Monthly Archives: September 2008

Ok, this is just getting weird now.

Obama said, “[McCain] called me back at about 2:30 this afternoon after our rally, and I asked him to join me in issuing a joint statement to let this Congress and this administration know where we stand and what we expect from this proposal, because of the past few days, it’s been clear that we have come to agree on some broad principles.”

Obama added that McCain agreed to the suggestion of issuing a joint statement.

McCain, according Rogers, suggested that the two presidential candidates have a meeting in Washington “to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem” and that they both suspend their campaigns and hold off on Friday’s presidential debate.

Obama said his intent was focused on issuing a joint statement first.

But shortly after the call ended, Obama said, his rival appeared on television announcing the suspension and the subsequent debate no-show.

“I think the only possible miscommunication that might have been how quickly there was an announcement and someone was on television. I think my assumption was that the joint statement would go out initially,” Obama said.

But McCain, appearing live on “The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” challenged Obama’s claims that he supported a joint statement.

“This is not the time for statements. … I think the American people expect more of us. And I would hope that we would respond that way,” he said.

“We discussed that we do agree, and I’d be glad to — to join in a common press release or statement, but now is not the time for statements. Time is now to act,” he added.

Not to mention this:

Letterman told the audience during the taping of Wednesday’s show that McCain had called him personally to apologize for bailing. According to Letterman, McCain said he couldn’t appear because he was rushing to the airport to get back to Washington.

But midway through the broadcast, Letterman appeared to learn that the Arizona senator was actually still in New York. In fact, McCain was just a few blocks away, at the CBS News headquarters. He was preparing for a last-minute exclusive interview with Katie Couric.

Incredulous, Letterman interrupted his interview with Keith Olbermann (who had filled in as a substitute guest for McCain) to show the audience a live shot on the internal CBS News feed of a makeup artist putting the finishing touches on McCain while he waited to talk to Couric.

“He doesn’t seem to be racing to the airport, does he?” Letterman said, shouting at the television monitor: “Hey, John, I got a question! You need a ride to the airport?”

The Republicans are supposed to be the professional politicians. What the hell is going on?

UPDATE:
Here’s the Letterman Video

Oprah gets pranked:

If you’re wondering what the fuck this is all about, I’ll help out a bit. This letter was likely written a member of the 4chan community. 4chan is an imageboard where people can post anonymously and there are, famously, very few rules. Almost anything goes. It caters to messageboard trolls and it is a meeting place for said trolls to organize mass pranks. This is where famous memes such as lolcats and rickrolling came from. Like any culture, it has a significantly developed lingo which is largely created out of inside jokes. The language is kept deliberately obscure, in large part to discourage outsiders from understanding, leaving them more susceptible to prankery (For example: “an hero nao pl0x” means something much different than what it looks like). So anyway, said troll posted this in Oprah’s message board, chock full of memes with the hopes that someone would bite. Someone did. Oprah. On live TV. Pwned. “Over 9000” is a meme that relates to an episode of Dragonball Z. The “doesn’t forgive, does not forget part” is part of the credo of Anonymous, a loosely unified group of trolls based out of the 4chan community. Yeah, it’s a really twisted joke. But you gotta give ’em props for fucking with Oprah’s alarmist bullshit.

UPDATE: New video embed up.

The fine print:

“If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less.”

So much for the “unlimited” access plan. Sure, you can still surf the web, download music, or watch YouTube videos as much as you want… but if you do it too much, they’ll cripple your phone so that for the rest of the month you have to do it really slowly.

Come on Google, are you gonna let T-Mobile get away with this shit? Spread this around and maybe T-Mobile will change their tune. This could be a deal-killer for many people, including me.
(Word up, Gurf)

UPDATE:
T-Mobile Removes 1GB 3G Data Cap for G1 Android Phone:

We removed the 1GB soft limit from our policy statement, and we are confident that T-Mobile G1 customers will enjoy the high speed of data access over our 3G network. The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers.

Nice.

Take that Hopstop! It looks ok, but maybe still a little buggy. I tried to get subway directions from my place to Lincoln Center and it just could not for the life of it figure out where Lincoln Center was. It gave me a place in Brooklyn, a place downtown. I understand, LC doesn’t really have an address, but that’s the kind of stuff where it should be intuitive. There are times when you don’t want to type in 65th and Columbus. I’m a New Yorker on the go! Oh wait, I’m blogging right now aren’t I, that kind of betrays my former statement…

Yo, my buddy Pete just put up his new website, PeterWise.net. Pete’s a common co-conspirator of mine in the evil world of experimental music. He’s the other half, not counting Doggo, of my junktronica duo Doggo and Sons. He also runs the wonderful Berkshire Fringe Festival every summer, which you should be attending every summer, seriously. Pete can also be found popping up in about a jillion other Brooklyn bands, playing everything from vibes in Mohair Time Warp to drumset in something called the Matt Marks and the Lil Death Band.

Pete designed the website himself and it looks great. He’s got these awesome Add to GCal links by his list of shows. Sexy. I want.

This video is cute. Although, I was hoping that the Dizzee Rascal mass-delusion was over. Nice song though (despite Dizzee’s disruption). Ummm… I suppose it’s NSFW.

I think I’m gonna get the HTC Dream. I gotta crush on Android.

Clay Shirky on Information Overload.

Critic who criticized the Cleveland Orchestra reassigned for having an opinion.

Goddamn I gotta stop spending time on 4chan…

So, I’ll probably be blogging light this week, as I’m in Utica (whoo!) this week playing a concert with AWS at Hamilton College. I also have a really nasty cold, which means any spare time I have is devoted to sleeping.
For the record, playing John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony in the morning when your cold is raging isn’t exactly my idea of fun. I also gave a lecture on my Revolution 9 arrangement to the electronic music class here. That was fun, despite the fact that I really just wanted to curl up on the floor in fetal position and blow my nose until my heart came out. No, but it was actually kind of fun.
Oh yeah, and apparently the hall here is a MONO hall. I’ll let that sink in for you. Yeah, no stereo. Mono. Um, and since my remix I’m having played during the concert of John and Yoko’s Unfinished Music is, well, not mono (since I’m not currently living in the 50s), that is making things a little tough. Hm. Well, we’re trying to figure something out.
Anyway, so yeah. Crazy busy. Crazy sick. Whoo stock market crash! Whoo end of civilization!
Mafoo sleep now.

Sappy patriotic propaganda film, Proud American, has the worst opening for a large release ever. It’s actually the rejection of mindlessly uplifting slop like this that makes me proud to be an American. Check out 1:34. “Like, Dawn. This is our table. You have to leave. Like, go!”. Awesome. Who talks like that?? Actually I kinda want to see it now…

I can’t think of anything I’d rather remix less than a new Third Eye Blind album.

A map of the U.S.A by personality type.

It’s tragic that such an innovative game as Spore is getting overshadowed by the controversy surrounding its bullshit copy protection, but the anti-DRM movement is pretty inspiring.

It’s taken until today for CNN.com to feature the tragic death of DFW. He was only, ya know, one of the nation’s greatest living novelists. No, but you’re right. O.J. in court again is a much bigger story.

Too little, too late, BB. Seriously, ditch the trackball.

Korg DS-10 for Nintendo DS.

The Women 1939:

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a blatant Sex in the City ripoff. Maybe it’s Jada Pinkett-Smith embodying the token black girl by saying shit like “foyn!”. Maybe it’s that The Women ’39 actually takes some thought to follow the clever dialogue. Maybe it’s just that I’m a huge Rosalind Russell fan after watching His Girl Friday.

But come on Hollywood. This is pathetic.