http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:57:08 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/03/115708.php BigwigTis the cusp of the weekend, and a young man's fancy turns to thought of ale and music halls, or so I assume. Mine do, at least, and surely I am just as representative of the species as I was during the halcyon days of the mid 80s. Certainly the television industry considers me to be--the whole 18 to 49 male demographic being more or less an undifferentiated mass of testosterone when it comes to advertising, so it seems. For that, I thank them. Membership in this most valued of consumer groups assures me that, for the next eleven years at least, I can seriously consider taking up snowboarding and Doing the Dew--something I assume is a euphemism for early morning sex on the front lawn.Sounds dampish. Should the occasion arise, I shall strive for the apical position. It's drier, and, as Founding Father Benjamin Franklin pointed out--cleaner.Early to bed and early to rise. Making love in the grass, Leaves stains on the thighs.Sadly, ale I cannot share with you. Too bad, there's an out of season saison in the beer fridge that I need to get rid of, as well as a couple of rauchbiers, a type of beer I've come to regard as a practical joke in a bottle--good for startling an uneducated palate. Think of an alcoholic Slim Jim mixed with a jigger of Liquid Smoke, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it tastes like. There's also a year-old six-pack of Romulan Ale, which I would not drink if my life depended on it--but you would be welcome to it.Music, on the other hand, is easy to share--a thought that troubles the dreams of record executives everywhere. How are they to afford the upkeep on a second mistress when the proles insist on access to melody without the added value brought to the product by a record label? Those album covers don't come cheap, you know.In a decision that surely adds a toss and a turn or two to the troubled rest of the record exec, I swore off buying new material from the record companies ages ago. When I don't buy directly from the artists, I use EBay as my record store, specifically purchasing only the cds that I can buy with change I pull out of the couch. It's worked out great. Yes, I've bought some god-awful crap from the one cent cd vendors at EBay, but when the total paid for a cd including shipping is less than two bucks, who cares? And inevitably, amid the dross I receive on a regular basis, there is the musical equivalent of a gold nugget.Here?s where we get to the sharing part. Take this song by Martin Zellar for instance, Problem Solved (realplayer required), from his cd Born Under. She is the one who?s always sorry She is the one who's always wrong She always felt that she was weak And he caught on She will bend until she breaks The shit he gives she always takes She's not stupid, she's just scared To be alone She feels her world grow smaller every day The few dreams that she had have drifted away She learned long ago the way love works When a coward is involved Just sail the white flag and there The problem's solved Her high school friends have long stopped calling They know exactly what she'll say Some other time, some other night Some other day She feels her world grew smaller every day The few dreams that she had have drifted away She learned long ago the way love works When a coward is involved Just sail that white flag and there The problem's solved She feels here world grew smaller every day The few dreams that she had have drifted away She learned long ago the way love works When a coward is involved Just sail the white flag and there The problem's solvedWhat I like about the song is that Zellar manages what is an increasingly rare trick in popular music--his delivery makes the subject's pathos real enough that the listener can identify emotionally with her, yet never descends into bathos the way Pearl Jam's Last Kiss or Tim McGraw's Don't Take The Girl does--though I must admit just reading the Don't Take The Girl lyrics causes me a twinge or two. Getting soft in my old age.If you liked Problem Solved, there are some other Zellar tunes available here.To my ear, the sound is reminiscent of blogosphere favorite Bob Walkenhorst, he of Rainmakers fame. There are a number of songs just as good if not better on the rest of the cd. I purchased the entire thing from an EBay vendor for the stupendously high price of six cents--a price I'm sure Martin will just be ecstatic about should he ever stumble across this, as he didn't get anything at all out of the deal. But then, since I'd never heard of him to begin with, he wasn't going to get anything from me anyway.Now at least there's a chance I'll buy a full price cd from him should he release another, or that I'll catch one of his sets should he drop by NC.Which, come to think about it, is another reason to keep the record execs up at night. Music19426@blogcritics.org Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:57:08 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/12/19/142211.php BigwigArrrrrrr.*Lend me now your stump of an ear, me foul brethren of the sea. Avast yer drinkin', yer wenchin', and hearken ye now to me. For tis a fresh yarn I have to tell; of bridled legality.Gather ye round and I will speak of Yankees, and of Dutchmen, of jurist's prudence, I.S.P.s and of civil suits undone. Prick up your ears, warm your burning drives Piracy begins anon.I tell ye it is fair to see the sun rising in the morn. Glad are the cockles of me heart to capture a maid wellborne. But what I ever wish to see, is damned RIAA bereft, forlorn.So man the keys ye buccaneers a full broadside shall we fire. And sink that rotting music hulk with our rippling cannon choir. While lawyers choke on frenzied rage Free music we'll acquire.Arrrrrrr.-------------------*Yes, I've done this before. Music11117@blogcritics.org Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:22:11 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/29/145015.php BigwigIt took 7 days to sell the first million.It took 9 days to sell the second million.It's taken 14 days to sell the third million.Sales aren't increasing. Sales are decreasing, most likely due to a combination of a smallish music catalog and limited availability. The downturn suggests that people are finding less and less music at the site that they are willing to pay for. Now let's go out on a limb and predict that June 11th is the earliest that Apple will announce the sale of the 4 millionth song. That's giving the company some slack, since the data points to an increasing number of days between each million, but no matter. Sales have got to reach a definite floor eventually, right? That's what the sales execs at iTunes are telling themselves, at least.If a million songs every two weeks turns out to be the sales minimum at iTunes, then we have a excellent idea of that company's gross revenue. At most, it will be somewhere close to $2.5 million a month. Not bad, but no great shakes, either, and that $2.5 million assumes that every song is purchased at the full 99 cent price, rather than the less expensive $9.99 per cd. Apple's business plan is obvious; sell lots of songs, and make a few pennies off each sale. I don't know exactly what Apple earns per song, but let's be wildly, dancing around nude in the streets crazy optimistic and assume that Apple earns a quarter each time someone downloads a song rather than the much more likely nickel or lower. Three million songs in the first month of business gives Steve Jobs a less than whopping $750,000 to cover salaries, insurance and operational expenses with. That might be enough, barely. Odds are total monies going to Apple are more like $150,000, which means that despite the glowing press iTunes is getting, it is losing money hand over fist.Does the glowing iTunes coverage remind you of anything, say the media's blind adulation of dot-coms during the Great Bubble of '99? This is not to say that iTunes will fail. But right now the company is making less and less money every day, not more and more, despite massive and mostly positive media coverage. The only way to turn the trend around is to increase the customer base by selling to Windows users, a move that at the earliest is not expected before 2004.Meanwhile every song bought via iTunes is potential Kazaa fodder, Listen.com has lowered its price per song to just 79 cents, and the Microsoft behemoth is turning its attention towards the downloadable music market. Less than 2 months after it debuted, iTunes is beset on multiple fronts. The company's future is anything but assured. Music5708@blogcritics.org Thu, 29 May 2003 14:50:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/22/153437.php BigwigThe website for the No-Contact jacket claims that "According to the Bureau of Justice three out of four women in the United States will be victims of one violent crime during their lifetime.".Shocking statistics indeed, except that the only place one can find this particular information on the web is at the website for the No-Contact Jacket, or at sites linking to it. One would think that such a horrific level of violence would be a bit more thoroughly documented, especially at, say the Bureau of Justice's Violent crime rates by gender of victim page.But let's give the fine people at No-Contact Jackets a break. After all, they're in the business of selling electric shock jackets to protect women from the numberless hordes, not statistics, even if one of them does go to MIT.Put simply, if you were to grab a woman wearing a No-Contact jacket, you would get the shock of your life. There's a story and associated video on the jacket here. What the story doesn't talk about, and what the No-Contact site conveniently leaves out of its description of the jacket, is the recharge time on a electrical jacket powered by a 9-volt battery. As the video makes clear, the shock delivered to a potential attacker is annoying rather than incapacitating. What's going to stop him from coming right back for more? Or, worse, what if the attacker is already prepared for the jacket? Is it possible to drain the charge, say with an insulated screwdriver? What if he's wearing rubber gloves? I don't know enough about modern ammunition to be sure, but what if instead of grabbing a woman the attacker just sticks a gun in her back? Is the charge enough to set off the powder in a cartridge, thus firing the gun? What happens if it's raining? Can the jacket even be worn in the rain? Could the charge be transferred back to the woman if both she and an attacker were standing in the same puddle of water? Certainly weather-related enquiries are logical when it comes to electrical jackets, yet the answers to them are not to be found.To be fair to the No-Contact site, it does specify that the jacket is only meant to "provide a critical life saving option for escape.", not to protect a woman from all the vagaries and vagrants of life. You'd think something as simple as whether or not the jacket could be worn in the rain would be somewhere on the site. It is critical information, after all.And that's where the site falls short again. Not only is there no critical information, there's not really that much useful information at all. How many people do you think will buy a No-Contact based on the conductive path diagram?That's failing grades in statistics, logic and marketing for the No-Contact people. Nice idea, crappy execution. I think I'll wait a few developmental generations before buying one for the women in my life. Culture5523@blogcritics.org Thu, 22 May 2003 15:34:37 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/01/224714.php BigwigMy daughter Ngnat got a special Sleeping Beauty napkin with her dinner tonight, a leftover from the early birthday party we held for her on Saturday. It went well with the leftover hotdog. She got upset when the Sainted Wife handed me a plain napkin, though.S.W. explained to her that these were special napkins, for a special girl, and that's why daddy didn't get one.Ngnat was having none of it. "Daddy's special too!" she said, and burst into tears.So I too had a leftover Sleeping Beauty napkin with my leftover hotdog, and all was well with Ngnat, if not with me. I hate Sleeping Beauty.Hate her, despise her, pull for the witch to cast her and all her tribe into a pit of molten lava for eternity her. It's a horrible annoying video, worse than Barney at his smarmiest, or Barbie at her boobiest. The heroine is Walt Disney's blandest of all time, not to mention the crappiest female role model for little girls since Marie Antoinette. She makes Snow White look like a paragon of forcefulness. For all of the claims that Barbie is bad, she has a career, at least, and lives on her own. Briar Rose, the supposed center of Sleeping Beauty, has no will of her own, is totally acted upon throughout the entire movie, and doesn't even speak for the last third of the film. Or the first third, for that matter. Out of the entire movie, she has 31 lines of dialogue, almost all of which are either about meeting a handsome prince or her flirting with a handsome prince. She's an absolute cypher, especially when compared to Disney heroines like Ariel or Belle.Every ostensibly good female character in the movie is either incompetent, or powerless. The only female character with any power, Maleficent, is of course evil, not to mention jealous, and is dressed like a lesbian Viking with a Goth fetish to boot. Everything about her suggests frustrated male, from her cuckold's horns to her weirdly obvious name. She's not so much female as she is an Eisenhower era vision of a drag queen, the whole of that period's view of homosexuality wrapped up in one tight package.Her enemies, the good fairies, are only remotely competent when in the presence of a man, and then only as supporters of his actions. They bless the sword the Prince uses to pierce the Dragon lady, who then dies, slain by a gleaming white phallic symbol. By themselves they do horribly stupid things like practice magic for the first time in sixteen years, on the very last day that the Sleeping Beauty curse can be invoked, conveniently drawing the notice of Maleficent's familiar just in time for her to bedazzle the all too easily ensorceled girl. And why pray tell, was magic so sorely needed? Because they were arguing over the color of a dress. Females, just too flighty for words, don't you know?The virginal heroine, protected from the outside world for 16 years, falls into a deathlike trance after encountering her first prick* and is only saved by a prince, coincidentally the possessor of the second and presumably last prick she'll ever encounter. Yep, unless those pricks are part and parcel of the embodiment of true love, they'll ruin you. To rescue her, the prince not only has to kill the evil drag queen, but must first hack his way through a forest of thorns, which resemble nothing so much as the most threatening, coarsest and blackest patch of pubic hair ever animated. Pubic hair with thorns, yes, but her name is Briar Rose. Where do you think she got it from? Someone should remake this movie with a man as the sleeper, and a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Briar Rose as the rescuer. Have her invade the witch's castle amid a torrent of gunfire and acres of blood, execute Maleficent with a graphic shot to the back of her head, light a cigarette and leave the prince to his slumber.At the very least, she'd be a better role model for my daughter the Disney's limp blonde noodle is.It's hard to decide which is worse in the movie, the off hand yet absolute depiction of women as powerless objects, or the horribly twisted sexual subtext of the whole thing. As Song of The South is to African Americans, so Sleeping Beauty is to women. It may be worse. You don't have to be a feminist** to see the stuff I noted above; it's two-by-four to the side of the head obvious, so there's probably a lot that I overlooked. I'll get more chances to review it, that's for certain. Ngnat shows no signs of realizing how bad it is, no matter how many times I explain the word "subtext" it to her.*this is a pun. What she actually encounters is technology with a phallic symbol attached, and we all know how women are with technology, right? She touches the phallic symbol, which makes her bleed, quelle surprise, then falls down in a faint. La petite mort, indeed.**and god knows I'm not, though I did once write an end of term Women's Studies paper for a girlfriend, who had freaked out and was screaming "This is all such bullshit!" at her textbook the night before it was due. It got an A. Video5014@blogcritics.org Thu, 1 May 2003 22:47:14 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/01/222925.php BigwigI made the mistake of going into a Fye store the other day to ask if they had a ska section. The overweight and entirely too sweaty assistant manager made a point of looking down his nose at me before informing me that ska was "over like 5 years ago."I considered this for a moment, and then asked him if he knew where the Donny and Marie Osmond albums were. He ponderously led me to them, indicating them with a sniff and derisive wave of his hands."Thanks," I said, "Just checking," and left him there, all a-quiver.He didn't have what I wanted, and he was an ass about it, so I went elsewhere. And although he certainly didn't realize it, he didn't lose my business. After all, it's very hard to lose what you never had in the first place. I wanted a ska section that I could paw through in search of something new or to find a band I had never heard of. Not to buy, but to search for on Kazaa later. I'll be damned if I'm going to spend money on something I've never heard of. But I'll happily download it. I can find all sorts of new stuff just by typing generic terms into the Kazaa search engine. It's the equivalent of pawing through Fye's non-existent ska section, not to mention all the other ones.I'm the reason why a buck a tune is going to fail. Me, and people like me, which is most everyone. If you doubt me, take a look at the Gnutella meter. While there are a few specific searches, the vast majority are those that will produce multiple results. People aren't searching for specific songs, they're trawling for music, downloading dozens of tunes.And there in a nutshell is the record companys' problem. People will download all sorts of crap for free, just to see if a nugget or two of gold can be gleaned out of the megabits of dross in their download folders. There's no way they will do that at a buck a tune, or 18 cents a tune, or even a nickel a tune. They'll just stay with Kazaa, or Gnutella. They might pan for music at a penny a tune, but anything higher than that is unlikely. Very few people are willing to pay for music that they haven't heard.Take Floetry, for example. I don't care how good the reviews are, I'm a middle aged white guy, and I ain't paying 99 cents for a Floetry song I've never listened to, and since NPR isn't likely to put them in heavy rotation, I'm not likely to hear them anytime soon. What I can do is download a couple of their tunes, or a dozen, since that's just as easy, and stick them into my 30 gigabyte jukebox, where they'll get played randomly for the next month or so. Eventually I'll decide I like them and maybe buy a cd, or I'll delete them. Hard drive space is still finite, after all, and having to advance through a song that's disliked is a pain in the buttocks. I might not buy a cd, but just having their songs on my hard drive increases the chance that I will. It may be a small chance, but it's more likely than it was previously, when it was no chance at all. It's happened before; I own three Pizzicato Five albums because of Napster.And where will I buy that cd? Let's see here. I can buy Floetic right now at ebay for $8.50. There's 16 tracks on that cd, which means each track costs me.......53 cents, and there are copies cheaper than that at Amazon. Or I can pay the Apple music store sixteen dollars for it, plus another buck for a cd to burn the songs to.Now, why exactly would I do that? The problem with the Apple music store, and all of the other digital music initiatives, is that the only thing they are selling is digital music files, and people can get those for free. If someone wants to make money off of digital music, then they need to use it to sell things that can't be digitized. The two most common non-digital things usually mentioned are concerts and t-shirts, and record execs dismiss those with same short-sighted sniff and wave I got at Fye. They're selling music, dammit, not fripperies. But there are other non-digital things that people will pay for, like membership and convenience, as anyone at Emusic can tell you. There are bound to be others, business plans that use digital music file as come-ons, or as additional value. The companies that develop them will rule the music world ten years from now, and labels like Universal will be as dead as Apple Records.I cogitated on the Apple Music Store all afternoon, racking my brain for the name of a band, any band, where it would make financial sense for me to pay 99 cents for digital files of their songs. The group had to fit two criteria; 1. Their price of their compact discs had to cost more on average than 99 cents a track, even on the used market, and 2. They had to be somewhat difficult to find on the pirate services, for they were easy to find, why would one pay for them?I finally came up with one, the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. You've likely never heard of them, though they do a kick-ass version of the Sesame Street song. I am regularly outbid for their discs at auction, and the cost per track average at Amazon is well over two dollars per, even before shipping. A Kazaa search for them turns up exactly four songs that meet my desired quality level of 160 kbps, all of which I already own.So, having actually found a band for whom I was willing to shell out a buck a tune for, I downloaded and installed the ITunes music update on my Ibook, clicked on store, searched for Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, and got........."no music matches your search". Bloody Apple, bloody music labels. Since I was already there, I searched on a few other bands. No Toasters. No XTC. One Zombies song. They did have the Osmonds, though, in case I was suddenly seized with a need to be even more retroactively whitebread than I already am. Can't swing a dead cat in the music business without hitting an Osmond, it seems.So, I didn't buy anything. I did submit a request for TSPO to be added, so there is that slim reed of hope. I shan't be holding my breath, though. Sci/Tech5013@blogcritics.org Thu, 1 May 2003 22:29:25 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/03/14/113011.php BigwigArrrrrrr.Lend me now your stump of an ear, me foul brethren of the sea. Avast yer drinkin' and yer wenchin', and hearken ye now to me. For tis a good yarn I have to tell; of the cunning Japanee.They sail upon the seven seas, in vessels big and tiny. With cargo holds right brimming full of treasure; round and shiny. Treasure, I say, to put an industry in a grave that's deep and briny.I tell ye it is fair to look upon the sun rising in the morn. And it gladdens the cockles of me heart to capture a maid wellborne. But the thing I ever wish to see, is damned Rosen bereft, forlorn.So man the guns ye buccaneers a full broadside shall we fire. And sink that rotting music hulk with our rippling cannon choir. Then after the lubbers burn and drown? Free music we'll acquire.Arrrrrrr. Music3796@blogcritics.org Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:30:11 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/01/13/000922.php BigwigJoe Strummer. Maurice Gibb. God help me, I know who's next.The first album I ever bought was London Calling. I bought it at the TG&Y in Louisburg. Why a fourth level retailer in a two-bit rural North Carolina town had a copy of London Calling, I'll never know, but I plunked down my $14.50 anyway, and cursed the album when I got home because I couldn't find Train in Vain on the album listing. It was the first album I ever bought, but it wasn't the first I ever owned. The first album I ever owned was the Bee Gees' Children of the World. It was the second place prize in a talent show. First prize was Aerosmith's Toys in The Attic. There was no value judgement here; Toys was just the album the first place winner chose out of the ones available. I was next, and I took the Bee Gees album, not that I had any idea who they were. Third prize ended up being a Teddy Pendergrass album, which is what I would have ended up with if my classmates had judged the contest instead of my teachers. Did I mention there were only three acts actually in the talent show? No? It's a pretty fair indication of what my talent level was. My friend Jack won, I forget what he did. He went on to smoke a lot of pot in high school. Two black girls, Penny and Elizabeth, finished in third. They did a lip-synching dance thing that was more polished than either my act or Jack's, at least to my eyes. I don't know why they didn't win. They both got pregnant our senior year.I sang a song I made up, "Parking Meter"Parking meter, he's a real big cheater You put in a penny, you get out a (something that rhymes with penny) Oh,oh,oh,oh.Parking meter, he's a real big cheater You put in a nickel, you get out a pickle Oh,oh,oh,oh.You get the point. I hit every stop all the way up to a buck. I remember thinking it was pity there was no seventy-five cent piece. Everyone other than myself and the teachers hated it, and I don't know what was wrong with the teachers. But it got me a Bee Gees album. As I said, not that I knew who they were.The girls in the Catholic family up the street did, though. They came over and listened to Barry, Maurice and Robin tell them them they should be dancing, and dance they did. In my den, to my music. They taught me to dance. In my den, to my music. I learned how to do The Bump, as I recall.So, to summarize:Jack - Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic. Went on to smoke a lot of pot. He also co-wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper published at one point, in which he defended Led Zeppelin against the vicious onslaught of Muzak. His co-author's main claim to fame was that he once ate an entire light bulb during band class, then washed it down with rubbing alcohol. Penny and Elizabeth - Teddy Pendergrass - Got pregnant. Moi - Bee Gees, Children of the World. Touched my ass to those of multiple older Catholic girls, repeatedly. Thank you, Maurice.For the next few years, I bought every album by the Bee Gees (until Sergeant Pepper, when it finally dawned on me that perhaps they weren't quite the thing anymore), and every album I could find by the Clash. My grandmother gave me the Star Wars soundtrack for Christmas, so I added John Williams to the list, and religiously bought anything scored by him, as long as it was also Star Wars related.My parents had an old cabinet stereo that would allow me to pile 6 LP's on the center spindle, and through the magic of 1960's American technology, play one, then drop the next one down on top of it. When the last record in the pile had finished, I would flip the entire stack over and play the other sides. I eventually replaced Children of the World in the playlist with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, but that was it. I played other albums, but when the time came for a long afternoon of reading or fuming alone in my room, those albums were the ones spinning on the turntable.Three albums with less in common have probably never been so closely associated for so long a time. They were the soundtrack for my early teen years. They played in the background the first time I drank a beer, and the first time I read Lord of the Rings. Pity me, for I will forever associate the passage of the Mines of Moria with Night on Disco Mountain.The order was set in stone;Side one of London Calling, Side one of Saturday Night Fever, Side one of Star Wars. Side three of London Calling, Side three of Saturday Night Fever, Side three of Star Wars. In other words; Joe, Maurice, John. Joe, Maurice, John. Now, two of the three have dropped. I know who drops next. I'm sorry, Mr. Williams. Had I only known my power, I would've bought Off The Wall, instead. Music2594@blogcritics.org Mon, 13 Jan 2003 00:09:22 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/01/09/204956.php BigwigSo, Clear Channel has stopped paying its stations for the cost of simulcasting radio broadcasts over the Internet, prompting 150 to stop broadcasting their feeds on the net. This is a bad thing? Clear Channel stations suck. If you've ever been driving along, listening to the radio, and thinking, "My God, this station sucks ass," odds are it was owned by Clear Channel. When they're not broadcasting crap, it's only because they switched over to pap for a while. If Clear Channel has no Internet radio presence, then that's a net gain for the world. Internet radio will be fine without them. You shouldn't be listening to a Clear Channel Station anyway, not when there are so many alternatives. Here's a few.Wolf FM Revolution Radio Funkyville WRAPAnd a list of more. Music2570@blogcritics.org Thu, 9 Jan 2003 20:49:56 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/12/04/105110.php BigwigI don't know what Bigwig was thinking when he handed hosting duties for Carnival of the Vanities #11 to me, but here it is. It's a good mix this week with everything from peace, love and understanding to drunken bloggers to hardcore Santa. No, not hardcore like that. I had a lot of fun doing this, I highly recommend it to everyone. I read a lot, I learned a lot and I laughed a lot. I cried, too - you'll figure that one out soon enough. If I forgot anyone's entry - missed an email or anything - please feel free to send me a reminder and kick my ass.Now, go read them all. I mean all of them. The posts are excerpted; click on the title to visit the author's site and read the whole thing. There will be a pop quiz later on, so read for comprehension! Don't skim! Bonus question will be: Who is hosting the Carnival next week? Answer at the end. Pencils ready, and....go!Northwest Notes: The Meat MarketWhole Fryers $1.99/lb. Spiral Cut Ham GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILIABLE The last one appeared in two locations. The extra ?i? had been added to each as a squeezed-in afterthought, instantly giving the word a new syllable. If only an old sign painter would come out of retirement and paint the signs the way they?re supposed to look, and the owner could throw away his collection of markers?. M. Finely: Anton's SyndromeIf you stop right now, and take a piece of paper, and write down the three moments in your life that most defined you -- that delimited your aspirations -- you will likely have three short stories, a tryptich that tells much more about you than a comparable set of three happy scenes, the birth of a child, a favorite vacation, the moment you first fell in love.Fragments From Floyd: UFO In Floyd County!Monday morning began bright and brisk, with a low silver sun, calm, peaceful as ever. Sitting at the computer waiting for the muse to visit and move my fingers on the keys, I became aware that I was hearing sounds unnatural out my window. I got up from my chair and stood at the open front door in my robe and slippers. Whatever it was, it was circling back and forth between our valley and the neighbors. Culture2109@blogcritics.org Wed, 4 Dec 2002 10:51:10 EST