Thursday, August 27, 2009

tweeeeeeeeeeeeet

I hate Twitter was much as any 40-year-old parent would. By all means, please update me via cell phone on all your life's happenings throughout the day -- especially if you're at a Blink 182 concert and Travis Barker's drum solo was totally "tweet" worthy. Teens/tweens that tweet, text (and even"sext") all day long need to have their hands replaced with shoehorns.

that time again

School starts on Tuesday.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

I made a video

I took Nyquil for a cold and made this video. I'm kinda out of it.

(where's the video?)

I can't believe this, but YouTube removed the video due to copyright infringement stuff. I refused to look into it. It's probably for the best. Kristen, I'm sorry. I know you liked that video a lot, but from now on I'm not going to take your suggestions seriously.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

bleh...

It's 1:01 AM regardless of the time it says this post was made; the timezone isn't set right.

I spent the better part of the evening typing. The rest of my family (plus my sister's boyfriend) watched an Elton John concert on DVD. I would have joined them, but it was loud enough to be heard from my room, and I figured I wasn't missing out on the visual part of the Sir Elton's performance.

School starts in two weeks. I need a hair cut.

Goodnight.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Recent Events

Recent events seem to point to my past catching up to me. I don't feel compelled to explain myself here, but certain discoveries made this past week have helped me realize that some things don't heal as easily as you might originally think. Intertwining lives and the many problems that fall suit make it nearly impossible to be neutral in a situation -- even if you've been under the assumption that you truly are separate. There's always something unexpected that comes along and throws off your consistency. It amazes me that you can unknowingly be setting yourself up for harm when your mind is in the right place. Did something happen along the way? Clearly, full transparency in any matter is risky. This truth seemingly suggests, or even supports, that honesty can be seen more easily in the gray and should rightfully be done so. Protecting oneself from harm is a reaction that would otherwise be constantly practiced, however, perhaps letting potential harm in could bring about significant outcomes. No one can say for sure. Newly made allies are good to have in any circumstance.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

The Music Industry Is A-Changin'

Here's what someone from NY Times said:

"A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs."

These statistics seem to speak for themselves. Is this surprising? I don't really think so.

According to Yahoo, these are the top 10 downloaded songs of 2008:


Song Title
Artist
1 Low Flo Rida Featuring T-Pain
2 Bleeding Love Leona Lewis
3 Lollipop Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major
4 I Kissed a Girl Katy Perry
5 Viva La Vida Coldplay
6 Love Song Sara Bareilles
7 Apologize Timbaland Featuring OneRepublic
8 No Air Jordin Sparks Duet With Chris Brown
9 Disturbia Rihanna
10 4 Minutes Madonna Featuring Justin Timberlake

Did you download any of these songs this past year? Did you pay for them (via iTunes) if you did? I own two of the above songs, and to be honest, I didn't pay for them.

The way I see it is this: The MP3 did for the CD what JPEGs did for photographic film.

Hear me out -- if you own a digital camera, you're probably not inclined to spend much of your hard-earned money on 35 mm Kodak film or cheap disposable cameras. If you're into photography and still use stock film, good for you. The noble art of photography is sadly becoming a hobby anyone with a Nikon Coolpix camera and a pirated copy of Photoshop Elements can enjoy -- but that's besides the point. If you're an average picture-taker, you're not buying film and getting it developed at the pharmacy anymore. You're instead uploading pictures straight off your camera or memory card. The bottom line is this: you price you pay to enjoy taking pictures begins and ends when you purchase your camera and memory card from Best Buy. And from the looks of it, music is heading in the same direction.

When the music CD magically one day copied itself into a completely digital format, the industry changed. Who knows? The MP3 may have been the coup de grace that would lead to the music industry's foreseen demise. I personally see little reason to pay money to enjoy MP3s. If I'm a loyal fan of a particular artist, I'm going to support them and buy their physical album (as in one of those square cases with the disk inside). Otherwise, I'd rather just get the MP3 from someone else...

I own a computer and pay for a wireless connection (most of the time), so I'm tempted to use that as my musical "digital camera" to capture the songs and albums I like without "paying for the film."

Is that bad?



Anyways, here's a good 'ol timeless song that tends to make most people think about change and whatnot. Should we try to re-envision the way we buy, share, and create music?

Monday, August 3, 2009

No more films

"There are no more films for you guys to watch. That part of your life is over; and there was much rejoicing!"

Those are the exact words of my boss today at work.

Yep, it's true -- I have no more films to screen for my summer internship. Everything has either been given the rejection boot or has been passed unto "the high powers" who ultimately decide what gets into the festival this fall.

What a sense of accomplishment -- really. That's all I wanted to say.

-Brent