Wow, Vu... I didn't know you were this into the techy stuff. I stopped by because I'm still blogging about mashups from time to time, but this is a pleasant surprise.

Awesome. I haven't been doing much flying, because the winds have been terrible... and I wasn't feeling well when the local kite festival happened. There's still a regular event at Columbia Crest by some kiters in Irrigon, OR, but... not sure if I'll be up to go to that, either.

I see what you mean by the kite reel now... that's impressive.

Hey there, Vu. Love the new look of the blog-- glad to see things are still going well.

No mention of Joel Hodgson? Yes, I guess that'd detract from this article, but still...

Just to clarify: I think the quote goes hand in hand with another oft-cited one: "Credit is given where credit is due." In my experience, great artists are fully upfront where they take their inspiration. Yes, I'm covering my butt. ;-)

Did a quick edit to correct an error. Both Ian and Wil did artwork for their own respective music releases (Licence and UANTHH). If you noticed the difference, my hat's off to you. Apologies to Hibernate for the confusion!

I'll never let you sell your artwork short, Vu. Tell Lara that your expression is not a display of emotion, but an expression of diplomacy appropriate for races unaccustomed to logic. Furthermore, it is not what many of them would define as a true smile.

For example, the term A&R is thrown around in the music industry and I vaguely understand this as 'artist development'. Snider doesn't assume you know that and explained this as "artist and repertoire" and what they do. I guess that's fair. It's a little more concrete for the formally trained, especially classically trained students. I was a music education student, but towards the end of my schooling, "repertoire" was explained to me in a performance context (for singing, anyways). Singers build up lists of pieces they do well and therefore will be known for. In a word, you don't waste time with music that won't come out perfect with your set of skills. I wasn't aware this idea was used in the commercial music industry, but I guess it makes sense, since recording artists ARE expected to stick to stuff their audience has heard.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I did take some photos at the event, and you can view them at Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21397229@N05/sets/72157629870529635/with/7100770473/

I turned on the TV last night and saw a promo for a "Remembering Dick Clark" show by ABC. I've been horrendously busy, and I just didn't have time to check my internet feeds, but I thought, "Oh no, that probably means he's died." I opened my newspaper this morning and my thoughts were confirmed. I remember when Ryan Seacrest took over hosting duties not just for American Bandstand, but for "New Year's Rockin' Eve". Clark had suffered a stroke and he did appear briefly, but it was apparent he hadn't overcome the paralysis that normally follows a stroke yet. Basically, reading this recent news, I figured he was in declining health that normally comes with age, and it was his time as it is for every human being. It should be noted that he was also somewhat known for "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes", which he co-hosted with Ed McMahon, who was Johnny Carson's second (and announcer) on the Tonight Show. Of course, Clark's own company, Dick Clark Productions, produced "Bloopers", as well as other popular shows, and that I think is also worthy of mention.

They also broke Michael Jackson's death, which, at the time, I had never heard of TMZ. That is amazing, man, truly amazing. You must have some cool blinders or something, because it was hard for me NOT to see or hear from them somewhere. Either it was the Internet (in a parody sketch about social networks-- MySpace being the butt of the joke) or it was during my insomniac hours turning on the TV, the start of those graveyard vampire hours (when infomercials and scam ads start), and stumbling on their show. In short, it's easy to hate TMZ, and it's rather hard not to notice them. Must be a reminder that tabloid journalism is always just a few steps away. More on topic-- I don't think that the Monkees could have lasted into the nostalgic and "retro" stretch without Davy Jones. Most fans will remember Michael Nesmith was completely absent from the reunions, and I don't think Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork could have pulled it off on their own. Pardon another Beatles comparison, but I'm given to understand that Jones was to the Monkees the way Paul McCartney was to the Beatles-- all the girls loved Davy Jones, and that's what pushes continued interest, even when the girls are grown women, now. The press noted this, too.

Thanks for the mention! It *is* long... clocking at about 35 minutes. With practice, I'll tighten it up; it's harder for me to do that speaking than writing, but I'll learn. Mostly, I was too lazy to edit. I don't really follow the Grammys but I'm not surprised at all that Adele did very well, and we've been fortunate to have reviewed some strong indications foreshadowing that success. Re: Google and the search engine switch, which I also remember well: They censored us a few years ago, no reasons were given or effort to contact us (but it's not difficult to guess that it has to do with record companies complaining). I'll just be brash and add to what you are implying, if I haven't beat that dead horse enough already. The record companies were probably complaining in part because I was covering mashups, which most execs and music biz producers condemn pretty thoroughly. I think it's another example of corporate abuse of copyright law in reaction to piracy generally and the facts will show mashups also promote music well. That's not to say piracy isn't a problem and listeners need to support music more with money, but I am saying the ham-fisted approach is going to have to die, soon.

phooey... TypePad isn't letting me embed. The Late Late Show interview is here: http://youtu.be/wqFri2XGT6I

speaking of videos: note where Craig asks "Do your fans ever get mad at you? Y'know, like 'Come on, man, you can't cover that, that's my favorite band, that's not fair!'" and Al says "No, because I make them better. How can you get mad at that?" So, see, Vu, you don't even need to like or be aware of who Al is parodying currently: He makes them better!

Still, youtube is the place to be, especially when it comes to viewing videos on the internet. I just wish they'd update their interface, something smooth, like vimeo. I agree that Vimeo's flash player is much slicker, and yes, more of the action is over at YouTube (probably helps that Google is the parent company).

.H264 was not without a LOT of controversy in the tech and open source world. There were a lot of users that worried the way Apple made it a closed-source codec, that indie and small filmmakers were going to be royally screwed. There were strong arguments for Vorbis (an open source codec). I don't know if I'm summarizing it very well-- there's a lot of backwaters and mess that is hard to explain succinctly. There seems to be policy modifications along the way that seems to dampen such a Chicken Little sort of warning... but we'll see, I guess. I don't use iDevices (iPhone, iPad, etc.) myself because I do want to retain the option to tinker, and while Mac compatibility with Linux is a little better than Windows with Linux... it's usually just better than I go with native solutions. Actually, what's likely to happen is I will eventually break down and will get the cheapest BluRay player I can manage.

I've been using continental/24-hour time for a few years now; it throws friends and family a bit, but it makes better sense to me. That is all.

TypePad ate my comment. To put my thoughts more succinctly: O'Connor would do well to remind the public that she has bankable talent, and distance herself from the recent crop of celebrities that don't act, sing, or dance-- but are famous apparently just for looks, money, and spectacle. A comparison to such a celebrity like Kim Kardashian is sad, IMO. It will be hard going, I think, because I don't think O'Connor managed her public image well. I didn't understand why she shaved her head the first time. or why she tore up a picture of then Pope John Paul II. Had I known the context beforehand, maybe I might have thought differently. I don't care for her music, but would be interested to see if she seems to realize on her tour that image DOES matter, and she has power to address that, beyond a pithy album title.

I think fame is fickle, and the public eye focuses on strange and motley bits of anyone caught in its glare. I think O'Connor poorly managed what image she put out to the public-- at least in the U.S. Do you think anyone really understood why she shaved her head the first time, or why she tore up a picture of the Pope? I sure didn't. The RCC clergy sex scandal wasn't widely discussed yet, and I've read suggestions that no one likely had that context in mind. So she's stuck with the image she created. I read she grew out her hair-- but then shaved it off again when people mistook her for Enya. And comparisons to Kim Kardashian? Ha. Another sad reminder how we have some celebrities now that don't sing, dance, or act-- just aesthetically beautiful, rich, and ripe for the rumor mill. I don't care for O'Connor, but I'd be remiss to say she has no talent-- and I think she'd do well to figure out better how to remind the public of this, ESPECIALLY on this upcoming tour.

urban lumberjacks Hehe. So that's what came after the Bud Davises of the '70s and '80s, in the '90s and '00s. But I don't think "Urban Lumberjack" would make a very good movie title. And who would be the actor that would get audiences remembering John Travolta's old character? I mean, it would be a sequel.

I recommend taking advantage of the Bluray version since I believe the show was shot originally in HD. If you don't have a bluray player - they're cheap now! Yes, but TVs that display high definition (720p+) are NOT cheap for me. Not spending money on a Blu-Ray player when I can't properly take advantage of the resolution quality. (don't feel like explaining my indigent circumstances, either)

The fall of VOX (which was Six Apart's other project before the merger -- they are now known as "Say Media") did open my eyes to how even the blogging world is incredibly fragmented. I saw that many people were moving away from long-form blogs and using desktop computers to do so, to what's called "microblogging" and using the newer mobile microcomputers-- the smartphone, the tablet, and so on. It took me a while to realize how ubiquitous Facebook had become, not just with many businesses, but among many people I knew a bit more personally, including the congregation at church. Perhaps you remember me telling you about how disaffected I became with Facebook. Twitter also turned me off-- although the Brizzly interface did lead me to give Twitter a more honest try. I found I just couldn't churn out so many short, fleeting thoughts just to keep myself on the radar of the few people I was following. So I really kept to long-form blogging. But as I moved away from the world of LiveJournal and VOX, which had been more of a community experience, I found that many readers were demanding that blogs have a particular theme. I'm really not as good about that; I liked to write in a very eclectic manner and include a little bit about everything. the tao of jaklumen, my main blog, is mostly about my personal life, although I have kept a strong emphasis on my kiting experiences. TechsWrite was given to me by a VOX friend-- we had written primarily about our tech experiences, but I have shifted the focus gradually to tech support for the less tech-savvy audience. I'll tell you about the other ones later. My point is this change of focus did force me to make my blogs more specific-- which I still don't like so much, but I suppose I can see how it might make them easier to read.