I’ll be traveling to Honolulu from May 7-13, so entries here will be scarce in the next few weeks.
The playlist itself is a bit slim, and I’m slowly getting familiar with the 20 hours of stuff on there now. I probably won’t have anything about which to write till later in the month.
With allergy season easing up here in Austin, I might be drawn back into the studio to hash out more stuff with Eponymous 4. Oh, and there’s that matter of releasing an EP (essentially an over-glorified short run of 100 copies, but hey, I filed papers with the county clerk’s office for a DBA.)
So yes, I’ve got a lot of distractions to keep me busy. I’ll pop in as usual if something catches my eye or ear. And with any luck, I’ll come home from Hawaiʻi with all new music bounty.
I was wondering how some of my SXSW-related entries ended up on a blog-scraping site called X7G. It looks like it’s grabbing the content from Technorati. And it doesn’t seem to get it right either. So I’m going to tag this entry SXSW to see if that’s really the case.
If you pinged content to Technorati, chances are X7G has re-purposed it for its own sleazy ends. Fucking leech.
Shows I want to see loaded on my iPod Nano calendar? Check. (I have to say carrying my tiny Nano around was incredibly convenient. Far more than folding up a copy of the showcase schedule from the Austin Chronicle.)
Wristband picked up? Check. (The friendly SXSW folks put it on you, so I’m saddled with this thing till Sunday. It’s not so bad so long as it stays dry.)
Cash? I’ll withdraw some from the credit union on Wednesday.
Cigarettes? I’ll pick some up the next time I gas up, which should be soon. I think, though, most of the venues I’m going to have no patios, therefore, the smoking ban is in place.
Phone charged? Yes, but I’d better recharge it on Wednesday.
So yes, the SXSW 2008 music festival begins in two days. Last year, I attempted to write about the festival, but I was so exhausted by the end, I didn’t replace some temporaryentries with real ones. I’m not going to promise I’ll do any better this year.
The myriad of oak trees in the Central Texas area get frisky this time of year, and they get their horniest at the start of April. I’m pretty sure I’ll be basket case around then, despite copious amounts of Zyrtec in my system. I also did a marathon of writing over at Filmwhore.org, putting up reviews of movies I watched … last year.
In other words, I’m kind of tapped out at the moment. I find myself wanting to start a weblog entry, only to back out and do something else entirely. The backlog of reviews grows yet again, but I’m going to ignore it till, oh, maybe mid-April? For now, I’ll post when I encounter something newsworthy. I also have a number of Favorite Editions of Years Past saved up.
I haven’t checked my site statistics in a while, so when I did yesterday, I discovered someone leeching my bandwidth. In fact, my entire aStore design was copied wholesale to a number of other sites.
I figured if my bandwidth is going to be stolen, I may as well make it worth my time. With the magic of URL rewriting, I targeted the errant sites to access this image instead of the washed-out tape reel image that currently serves as the site’s brand.
The ability to view the source code of a web page is terrific for people who want to learn other designers’ methods, but for the clueless motherfuckers who can’t be bothered to be remotely original, it’s a convenient shortcut. I’m guess my laziness doesn’t reach that point because I can’t fathom why anyone would steal a design outright. C’mon — at least put some damn effort into covering your tracks.
When it comes to leeching, it seems most of my problems come from sites in Asia or Asian-themed fan sites. Why is that?
I’ve been experimenting with Amazon’s aStore off and on for the past few weeks, and I finally decided to link to it from here. It’s fairly easy to set up, so long as you’re not super picky about how it looks.
I spent a lot of time hacking the appearance of the Musicwhore.org aStore (and its Japanese counterpart), and despite my best efforts, I couldn’t quite get the Musicwhore.org template to integrate. Eh, close enough for government work.
Back in 2002, the affiliate tools offered by Amazon weren’t sophisticated enough for me, so I used the web services to create my own storefront. Neglect, however, put a kibbosh on that project, and I’ve long since decommissioned it. aStore is definitely a step in the right direction, and it achieves things I wish I had time to develop lo so many years ago. But it could go further.
The widget (see top right) randomizes between the first 10 items in the first category listed in the store. I added quite a number of products, so I’d like to feature them equally, especially titles mentioned in the Review Round-Up category.
I also wish the localization features of the Japanese store were also available. If you go to Amazon Japan directly, you can toggle most of the interface into English if you click on a link asking, "Would you like to see this page in English?" (You need to view a product page to do so.) The product information won’t localize, but the interface portions — add to shopping cart, add to wish list — do.
Also, aStore doesn’t offer a search box for stores with hand-picked inventory. Given the selective content on this site, I’ll bet the Josh Groban Christmas album would not find its target audience here. As a result, titles are strewn all over the place without a way to corral them.
Perhaps these features will be available in the future.
Most of the Musicwhore.org aStore lists CD titles, but I do include a section for MP3 downloads. A lot of these titles have overlap with eMusic, but I was surprised by the number of major label titles I could include. I guess I’m not totally a whore for WEA.
National Novel Writing Month has become so popular, it’s inspired other events of the same ilk — write or create a full work of something in 30 days. Last year, I participated in National Solo Album Month — write a 37-minute album in one month. I opted to go for a bunch of solo piano pieces.
I’m not participating in anything this year, but that doesn’t mean I’m not working. If November has been deemed such a productive month, I figured I’d head back into the studio and hack out a few more things. So that means fewer posts here.
That doesn’t mean the site will be at loss — I might be able to squeeze in writing and recording of the podcast’s second season. If I can get a few shows in the can, I can start thinking about a potential premiere date.
Now that the first season has aired, I was wondering what you all thought about the podcasts in general. Does the format still feel too short, or does it make sense as a whole? (I doubt I’d be changing the length, though.) How was the sound quality? Do I need to speak faster or more slowly?
More importantly, did you like what you hear? Did it get you interested in something you probably wouldn’t have explored before?
I don’t usually solicit feedback for this site, but the podcast has a bit more overhead than the usual Musicwhore.org post. So I’d like to get a sense of how much value it adds to the site. (That’s the polite way of asking, is it worth the effort?)
Right around the middle of August, I exhausted the momentum of my home studio work, which got in the way of updating this site. I said as much when I went down the rabbit hole to work on those various Eponymous 4 projects. I thought I’d resume regular updates to this site once I was "done", but I got sidetracked again.
After 10 years, I replaced my bathroom scale, and I discovered it wasn’t really forthcoming with me for the past few readings. I exceeded my personal acceptable ceiling for my weight by a long shot, and I became hellbent to bring that number down. (Note how I’m not actually revealing any figures.)
So every night for the past three weeks, I’ve been going to the workout room in my apartment building to walk the treadmill for at least half an hour. Being as out of shape as I am, I’m not exactly spritely after such sessions. In other words, I haven’t had much energy to post many updates.
Since I’ve added this new regimen to my daily routine, I figured I may as well work toward getting my body mass index (BMI) to an appropriate level for my height. (Nope. Not revealing that figure either.) I estimate at the rate I’m going, it’ll take at least six months to a full year. I won’t let the site go stale for that long, but at the same time, these longer silences will be around for a while.
Maybe at a point when I get, well, in shape, I can balance blog and health. For the time being, I’m going to focus on health.
I debated whether to post a review of the film Once here or over at my entirely neglected film review site, Filmwhore.org. I decided to post it there because that site so badly needs new content. As a result, everything I wanted to say about the soundtrack is over there.
If you haven’t heard of Once, it’s an Irish film starring the lead singer of the Frames, Glen Hansard. The band’s former bassist, John Carney, wrote and directed it. It opened in May 2007 with a limited run, and since then, it’s opened in more theaters. Fox Searchlight gave Once another marketing push, and there’s even a campaign to get the songs some Oscar nods.
If it’s playing in your town, I really recommend you see it.
Back in 2006, I experimented with a podcast for this site, but I didn’t have a convenient way to set up a microphone properly. I didn’t like anything I recorded, so I abandoned the idea. Now I’ve moved into a new apartment unit where I can set up my microphone properly, and with all the time I’ve been spending in the studio, I figure I’d give the podcast another shot.
What a difference a walk-in closet turned isolation booth can make.
I re-recorded the first few shows I did last year, and I have them at a point where I can finally announce the season premiere of the Musicwhore.org Podcast on Sept. 3. Season premiere? What? Is it a radio drama?
No, it’s not. It’s actually a set of NPR-style reviews focusing on albums which (IMnot-soHO) ought to be highlighted from time to time. Long-time readers will be familiar with some of the material featured, but I’m hoping newcomers will find something different. As usual, the content will reflect stuff I like.
