Cats Are Evil

It is a scientific fact.

If you think that your feline is precious and loving, research has shown that it is only because your cat hasn't figured out a way to kill you yet.

This has been a public service announcement.

Last.fm: The Corporate Version

Last.fm has dropped their new layout on the masses and its reception has been less than enthusiastic.
In the interest of fairness, I'll first list the things that I like about the new layout.

1.) The Library. I love the amount of new information this offers. I have really enjoyed browsing my own library and those of people I know. This is an outstanding addition.
2.) That's about it.

Things I do not like:

1.) The Library. At least on my profile page. I keep seeing the same 8 pictures from the same 8 artists every time I look at that page. It has become boring very quickly.
2.) Overall site navigation. What once took a few clicks and was easy to find even for someone unfamiliar with the site has become an Easter Egg Hunt.
3.) Layout. It doesn't stretch to accommodate wide-screen resolutions (This is for future ad space. Mark my words right now. You heard it here first.) There is a reason so many users have compared it to Facebook - because that's what it looks like. If you're going after tweens, this is perfect, I suppose. If they were trying to attract a more sophisticated user (users with more money) then they blew it.
4.) Discovering New Music. The tools I used to discover new music are now mostly gone. Weekly neighbors, group recommendations, tag playlists, free downloads, etc... all gone. Or, in the case of the free music, so hidden and curtailed that is basically useless.

I've been wandering around the Internet for quite some time and I have seen site redesigns succeed and fail. Every time a site with a dedicated user-base makes a drastic change the response is typically one of outrage. The reactions over at the Last.fm forums, however, are a little different. There is, of course, the initial shock and cries of 'Change it back!', etc, but what makes this little insurrection different is that many of the beta testers themselves are making just as much noise as the rabble that only saw the new redesign for the first time Thursday.
Since the beginning of the 'beta' phase, there have been numerous complaints about the layout, navigation, functionality and overall design. The staff over at Last.fm asked for, and received, thousands of feedback reports which they seem to have completely ignored. The beta testers (of which I was one, in the interest of full disclosure) were told repeatedly that the beta layout we were toying with was a work in progress. These assurances continued literally until the moment it went live. So much for user feedback.
CBS came in and spent close to $300 million for Last.fm and, in an attempt to recoup that expense, they have turned Last.fm from a modestly profitable and close-knit community into just another Myspace or Facebook. The same thing happened to LiveJournal. It was small, it was profitable and it was growing nicely. Then it was bought by SixApart who promptly added advertisements and other money-grabbing schemes in an attempt to make back their investment as quickly as possible. The older, more sophisticated users, (i.e. users with disposable income) left in droves and took their paid subscriptions with them. SixApart eventually had to sell it off and the site is now only a shell of it's former potential because of the corporate, bottom-line mentality. Last.fm, I'm afraid, is about to suffer a similar fate.

Giamatti Adams

I've been watching, with great interest, the HBO mini-series John Adams based on David McCullough's best-selling book and I have enjoyed it, for the most part. However, the portrayals of both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson leave somethng to be desired.
Now, I realize that these were not perfect men. Franklin was a womanizer, as was Jefferson. Jefferson had slaves and fathered at least one child with one of them. (Not something you would expect from the author of the Declaration of Independence.) But the film portrays them as merely bit players in our nation's struggle and rise from Great Britain. Not only that, but it also seems to say that these men were barely competent with the tasks given to them.

Franklin is played as a withering opportunist who was non-committal in nearly every aspect of his public service, preferring to advocate whichever position granted him the most ease and least work.

Jefferson is seen as little more than a man-child. Bad posture, seemingly always distracted and openly flirting with Abigail Adams.

While the men we are raised to know as the Founding Fathers were not deities and were certainly not perfect, I think the film does a dishonor to these men by emphasizing their weaknesses, both real and imagined, in place of hardly any mention of their rightful place in our history.

John Adams was indeed a great man, warts and all. Yet to portray everyone around him as incompetent or over their heads while the great Adams alone fights mightily on is a bit much, I should think.

Death Throes of the RIAA?

The geniuses behind the RIAA's multi-millon dollar lawsuits against grandmothers and children have come up with another money-grabbing scheme.

Suing radio stations for "piracy".

No, that's not being overly dramatic. The RIAA spokesperson is quoted as saying that what radio stations do (play and promote music) is, "a form of piracy". Seriously.

Let's imagine a world where the RIAA runs everything. There's no music on the Internet. There's no music on the radio. You'll probably get slapped with a cease and desist order if caught singing, whistling or humming any tune (because the RIAA surmises that, even if the songwriter and/or artist isn't represented by them, they still should get money for it. Honestly.) And the RIAA will still bitch and moan about how record sales are declining and will start suing puppy dogs and homeless people.

Instead of trying to change their business model, they are madly flailing about, hoping to strike anything within their reach. It's pathetic, really.

Oh, and the artists and songwriters they represent? Haven't seen a nickel of any monies received via lawsuits of "file-sharers". Their lawyers are the only ones making anything and they aren't about to let the gravy train come to a halt. If they have their way, we will all be pirates simply because we listen to music. We'll have to start carrying a meter around with us and every time we think of a tune, we have to drop in a quarter or we get an electrical shock. Sounds crazy, right? As crazy as the RIAA suing terrestrial radio for piracy?

Born to be Mild

An open letter to the manufacturers, retailers and consumers of those singing and dancing animatronic knick-knacks...

You need to rethink your lives. Seriously.

If your house is full of this crap and this offends you, I don't really care. Most of them are complete crap. And the ones that are sort of cute are only cute the first two times they play. After that, it's annoying.

How many times can we watch a teddy bear sitting on a Harley rock back and forth singing "Born to be Wild" in a 4yr-old's voice? Or a blue and yellow turtle that sings and dances the Macarena? Honestly, who sees these things and says to themselves "Wow, that never gets old."

When I'm elected President, I will issue an executive order severely limiting the sale and use of such items. You can only buy them at Christmas and you can only use them 3 times in a calendar year. So choose your entertainment wisely.

If you have a problem with this, you can always go back to watching American Idol. Idol and these animitronic do-hickeys are alike in that they do the same shit over and over. That'll keep you morons happy.

The Curse That Almost Was

I love baseball. I am also very superstitious when it comes to sports. So this story from the New York Post has me intrigued.

Apparently, construction worker and Red Sox fan, Gino Castignoli, thought it would be fun to bury a Sox jersey beneath the concrete at the new Yankee Stadium. Seeing as how the only team I despise more than the Red Sox is the Yankees, I found this idea to be nothing short of genius. However, Professor Castignoli blabbed about it to the friggin' NY Post, of all places.

The Yankees found the jersey and apparently had some sort of 'extraction ceremony'. Why? Because we all know that sports curses are bullshit, so we have to have a big production about retrieving a dirty jersey from three feet of concrete at considerable expense.

If this guy, Castignoli, had any brains at all he would have kept quiet about it until the new stadium opened and then wrote an anonymous letter, or have gone to a bar and started rumors about the "curse of the Buried Jersey". He could have passed into legend. But he had to brag to the New York Post. The NY friggin' Post! If you have to tell a paper, why not the Boston Globe?

So much for your sports immortality there, genius.

The Revolution Will Be Bloggerized

I'm officially declaring my candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.

"It's a little late, Whip.", I hear you say...

Not for running in 2012.

Until someone explains to me how anyone who is currently running is any better than me, I consider myself a viable candidate.

No experience? No problem. Just ask the supporters of Obama. They don't seem to have an issue with it.

It's nice to have a President with both foreign and domestic policy experience. But I also feel that a President should be a strong leader who surrounds himself or herself with wise and strong people who assist in policy. The way the system is set up now, a President has to make sure party cronies are in place, whether those people are the right personnel or not. This is a flawed system.

But there will never be a third party, Whip.

Yes, there will. The problem thus far is that the third parties have got into the game way too late. By the time they have a 'candidate', the news cycle is all about Republicans and Democrats. Making noise now and growing momentum for years instead if months is the answer. Hence my declaration 57mos early.

Why me? I'm smart. I have the nearly unheard-of ability in politics to change my mind if someone proves to me my stance is wrong. I am beholden to no special interests, other than that of the citizens of the US.
I believe in the Constitution. In that document lies all that separates us from others that mean to do us harm. We cannot claim the moral high ground without occupying it.
I wasn't born with a silver spoon. I've been privileged in my life and I've also had next to nothing. I've attended church and played in a rock band. I've lived in large urban areas, rural areas and cities in between. I've been an entrepreneur. I've been dropped from my medical insurance. I easily identify with many walks of society.

Above all, I care about the consequences of my actions. This may sound a little high-handed, but perhaps the largest problem with our society is that we only worry about how an event or circumstance affects US and not how it affects someone who is in a different tax bracket or who has a different religion (or no religion at all).

There is a greater picture. And, no, I'm not talking about the New World Order. Everything we do today will impact ourselves and our children throughout history. There are no short-term gains. Any gain made in the short term takes something away from the long-term. It is the long-term we should concern ourselves with.

In order to avoid a novel disguised as a blog post, I will go into greater detail concerning my ideas and goals in future posts.

©2008 WhipSmart Election Headquarters and Sandwich Shoppe

Insert Random Title

So here it is. This will be my third blog. I had one for nearly 6yrs before basically abandoning it because of the Russians. Yes, the Russians. Then came my political blog (you may have heard of it:
ilovearguingwithcrazypeoplewhoonlybelievebilloreilley.com)
but it was shut down for legal reasons. The details of the settlement remain undisclosed.

Third time's the charm, so they say. So here it is.

If you're new to my style of bloggerizing, let me lay it all out for ya.

I pull no punches.
I use bad language on occasion
I enjoy political discussions. This means 'point-counterpoint', not 'point-SHUT OFF HIS MIC!"
I like baseball
I am the greatest drummer of my generation
I'm writing a book. I expect you to buy it when it's finished (should be sometime around 2026)
I r teh funny

There. If none of those things work for you, there's always some other blog or website you can peruse and waste time with.

More to follow.....