Adam Kazwell is...somewhat concerned

Move along, nothing to see here.

Hole Eeee Shit!...

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake

For most of my life I've tried to go slightly against whatever the norm is - mostly for the reason that if everyone else had already done/seen/heard it, then there's nothing of interest to me. In the past, I've gone out of my way to NOT do things for the simple fact that it was something for 'the masses' (ex: Harry Potter, the Bachelor, Lord of the Rings, KissFM, etc). But I gotta say, never before tonight have I felt like such a part of a target market - and I have Tower Records to blame/thank.

First, I found a copy of the Garden State soundtrack (finally!). Then I picked up a copy of the lastest FHM (how come it took people so long to figure out that female Olympians are hot?) followed by an impulse buy of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

Now that I'm a card carrying member (with frequent flyer miles!) of the quarter-life crisis club, I wonder what I'll do next...maybe start flipping my collar up?

update on 8.25:. Turns out you don't flip the collar, you pop it...Thanks MKG

Sah-ROO'-nis Yah-seh-KEH'-vih-shuhs

Man, what a game! Definitely the most enjoyable game of basketball I've watched since this one.

I really liked the type of game the Lithuanians' played - quick and accurate shooting guards, crisp ball movement, good mobility by their big men. And man, talk about the one player that the US would kill to have on their team: Sarunas Jasikevicius. How is this guy not in the NBA??

Should be interesting to see what happens when a medal is on the line.

Prediction? That's suckers game

Abe from Abstract Dynamics brings up some good points on the value of an expert...

...It comes not from an ability to predict, but from an ability to identify and bring insight to the near past. Prediction? That's suckers game. The odds are heavily in the house's favor, and no one even knows who the house is...

and well, i have more to write, but dinner plans are calling so catch ya later. But before I leave, my prediction for tomorrow: Lithuania will beat the US basketball team. Not sure if that even qualifies as an upset these days.

So long,
Sucker

Did I tell you I started buying CD's again?

As in, I've (mostly) stopped downloading them.

About the "why" behind this decision...mainly, it's due to the lack of good downloading software for the mac (sorry, acquisition ain't shit compared to soulseek) combined with a hint of the good ole' conscience catching up with me...bout time.

Notes so far...the whole buying CD's thing started with RJD2's latest album - Since We Last Spoke. I downloaded the album first off of Soulseek. Gave it a quick listen and loved it. Only problem was, I didn't have all the correct file info and one of the tracks had a 'promotional copy' sound bite in it. So, to solve both problems I ran down to Good Records and picked up the CD (for I think around 15-16 bucks). First problem - the CD I just bought was missing two tracks compared to what I downloaded (one of which was one of my favorite tracks - De L'alouette). So by choosing the 'legal' alternative I got less than downloading it for free.

Second problem - today I wanted to buy the Garden State soundtrack. The CD was released late in the week, and I thought availability might be an issue. Sho' enough, it was. I tried Virgin, Best Buy, Borders, Tower Records, and Good Records - none of which had it in stock - in fact, Virgin and Tower were both sold out, while the rest hadn't even received their first shipments. The whole experience reminded me of problems associated with renting movies, luckily Netflix and TiVo have solved most of those problems. The question is - why hasn't the music industry (and also the movie industry) moved to a print on demand model yet? All you would need is a fast CD burner, a custom color printer, and a few terabytes of harddrive storage and viola - Tower Records in a box. The CD you want is always available, anytime you want it (can you say drive thru Music store?? Yes, I'll have a Zero 7 value meal with a side of Interpol). This also opens up the possibility of customer compilations on demand, an easy to use listen-before-you-buy feature, and also the cataloging of what you've bought in the past and what you might like in the future - just to name a few. Heck, Virgin could still keep their racks of Ben Sherman clothing and aisles of magazines, but they could still have the CD-on-demand box in all stores as a backup, right??

update: here's Mark Cuban's thoughts on the problems with CD's and how they'll soon be extinct.

Lastly, there's the question of why not just use iTMS? 3 letters - DRM. I just won't stand for it. End of story.

Some (extremely un-editted) video clips from Argentina

By extremely un-editted I don't mean NSFW - I mean that it's a long and mostly blurry video clip. Hope to have it cleaned up soon.

Video clip of hummingbirds/butterflies.
Another (much smaller) clip of slightly larger birds crawling all over humans.

The Gaping Void guide on How to Be Creative

Just in case you missed the link that was added a week or so ago, here's some more comments on 'The List'. (ps - on a personal note, I think I might have actually linked to this site before Kottke...first time that I've 'scooped' an A-list blogger :)

The closest thing I have to a definition of the word 'creative' is - That place where work and play are indistinguishable.

Man, read that again...Brilliant. I could go on and on about Gaping Void's list, but I'll try and keep it short - I'm sure it means many things to many people. For now, here are my favorites (in order from most to least favorite): #9,10,3,5,7,14. That, and see the comments posted by Nik on August 2, 2004 04:56 PM for a remix of the list.

The problem with two way conversations on the Web

Seth Godin has been known to spread idea viruses in the past, however, there might be a cure for his latest virus before anyone is even infected. Clay Shirky seems to agree, but for different reasons.

Yes, it was questionable to put the 'manifestos' in .pdf format, although I could see how using a more formal file type would encourage publishing only more formal ideas. Yes, it was odd for the manifestos to not include comments and/or trackbacks when the very purpose of project is to encourage discussion (more on that in a sec). Finally, it's gonna be pretty hard to find (and change) anything that has such a generic project name.

So, what's the main problem with the Change This! Project? It's the fact that having a good discussion on the web is almost impossible. Sure, there are some sites that are built for discussions, but for the most part, comments suck. And here's why - the audience is stupid. But actually, it's not their fault (well, not completely).

The problem is due to the site's creators not being active enough in their own comment section. If, as a reader, I know my chances of hearing a response from the original poster are slim to none, then why bother investing any time in writing a well thought out comment? It's the equivalent of continuing to talk to someone on the phone after they've already hung up - you think you're getting somewhere only to realize that no one was listening. And I know this isn't a new idea, but that's what I think a lot of the web sites (this site included) have become - nothing but people shouting out to no one in particular...Whew, how's that for ending on a postive note!