Month: March 2007

the millenium the music died

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

there’s an unbroken line that runs from frank sinatra, to elvis, to the beatles, to david bowie, to the sex pistols, to u2, to nirvana, to eminem.

someone was always around to shake things up and make music interesting again, when all was looking irretrievably lost. the sex pistols had sid. u2 has bono. nirvana had kurt. the beatles got lucky and had two people. well, maybe, two and a half, if you count george.

i wish someone would come along and make music interesting again. and don’t tell me about the arctic monkeys or franz ferdinand or whatever the flavor of the month band is now.

you know what i mean, and the scale of influence to which i’m referring.

npr is getting boring.

i’m not buying an apple tv

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

at least not yet, i’m not.

i know–heresy.

i have my reasons.

the apple tv is a not-unattractive box that wirelessly connects your computer to your widescreen hdtv. that allows you to listen to your itunes music, and watch your itunes videos, all on your tv. pretty cool, huh?

really i think it is pretty cool.

and i have a widescreen hdtv, and i have a mac, and i have itunes with lots of music and even some purchased video (notably, season one of wonder showzen). and i recently cancelled my cable television subscription, retaining only a 768k broadband internet connection.

so what’s stopping me?

i went to the fifth avenue apple store and looked at one, that’s what. and i watched a few seconds of lost, and a few seconds of the incredibles. and it looked like crap. i’m no videophile, but there were noticeable blocky areas and jaggies and dark indiscriminate areas and i’m not paying for that.

and i’m too honest to limewire content. it feels like stealing to me, even if there’s a good argument that it’s not. plus it takes forever, it takes up enormous gigs of hard disk space, and then you watch it once or twice and have to figure out what to delete and what to keep. too much trouble.

and i am far too lazy to rip my own video content from dvds to watch it later. i honestly don’t see the point in that. and all that crap would still litter my hard drive. it’s much easier just to put the netflix dvd in the player, and send it back when done.

and you can’t watch video on the internet. oh, i know. you can hack your apple tv so it can play other video formats, and run joost to watch internet tv, and all that. but apple tv doesn’t do that out of the box, and i’m not a hacker. i want a solution that works, not one that i have to fiddle with and void my apple tv warranty to get going.

the apple tv music streaming would be nice, and i’m sure kirk would love to have a break from the constant drone of npr, which i listen to non-stop since there’s no tv to watch. but the truth is, just like i’m too lazy to rip video, i’m too lazy to rip my cds too. i would probably listen to more music if i organized it digitally. but i have hundreds and hundreds of cds, and the thought of ripping all of it is just too daunting. and the vinyl? my god, the vinyl. and the cassettes.

ugh.

some weekend i’ll get up the gumption and set up an assembly line of sorts and rip all the cds i own. and i’ll selectively make mp3s out of some of the vinyl, at least the stuff that’s ultra-rare. that day is coming soon. but music is different than movies and tv. music, i’ll listen to many, many times. it’s worth the time investment to digitally organize it.

movies? tv? i can count on one hand the number of movies i watch repeatedly.

and don’t tell me to buy an xbox, or a slingbox, or a media center pc, or whatever. i could care less about all the tinkering i’d have to do to get those things running. i want an apple solution, because i know it will just work easily, and work right. that’s my prerogative as a consumer, to wait for what i want and do without until i get it, even if that’s never.

i want democracy tv, or the equivalent, to work through my apple tv.

my point is this: at some point, i’m betting the apple tv will be a conduit for all manner of online video content. some of it will be crappy and free, and some of it may be decent and free, and some of it may be hd content from the itunes store.

when i have better apple tv video options provided by apple, they will get $299 or $499 or whatever from me. i hope i don’t have to resort to buying a mac mini to hook up to the tv. that would be an ideal solution, but it feels like expensive overkill.

for now i’m taking a raincheck.

and if, as i suspect is true, the apple tv will only ever officially be tied to purchased video content at the itunes store?

i might still buy an apple tv, if the content looked good and the price was right.

and if it was rental video content at the apple store?

sold. one apple tv in jamie’s living room.

wal-mart gives up on manhattan

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

from the ny times this morning: wal-mart has given up efforts to locate a store in manhattan

it’s a free country and they are free to try to build in manhattan if they can.

and it’s a free country and manhattanites can do everything in their power to stop them.

and i’m glad they did. i hate frigging wal-mart. one of the things i love about new york is that there are so many mom-and-pop and local chain stores, and it’s easy to spend money knowing that money will stay in the local economy. you could live your whole life here and practically never spend money in the local outlet of a national chain. i don’t need wal-mart coming in and ushering those locals out of business.

especially with morons like lee scott in charge of the company:

During the questioning, Mr. Scott repeatedly referred to New York, but after the meeting a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Mona Williams, called to say that Mr. Scott was referring to only Manhattan, not the entire city.

hey mr. scott, you freakin’ idiot. news flash. new york has five boroughs.

later in the article is this choice nugget:

Speaking about what he sees as snobbish elites in New York and across the country, Mr. Scott added, “You have people who are just better than us and don’t want a Wal-Mart in their community.”

not better, mr. scott. probably just better informed.

hacking john mccain

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

apparently john mccain doesn’t quite get how those internets work, with all the tubes and whatnot.

or at least his staff doesn’t.

turns out that they stole their my space page design, and linked back to the original page for their artwork. which meant that the poor original designer had to foot the bill for the bandwidth for the images every time someone hit john mccain’s my space page.

but, it gets better. that also means that, if you substitute a new image on your server, it will magically appear on john mccain’s my space page.

which the designer did. you can see the results here.

for those of you too lazy to click through, here’s what the image says:

Dear Supporters,

Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage…particularly marriage between passionate females.

John

ok, so i could do without the straight-boy take on hot lesbian sex.

but you have to admit, this is brilliant.

hopefully mccain’s staff has learned their lesson.

everything’s coming to a grinding halt

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

bonus points to me for the lyrical reference to the cure. the mood i’m in, be glad i didn’t quote “sinking”.

we made such good headway with buying the coop apartment. we found a place we liked. we made an offer and it was accepted.

stop.

full stop.

we’ve been waiting for a week and a half now, with no word from the owner, who needs to sign the papers so we can get going on the mortgage. apparently he’s in korea and can’t be contacted. and his relative, who is living in the apartment and has power of attorney, isn’t signing until he talks to him, or something like that.

the waiting. my god, the waiting.

we really like the apartment, and we think the price is fair to both sides.

but something’s gotta give. soon.

daylight savings time, and the mac

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

you just lost an hour, if you’ve forgotten.

at work, it’s a major headache. microsoft somehow botched the transition to the new congress-improved version of daylight savings time. so we have to go back and reschedule outlook appointments for a certain time period, because microsoft couldn’t figure out the transition. and everyone who booked conference rooms for meetings may lose those conference rooms, because the time didn’t move properly, so someone else may have booked the room for the time slot they needed, in the interim.

among other glitches. geez louise, those guys are idiots.

at home, i have a mac. got up this morning, the time was displayed properly in all applications, and everything just worked.

tell me again why you don’t use a mac?

update: in addition to all the other issues, after the microsoft “fix” of outlook, all of my “all-day” appointments (the reminders at the top of each day) now span two days. microsoft is truly an idiotic company.

me, a homo-wner?

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

should, of course, be homeowner. but i wanted to drive the lame joke to its breaking point.

yes, kirk and i are thinking about buying a coop. seriously thinking, to the point of realigning our finances to put things in motion, and looking at places.

now, let’s get this straight. i didn’t suddenly win the lottery. i can’t afford to buy in manhattan–not even in inwood, where we live now. so we’re looking in riverdale, which is just over the harlem river in the bronx. a very nice old neighborhood, with lots of affordable places, and not more than 15 additional minutes commute away from where we are now.

more to come as the story develops.

jello biafra at the knitting factory

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

my god, what a show.

i’ve seen some amazing spoken word performances in my life. henry rollins. utah phillips. hunter s. thompson. jim carroll.

nothing compares to jello biafra, i have to say. although all those other guys come close, in their own way, jello edges into the lead due to sheer stamina.

onstage at 8:45 PM. one fifteen minute break, two and one-half hours into the show. offstage just after 1:00 AM. by my count that’s four continuous hours of dialogue.

and every damn minute was compelling.

you got some “greatest hits” (loved the imitation of his weirdly swedish high school geometry teacher), but also an awful lot of extemporaneous conversation, mostly about iraq. it’s tough to say what was the best, or what was wonderful, because of the sheer volume of ideas. the best i could do was to take away a general feeling of reflection and renewed commitment and enthusiasm for doing the right thing again.

it was an affirmation, too. i’m doing the right thing in a lot of ways. giving back a significant portion of my income to microloans via finca. registered to vote, and actually voting, and actually voting in all the odd primaries and local races. and just generally giving a shit.

i admire people like jello biafra, and larry kramer, and all the other people who can keep that fire burning intensely for so long. the normal human tendency is to soften with age, become more conservative with age, compromise with age.

seeing someone like jello biafra gives me hope that everything might not be completely lost. thank god he’s still fighting the good fight.

dinner at mocca espresso lounge–loved the food (fried halloumi cheese, veggie burgers, tilapia, house-made cheesecake), great service, excellent italian sodas and espresso martinis. worth stopping by if you are in the area.