Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ad casts McCain as strong, patriotic leader

Ummm… yeah. That’s what ads do…

Diners bring people together, I’m telling you.

I just joined Muxtape. I was skeptical, but it’s pretty cool. I browsed around and found a ton of bands I had never heard of. It’s endearingly minimal – no frills, no fancy stuff, just click on a song and it plays.
Let’s bring back the era of the mixtape!

Check out my 1920s Muxtape

My new hero.

24/7 Wall St. has a list of the 25 Most Valuable Blogs. Interesting to see the breakdown here on how they make their money, readership, etc. Unsurprisingly, the top (by far) is Gawker Media. Aside from Lifehacker, I kinda think that the Gawker scene is a bunch of bullshit. I loathe their main site, which is really just sassy gossip with a condescending hipster air (I mean, Perez Hilton is nothing but gossip, but at least it doesn’t try to be anything it’s not, ya know?).

I guess the troubling thing for me, and a lot of people, is the fear of corporatizing the blogosphere. Gawker has 15 blogs, ranging from sex to gaming. Yes, they all kind of have that Gawker feel to them, but the tone is increasingly seeming less individual and more of a style. I think that writers entering that scene might become encouraged to adopt the sassy tone and the snarky attitude, at the loss of their own voice. I mean, yeah I’m kind of a snarky fellow, but when snark becomes the norm it loses its effect.

For example, take Pitchfork Media, a site that is blessedly past its prime. A few years ago, Pitchfork was your destination for finding new indie rock/pop and reading unique reviews of recent releases. Sure, some of the reviews were a little over-the-top, but that was their thing, so ok. It quickly devolved into a circle-jerk of: Who can write the most overwrought pretentious bullshit? Now its a joke. All of the hipsters who used to suckle at its indie-teat have now deduced that its now cool to hate Pitchfork and ditched them. I mean, they are still popular, but that scene is dead. (PS check out David Cross’s classic column in Pitchfork where he skewers them for their evil evil ways.)

Ok, its about time for me to be grasping for a point to hold this all together. Alls I’m saying: Centralization in the blogosphere is new, precarious territory. Fads are fleeting and site fads are even worse (how much time do you think is left for Stuff White People Like?). Where does Gawker go from here? (PS I also like Gizmodo and Fleshbot)

Here, Via the One Laptap per Child (OLPC) program.

Some good stuff in there.

Ok… Now, I hate to jump onto the bandwagon, and I also loathe the politics of, “but if Obama lied Hillary would be all over it, so we’ll be all over her!”, but… Dammit, come on… This is as blatant as you can get. She doesn’t even really have a good excuse:

I, I, I, Look, I made, I, ya know, I uh made a mistake in describing it…

She just straight made some shit up. I mean, when Sinbad is calling you out, you’re in rough shape. As much as I hate the politics of smear, after all of the Rev. Wright bullshit, I really hope this sticks to her.

Ross Douthat with some interesting allusions.

Hey, remember OurTunes? Remember that awesome feeling you felt when you realized that your could grab music from your friends’ iTunes, merely by being in close proximity to their Mac laptop? Aww… them was the good old days…

Oh wait, now there is something much, much more incredible. Enter Mojo. Not only can you share your music via your airport, you can share it over the internet. Yeah. I/you can listen to your/my iTunes and share songs at the click of the mouse.

I encourage everyone I know to get on this service and let’s start sharing the wealth.

Email me to trade usernames.

Alarm Will Sound made this week’s Approval Matrix on the New York Magazine website. Not only that, but we are apparently the pinnacle of Highbrow meets Brilliant. Gewd Schtuhph!