i had tonight at the medill happy hour. but anyway, it's what i think, for better or worse. and you?

UPDATE: the worst part about this post is that most of the people reading this site ALREADY KNOW all of this stuff. so i'm just rambling redundantly. and i know you all know it. but the fact is, i have been utterly amazed in the past two weeks about how little other people know about any of the stuff mentioned above. hardly anyone in my class, as far as i can tell, reads blogs or knows what RSS is. no one understands why it might be easier to read a paper in tabloid form or on a pda than in a normal modern newspaper. many, many people are worried about blogs and think they're ruining journalism. basically, i feel like up until medill i've been in this little perfect bubble where everyone gets all this new media stuff - even people who have no interest in studying it or creating it, but just use it as part of their day-to-day existence - and now i'm facing, oh, the other 97% of the world, and i need to explain everything. so humor me.

i'm just gonna make this simple: if you aren't watching "veronica mars," you should be. not only is it teh tv hotness (better than "lost," i think), it features a HAWT charisma carpenter (you know, cordelia of btvs fame?) this season. and seriously, everyone compares it so casually to btvs, but it's not for no reason that they do so. if you're looking to fill the btvs-shaped hole in your heart, you could do worse than to check it out.

This project has now gotten bad enough that I have actually begun to look forward to meetings. Daydreams about how to break my mousing arm can't be far away.

jake reminds me of a simple fact that any savvy consumer should know: u-haul sucks, and it will bite you in the ass if you reserve a truck from them. you will, without doubt, get screwed over one way or another. jake cites this story. mr. loops offers this seemingly-common tale of u-haul desertion. when i was moving, i spoke with my friend becca about her move from north carolina to d.c. and how the tire on her u-haul trailer blew out, and how u-haul proceeded to strand her on the side of I-95 for EIGHT HOURS and DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO PAY FOR HER TIRE REPLACEMENT UNTIL SHE FOUGHT IT.

if i can do one good in the world, it can be the promotion of how terrible u-haul is - how they lack any compassion, any organization, any halfway-modern trucks, any semblance of customer service. yet, they never seem to go away, and the complaints about them have been going on for years. what's the deal here? why do they remain so popular? how have better companies like budget not totally snapped up their share of the market?

i don't know. but i do know one thing: we, as the ALL IMPORTANT BLOGGERS, must work tirelessly to change it. screw u-haul!

You know what I really enjoy? When people call into NPR to explain to the world that they don't watch any TV. Bonus points: when they do so within the context of a segment about the new TV season.

Requisite onion link here.

Catherine can't get UPN. Susan doesn't have a TV, and if she did it would mostly serve to confuse. How are we going to maintain our shared pop cultural language? Wouldn't it be convenient if someone put up a BitTorrent site offering easy downloads of Veronica Mars and Lost each week? Yeah. Seems like it would.

In totally unrelated news, I've started working on a hacked-up version of Blog Torrent that allows for the creation of private torrents. It won't provide real security — the tracker won't customize .torrents with unique logins, so this is really just security by obscurity — but it should stop those wandering in from the internet from seeing what on offer. I'll release the customized Blog Torrent to whoever else might want this sort of Darknet functionality.

But having thought about it a little more, this is clearly overkill. It'll be useful for DCist since we may occasionally need to ferry large amounts of video among the staff prior to editing it down, and we don't want it to be publicly accessible to everyone. But you lose out on the speed advantage of BitTorrent if your swarm consists of one downloader and one seeder. Plus, I'm running out of disk space. Running my own BitTorrent operation doesn't really make sense.

So: here's what I suggest. It's really simple.

1. Head to DCist Torrents and click on the "Easy Download" link for any of the torrents listed. Let it walk you through installing the software. It'll automatically detect if you're using a Mac or a PC. Once the download starts, you can cancel it. BitTorrent is now installed on your computer.
2. Each week I will supply links to the Pirate Bay pages for the torrents of the two shows. Go to the one you want, click the link that looks like DOWNLOAD THIS TORRENT, specify a save location, and your download will begin. That should be it.

Easy enough? Okay, you might need to install one other thing in order to play these files. But there's no getting around that. If your download is complete but you can't play the file in Windows Media Player (or its Mac equivalent), just go here and download and run the appropriate file.

A torrent for this week's episode of Lost can be found here.

A torrent for this week's episode of Veronica Mars can be found here.

Note to angry MPAA peons: I'm not linking to a copy of the TV show. I'm linking to a website that links to a torrent that links to a copy of the TV show. I can add some additional degrees of separation if you'd like.

i realize that last week i was probably unnecessarily harsh on the season premiere of lost, seeing as how everyone else and their grandma regarded it as manna from heaven. and when i watched the repeat tonight, right before the new episode, it definitely seemed better. that said...

for those who didn't already know, courtesy of a link a similarly-obsessed-with-lost classmate, what walt said when shannon saw him in the jungle last week:

"press the button. no button's bad."

(that's what comes out when you play what he actually said on the show in reverse.)

in an hour: the second episode! we finally get to see the fate of the rafters (and a soaking wet sawyer, yay).

yet another thing to consider for the next year or so at medill: should i do the global journalism quarter? it's an optional fifth quarter next fall where you're sent to paris for a couple of weeks for seminars, then sent off to wherever in the world to do 10-12 weeks of reporting for real live newspapers and foreign bureaus (like the AP). there's a rome office...and a london one. not to mention much more exotic locations in south america, asia and africa. but i don't much like exiting my comfort zone, at least not THAT much. i know, i'm a pussy.

cons: it's an extra quarter of tuition.
pros: i'm not paying any tuition for THESE four quarters, so what's a few extra grand?
cons: it'd be that much longer before i'm back on the job market.
pros: but this might be the last time that i can live abroad, again, for the second time. i'm going to be popping out babies before i know it, and they sure as hell won't want to be reporting from prague. unless they are really awesome babies.
cons: it's a program all about enforcing your skills as a regular reporter, and, uh, i know i'm in journalism school, but i really don't want to be a reporter.
pros: paris! rome! london! i can fake it for a while, right?

but seriously, i need help deciding. it's not like i have to know tomorrow, but if you have any input, pass it along.

a brief article about a colloquium headed by my new media advisor. sounds like the stuff he spoke about was more or less the same as what he talked about in a lecture last week entitled "convergence." (i couldn't attend the colloquium today because of classes.)

people always laugh at me when i say shit like we will have electronic handheld newspaper reading devices in a couple of decades and that the print newspaper will be obsolete, BUT IT IS TRUE. give me 20 years and we'll see who's laughing then, print fogey. but first up: most newspapers will transform into tabloid style, a la guardian in england. i speak the bible truth.

i don't know if chicago is really "the vacation city," but i saw that on a vintage-looking poster in a storefront today, so i'm running with it.

anyway: you all are now commanded to come visit me at your earliest convenience. the reason? behold:

THE MIGHTY FUTON!

okay, so that's not really my futon - i stole the image off some web site because i was too lazy to get my camera out and photograph my own - but it looks a lot like it. yeah. i have a futon now! which i put together ALL BY MYSELF. i am exceedingly proud of this fact, because if you know me, you know that it's an effort for me to construct anything more complicated than a 5-years-old-and-under puzzle. but, after letting the enormous delivered futon box sit squarely in the middle of my living room for over a week, i decided last saturday that the beast must be tackled. it was tough, but i did it! even if it did take me three and half episodes of the buffy season two dvd.

so anyway, now my beloved guests have a place to sleep! and catherine did not skimp out on you. when offered a choice of a 6, 8, or 10 inch mattress, which one did i go with? that's right. the luxurious 10. who loves you, baby?

if i were a straight 20-something male, i would be giving myself high fives all over the place.

not only is the ratio of women to men in the program something like 3:1, all the ladies are cute at the least, if not total stunners. and they're from a wide range of places - there are gorgeous women from canada (that exotic foreign land), palestine, india and ireland, just to name a few. the guys? are nice and smart. but to quote james, "the cute ones are usually gay."

another shocking insight: writing newspaper headlines is, like, totally hard. we had a two-hour project on it the other day (though part of it also involved copy editing articles), and my mind was just drawing complete blanks. at first, when i took a glance at a brief article about some chicago building possibly receiving a "chic" makeover, i was like, this is a snap! but then, as i tried to cram the relevant information in a pithy, smart manner within the confines (something like six columns, one line, 48 pt font, 45 counts per line, which is the number of counts alotted to the headline, including letters, punctuation and spaces) i slowly grew more and more despondent. by the end of the entire fucking process i was practically rolling around on the floor tearing my hair out and moaning, "Classic landmark to receive chic update....no, TOO LONG AND MUST MENTION NAME OF BUILDING....Stupid building to receive retarded makeover...sob."

so, yeah. be nice to your local headline writer. their job is harder than it looks. the exception: punny headline writers. i would say you can shoot them on sight.

Rob did an excellent job refashioning this post into something appropriate to DCist, but I wanted to assure my friends: I'm meaner than this.

The photo (by Amanda) speaks for itself, anyway. Good for St. Ex.

What's up, Express? I know and like people who work for you, so I'll try to spare you the worst of my righteous internet fury. But you've gotta step your game up.

First: why are there no copies of you at the Mt Vernon Square Metro? All that's in the designated box are a few old copies of El Tiempo Latino. That's not going to do it — I'm already bad enough at the crossword. I emailed you about this, and for a couple of days the problem was fixed. But no longer. I demand free entertainment, dammit!

Second: what's up with the bloglog? This daily ticket to the narcissism lottery (top prize: egomania) is one of the most compelling features you've got. I just think a little more care in selecting the featured excerpts might be good. At the moment we're on a brisk trot toward complete incoherence — I'd estimate about two weeks until an "OMFG!!!" sneaks in. Why not feature some of the big names? They got that way for a reason. It's not like most of your readers will know who, say, Kevin Drum is. Spotlighting the little guy is a nice idea, but not when the little guy is a complete dope.

On the other hand, if this is a subtle tactic by print journalists to defuse the threat they perceive from new media by revealing bloggers to be superficial illiterates... well, good job, then. Carry on.

Finally: the comics. I know the comics in your big brother paper are also terrible. But I truly believe that it doesn't have to be this way. There must be good comics out there. Or maybe you could continue courting your net-savvy twentysomething demo (hi!) and run some webcomics. It's hard to see what the downside would be — today's edition featured a comic that, in addition to having a hilariously unoriginal "he went to a hypnotist and now he thinks he's an animal!" gag, was really badly pixellated. Probably just a print error, I know. Resolving the Quark problems won't make it any funnier, though. It's not your fault, but you can do something about it. Unlike the Post, you can ditch the Garfield and Blondie equivalents in your pages without crotchety geriatrics leaving angry voicemails for Mr. Bradlee. You have the power. Self-actualize! Or something!

the one thing slightly worth reading to come out of my three years of being subscribed to the arts&sciences newsletter at uva. even though it is not original content and is being reproduced from the boston herald, of all places. should i be excited or sad that the newsletter has come to this? next month: a reproduced profile of FAT HEAD LARRY SABATO FROM PEOPLE MAG.

do you know who larry sabato is? did you go to uva? if you answered yes to the first and no to the second, you will never understand my wrath.

remind me to never get a tattoo.

And since the event was so blogcentric, I thought I'd better post something here immediately. The dead-tree journalists would make you wait until tomorrow to hear their opinions of the movie. Can you afford to wait that long?

Clearly not. So: it was good. I had only seen an episode or two of Firefly coming into it and had developed a favorable impression, albeit not a strong one. This was a very conventional plot, and Matt seemed to think that its scope didn't really serve the franchise. The second half did feel a bit like Whedon's usual ensemble routine was being stretched over a story that was a little too big.

But hey, I guess that's what you do when you turn a TV show into a movie. Like I said, it was good. You should go see it.

Anyway, slight spoiler behind the cut. For more, Variety has a review here, which is worth reading if you've never read anything from Variety. Which apparently I hadn't. Is the whole paper like this? How do they keep angry citizens from burning the building down? How are they going to keep me from doing it?

But the evening's most important revelation: the Doom movie features shots from a first person perspective, complete with a gun in the foreground. It's just like the videogame! After a few minutes' reflection it's clear that this effect must be a lot harder to use effectively in a movie than it is in a preview, but still — this film could be marginally more interesting than I had imagined. It's still guaranteed to be terrible, of course. But for FPS junkies, it might be kind of fun.

but what is up with the ridiculous cross-promotion or just-plain-weird promotion going on by the anchors DURING SPORTS GAMES WHEN THEY SHOULD BE COMMENTATING? i'm watching monday night football (it provides a soothing background for comma studying and article writing), and they just had gina davis on for a painful five-minute interview about her new show, commander in chief, which premieres tomorrow on abc. i understand showing COMMERCIALS during MNF for a new show, but aren't you going to alienate and piss off fans who just want to hear the crazy anchor men talk about, you know, the game, and don't want to look at a creepily masculine gina davis? also, what happened to her? didn't she used to be kind of hot?

i was also watching the cubs' game yesterday on the local tv station (as an aside: i've gone crazy, opted to not get cable, and only get broadcast now, and i soon might find myself missing even michael chiarello) and found an even more mind-bogglingly bizarre promo. i tuned in a bit late, so i'm not sure exactly why this was happening, or in what way it benefited the station, but anyway: they had kids from a local band sing "take me out to the ballgame," and before and after the song kept playing clips of the group, and the 50-something anchors raved, literally gushed, about how mind-blowingingly awesome this band (who looked like a younger, less-cracked-out version of the libertines) was. they then had a band member do commentary for a while on the game with the anchors, except the entire thing turned into a discussion of the local music scene, with the band kid sounding bemused and stoned the whole time while the old guy anchors talked about how great some local indie bands were. NEVERMIND THE BASEBALL GAME OR ANYTHING.

what. the. fuck.

is this a new phenomenon, or have i just somehow managed to avoid it up until now?

i'm pretty sure the comma is a tool of the devil. seriously, devil, lay off of it.

but in good news, i spoke with my new media advisor today, and there are exciting options coming up on that front. we'll see if any of them pan out. but just thinking about all the new media goodness gets me tingly. in the intellectual way.

i have another j-school lesson: time spent in class (or studying comma use) is inversely proportional to time spent blogging. it's because they secretly hate the blogging.

Like so many other easily-bought bloggers, I signed up for the Serenity blogger screening dealy. I was a little disappointed to get an email saying the following:

Congratulations! You are one of the lucky bloggers to be chosen and confirmed for the screening of SERENITY for the time, date and the number of guests that you have requested. Please note, this confirmation DOES NOT guarantee you a seat at the screening.

To significantly increase your chances of getting into the screening, you MUST do the following:

• You MUST include the film’s synopsis on your blog (synopsis below) and you MUST link your blog to the SERENITY website (which has the trailer and production notes) http://www.serenitymovie.com and featured artwork. After you have screened the film, please discuss it on your blog. Please provide us the links to all of your blog posts on SERENITY at serenity@gracehillmedia.com
• etc, etc.

So, for the record: a ragtag bunch of misfits live, love and struggle to survive in a world beyond imagination. Oh, and did I mention that someone might have an amazing secret? Or that something might not be all that it seems? Well, they might. Also, it's in space.

There. Duty discharged. But then, at the very bottom of the email, there's this:

Seats are not guaranteed, are limited to theatre capacity and are first-come, first-served.

So, the poor clipboard-wielding sixteen year-old that I expect to meet at the theater will not have combed the internet to make sure everyone's playing by the rules. Surprising, I know.

I'm genuinely excited to see this movie. Joss Whedon is an entertaining guy, and my friends tell me that Firefly is great. Also, it's set in space, which I am on the record as favoring.

So: anybody want to go? I signed up for two tickets, and would be happy to give one of my potentially nonexistent seats away. Please note that in order to significantly increase your chances of getting the ticket, you must include a synopsis of this contest on your blog. And after the screening, please discuss it on your blog. For instance: did that shirt make me look fat? Were you repulsed by the amount of popcorn I ate? Be creative and honest, but not at all critical. And of course, please provide us with links to all your posts on GOING TO THE MOVIE WITH TOM.

The ticket will actually be distributed to the first person who asks me for it.

So awesome.

Via In Shaw, have a look at this CityPaper article. It's about the church at the end of my street and their suburban parishioners' attempts to block restaurants, bars, or seemingly any other businesses from moving into the empty neighborhood buildings that currently serve as toilets for the homeless — and little else.

UPDATE: Added the link. I'm dumb.

i haven't watched the o.c. this season (i know, what the hell is wrong with me?) but they're still going strong on their music selections, at least. stereogum has matt pond pa's cover of neutral milk hotel's "in the aeroplane over the sea." in the aeroplane over the sea is one of those albums i never recommend to anyone solely because i assume everybody must already have it, but if you don't, get on it. it's one of the most heartbreakingly gorgeous works of music out there. also, it contains probably the only song about anne frank and world war II that will make you want to dance your ass off. anyway, matt pond pa's cover captures the sound nicely.

I might set up a CafePress store soon with some Butterstick shirts. I'll have to redo it in a higher resolution, but I'm thinking something like this:

What do you think? Too subtle?

I just got back from Operation Ceasefire and... eh. Heading to Charles' mom's tailgate thingamajig at the Nats game was definitely the right call: free food beats free Green Party literature any day.

The concert seemed very well-run. Not too many detestable hippies in the crowd, and everyone behaved themselves. The politics expressed on stage were predictably silly. The bands mostly avoided embarassment, sticking to "Fuck George Bush" and "Let's Party!" But the inter-set haranguing veered wildly from general, sane opposition to the Iraq War, to incitements to interfere with all forms of military recruitment, to broad anticorporate diatribes that, while up my alley, seemed a bit far afield from the show's stated purpose. I think Yglesias' prediction was correct, and that the whole shindig will ultimately be counterproductive. Despite organizer Adam Eidinger's thoroughly sane explication of the concert's aims on Friday's Kojo Nnamdi Show, these kinds of things have a way of making utterly reasonable political ideas as unpalatable to the mainstream as possible. Bad things happen when you send true believers on stage between sets to kill time ad libbing.

Anyway, I caught the end of Thievery Corporation's set, some belly dancers, the Bouncing Souls and Le Tigre. TC did their thing, but it's hard to have a big finale when descriptions of your music frequently include the word "downtempo". The belly dancing seemed to feature some above-average bellies, but I was off getting a bottle of water during their performance. The Bouncing Souls seemed good, pretty much a perfect fit for anyone who wants melodic pop punk that's one step too hard for MTV (which includes me).

I was most interested in seeing Le Tigre, though, having heard from friends that they put on a great live show. Prior to tonight I didn't really have much exposure to the band besides a rough sketch of their history and hearing a couple of singles.

Maybe it's just my suddenly-threatened phallocentric worldview speaking, but I wasn't that impressed. It seems like it's probably pretty easy to be a great live band when half of your sound is canned. The drums and synths I can understand... but vocals? C'mon now. Also, some of their "message" songs come perilously close to that most dreaded of musical genres: socially conscious rap performed by white people, AKA Christian Rock for Atheists.

Oh well. I have to admit that when the guitar came out they rocked pretty hard; at their best, they sound like Patti Smith with a sampler, which is pretty good. And their sorta choreographed, video-integrated show is certainly well-done — it's just not the kind of thing I'm that interested in seeing.

One of the reasons for my recent relatively light blogging has been a little science project I've undertaken: a google maps version of the Metro. Yeah, I know, it's been done. Not as well as this, though, I don't think. You can have a look here.

I've got plans for this — it should evolve soon into something more useful (and at a different domain, so please don't publish the link yet). But for now, if anyone feels like clicking through and reporting any errors you come across, I'd be grateful. I'm particularly interested in how it works (or doesn't) in Safari. To all the IE users: I know it's dog slow and has transparency problems. Not much I can do about that, unfortunately. But if you experience other weirdness, let me know.

UN and butterstick make this month's issue of washingtonian (hat tip to my dad):

Pandamaniacs Want “Butterstick”

The newest addition to the DC scene has become a star. While he won’t be appearing on Meet the Press or hanging out at Indebleu, the National Zoo’s baby panda is looking for a name.

Chinese tradition says the baby shouldn’t be named until he reaches 100 days old—a delay that has given the zoo a chance to poll the public.

The zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association have narrowed the field to five names, all Mandarin. Choices include Hua Sheng and Sheng Hua—combining the Chinese words for “Washington” and “China.” Another name, Tai Shan or “peaceful mountain,” may ring a bell: It’s a restaurant in DC’s Chinatown. Panda lovers can vote on the zoo’s Web site (nationalzoo.si.edu) through September 30.

The five choices are not enough for some panda fans. The blog Unrequited Narcissism (zunta.org/blog) tried to add the panda nickname Butterstick—after the reference to a newborn panda’s size—to the zoo’s voting choices by connecting its site to the National Zoo’s. The zoo soon safeguarded its voting, but some Washingtonians want a compromise. How about Naiyou Bao—or “milk-oil dumpling”—which Jingyuan Zhang, professor of East Asia languages and cultures at Georgetown University, says is the closest approximation to “butter stick” in Mandarin?

Regardless of the eventual name, don’t get too attached to the little guy—he heads back to China after his second birthday.

milk-oil dumpling - of course!

Oh man. Last show ever, Black Cat. So good. The last song they played as a band was the best version of Soft Pyramids I've ever heard. In attendance: Ian MacKaye (naturally) and Henry Rollins (!).

I don't really have much more to add. Tomorrow morning DC will be short one great band.

It's hard. I know it's hard. How much easier would it be to take care of the stack of profoundly uninteresting papers on your desk? To buckle down, straighten up, and renounce the demon internet's hold on you? To spend an hour or two after work hanging pictures, getting that 5x5 cubicle set up just right — you know, for the long haul. It'd be lots easier. Of course it would.

But people are counting on you. Where else will they go to hear complaints about your lack of direction? To understand the precise reasons why The Simpsons isn't as good as it used to be? To read oblique condemnations of those who have disappointed you romantically?

Nowhere. Instead they would just waste that time on literature, or art, or their families. You can't let that happen. Frivolity is serious business. It's the blogger's cross to bear.

Well, Uncle Joss's Santa-like powers have alerted him to your plight. It was probably when you were bitching about it in the Red Room (you get kind of loud when you're drunk).

For one night only, he's offering you sweet succor: free Serenity tickets for bloggers. Washington's screening is at Gallery Place on Monday, 7:30 pm. We can grapple with our pain together, and in the presence of spaceships. Just like the Scientologists!

Via DCeiver.

UPDATE: fixed the link.

i know what i'm doing when i come back in town for thanksgiving!

For those interested, I did an interview with Eric from Thievery Corporation for DCist, which is now up. My flimsy excuse for this egocentric post? I need to credit Charles for coming up with one of the questions (#4). Also, I was short on time, so Martin wrote the intro. And a lot of people provided general input. But I resized the picture all by myself!

well. huh. i dunno. i am having, how do you say, mixed feelings? i no longer want to kill jj abrams (though smashing his glasses is still an option), but i do not want to make sweet sweet love to his tv skills either. behind the cut...

liveblogging lost, or at least what i can catch:

just fyi: i'm trying to refrain from blogging about school and the program and my thoughts on it, etc, until at least a week or two into it. if i were to blather about it now, i think it would be an entry without any perspective at all. and it might be filled with whine. and the world's tiniest violin might be playing. so i'm sparing you that, at least, even though i'm barely blogging at all, so be thankful.

that said - i think i am going to really like it. it's just gonna be intense.

anyway, if i'm not blogging about school yet, that means i'm probably going to be blogging very rarely, because if it holds, my schedule will be like this: wake up. stagger towards el. get coffee. stagger towards campus. class class class class class pop tart for lunch if i am lucky class class class. stagger towards el. stagger home. eat something out of can/box. pass out. so i have nothing to say!

but since we have a brand spanking new lost category, i would be remiss if i didn't take advantage of it. so i'll try to post all my crazy theories after the premier tonight. my guess as to what is in the hatch? pandas. lots and lots of baby pandas.

This would make for a pretty tidy Halloween costume solution. But buying it readymade seems like kind of a copout. Plus it's a little pricey, and likely to get pricier.

Diane Rehm and her guests just finished having a conversation about The Lord of the Flies — it should be up at that URL soon. No new revelations, of course (wait... it's about society?!?!), but it sure brought back a lot of memories. I love that book — in part because I like my symbolism glaring, thank you very much. But mostly because it reminds me of my first exposure to weeks-long pseudoacademic bullshitting on a single topic. You know, where the teacher signals how hip she is by sitting on a desk. So bohemiam.

And on a related note, allow me to join the governess in expressing excitement over tonight's Lost premiere. My crazy karma machine theory isn't looking too hot based on the plot rumors I've heard. But falling silent just because you're wildly unqualified to speak about something would run contrary to everything I know and love about blogging. So, to that end, Catherine and I have created a new category just for posts about this season of the show.

So: you've had a few months to ponder it. What do you think's in the hatch? My money's on g-g-g-ghosts!

95% of the people i've talked with, including some instructors, lovely though they are (really, everyone comes off as genuine and nice and very intelligent), seem to look on blogs with a) derision b) confusion c) fear or d) a mix of all three.

also, i am one of three new media students.

out of 170.

blogging, ho!

things i've learned from grad school in my first two days:

language is hard.

i am dumb.

me go drink beer now.

A lot of people seem to be wildly misinterpreting the Google Secure Access initiative that I wrote about this morning.

Despite Om Malik's high-profile (and if you ask me, ridiculous) prediction of a few weeks ago, Google is NOT getting into the "business" of providing free wifi to everyone. Reuters & co. seem to have seen "Google" and "wifi" within a sentence of each other and not bothered to read any further. But Google isn't becoming an ISP — they're just offering a free VPN.

Why are they doing this? For the same reason they offer GMail and the Google Web Accelerator: to drive more of your personal web traffic through their servers. They can then analyze it (check the terms of service!) in order to better profile you, which in turn allows them to better target you for ads, which in turn lets them make more money.

It's a pretty straightforward model, and it makes sense. It's basically a glorified version of your supermarket's discount card program. And yes, I think those are a nasty, evil mechanism with the potential to violate privacy, discriminate against the poor, and (most likely) steal your thoughts via secret government satellites. Google's no different from these other privacy brokers, and eventually their shareholders are going to start complaining that the company's "Don't Be Evil" motto puts them at a competitive disadvantage. For now, though, the consumer gets a lot in return for surrendering their privacy.

Still — what if tomorrow Google started selling public access to GMail users' email for a buck an hour in a "best of Craigslist" sort of setup? What would you do? How would you get your messages out of their system? I don't have good answers to these questions, and it makes me uneasy. Relying on the continued benevolence of a company — particularly a publicly-traded one — is not a position in which any of us should want to be.

UPDATE: And yes, I realize that running a free ISP would be a great way to capture users' traffic. But others have tried it and failed — usually while actually placing additional ads in front of the user (ala NetZero). That's far more profitable than simply showing better ads. It's true that running a wifi ISP would be cheaper than the dialups that failed. And I wouldn't be surprised to see Google partner with a business to provide free wifi, or perhaps get involved in a municipal project or two. But the sort of vast wireless GoogleNet that Malik posits seems very unlikely to me.

UPDATE 2: I should point out that the Craigslist example is probably unrealistic. As noted in section 5 here, you retain the copyright to your emails. The point is just meant to be general: Google is in a position to do a number of evil things, should they decide to.

It's Catherine who's intent on banning all of our friends from leaving comments. Evil, evil Catherine!

(This is my way of saying comments are fixed again.)

...but they're way more endearing. From today's Express:

Someone has to keep Catherine updated on important Butterstick-related developments.

If you can't see the image, click here.

An interesting new release from Google — they now offer software to help you secure your wifi connection. Put briefly, it seems to install a virtual network adapter representing a VPN connection to Google, then redirect all your traffic through it. It's very similar to OpenVPN's setup, except that the installation is smoother, and of course Google is providing the VPN backend.

I haven't tested its throughput, but I can confirm that it doesn't require wifi. So for those of you daunted by my SSH howto, this could be a good, easy solution (until your IT department starts blocking it, that is). Oh, and Aaron: this will probably let you get around MLB.com's policy of blacking out webcasts of Nats games for DC-area IP addresses (all of your traffic will appear to be coming from Google's servers). It may not be fast enough for streaming video, but it's worth a shot.

For those interested, it looks like the program sets up the connection over SSL — from there Ethereal seems to think that it's sending data out using compressed PPP, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me (I thought PPP was a protocol that runs under TCP/IP, not over it). Maybe someone with better networking credentials can fill me in on how this works.

UPDATE: Of course, now I realize that it's PPTP — tunneled PPP. Which is one of the two big VPN standards. Nothing unusual here. PPTP is encapsulated in TCP/IP and sent to the host. Wikipedia's got something about it here, although the GRE portion of the protocol remains less than clear.

This is pretty great. I just wish someone had handed him a fluorescent lightbulb.

Via Michael.

As you might have guessed, I'm back from Chicago. And for all the snark and bitching previous posts about the city have contained, I was really charmed by it. Apparently great things can happen when millions of people decide to huddle together for warmth. Everywhere we went seemed totally unpretentious and welcoming, and I came away much more excited by the town than I was after my previous weekend-long trip (during which I had just enough time to note the Chi-town cliches, then go home).

Catherine's neighborhood seems like a great place to live, and I felt at home right away. I'm pretty much counting on a godawful winter to send her scurrying home to DC in a year's time.

However, I still maintain that scripted comedy is innately superior to improv.

The band has posted instructions for how to circumvent the copy protection put on its newest CD by their label. Good for them.

We'd accidentally imported some overly restrictive blacklist rules that were blocking comments including, among other things, any words containing a "g" followed by three or more letters. But it's fixed now -- feel free to resume your wanton use of the offending letter. I know, I know — I'm such a pushover.

I was a little underwhelmed by Treasure Island, Catherine's local and self-proclaimedly eurocentric grocery store (which has no website!). But I do have to say, the fact that they carry the product pictured below is a huge mark in their favor:

Although I may not have consciously formulated the desire, I think I've been yearning for this snack food ever since reaching the bottom of my first bowl of popcorn. Now to find a PopNots! distributor in the DC area...

Those with port 8090 blocked (and who consequently can't see the image): click here.

UPDATE: Naturally, there's a website. These people are serious about half-popped popcorn (appropriately so). Apparently "Smoothie Time" is the nearest store that carries the product. And yes, I am aware that this is intensely uninteresting to just about everybody but me.

google earth, helping one ancient roman archaeologist at a time.

kind of cool.

via waxy.

is it the El or the "L"?

I forget if I mentioned this before, but it's worth noting again. Scott Moschella of the venerable plasticbugs set out to redesign the interface of the GIMP, a powerful open-source image editor, so that it would be more familiar to Photoshop users. Today brings an interview with him about the project.

But more importantly, the project has progressed enough to start showing up in easy-to-use packages. Click here for a windows installer. Despite the project being Mac-based, the latest version isn't yet available as a .app package. But you can find install instructions here. If that's too daunting, just stick with the original release for now — you can find a binary install package here.

Anybody want to go to this with me next Saturday? I know Yglesias had expressed some interest in the past. Personally, I'm most interested in catching (in order):

• Steve Earle (never seen 'im)
• Le Tigre (same)
• Ted Leo (always fun, but it wouldn't break my heart to miss a show)
• The Coup (I'm curious)
• Thievery Corp. (DC represent!)
• and maybe Head-Roc (the same, plus curiousity)

Or some subset of those. I'm thinking head down in the afternoon, catch a couple acts, grab some dinner and drinks, then back for the main events... what do you guys think?

everybody in d.c. knows about cakelove, and everybody in d.c. has an opinion on it. the bakery specializes in gourmet cakes and particularly cupcakes, both of which will run you a pretty penny. personally, i agree with many others that the cupcakes are entirely overrated (can't speak as to the cakes) - the cake is dry, the icing is a cold slab of butter, and you generally feel like you've been ripped off $3. but some people love 'em. those people are crazy.

well, when i was out running errands today i decided to try out another gourmet cupcake shop that's at the end of my street. it's called cupcakes, and it's run by some physicist-turned-baker chick. it's a postage-stamp-sized bit of a store, decorated with clouds and white tile and other cutesiness. the cupcakes are also $3, and you've got the same variety of traditional+wacky flavors that cakelove has. i chose the double chocolate and the red velvet; they were packed up in cute little boxes and i came home to eat them as my afternoon snack and part of my apparent general plan to get extraordinarily fat in chicago.

well, yum. these cupcakes take the cake. hahahaha. no, seriously, they were stupendous. they're not refrigerated, so the icing isn't rock-hard when you eat it. it's the same type of icing as the cakelove cupcakes - italian buttercream - but it's much more flavorful and smoother. the cake part of the concoction is also moist and delish. overall they're smaller than the cakelove cupcakes, but of much higher quality. so suck on that, warren brown.

the chicago tribune lists the reader-voted seven wonders of chicago here (use bugmenot for registration). in short, they are:

First wonder (26,231 votes):
The Lakefront

Second wonder (19,718 votes):
Wrigley Field

Third wonder (18,800 votes):
The "L"

Fourth wonder (17,957 votes):
Sears Tower

Fifth wonder (17,747 votes):
The Water Tower

Sixth wonder (17,004 votes):
University of Chicago

Seventh wonder (16,962 votes):
Museum of Science and Industry

as far as what i've seen, it seems like a reasonable list, though i'm not convinced the el is as amazing as some people seem to think it is. we'll see if it does the previously-thought impossible in the coming year: make me appreciate WMATA.

anyway, what'd be the seven wonders of the d.c. world? the cherry blossoms would have to be up there (they really are beautiful), and i don't doubt that loads o people would vote for butterstick. the smithsonian would surely make it, and there are enough monuments to fill the list on their own (not to mention stuff like the white house and the capitol). the insane amount of awesome ethiopian food? ben's chili bowl (though i know, i know, many think it's overrated). the chicago hot dog did make it on the lower half of the list, after all, so there's no reason not to think the half smoke couldn't do the same thing. personally, d.c. foodwise, i'd vote for kriston's smoker. a work of brilliance if there ever was one.

Sorry. That was terrible. But it's hard to avoid these awful puns when talking about the Nintendo Revolution — the console's name makes it bad-prose compatible out of the box.

Anyway, the controller has been announced, and it's weird. But also intriguing. Don't be put off by the pictures — actually read the text. It sounds kinda cool. There's also a video here, which my enfeebled computer refuses to play. But I'm confident that it's awesome.

Nintendo seems to be aiming for the nongamer audience with this move. I think it's a good strategy — this actually does look like something I could get my mom to play. But I'm pretty excited about the implications for first person shooters, as well. As this guy points out, Nintendo is responsible for pretty much every controller innovation since the joystick. It's hard to imagine that they'd make a serious misstep in this area.

I'm still on board for the Xbox 360, first and foremost. Nintendo's software lineup is simply too weakened for any serious geek to consider it as a console of first resort. But the Revolution is supposed to be pretty cheap. If I somehow stumble across an extra $150, I could now easily see myself blowing it on one of these things.

tommy and i attended a cubs game last night at wrigley field, which turns out to be less than a mile from my apartment. it was a drizzly, cool night, and tommy asked the box office guy for "the cheapest seats you've got," and he gave 'em to us, alright. we ended up in the very last row of the upper deck behind the third base line. unfortunately, it was also the spot where all the wind in the entire world converges, so by the start of the game i was huddled into a ball, shivering in my thin, long-sleeved shirt. i even resorted to the detestable popping of the collar in a feeble attempt to gain some warmth. tommy looked over at me at one point and said, "you are so. screwed. this winter." i just chattered my teeth in agreement.

besides freezing my ass off, i found wrigley to be a pretty charming ballpark. it seems incredibly small and twee, after the concrete bohemoth that is RFK stadium; there are plenty of bars surrounding it where you can grab a pre or post-game drink; the bleachers situated on roofs of buildings behind the outfield are adorable (what's the story with that, anyway? do people charge to sit up there?); and the concessions were yummy. also, this is just me stereotyping and looking at folks through misty, out-of-towner, suburban-raised rose-colored glasses, but everyone i ran into at the game seemed like a very salt-of-the-earth type character. i know, i'm ridiculous. but the concession stand folks were all scrappy and droll; a group of old men in satin cub jackets brought along a slew of marching band instruments and played them in between every inning; and i don't know! i just like chicago!

tommy and i only stuck around for five innings or so, due to the aforementioned-freezing-off-of-ass, then raced down clark street through the rain to get some killer margaritas, which were indeed killer, yummy, and huge. today i make a foray into the unknown wilds of my neighborhood: GROCERY SHOPPING! i even bought one of those little drag-along grocery carts that old ladies use and plan on pushing it back and forth like the ancient 25 year-old that i am. and i better go soon: the contents of my fridge right now, as they stand, are 12 bottles of water, and, uh, a brita filter.

nada surf's new album, "the weight is a gift," is, much like the new pornographers' "twin cinema," a slower, more melancholy and more nuanced album than its predecessor, but still impressive and likeable. it doesn't ever really reach the incredible poppy highs of "let go", and many of the melodies aren't as memorable, but i think it'll make a pretty good autumn cd.

of course, the mp3 i'm posting is incredibly poppy and catchy, but not necessarily reflective of the rest of the album. but still awesome.

nada surf - "blankest year"

FYI: the official trailer for "the goblet of fire" is up here, and if you look real close, you can catch a glimpse of ralph fiennes as voldemort at the end...and lemme tell you, he doesn't exactly look as good as he did in "the english patient." well, let me rephrase that: he actually looks QUITE similar to how he spent half of "the english patient." the gross-looking half. maybe that's how the director knew to cast him. (UPDATE: a still of voldemort in the film is here, if you're interested in how he looks.)

anyway, the movie looks pretty great, well, if i'm going to base my opinion on the 45 seconds of clips. let's hope it takes after #3 and not #s 1 and 2.

quick report from the bloc party show at the congress theater:

But mostly just the flower background. The whole change-the-background-with-the-seasons plan ran aground pretty quickly, huh? Well, we're going with basic blue until I get around to putting something else together. I've got the inspiration. I'm just missing the inclination (and the time).

So the guy from whom Catherine and I are borrowing wifi (until hers is installed) — he didn't even bother to change the administrator password on his router. And it happens to be a Linksys WRT54G. Which means that I could upgrade his firmware to the Sveasoft edition. Which would allow me to boost his signal strength, which would improve the marginal reception the two of us are experiencing.

Well, I doubt I will. Maybe I'll try to figure out his email address when he gets home and send him a polite anonymous note explaining how to change his admin password. Although the fact that I just came across this link today (via hackaday) makes the situation awfully tempting...

It's fun to bitch about public transportation in the DC area, but to be honest we've got it pretty good. My lengthy tale of CTA woe is below the cut. Be warned: this is more about catharsis than entertainment. But then, this is a blog.

I'm sure it will surprise you to learn that Ticketmaster is run by dicks. I just got some Depeche Mode spam from them after buying Bloc Party tickets last week. You can be sure that when I made that purchase, I didn't intend to give them permission to spam me. Here's the privacy notice that was attached to their message.

To Unsubscribe:

As a Ticketmaster user, you agree that Ticketmaster may contact you by email or other means and use and disclose the information you submit, as described in the Ticketmaster Privacy Policy.

If you would like to opt-out of receiving a particular type of email at this email address then please visit My Account and indicate your preferences. Please note that you may still receive emails from those who provide events (e.g., venues, teams, artists, promoters and leagues) to whom Ticketmaster provides your email address as described in the Ticketmaster Privacy Policy.

Please do not reply to this email. Replies to this email will NOT be responded to or read. If you have any questions or comments, contact us by email or postal mail: Ticketmaster-Optout Request, 4445 Corporation, Virginia Beach, VA 23462.

So you don't have an option to avoid getting these marketing emails when you buy tickets online. You can opt out after you begin receiving them, but this is just a formality: it won't actually stop them from selling your email address to whoever they'd like. And you can't register your displeasure with this policy without tracking down their email address or mailing a letter.

This type of bullshit should be illegal. Thank goodness I used a spamgourmet address.

go! even though i won't be there, cake, champagne, and loads of awesome people will be. i expect detailed reports!

according to mr. loop, i live within a block or two of seriously killer margaritas. this is an option i'll be exploring in the next few days. but let's all hope they aren't quite as killer as the 10 or 11 susan and i downed (with disastrous results) on our last forray into the city.

Spurred by the news that it just got bought for $2+ billion, I finally tried out Skype last night. Charles gave me a hand trying it out, and with 10 euros worth of SkypeOut credit loaded up, I called the apartment. And hey, it worked pretty well. Charles' voice was very clear, albeit slightly delayed. My own voice could be understood, but the Axim's lousy integrated microphone made it pretty muddy. On the other hand, our 150 second call cost all of three cents — and if I had been calling another Skype user, it would've been free.

So it was pretty cool. All it would take is a cheap bluetooth headset to make it really cool. The only problem, from my perspective, is justifying this gadget. I've already got a VoIP phone for work. I've already got a cell phone with free long distance (but not many minutes). Neither of them have integrated bluetooth, meaning the headset would only be good for Skype — which, as I mentioned, solves a telephony problem I don't really have.

Well, screw it. I can always get one of these suckers to make my non-BT phones ready to play with the wireless headset. I've never been able to resist a sexy new gadget. Between this and the sidekick, I somehow seem to be extremely susceptible to marketing conducted via rap star product placement. Seems a bit odd given that I barely listen to any rap at all.

Sorry, but I haven't got much to say today. This project is stressful, and that our secretary/customer handler just broke her leg badly enough to preclude work isn't helping anything.

I've got a 9:15 flight to Chicago, though. Assuming I can pack quickly enough after work, make it to the Metro and catch the right bus to Dulles, I'll be staggering from OHare to Catherine's new digs later tonight, then hanging around Chicago until Sunday.

Given the relative lateness of the flight, I'm desperate to avoid checking any bags... but also a little worried. My carry-on will include a wireless router and a big bag of quarters (from Catherine's abandoned change jar, to be put toward laundry) in addition to the piles of technological geegaws that routinely accompany me on any trip further than a block from my house. What is he planning? And does it involve buying a lot of sodas? will think the TSA employees as they try to inconspicuously edge toward the red button on the wall behind them. I just hope Catherine doesn't send me any emails asking if I can bring the giant ceremonial dagger she accidentally left behind.

A portable version of firefox that works on Windows and OS X. Stick it on a thumbdrive and never again waste time synching extensions and bookmarks between work and home.

daily candy today has a list of a few fun wifi spots in chicago. anyone know of where i can find some more?

Something weird's going on with comments. I didn't change anything, and I doubt Catherine did. Nothing looks wrong in the settings. Angry emails have been sent to our webhost. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Scratch that. Looks like the word "NMAP" somehow got onto our commentspam blacklist, and the error page that's responsible for letting users know their comment looks spammy is missing, generating a frightening-looking error. If you aren't posting a comment about that particular port scanning tool, you should be fine.

...wifi, that is.

well, i'm here! thanks to the grace of god, my father, and the budget truck. all the stuff is haphazardly strewn in boxes about my apartment, thanks again to my father, and my friend carl, without whom i'd be lying on the floor. sobbing resignedly. with a dislocated shoulder.

my apartment is pretty cute, though a bit rundown, and small, of course. the bed will, sadly, be going in the kitchen. but i can deal with that. the neighborhood is lovely and leafy and cute. and gay, gay, gay. 10x gayer than dupont circle, if you can believe that. lots of cute bars and restaurants. AND - wait for it - a DSW SHOE WAREHOUSE ACROSS THE STREET. wrigley field isn't too far away, the el is close, and stuff seems good.

anyway, i'm typing this while lying on the floor against a rolled up carpet, and i'm pretty sure that's the way i'll stay for the rest of the evening. one week before classes start! i'll be sure to update you on my adventures along the way.

This is how I spent Sunday morning after dropping Catherine off at her parents' house. I have conquered HEMNES. I'm like, a craftsman, or something.

Seriously though, I'm starting to really enjoy putting this crap together. Last year's GOLIAT corner desk was... traumatizing. But now I'm thinking about sending my resume to these people. I think this must be what Thomas Friedman means when he says American workers should respond to globalism by learning new skills.

two things of note: ohio has the awesomest turnpike rest stops/food courts i've ever seen. they're practically futuristic, and incredibly clean. also, ohioans are, like, the nicest people in the entire world. we've come across several retail/food service people, all of whom are incredibly friendly, sincere, and chatty, even the teenagers, who by all rights should be terrible, rude and sulky.

but other than that, OH pretty much sucks. free wifi in the hotel rocks, though.

tomorrow: catherine takes chicago by storm! with three billion pounds of boxes! she will change the gravitational pull of the planet!

so, i'm going to this town called chicago tomorrow morning. you may have heard me talking about it at some point. after two days of driving (with a stop in beautiful cleveland), my dad and i will arrive on monday, unpack my three thousand pounds of stuff, and i will collapse amongst the cardboard and the chaos of my new life.

i thought about writing some sort of flowery going away post, but considering that i'm getting teary listening to songs on DC101 this weekend (ie, U2's "walk on" - "you're packing your suitcase/for a place none of us have been" and then i'm like sobbing hysterically and gulping, "I'M packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been! except, i mean, everyone. but it's a metaphor! OH GAWWWDD I MISS D.C.!!!") i thought i had better not. it might get messy.

anyway, it's been real, as they say. yes, i'll still be posting here, but internet may be hard, or at least slow, to come by in chitown. i'll update as soon as i'm able.

take care!

in awesomes and not so awesomes:

awesome: dinner at obelisk. why were we wasting all that time and money on galileo?
not so awesome: sliding up against a curb and face planting off my bike on the way to dinner in dupont circle. in front of about 32 million people.

awesome: getting a new cellphone. it has this thing called a camera in it!
not so awesome: waiting for an hour in the verizon store for any sort of service. old, fat middle-aged dude sitting next to me who tells me out of nowhere to stop biting my nails. i love complete strangers who comment on my bad habits and tell me they're not healthy for me and that it probably means something is psychologically wrong in my life and i should fix it and then maybe i won't bite my nails anymore. thanks. maybe you should lose 50 pounds. then you won't be a fat jerk anymore.

awesome: the wrens at the black cat. it's like - so, you've wanted to be a rockstar for 30+ years. and suddenly, you are. and what do you do? you rock the fuck out and are completely awesome. if you have never listened to the meadowlands, please do yourself a favor and listen, listen, listen! it's so wonderful.
not so awesome: being a complete zombie at the show as a result of four hours of lifting boxes and furniture. as i was sitting at the bar, staring blankly into space, as tommy and others were off being normal people and drinking beer and talking, a guy actually tried to come on to me with this line: "so, YOU look like you had a TERRIBLE day!" oh, lord.

Catherine is leaving for Chicago on Sunday, and as you might expect I'm pretty depressed about it. I'll be at her new digs Wednesday-Sunday to work by remote and help her get settled, but that's really just prolonging the emotional bandaid peeling. We've been together since October 2000, and although we've agreed that the coming year's vaguely-defined mutual independence will be good for us in vaguely-defined ways, it's still going to be a major shock. There's no getting around the fact that in less than 48 hours I will most likely begin transforming back into an antisocial weirdo.

But don't worry about me. I've got three things working in my favor. First, lingering embarassment over how I conducted myself after my last mandatory girlfriend-evacuation, which occurred in high school and was truly and utterly pathetic. Second, Kriston's stoic example as he deals with a similar but worse situation — this will also hopefully keep a lid on my own expressions of self-pity. And third: a plan.

California, man. Fuckin' California. Jeff, are you aware of these people? Do they set up a table at campus events?

(I realize this could easily be old, old news, but I just overheard some guy talking about it tonight)

UPDATE: Their FAQ is pretty funny. Their zine, on the other hand, is pretty scary. Also, there's a band.

I just picked up tickets at the Black Cat, and from the sound of the guy that sold them to me, it's about to sell out. If you want to see this show — and you should — get yourself to 14th or ticketmaster quick-like.

UPDATE: Uh... the Wrens. I'm talking about the Wrens. Man I'm dumb.

the big truck pick up and loading is tomorrow. if you have, you know, super insightful tips about moving in general or how to properly load a 10 foot truck full of crap and drive it 700 miles, let me know!

in lieu of actual content, and because i am already miserably nostalgic for everything in my life even though i'm still, you know, in d.c. and am fairly confident that i'll have a good time in chicago: i present, what catherine was doing in
september 2002! (traveling to bergamo, bolzano, and bologna, italy)
september 2003! (nothing! no archives from that month! i had forsaken the blog! instead, you can see my triumphant octoberal return, wherein i recount trips to tuscany and leaving milan for good)
september 2004! (bitching about politics, mostly, in a vacuous way. apple picking in charlottesville - which you ALL need to do in october, eat some apple cider donuts for me, mmk? - camping on assateague island, raising $$ for the lombardi cancer center and whining about my marathon training, doing the first DCist happy hour, and applying for grad schools. man. last september was busy. this september? eating. taking care of a lot of beer. spending untold hours on the internets.)

holy crap, can you believe that this piddle of a site has been around that long?

You know what I love? Getting email from lawyers. And people who work in law offices. Okay, when Charles was working for a PD's office they weren't all that amusing — just his regular "yes", or "ok i will take care of it" or, most often, icy silence.

But folks who work for bigger firms put a little something extra beneath their happy hour RSVPs. Usually it's something like this:

RECEIPT OF THIS COMMUNICATION IS INTENDED FOR ITS INTENDED RECIPIENT. PURSUANT TO SOME FEDERAL ACT OF LET'S SAY 1975, IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE IN ERROR YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF A NUMBER OF IMPORTANT STATUTES. BETTER LAWYER UP, SON. ALSO, PRINT OUT AS MANY COPIES AS POSSIBLE AND DESTROY THEM. EXCEPT, OOO, COME TO THINK OF IT YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE PRINTED THOSE. ACTUALLY THAT PROBABLY JUST MADE THINGS A LOT WORSE. BEFORE IT WAS JUST GONNA BE A FINE, BUT NOW THEY'RE GONNA TAKE YOUR HOUSE. YOUR FUCKING HOUSE, DUDE. SUCKS.

The idea that I could have somehow entered into a binding contract by virtue of receiving an email is so ludicrous — so transparently composed of gilded bullshit — that I know the sender can't possibly mean it, and that it's just there to give me a chuckle.

Also, the idea that someone has drafted a hundred-word footer to ensure their email's confidentiality rather than, you know, taking any technical steps at all to ensure that message's confidentiality... Well, it just makes me smile. Thanks, guys!

just caught a sears commercial with background music by...stephen malkmus.

they were advertising washers and dryers.

it was weird.

that is all.

UPDATE: courtesy of goldenfiddle.com, here's the mp3 for the song played, "phantasies."

Slate's got a piece up by two thirtysomething guys evaluating Xbox Live. It's pretty accurate — the people on it really are insanely good, until recently cheating really was widespread, and virtually every kid on it does deserve to be grounded.

But it's still fun, even if they found it a bit overwhelming. It might be worth pointing out that the "senior league" sort of arrangement the Slate article asks for will almost be present in the Xbox360's implementation of Live. The plan is to offer a choice of four "GamerZones": Pro, for the hardcore; R&R, for the casual gamer (and the hardcore who feel like abusing them); Underground, which is for cheaters, so far as I can tell; and Family, which will presumably just turn off players' microphones entirely.

I doubt any of this will work out the way it's intended, but it's at least a nice thought.

Shorter Ultragrrl: Hillary Duff has musical credibility because... uh... OHMYGODLOOKBEHINDYOUITSAHURRICANE!

Catherine and I headed to the Nats game tonight. And though they lost to the dastardly Marlins, it was too nice a night for us to mind all that much. Plus we ran into Tom from DCMetblogs.

And on that internet-related note, I'll mention that there was a wireless network in RFK tonight with the SSID of "Marlins" (yes, I am a huge dork). If I had to guess, I'd say that tonight's visiting team owns one of these, that a fan could scan the attached machines with this, then find an exploit within this (using this). All of which would allow for proper vengeance to be exacted upon the hated, hated Marlins. That'd teach them to be better than us at sports, right? Right.

neat tip on how to clean a gunky bbq grill.

sorry for the relative lack of blogging. i've been too busy throwing up about my rapidly impending move to chicago (four days or so to go). the bedroom's a mess, half of my stuff isn't packed, i have two shirts and one pair of shorts to wear for the next six days because what is packed is most of my clothes, and i'm stressing about not wanting to give my dad a heart attack when we move since we'll be the only two doing it in chicago and i have about three thousand pounds of stuff. i've also been doing a lot of retail therapy, which i'm sure filene's basement appreciates ($600 wool coat from barney's marked down like a billion percent! cheap pointy leather and suede shoes from kenneth cole and bcbg's!) but which my already rapidly dwindling student loans don't. yes, they're already rapidly dwindling even though i haven't yet received them. they are very sensitive.

anyway, stuff i've been enjoying lately that's helped the stress:

With 4.7.1, iTunes introduced a 5-connection limit on sharing. A lot of my friends work in offices where everyone shares their music, and they found this to be a real pain in the ass.

Well, perhaps I'm late to the game on this, but this site claims to have a workaround, and it's as simple as setting a password on the music share. Supposedly password-protected shares aren't subject to the 5-a-day limit. The authors suggests using the share name to tell folks what the password is in order to make connecting simple for everyone.

I haven't had a chance to test this out, but if anyone's in an iTunes-heavy office and wants to give it a try, I'd be very curious to hear if it works.

Related: iLeech and RendezvousProxy, for pulling songs off iTunes shares and making shares accessible across different IP subnets, respectively. Documentation is sparse, but if either of these sound useful you might want to give them a download. They're written in Java, so they ought to work across platforms.

There's a good howto here. With this method you can upgrade your console without ever opening the case. All you need is a memory card, a particular rented game, and a Gameshark-like device called the action replay (or a friend's modded xbox).

They promise an update explaining how to add a larger hard drive with the softmod method — important, because the xbox's built-in drive is only 8GB. That's large enough for a decent number of emulators, but not much else.

But I'm more interested to hear if a softmod can be made to play nicely with Xbox live. Connect to XBL with your modchip turned on and your xbox — and perhaps your account — will be banned for life. But if you flip your modchip off before booting up (and don't make any other really egregious mistakes), you can play happily. Seeing as I've got at least one more modding job on the horizon, it'd be nice to know if it can be accomplished satisfactorily without shelling out for a modchip and firing up the soldering iron. That d0 connection point is a real bastard.

Catherine and I ran into some hippies in Georgetown on Saturday, right in the middle of DC's Republican heart of darkness; it was weird. We had been biking on the Capital Crescent Trail and decided to catch the Circulator back home. At Wisconsin and M, there they were: dirty, dirty hippies. Actually, I had run into these same two guys before, over by Farragut North. Both times they were hawking t-shirts bearing the slogan "Stop Bitching, Start A Revolution", and trying to interest passers-by by asking, "Would you be interested in some revolutionary art?"

This sat the wrong way with me. The "Stop Bitching" slogan is something we've all seen on somebody's crazy aunt's bumper, right next to "Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History". I wouldn't call it revolutionary, per se, although I'll grant that technically speaking it is of or pertaining to a revolution. Anyway, it seemed very weird to see two twentysomething guys selling these and only these little swatches of banality. Don't they know the astounding advances in clever t-shirt technology that our ironic-silkscreenologists have made over the past decade?

But today I followed the URL on the shirt — zendik.org — and it turns out that these shirts are probably the original medium for the Stop Bitching slogan. Apparently they're sold in support of an "artist's community" in West Virginia called Zendik Farm. So it's just a bit dated, not really the colossal catchphrase miscalculation that it at first seemed to be.

Shit like this still puts the members of this particular commune on my bad side (Zendik's deceased patriarch sounds a little like L. Ron Hubbard without the paranoid schizophrenia). But at least it's all a bit clearer now. Has anybody else run into these guys?

I've been listening to the Bloc Party remix album, and it's pretty good. "Bluest Light" and "This Modern Love" get new arrangements and end up sounding like what you'd hope to hear at a show: interesting and different — but basically faithful — variations on the originals. Death From Above's remix of "Luno" uses a previously unreleased vocal track and fuzzed out guitars to fairly rockin' effect. And the wolf-howl enabled version of "Helicopter" should be on every Halloween playlist this year. So it's a pretty good album, despite a few real clunkers (the remixed "She's Hearing Voices" sounds like a five year old methodically banging on a MIDI keyboard full of Bloc Party samples, for instance).

But the motivation for this post isn't to provide a review. It's much more boring — I just want to bitch about something Pitchfork said. The most prosaic form of internetery, I know.

But here's the thing. The review is highly positive. I don't object to any of its broad conclusions. The problem is that it's suffused with the assumption that the original Silent Alarm was somehow boringly conventional, and that this new, more techno-heavy version is more intellectually inspiring. The final sentence pretty well sums it up:

"...the band makes a rock-solid professional-sounding pop/rock record, and here come some folks with their computers to make it a bit more formally interesting as well: not a bad deal at all, right?"

What a fucking idiot. In contexts like this, electronic music is to rock and roll as Hooked on Phonics is to literature. Drums and bass and guitars and vocals makes... sound it out now... rock and roll, that's right! I guess I can see how having a song deconstructed and rebuilt with kindergarten clarity could make it more formally interesting — but only if you were too dumb to hear the individual pieces to begin with. This is especially true when the original is as precisely-constructed as Silent Alarm is. For all but the most musically retarded, electronic remixology's dully reliable layering — bass drum, then high hat, then bass line, then guitar riff, then vocal samples, each on the quarter beat with a few measures between the introduction of each — quickly becomes boring as hell.

Okay, okay. I'll stop now. I know I'm not really qualified to bitch about this stuff. Maybe Charles can provide a explanation of why Nitsuh Abebe is dumb that's better-grounded in music theory. But I can say with confidence that while this remix album is worthwhile, it's not more interesting than the original. Unless you weren't interested in well-constructed rock & roll songs to begin with, that is.

hmm. any coincidence that the guy who ignored dcist for credit is one half of a team that was blatantly lied to by bush's administration - an easily refutable lie - but didn't bother to, you know, fact check it or do any reporting and printed it in a highly visibile and important article anyway?

I DON'T THINK SO.

just kidding. mostly. but seriously...this is why i don't get people who worry about bloggers getting facts wrong. "real" reporters do it ALL THE TIME. it's everywhere you look; thank god for the blogosphere being a good watchdog.

one day, several years ago, i was walking home from class at UVa and ran into a girl i only slightly knew. it was one of those all-too-common situations; we barely knew each other, but of course were walking to the same destination, and had a vague acquaintance, so we had to make painful, terrible small talk for 10 or 15 minutes. IT WAS TORTURE, people. now i know what the 6th circle of hell is like, etc.

as we made our way down the hill towards the lambeth apartment complex, chatting awkwardly and painfully and hellishly and probably talking about, like, our common love for diet coke or WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE REDUCED TO TALKING ABOUT IN THESE SITUATIONS I DON'T KNOW ("isn't diet coke great?" "OH! i KNOW! it's GREAT!"), i caught view of something out of the corner of my eye on the grassy field, a few feet from our path. it was a squirrel. no biggie, obviously, but there was something...weird. about this squirrel. that i noticed even out of the corner of my eye. the girl with me apparently noticed too, because i could see, in what seemed like utter slow motion, her head turn towards the squirrel, in the very same fashion as my head was turning, seemingly on its own, without my brain telling it to. and we looked at the squirrel. and we stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped breathing. then we looked at each other, grabbed each others' arms, and screamed BLOODY MURDER. we shot the hell off, reached our apartments, and broke down in giggles. terrified, horrified giggles.

we were good friends after that.

i was reminded of this story because i came across this page recently, which shows the type of squirrel that brought us together at that moment. i hadn't previously known. be warned, it's disturbing. but anyway: diseased squirrels: bringing friends together since 2001.

and yes, i'm blogging about squirrels from the crypt at 8:30 on a friday night. time to go out.

check out the post's newest blog, Katrina's Impact on Washington. they state that up to 400 victims of the hurricane will be bussed to the D.C. armory. as they say:

As the Post reported this morning, the city's "mass care" effort would provide victims with food and water, medical attention, counseling and other services. The announcement also means that events scheduled to be held in the armory over the next several weeks -- at least six concerts, a job fair and a Marine Corps Marathon expo -- will likely be canceled in order to accommodate victims.

Officials are urging people interested in making monetary donations to call the Red Cross at 1-800-HELP-NOW. To find out how to contribute items locally, call the mayor's call center at (202) 727-1000 or Serve D.C. at (202) 727-7925.

this is EXACTLY the kind of thing a blog can excel at. the katrina blog also talks about gas station closure rumors, gas prices in popular labor day destinations around the area, and what local charities and organizations are doing. good job, post.

yes, the rumors are true: i will be at asylum tomorrow night at 5 p.m. for their infamous 25 cent happy hour. come on out if you're so inclined. i will not, sadly (or happily, depending on how you're looking at it) be at at the jello wrestling, though, as awesome as it sounds.

things on the d.c. list left to do:

I don't know whether anyone besides Catherine and myself will find this useful, but we've now got an RSS feed of recent comments available here. I haven't added an icon in the sidebar, but smarter browsers and RSS readers should detect a new LINK tag in the header pointing to it.

I don't know if it's just their Friday sale, or a new habit — either way, I'd jump on the fact that Amazon is selling Calphalon hard-anodized pots for ridiculously low prices. Like $20 apiece low. These things usually go for over $150 a pop.

I picked up a sauce pan and a crepe pan, despite only having a vague idea of what a crepe is.

so, like....what the fuck is going on down in new orleans?

good lord. it's atrocious and infuriating. where the fuck is the government?

UPDATE: an unbelievable timeline