Invisible and unstoppable

Welcome to the U-S of A. Home of the brave. Land of the...not very free to listen to internet radio. A new, unfairly skewed fee structure for song copyrights set to go into effect on May 15th could force many internet radio stations to fold due to the high cost of royalties (read the Newsweek article). I listen to internet radio. I don't like the idea of not having the option of streaming commercial free music. Why? The answer is simple. Because main-stream or "commercial" radio is heavy on advertisement and light on content. There are local stations - one top 40 station in particular (that shall remain nameless here) - that don't even play a single minute of music during the morning commute time slot...and I would rather have a frontal lobotamy performed by a blind monkey with palsy than listen to someone whose ego has swelled to the point that their head is big enough to have a gravitational pull that affects local coastal tides. When they do actually play music, they play the same songs in heavy rotation with large blocks of advertisements and pointless host or dj chatter. And the three most insidious words in the recording industry: pay for play. I'm convinced that one of the ClearChannel stations here is being compensated for playing the abomination that is the Brook Hogan/Pall Wall single. I'd like to be able to have enough faith in humanity to think that NO ONE actually wants to hear that bit of over-produced schlock even once. Let alone five or six times in a day.

There's a petition at SaveNetRadio.org, and Pandora has been posting updates on the site blog. I whole heartedly am in favor of artists getting their due, and if that means increasing royalty fees, then fine. But lets make it applicable to all types of media. That way, it doesn't look like the RIAA, record labels and corporate behemoths such as ClearChannel aren't back-handedly putting the squeeze on internet-only content providers.

Since I'm feeling a little anti-establishment at the moment, I think this would be a very opportune time to post a few MP3s, seeing as I haven't done that for a while. The first song is one of my current favorites - the movie hasn't even hit theaters, and parts of the soundtrack are already circulating. The power of the internet. Its awesome!

• Snow Patrol - Signal Fire (from the upcoming Spider-Man 3 soundtrack - you can listen to the whole album here and check out the bands MySpace profile)


• Snow Patrol - Somewhere a Clock is Ticking


• M. Ward - Here Comes the Sun Again(From the Cadillac commercial that I keep seeing - here's his MySpace profile for more songs)


• Handsome Furs - What We Had

(UPDATE: The file links have been disabled.)

Haul loose the mooring line

I know I'm a little behind in the news, but I found this picture of physicist Stephen Hawking preparing for his space flight, and decided I needed to put it here.

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit"

You can read more about Dr. Hawking's space flight and his writing & theories. He also has a web page, apparently maintained by one of his Graduate Assistants. I wonder...what else his GA's do for him...?

My son is watching some pointless drivel on the Disney channel, and a girl doing an interview with Johhny Depp about the new POTC movie (and yes - I did just abbreviate it like that) just asked him "When you're finished with filming, and you leave the set, do you ever still feel like a pirate?" -- I wasn't paying much attention, but his response wasn't what I wish it had been. In my head it happened like this: "Foolish little wench...I AM a pirate!"...looking around, confused..."Why is the rum gone?"

(For more - and better - Johnny Depp images, go here. And yes, M, there are pictures of Eric Bana for you, too. And don't forget, until you get a better internet connection, I am the Pirate King...savvy?)

"I PRETEND TO KNOW KARATE FOR A LIVING!"

The soon to be new boss was in town and stopped by for a visit. I was impressed that he remembered my name. I'm not even really thinking about the transition that will happen in about a month. Which will coincide with a milestone birthday for me this year. I just want to be able to get through this summer without having to resort to neuropharmacalogical assistance (that's a fancy way of saying "anti-depressants"). I'm in a deadline crunch, and I'm stressing a little, but...so much of what I'm doing right now is all new to me. Hopfully, they are patient and cut me a little slack. Or I'll have to cut them. A little slack. If you get my meaning. And I'm sure you do.

M and I did lunch today and were talking about seeing a movie soon. There aren't that many out this year that we both want to see. I think we'll go see Stardust in August. Of course, Zach Braff's new movie and the third Pirates of the Carribean installment (I still haven't seen the second one) come out next month, and she wants to see License to Wed - it's got John Krasinski in it, so I'm on board. Then later in the summer you've got the next Harry Potter sequel and the sequel to Elizabeth, called The Golden Age, will be in theaters in October - it has Clive Owen in it (skweee!). The Other Boelyn Girl is supposed to be released in December, too, but I haven't seen a production update on IMDB for a while, so who knows. I still say the casting for that one is all wrong, and it's going to be a huge distration - along with all of the glaring historical innacuracies and Scarlett Johanson's ginormous corseted boobs. [For a good site to see trailers and clips, try Movies.com]

Okay - whose brilliant idea was it to have Andy Samberg star in a movie? How many times do I have to say this, people: Unruly hair and pulling a goofy face do not equal funny. If they did I'd be the funniest human being ever born. In the history of humanity.

Also, don't get me started on the documentary Zoo...it's just gross. Don't know what I'm talking about? Be grateful and try to keep it that way *shudder*

For those who like Will Ferrell, I present to you The Landlord (slightly off color language alert, for the overly senstitive among you). I would have loved to have posted the actual video, but the websites's embed function doesn't work for crap and they had the video pulled from YouTube, so linking to it was my only choice.

Spongebob had better watch out...my son has a new favorite show on Nicktoons. I find it odd and slightly annoying - I don't even know if he understands what's going on...I know I sure don't. The best part of the episode comes during the scene transistions. Two words: Dancing sushi.

Light hugging will be permitted and gifts are always welcome

It's Admin Profs Day! Us office gals got a little lunch and some wee tokens of supervisorly appreciation. There was some side-gossip as well. It was nice. Now back to work!

I don't want to wait forever

Over the weekend I bought the new Muse album (I'm kind of meh on that one - so far there's only one song I like on the whole thing), and the previous Snow Patrol album, Final Straw (this one I love). In honor of how brilliant Snow Patrol is, here is the sweet video for the song Signal Fire they've done for the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack:



Also, to those in the know, I finished HP book 3 Friday night and am going through withdrawals. In addition, I think I accidently found out something from book 7 that I really didn't want to know - some rude person posted an unannounced spoiler on a forum for a totally unrelated topic. Thanks for possibly ruining it for me, anonymous internet jerk - my only consolation is the thought that you're not only a jerk, but a liar as well.