This guys is crazy with his pumpkin carving skills. Read the whole story at WSJ.

Note: This video will not play if you have had blocking software. I don't have ads on my site so you can disable for my domain safely and no animals will be harmed.

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Over the weekend, I attended the On Guard Conference 2010, a Christian apologetics conference. Before you read any further I must quickly explain my history with Christianity.

Back in high school, I was holy rollin' like a 80-year-old on a Rascal. I  knew for sure I was going into the ministry and was entirely prepared to spend the rest of my life in the service of God. Several things happened about which I would write a book (and might one day). The short version is, my church was populated with small-minded, bigots. The church split twice and once because of a situation I was involved in. A poor black woman living out of an old rusted mustang barely survived two lots down while the church sent money to missionaries in Honduras. By the time the church had sucked my soul from me and spit me out, I turned my back on it all.

Fast forward to now. I have two children and I live in Texas. They will be exposed to Christianity in some form. We visited many churches (and synagogues since they are technically Jewish) and nothing appealed to me. The primary problem I have is that traditional worship is a broken record, especially when handled by Southern Baptists. There is only so much of the same catch-phrases, slogans, and cliches I can take before I hit toxic cynicism. The other problem I have is with modern worship. There is only so much canned slides, unfamiliar songs, and slick (but only re-purposed traditional) sermons I stomach. Where others claim tradition, I claim "rut". I was on the other side long enough to see all of these things as meaningless.

I kept myself at such a distance from religion for so long, that aplogetics is entirely new to me. Christian apologetics is a discipline (and I would argue a culture as well) within Christianity where Christians defend their faith through logic, reason, and even science. Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. But here's the kicker:

In my entire life, not once have I ever seen or heard a Christian say these words: "I'm not afraid for anyone to question me about my faith. I have nothing to hide [intellectually]."

Keep in mind, growing up Southern Baptists means growing up knowing very little about your own faith and spending time around other people who are openly hostile to those who don't believe the same way.

For me, I don't know what I believe anymore. I feel burned by a long history of disappointments by my own faith. In a nutshell, God to me is very similar to my own father. He came around, did his business and is long gone. I don't and probably will never believe God is much more than a designer who set up some sophisticated systems that still work today but has moved on to other interests. I frankly think it's absurd to believe God takes the time to help somebody have the strength to make it through a job interview while somewhere else around the world a child is sold into a life of sex slavery. But I digress.

So my attendance at the conference is me intrigued by the kind of intellectual topics presented because that's not the Christianity I know or see on TV.

Friday Night

There was an opening presentation called "Defending Your Faith" by Craig Hazen and JP Moreland. Dr. Hazen is infectiously funny and a great kick-off for an event like this. Dr. Moreland, on the the other hand, is a little more rough around the edges. He started out as an atheist philosopher and converted to Christianity. Dr. Moreland is like an ex-smoker with littler tolerance for being around smokers.

After a short break, Dr. Paul Nelson presented “The Power and Promise of Intelligent Design in Biology”. Dr. Nelson's presentation did one thing for me: I realized the concept of Intelligent Design has been hijacked by crazy home-schooling nimrods who believe the earth is only 6000 years old. Dr. Nelson is a biologist and presented on how Darwinism (not "evolution") cannot explain everything. This is an important point because science, philosophy, and a belief in a higher power can co-exist and drive the desire to learn and seek more answers.

Saturday

Saturday was dense with five particularly heady presentations. Dr. Hazen opened the morning with "Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead". Dr. Hazen is by far the most entertaining of the presenters. His humor and professional delivery are among the best in all of presentation world (not the theme park). I got a chance to speak to Dr. Hazen during the following presentation by Sean McDowell because I skipped it to browse their bookstore without 1000 of my fellow attendees getting in my way. I hear Sean was good, though and hopefully I can revisit his presentation later.

Dr. Moreland was on next with a presentation on worldviews. As I mentioned, he's a sort of curmudgeon. He really strikes me as a "my way or highway" sort of guy.  There seemed to be an implied "dammit" after each of his points. However, the most off-putting thing he said was his claim that he has exorcised demons and is protected constantly by three angels. I just can't buy that for a host of reasons but primarily my own life experiences. Again, I don't doubt there is a god out there somewhere. I just think he is long gone and doesn't directly deal with this crappy little planet.

The following presenter, Dr. Mike Licona, was the most accessible presenter–for most people. He used lots of sports analogies lost on me because I'm not a sports guy. The audience seemed to like them though. His session was interesting because he built a case for the four New Testament gospels as reliable historical documents and I believe he proved his point. He had a great presentation and a solid set of arguments.

The closing presenter was Dr. William Lane Craig on “The Case for the Existence of God”. Holy crap was that a dense presentation. I think I would need to see his presentation several times to retain many of his points. But that's okay, it was good stuff.

Conclusions

So the conference was great. So great in fact it occurred to me if actual mainstream Christianity was like that instead of the feelings-based judgment frontal assault I grew up with, I might have never left the church. However, the conference seemed to be geared toward two types: believers (meaning Christians who want to defend their faith) and atheists, who comprise the main apologetics boogie man. "Atheist" was used constantly to refer to the kind of people they needed to stay prepared for.

As a guy who lost his faith long ago, I never doubted God's existence.  However, since I think he is a deadbeat dad, I have many questions and am looking for meaning without being convinced God is real. My struggle with faith has lasted me about 25 years. I would like to have seen a session on reconciling the Bible as a whole. For instance if Intelligent Design is really using science as I heard, how do they address the Adam and Eve question? I also would like someone like Dr. Moreland to discuss why he gets three angels and conversations with God directly when clearly God never bothered with me to begin with.

The premise on which they build many of their arguments is their belief. I don't have that. So while I enjoyed the conference overall, I walked out of there with more questions. But isn't that kind of the point? For the first time in over two decades, I felt mentally stimulated by a religious event. In that, I'm intrigued.

Update

Wow. My site hits went up. Welcome apologetics people. Please keep in mind I kept my own life experiences brief because, as I wrote above, I could write a whole book on it. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find my way spiritually and, to this day, struggle. I only provided a short history so you could understand where I was coming from in my conference summary.

Also, the phrase "seemed to be an implied 'dammit'" actually was from my friend Keith Cartlidge who I didn't originally credit because he has no online presence whatsoever. Keith is a great thinker and writer and we would all benefit from him blogging but he is particularly stubborn on this issue. This paragraph is a weak attempt at encouraging him to just do it, so we'll see.

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What the Cleaning of the Old Manuals Produced

As part of my therapy for hoardism, I assigned myself the cleaning of the old documentation. Normally, the cleaning of the old documentation would be a tedious and fruitless exercise. However, I stumbled upon a little treasure of years gone by. In 1990, Monty Python licensed a video game ( that you can downloaded here). This game was a side-scrolling good time in which you play DP Gumby as you try to find parts of your brain whilst shooting fish from your hand toward your enemies.

Apparently I'm so much of a hoarding bastard, I kept the little game's little manual and crammed it in a time capsule, set for the 2010 post-apocalyptic landscape. When it appeared it begged me to scan it so the rest of the world could also waste several hours reading random, meaningless drivel that will become the next inside joke at hipster parties.

Download a PDF of this file: monty_python_user_manual.pdf

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Wife Beater Brand Woman's Shirt

I'll be the first to admit I find sick things funny. I listen to metal music, which is wrapped with sick imagery, usually for the sake of shock value. I get it.

However, Wife Beater brand clothes cross my own arbitrary line of what I can take. Maybe because I'm a victim of childhood abuse myself. But take a look at the picture of the women's shirt to the right. There is something deeply unsettling about women wearing a bloody hand symbol, representing domestic violence. To me that's like Jews wearing swastikas or blacks wearing the KKK symbol. There are some things I can't even laugh at.

Read more from: Geek Meets Girl.

H/T: @chris_oh

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Dear FTC:

I appreciate the time you've taken to visit my blog. Please feel welcome to look around. I've been waiting for you guys to finally notice my blog, or really anybody for that matter. My daily site visits average between 25 and -19. It feels so good to finally have some bigwig from the government visit my site. It's like a breath of freshness since I can't even get my own mother to open the site.

So I've read a little about you guys and your new rules for bloggers. I've tried my best to always blog in accordance to my own ambiguous set of ethics. This includes having mealy-mouthed opinions, no comments, and content that would put tweaked meth freaks asleep.

Please notice I have no advertising on this site. I tried adwords a while back and discovered it was embarrassing to only run ads for lonely geek loser dating sites next to every, single, flipping article, regardless of the topic. My attempts to solicit more lucrative ads directly from one advertiser only resulted in my kidnapping by Nigerians. I think I misunderstood their whole currency exchange program. That kind of banking is really complicated and guns make me uncomfortable. And don't get me started on the Russians.

From what I understand, you want some kind of disclosure. In the past I have been given music, books, and software to review. The total value of these is around $3500 since my blog first appeared in 2004. Unfortunately, my blog hosting, all other software, and both server and home hardware I use to keep my dream alive has cost me $714,398.47. Hopefully you can get me some other readers so I can start monetizing this thing. My goal is to have enough of a readership by 2035 to get a sponsorship that isn't blocked by parental software. Tell all your agent friends.

I am a little concerned about your rule that opinions can't change. How can I keep up with public sentiment if you expect me to have strong, unmovable opinions? Our country was founded on a great tradition of journalistic wishy-washiness. Now I'm just a blogger without the moral integrity of Keith Olberman or Sean Hannity, but I will say that I fully plan on having strong opinions on various topics until such time those opinions are challenged by somebody else and I relent. Is that okay? If you want me to change that policy just spell it out. I have no problems doing whatever you guys say. Really. Seriously. Do you have ghost writers available? That would really help.

One final request: can you guys at the FTC "leak" to the news something about investigating my site? It would really give my site that extra publicity it needs to make it out of this trailer park. I'm ready to be interviewed by local news where I can go on an anti-government tirade for at least three minutes without breathing. I'll even lay my Arkansas accent on really thick so people will immediately sympathize with the FTC. It's win-win.

I feel honored the FTC is so interested in my little blog.  Please feel free to let me know how I can serve you and the interests of the federal government without regard for any of my remaining freedoms.

Sincerely,

Citizen #70145778352813322904

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Nevermore - Obsidian Conspiracy

Once upon an MP3-eary, while I worked, weak and weary,
Over many a deprecated code and compiled kernel’s core
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly double bass came a tapping,
As if rapid machine gun rapping, rapping at my eardrum’s door.
“Tis ass kickery,” I muttered, “slapping at my eardrum’s door –
Only this and so much more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was the music beginning to dismember,
Obsidian Conspiracy’s embers wrought a ghost crafted by Nevermore.
I listened til the morrow – vainly I had no time to borrow,
Work forgotten without sorrow—no sorrow because of Nevermore
For it was the talented quartet who named themselves Nevermore
Who fled from grunge for evermore.

“The Termination Proclamation” bore Warrel Dane’s vocal modulation,
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors rarely felt before.
So that following with the beating of “Your Poison Throne” I stood repeating,
“Rise! Rise! Rise! Tis much more than a standard reaping of my eardrum’s door—
Tis no ordinary album this Obsidian Conspiracy thrashing me to the core;
It’s progressive, tech, thrash, and so much more.”

Jeff Loomis’ beguiling riffs, with mastery of the circle of fifths,
“Emptiness Unobstructed” lifts above erstwhile dark narrative lore,
An earworm eating, “Without Morals” beating and beating,
Repetitive treating without fleeting the constant beating of my eardrum’s door.
This is the essence of Nevermore.

Deep into the darkness peering, their lyrics weave a tale of fearing
The human psyche, eerily leering dreams of mortals dark to the core.
Each song tells a tale of sadness, beckoning me to the edge of madness,
But Obsidian Conspiracy contrary to any concept album of yore—
This was something new and so much more.

Twisting sound into new contortions, but keeping echoes of past distortions,
Nevermore’s growth epic in proportions, will rap, tap, tap on your eardrum door
Masters of their craft steadfast, consistent but building on albums past
Never falling for trends amassed, of faddish incongruity like metalcore
Obsidian Conspiracy is wonderfully dark, beautiful, and hard to the core
Quoth the reviewer, “I give it a four.”

Author’s Note: If none of the above made any sense to you, drink your milk and stay in school. Also I highly recommend you buy this album, as it’s Nevermore’s best work to date.

I didn't mean to call Giovanni out specifically. I knew he was slated to speak in a couple of hours already and I was about to make a point that social media doesn't have to be all about making money. This was not planned but "Giovanni will not like this point" or something like that slipped out. I went on about the assumptions that social media is all about money, marketing, etc. is wrong.  Then I went on to define "Douchebaggery". Apparently this word resonated with Giovanni. He spent the next hour changing his entire presentation from "Extreme Social Marketing with Youtube" to "Extreme Douchebaggery with Youtube".

Yes, he did.

And this was his opening slide:

I'm Not Ignorant.

I have never been called out like this before and it was hilarious. Now if you were there and missed the Mad*Pow after party, you missed Giovanni and I having dinner. We did not duke it out. Giovanni definitely has a stage persona. Real Giovanni is a really cool guy. He's very smart, smarter than I am, but he is more like a whore to my slut. I guess I give it away too much but loathe myself in the morning. He feeds his children using his knowledge and is proud of it. I respect that.

I also appreciate his good humor and the fact he made his presentation all about me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. It was like an early birthday gift of self-absorption.

Anyway, thanks to Giovanni for his presentation and his ability to do some serious riffing. It was the best time at the conference for me. I think I want to do a panel with him sometime, but who would clean up the mess?

Over at Snipe.net, Alison Gianotto (a.k.a. @snipeyhead ) thinks she's all that and a bag of chips on the shoulder. She went a long rant about bloggers giving advice about blogging. Clearly Alison has some kind of bone to pick with douchebaggers everywhere. She might as well have dropped an anvil on my head personally. Now I realize her article is a few weeks old, but she apparently is asking to be taken to blogging school.

I will not enjoy this, but somebody has to manage the woodshed.

Metameta

First and foremost, blogging is all about the meta. Bloggers must talk about blogging. How else would anybody else know how to blog? Let's say, for example, James Joyce didn't deliver the goods in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man? Would anyone know the depths of self loathing and misery novelists must endure before crapping out their own works of metafiction? I think not.

Metablogging is where the real modern writers are. They are the success stories. Like Tony Robbins is to real world business,  the metabloggers of our time are here to inspire wannabes everywhere to write about writing. If you cannot blog about blogging then you can't report about reporting or sing about singing. It's all the same really. Writers who don't blog about blogging are lost and don't deserve the revered title of "blogger". There are only a few blogs out there and they must count for something.

Marketing Is the Cornerstone of Civilization

The next thing Alison rants about in her "article" is some nonsense about marketing people needing to get a clue. In today's society, marketing is what holds us all together. Obviously she doesn't appreciate the way commercialism and marketing have rooted themselves into our culture to such a point people wear tattoos of logos of their favorite companies. She must have something against scripted phone calls during dinner time. What kind of communist would post such drivel? The next thing you know, she'll want the Pentagon to hand Wall Street's keys over to the Kaiser. Makes me want to puke.

Blogging Is the New Blogging

Finally, I say all bloggers out there must blog about blogging. Nobody cares about your cats or your kids or your stupid charities. Book reviews? What a joke. Nobody reads anymore; ask Steve Jobs. No one asked for regular people to become journalists and write stories that lazy, stupid reporters can't copy and paste from press releases. Bloggers who blog about blogging write those damn press releases for a reason. It's just the way things are. We didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning.

I hope this clears things up. Coming soon, my listicle on blogging about bloggers who blog from a blogging conference. I'm thinking a good 75 tips should do it.

Alison's Real Spelling

Update: Apologies (in all seriousness) to Alison for originally misspelling her name. I went with the spelling in this graphic from her website and without my glasses, the letters blurred together. Where oh where did my 20/20 go? Pretty soon I'll be one of those people who use their 24" monitors to display 640 x 480 and view it through a magnifying glass.

And no, the irony is not lost on me.

Patti Smith - Wave at Amazon

Patti Smith is weird. Everybody knows that including Patti. But she is that kind of weird that makes me wish I could sit around and drink with her and let her rattle on with her poetry. I had two of her albums when I was young. Patti Smith's Wave (1979) is my favorite above Horses. Yeah, so kill me. The problem with Wave is the inclusion of one of the greatest rock songs of all time: "Dancing Barefoot". When I hear that song it summons all of my latent teenage angst and uses it against me. "Dancing Barefoot" is the rock equivalent to Catcher in the Rye without all of the assassinations.

Own this record, then maybe back track to Horses where you can catch the evolution of neo-beatnik to godmother of punk.

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Since I moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area from Chicago, one thing I've missed is Chicago food, specifically pizza and Italian beef. I found a couple of Chicago food places. Near me in Keller, there was a place called Little Joe's Pizza. But in true Chicago style, the owner ended up in jail. Other notable places included Rush Street (closed), Windy City Grill (closed), and Weinberger's Deli (still open, yay!).

A newer place in Keller called Tirelli's Deli started serving Italian beef sandwiches this week. I've had two already this week so I've temporarily banned myself from there until I can behave better. While the menu is mostly New York style, the Italian beef is as good as it is in Chicago. Also of note is their reuben sandwich, the best I've had since I've moved here.

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I'll be speaking at this year's Big Design Conference doing a presentation I've named "Just Do You Think You Are?" This presentation has nothing to do with the NBC TV show of the almost same name as I am not a celebrity and apparently not anywhere as interesting as Sarah Jessica Parker. My presentation is about social media.

Many of us on Twitter who are not in marketing or PR are acutely aware of the social media people who are two steps away from being full-on spammers. There's a general assumption out there about social media requiring open, frank discussion. This assumption is that everyone with an Internet presence is there to make money. This assumption is so pervasive, it's the driving premise in most social media articles (see Zemanta linked articles after this article). The Social Media Summit this year has the following welcome message:

Dear Fellow Marketer;

Are you using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but not getting the results you hoped for?  Could you use some guidance and fresh ideas?  Yes, the promise of social media is strong: Direct contact with customers (and prospects) who were previously unreachable.  This means greater exposure and more business opportunity—all without costly advertisements or middlemen.  And given this economy, who wouldn't want more business!  But if you're like me, you're looking to choose your social media activities wisely, without getting consumed by all the options. You simply want to know what works best.

Michael A. Stelzner's conference is geared toward marketing people. However, I want to point out the base assumption that social media is for making money. The "Social Media Summit" isn't the "PR and Marketing Through Social Media Summit" or the "Social Media Marketing Summit". It's just assumed that you assume that's the main audience for social media content. I'm not saying the conference is good or bad, but I do think it's time to stop having a one-dimensional view of social media.

Blogging, Facebook, and Twitter were not grown by people looking to make money. They are the evolution of human interaction on the Internet. Marketing people are a lot of things, but they are not trail blazers on the Internet. They are opportunistic and swarm technologies once they see ways to "monetize" the environment.

Before I got into social media, specifically Twitter and Facebook as this blog existed before those, I watched from the outside without a full understanding of what was going on. A friend of mine continually tried to explain it to me, but I would only mock it. The reality was I didn't understand the value it had for me personally. I had a tainted opinion of social media based on the money making assumption.

What a mistake it would have been to continue to ignore my friend. I have made genuine friends through Twitter and have broken out of a slump of depression as a result. I met people within my own company I would never have met and discovered our mutual desire for Sprint to succeed. Several of these coworkers were using a completely genuine, Cluetrain Manifesto approach to customer service. I also started meeting people here in DFW and broke out of my shell. Finally, I discovered the UX community and began to rethink my approach to work and career and my professional education was resurrected from a dusty tomb.

Come to Big Design to hear me present on these ideas. I'm excited to share my personal story because I know it's relevant to a lot of people who don't consider themselves marketeers.

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Watching Rock Star: INXS made Dave Navaro appear human. I mean I knew he was human, but I only imagined faceless guitar riffs. Incredible singers, who lived in cars, sang for their lives only to win, coke it up, and eventually leave the band to live in a car. But that's how rock works and I digress. During Rock Star: INXS, Dave announced he was forming a new band, The Panic Channel. Since I watched Dave all season, his voice in my head told me to buy the CD. So I did, and then burned Tower Records to the ground. I can't remember if Dave told me to do that.

Anyway, The Panic Channel's (One) (2006) shot 13 earworms directly into canals ill prepared for the attack. Embedded in secret locations in my lobes, they get violent if I don't calm them with (One) periodically. The earworms especially love "Bloody Mary". I play that song over and over until that bitch gets pissed and climbs out of the mirror and goes home.

Steve Isaacs' vocals with Dave Navarro's straight out, balls to the wall rock riffs seem reminiscent of Foo Fighters, which is not a bad thing. But when you listen deeper, you know there is more going on. The songs are all put together lovingly and continued listening exposes hidden complexity.

The Panic Channel is not currently together as Steve Isaacs is in New York. Wikipedia says that other band members have asked Twitter to hound Steve to move to the West Coast so they can rock again. I say, Steve, make another album. You have some vocal chops. To Dave, I say do another Rock Star. It was way better than American Idol and had judges tell contestants to smash their guitars. I think you should find a vocalist for a death metal band this time. Just a suggestion.

They'll make it happen. Don't worry. The Panic Channel is coming back.

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Few groups influence music like INXS did in the 80s. I would argue their influence on popular rock and new wave created a "New Sensation". Get it? It's a play on the name of that song of theirs, "New Sensation". It's a song and it's how they rolled that's why it's a joke. Heh, well…

In 1987, one of those rare albums was released into the wild. INXS – Kick (1987) was set free to roam the earth and actually flourished as both a quality album and extremely popular one. Some say Kick was the missing link between commercial pop-rock and actual good music. The only previous sighting similar to this was back in the 70s with Fleetwood Mac's Rumors, but that album had long been upstaged by the lesser quality Thriller.

Kick came out and broke away from some of the song writing from previous albums that relied too heavily on synthesizers, instantly aging albums like "Listen Like Thieves", which has great songs packaged next to songs that sound too 80s, very dated when listening today.

Every song on Kick is a solid song with the versatility of either a concert rager or a simple moody accoustic haunter. Naturally good song writing is vital. The Farriss brothers knew how to craft a song that was to be delivered by Michael Hutchence, one of the best rock front men of the time. Hutchence could sing any song with the same sort of soul-driven charisma as Mick Jagger. I cannot underscore how great a frontman Hutchence was.

If you need to own any INXS album, I say own them all. But you definitely need Kick in the starter pack.

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Yes, the School of Rock is back. The flu is gone after stomping each member of my family into the dirt and then it followed my mother home and beat her too. But we survived like rebels fighting the machines in Terminator Salvation. Our victory will be short-lived as some harvester robot virus is waiting in the wings to stomp on us and collect us for cruel science experiment slavery. But I digress. The real reason you're here is to get a rock-u-cation.

Ben Harper's Burn to Shine (2000) is a must have because this is the kind of rock all rock is built on. Good song writing, excellent hooks and melodies, and an overall quality to each song you don't normally hear. Burn to Shine is one of my favorite albums for the fact it's simple, folksy rock, you'll be singing along with. No, you can't stop yourself. It will happen and you will have the window rolled down next to some girls 20 years younger than you as you belt out "Steal My Kisses". So just go with it.

I swear to the best of my memory this is the conversation I had with CapitalOne this morning:

Phone: [Unknown Name, Unknown Number] Ring, Ring

Me (oblivious to caller-ID): Hello

Capital One Rep: [Silence and Clicking]

Me (stupidly): Hello?

Capital One Rep: [More clicking then the sounds of a sweat farm call center in the background] Yes, may I speak with Julie please?

Me: Who is this?

CapitalOne Rep: This is [name removed since I can't remember it] from Capital One.

Me: What is this regarding?

CapitalOne Rep: This is Capital One, I would l like to speak with Julie because I have informary for her.

Me: Infomary?

CapitalOne Rep [now with apparent disgust]: I said information!

Me: Information? Like sales information?

CapitalOne Rep: This is not a sales call.

Me: But you're calling us. It must be a sales call.

CapitalOne Rep: This. Is. Not. A. Sales. Call.

Me. Well, go ahead and remove us from your sales list.

Capital One Rep [taking her balls and going home]: Fine! But she will not get anymore information from us!

Phone: [Click]

Dear CapitalOne "Bank":

My wife was actually available to take a call from you this morning. As it turns out both of us are very interested in any infomary or information you have regarding our accounts. However, it is confusing to us as to what "information" we would need as you have an extensive website we can access for account balances and the latest interest rates you have shoved up our asses. I can only assume the "information" you were calling us about was of such a secret nature and so important  you can't risk making it available on said website.

As to the nature of the information, I would like very much for you to go ahead and send us the off-shore account number via registered mail as I don't trust the phone system these days. We need the account number, the amount you're putting in millions, and the safe word or whatever you guys are calling it these days.

On the other hand, if the "information" you were trying to get to my wife this morning wasn't about the millions you want to deposit in our off-shore land of milk and honey, I can only assume it was a sales call.

Certainly with all of the latest banking shenanigans going on, you wouldn't use the English language as a way to trick somebody into hearing a sales pitch would you? Flat out denying it's a sales call and using "passing along information" left me feeling very duck-flies-at-midnight.  So I heavily recommend you train your sales people to be straightforward when calling or give up this stupid telemarketing shit already. You've already got our 30% interest and deed to our first born. What else could you want from us?

Sincerely,

MK Anderson

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Stone Temple Pilots 3/20/2010 from Isle 3 at Winstar Casino

Having just seen Stone Temple Pilots on March 20, I was disappointed to read this story at Blabbermouth.net.

According to several eyewitness accounts from fans who attended STONE TEMPLE PILOTS' Milwaukee, Wisconsin concert last night (Friday, March 26) at the Eagles Ballroom, vocalist Scott Weiland forgot the words to at least a couple of the songs and seemed to be completely lost during "Dead and Bloated", forcing his bandmates to leave the stage in apparent embarrassment and disgust.

While Scott Weiland seems hellbent on being Jim Morrison, it doesn't take away from the fact that STP is a great band and when they're on they're incredible. But I can't sum it up any better than this comment by kazrog:

The DeLeos [brothers] have tried twice to replace Weiland, once with "Talk Show" and again with "Army of Anyone." Sadly, though both are amazing records, they didn't perform very well commercially, so they are stuck with Weiland, who is as terrible as he is great.

So true.

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It warms my cold, dry, wrinkled heart to know I have left a legacy people can actually use. That's right, my blog. I may not have a fancy book deal. I may spew meaningless parables to my children in hopes they one day make enough money to place me in one of those nicer homes they can feel good about when ignoring me. I may even show up at local networking events hoping to corner hapless victims into my pseudo-political theological philosophical mouth frothing. But at least I'm one of the few people in the world with a blog. That makes me a journalist. And with great power comes great something or other.

As Jolie O'Dell apparently witnessed firsthand at SxSW (See Why SXSW Sucks),  people read my advice and completely ran with it: Listicle: How To Fit In at Big Meetups. Not only am I proud to have inspired so many douches, I am proud to have not been there. I feel like Kim Jong Il after he fires a few missiles, threatens whole world,  and then hides in his palace to watch musicals.

According to Jolie's account at SxSW, she witnessed firsthand the power of my bulleted lists:

And non-technical people aren’t here to learn; they’re here for self-congratulation and mutual masturbation. People I’ve never heard of are referring to themselves as Twitter celebrities and generally making me ill. The real “celebrities” are dodging and evading these shallow douchebags, showing up at and slipping away from one official party after another to convene in a more refined, unofficial setting – only to find swarms of douchebags showing up an hour or so after the location is made known.

This is what it's all about, people. I mean people is what it's all about. Getting together and sharing their worst, showing off the dickery that has become modern culture. Historically, armies would charge through towns and lay them to waste, use up their resources, and leave nothing behind but carcasses and feces. Isn't it comforting to know we can still do it?

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Them Crooked Vultures via Amazon

I know Them Crooked Vultures' self titled debut (2009) is new but I know an important album when I hear it. This album is very important. Now let's forget for a few minutes that I have a completely straight non-stalker middle-aged fan-boy man-crush on Dave Grohl. Let's also forget that if I had Queens of the Stone Age albums when I grew up, my Winnie the Pooh record player would have completely melted into a pile of steamy poo, pun and all.

Them Crooked Vultures is probably the best rock album of 2009 and one of the best of the whole decade. I say this as a rock historian and founder of my own School of Rock, which you are attending right now. So what I say goes regardless of any hyperbole you perceive.

Right now as my ears are surrounded by Them Crooked Vultures' greatness, I hark back to a better time, a golden time of rock, if you will. This album goes back to rock fundamentals when people knew the meaning of properly breaking a guitar on stage or completely destroying a hotel room just because they were there. This was a time when rock hadn't sold out to The Man; it more or less sublet some space to him.

To put it another way, the album is raw rock as I like it, but that only takes up one line and I want to make sure you get your money's worth from today's lesson.

(Note below that I've linked to some metalsucks.net articles related to Them Crooked Vultures even though their apparent editorial stance is that TCV is boring. I respectfully disagree with them only because I know metal snobbery when I read it. My mom used to tell me that people would make fun of me because they were jealous. And in a way, aren't we all jealous of Dave Grohl?)

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The UK Government wants to introduce a law to allow anyone to use your photographs commercially, or in ways you might not like, without asking you first.

In reading more about the UK Digital Economy Bill, I realize something bigger than any individual has been put into motion: the world-wide culture of content harvesting.

Without exaggeration, Google's business model dictates it must own all the world's content. Right now everybody is okay with that because we all use Google's Web, image, news, blog, map, book, and scholar search services. Every day we are telling Google they are doing what we want.

So why should it surprise anyone when companies use the Internet in the same way individuals do (see image above)? Companies are made of people. Governments are run by people. When it became a cultural norm to pirate books, movies, music, and photographs, why wouldn't company employees do what they do at home?

Enter Clause 43 of the UK Digital Economy Bill. The language legitimizes unauthorized use of intellectual property by lumping all work on the Internet into a "collective". The philosophy seems to be this: creators who put any content on the Internet divorce themselves of control of that content. Side note: I'm seeing more questioning of the hive mentality (recommended reading You are Not a Gaget by Jaron Lanier).

My internal question machine kicks into gear:

• Does accidental publishing of content put it into the collective to be used?
• Can content be retracted?
• Is there any direct recourse for individuals who retract published work?
• Can a web-based service's failure to hide private content provide any recourse for individuals whose works became part of the collective?
• Will I see my daughter's face on a can of soup one day?
• What are the international ramifications? Specifically, does that mean if I know a photographer in the UK, for example, can I use his work without telling him?
• Can people in the UK use my stuff without my permission?
• Who decides what is and isn't in the collective?
• Most importantly: what does this mean for people who make a living as artists and writers? Will the "licensing body" feed their children and pay their rent?

I could come up with questions along those lines all day. Many content creators could.

I agree with the opponents of this legislation. But this is a basic problem with society in general. When things are left up to a government to decide, they will screw it up. Just because technology poses hard questions to answer, we shouldn't leave it up to government bodies to decide. Culturally the world is saying they want everything for free. A large part of the solution is to work on public campaigns, education, and real solutions as to how to handle intellectual property.  The war between people and companies will get nastier, especially when governments feel compelled to get involved and have such a history of siding where the money is.

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