Steve Jobs like Alt-Hip-Hop

Q: So what kind of music are you listening to these days?

A: I'm trying to force myself to listen to more of the current stuff. I had never listened to hip-hop and had somehow developed a pretty harsh image of it. Now I'm not saying I like all of it, but I found some people that have something to say and are saying it, more than anyone since Dylan in the 1960s. And Dylan is my all-time favorite. I met him once. It was one of the high points of my life. -- Steve Jobs (paid registration required).

Written while listening to The Modern Age from the album "Is This It" by The Strokes

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Reminds me of an Ali G episode (Austrian reporter Bruno asking an Oklahoma Sooner's running back how long he's been gay). I'll let you come up with your own puns around this one.

Written while listening to Funk on the Brain by Greyboy Allstars

I [don't] Feel Good

Analysts

The analysts that say things like:

You could speculate that there might not be room for two mammoth stores like Amazon.com. It's like the big store in a small town. When you've built a new Wal-Mart, it's hard to justify putting a Kmart next to it.

OK, you could but you'd be ignoring the data that shows that the most successful Wal-Mart stores are those located in close proximity to a competitor, like K-Mart.

Written while listening to Delicate from the album "O" by Damien Rice

Fancy Ringtones

Pop-quiz. Quick, how much money did American consumers spend on musical ring tones for their cellphones in 2003?
Answer in comments.

Written while listening to You Can't Hide from the album "Khronos" by Maktub

Illicit Tracks

This rocks. Be sure to click on the links

Floss 'N' Cap

This is one of those "I wish I'd thought of that" ideas. Toothpaste with the floss right in the cap (76% of Americans don't floss). Combining two related products isn't a new idea. Just recently I was having a conversation with a friend about combo DVD-VHS players. I'm not a fan. Let's say the VCR breaks. You're now have to go out and buy a new machine to play VHS movies anyway. It's not like these things are disposable (though with the price drops they're getting close to it). But start talking about a tube of toothpaste and suddenly you are talking about disposability as a characteristic of successful product-combination ideas. Got any hot product combination ideas? Prove it.

Written while listening to He Never Knew The Benefits Of Caffeine from the album "The Networks, The Circuits, The Streams, The Harmonies" by Burnside Project

Aussie Express

Have you ever noticed how Australian backpackers are everywhere? And it seems everyone knows someone from college who spent some time in Australia at one time or another? About half a million young budget travelers flock to Australia from the northern hemisphere every year. Well, there's a company that's planning on monetizing (heard that word since 2000?) this phenomenon, backpackersXpress. Cheap flights to and from Australia to facilitate hard partying and to help fuel the Girls Gone Wild [insert locale] craze.

Written while listening to Antistar from the album "100th Window" by Massive Attack

Rip It Good

I've been interested in the idea of mass CD ripping ever since a friend developed a rig to make it easier a couple of years ago (more on this in the weeks to come, I'm sworn to secrecy). My friend Al Chang told me about RipDigital a few weeks aback and the idea is intruiging. FedEx your CD's to them and they send you back high-quality digital files of your music. It's about $1 a CD.

According to their CEO they don't keep a copy of each CD they rip (which would be a great way to create a network effect on their bottom line). This keeps the RIAA at bay. I'd have to spend close to $1000.00 to make this plunge with them and I'm not willing to do that--I'd rather spend the time to do it myself. The Jupiter analyst says he ripped his 400 CD collection on a Sunday afternoon? According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations that's 40 hours of work (assuming a 10X CD-Drive and 60-minute CD's). Am I missing something Mr. Jupiter?

Mixed Up

Put yer headphones on, and sway your head to something you mixd up yourself. I never get tired of these.

Streaming Digital Audio in the Home

People, the digital home is upon us. For those that visited our house last summer you know that I was impatient and set-up a system whereby I could control a laptop with MP3's connected to my stereo via another laptop set-up outside. This meant I could listen to music while barbecuing and change the song and adjust the volume on the outdoor speakers without trotting back inside. I knew commercial hardware to make this easier was forthcoming and it's here.

Presenting Graydon Laurence Golier

Son of Chris & Kristyn Golier. According to Chris:

"Grady was born on Monday morning at 8:10am. I already know he's going to be a smart one....he knew better than to come on a Sunday during NFL playoffs."

Oh, Chris is a sports fan. Congratulations to Chris and Kristyn.

First the Olympics...

now this:

""This is wonderful."

It is?

MLK Day

I may not have the day off (in fact I'm headed to Arkansas today, the exact antithesis of a day off in many ways) but it doesn't mean that I don't believe in MLK's dream. The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of digitized materials they've compiled in what they call American Memory. Of special note is the Voices from the Days of Slavery collection. Take some time out of your day today and given them a listen if you're able. You'll be glad you did.
UPDATE: Here's another great site...and local too.

Foiled

Runner-up title: Too Much Free Time.

Written while listening to Right Thing/GDMFSOB (Clean Instrumental Version) from the album "The Private Press" by DJ Shadow

Creepy Flash

The combination of caffeine, DCFC, and this interactive animation made for a surreal morning indeed.

Written while listening to We Looked Like Giants from the album "Transatlanticism" by Death Cab for Cutie

Megadef

Thanks to so many great contributions I came up with a killer compilation that brings the funk in a big way. Here's the final song list. I've included a lil cover art for those that are curious what the final product looks like.

Written while listening to 911 Is A Joke from the album "Fear Of A Black Planet" by Public Enemy

Speaking of Tunes...Help A Brother Out

A few of the folks involved in Digital Downloads have started a lil' contest that i could your collective help with. The contest is to create the most butt-kicking compilations of songs that's still something you can listen to. In other words it's gotta rock without being noisy for noisy's sake. The other guy took the tack of Patti Smith, The Cramps, Led Zepellin...you get the idea. I'm going for the hard punk/ funk/ hip-hop mix--something I like to think of as a strength of mine. Here's what I have so far:

Bring The Noise	Anthrax & Public Enemy
Right Here, Right Now	Ice Cube And Paul Oakenfold
Firestarter	Prodigy
Body Rock	Moby
Ill Shit	Mix Master Mike
Walkie Talkie	DJ Shadow
No One Knows	Queens Of The Stone Age
Tommy The Cat	Primus
Wild Flower	The Cult
Suck My Kiss	Red Hot Chili Peppers
Mother Mother	Tracy Bonham
Faith	Limp Bizkit
Rock 'N' Roll	Mos Def

Other ideas? Leave a comment please.

Written while listening to Crazy, Crazy, Crazy from the album "Everyone Deserves Music" by Michael Franti & Spearhead

Online Music

You probably heard about Wal-Mart's foray into world of digital downloads of music. Like the other services on the site (as opposed to Logistics or Systems) this one falls in my domain so again I've got some amazing exposure to a very exciting business. I can't say much about specifics but i can say that this article misses the mark a bit with a quote like this.:

[...] the Forrester analyst, called Wal-Mart "the company that will have the most difficulty" because price alone will not drive sales in the new market. "There is not a business in selling individual songs cheap"...

Written while listening to Desire from the album "The Best Of 1980-1990" by U2

Monday Observations

1) It's hard to wake up to go to the gym on Monday mornings.
2) Rage Against the Machine makes great music to sweat to.
3) I couldn't lift my arms to wash my hair this morning (my biceps are so huge)
4) iPods oughta have a lil text engraved in them:

"WARNING: This device does not make your voice sound any 
better to the outside world...no matter how you sound to 
yourself singing along with your headphones on."

Written while listening to Bastards Of Young from the album "Sh*t, Shower, And Shave" by The Replacements

Just Say 'Yo'

Friends don't let friends draw high.

Memories In Time

There are smells that evoke memories stronger than anything imaginable. Turns out it's because the hippocampus, the emotional center of the brain, is in physical proximity to the area of the brain responsible for olfactory sensation. So I guess that means the memories evoked by some of these truly old-school watches are due to some similar brain physiology? I had one of the early calculator Casios. And, yes, I was doing a lot of calculating on the go at 13 thank you very much.

IRC for Blasphemers

I don't think this is really how it happened.

Written while listening to Kissing The Lipless from the album "Chutes Too Narrow" by The Shins

Friends...Take Back Your Life!

Those friends know who they are.

"Oh my God this really works!"

Perot from Mars

In the 1920's people thought that Martians were trying to communicate with us. We know now that they were actually foretelling the advent of H. Ross Perot.

Written while listening to Landslide Baby from the album "Yoko" by Beulah

Only a Matter of Time

It was only a matter of time before the security built into the Apple iTunes downloads was cracked. Yeah, it's illegal. But Apple is in the precarious position of building loyalty in the open source community on the one hand with their FreeBSD foundation in OS X while at the same time effectively locking everyone else from loading their file formats onto the iPod. From today's Billboard Bulletin:

Real Bows Download Store, Forges Rolling Stone Deal

RealNetworks will launch an a la carte download store and a new version of its RealPlayer media management software this morning at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company will also announce that it has taken over operation of RollingStone.com from Vivendi Universal's VUNet USA Internet unit as part of a seven-year global licensing deal with Rolling Stone magazine parent Wenner Media. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tracks purchased through the RealPlayer Music Store are being encoded in the AAC format, the same standard used by Apple's iTunes Music Store. However, digital rights management compatibility issues bar the transfer of tracks purchased through Real to Apple's popular iPod portable digital players. But because of its AAC support, the latest version of Real's software does allow users to manage their iPod and iTunes-purchased tracks through the RealPlayer. Users can also rip their own CDs into an unprotected version of the AAC format compatible with the iPod.