Archives for November 2007

The Daily Loper – November 30, 2007

November 30, 2007 by Lopy

Shelter From the Storm Edition

Todays links of interest:

Smartest drug story of the year: Rolling Stone on the war on drugs
Right, but if we had actually had a smart, sane, non-hypocritical drug policy all of these years, we wouldn’t have had "The Wire," one of the greatest TV shows ever. So, see, on balance it all works out! Sure, on one hand, zillions of dollars wasted and millions of lives ruined, but on the other hand: "The Wire!" (jc)
Iconic daredevil Evel Knievel dies at 69
And so we lose yet another ‘loper icon.
EMI May Cut RIAA Funding
Interesting. Very interesting.

Why The Replacements Saved My Life

November 30, 2007 by Jim Connelly

People often stop me on the street, and ask me this question: “Jim,” they ask me, “what is it like to be a Replacements fan?” Well, let me tell you . . .

In the most recent of Rolling Stone magazine’s forty zillion 40th Anniversary Editions, they had a section called “The Indie Rock Universe: An Illustrated Guide.”

This so-called “Guide” was essentially a gussied-up list of Indie Rock bands, broken into incredibly arbitrary distinctions surrounding the “Universe” theme. One of the sections was called “Ancestral Planets” — the pioneers of Indie Rock if you will — and it listed a bunch of worthies and honorables: Nirvana, Pixies, The Smiths, Hüsker Dü etc. These are some of my all-time favorites, and certainly worthy of inclusion on any list of great rock of any stripe.

Conspicuous by their absence: The Replacements. Whether it was an oversight or on purpose, it almost immediately jumped out at me, and ironically, this was a few pages away from where Billie Joe Armstrong was talking about how much he was influenced by “Answering Machine.”

This is what it’s like to be a Replacements fan.

The Daily Loper – November 28, 2007

November 28, 2007 by Lopy

Tangled Up in Baby Blue Edition

Todays links of interest:

Sleater-Kinney’s guitarist tests out Rock Band
Carrie Brownstein deconstructs the experience of playing Rock Band in the same awesome way that her band deconstructed the experience of playing rock and roll.
Entire Blogosphere Stunned By Blogger’s Special Weekend Post
It takes a very special event indeed to stun the entire Blogosphere these days.
Feds lose bid for Amazon.com customer records
Good! I swear to god, the Bush Justice Department just loves to try and trample all over privacy rights at any and all opportunities.

The Daily Loper – November 27, 2007

November 27, 2007 by Lopy

Ghosts of Electricity Edition

Todays links of interest:

Wake-Up Call: Consumers Want Content on Their Terms
At this point, we should be beyond wake-up call and into serious accommodation.
Strike, Shmike: Carson Daly Gets Back to Work
Well, it wasn’t like his show had a lot of bits anyway. But still, bad onya Carson. We just won’t watch, even if you have somebody we like on.
NBC’s TiVo Deal Part of Effort to Introduce New Formats
NBC realizes that time-shifting viewers need information too.

Too Much Music, Too Little Time

November 27, 2007 by Jim Connelly

I’ve just finished a big project: I recently bought a 1TB network-attached hard drive and put nearly every single song I own on it. I even finally finished ripping all of my CDs.

I set the hard drive up so that it automatically backs itself up, and so it’s the third thing I grab in case of a fire: Rox, my laptop, and that hard drive. Of course, maybe Rox can grab both laptops while I get the hard drive, but I’m guessing she might have other priorities.

In any event, the current count is approximately 68,000 songs on 4700 albums by 950 artists. This crazy-ass number reflects 30 years of being, well, a big dumb rock ‘n’ roll guy. It’s what I do, it’s who I am.

And between eMusic, iTunes, Amazon, Amoeba and the life-long friends whom I’ve been trading music for two decades, I have a pretty steady pipeline of new stuff that I’m looking forward to, older stuff that is reissued, new stuff that is suddenly huge super buzz, and older stuff that I missed in the past.

It. Just. Keeps. Coming. World without end, amen.

Stop yer complaining, you’re saying: this is not the worst problem for a music geek to have. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the best problem for a music geek to have. So shut up and stop whinging, already!

No doubt, my 15-year-old self who rode his bike to Tower Records to buy Who’s next, my 25-year-old self who was resigning himself to getting the CD version of Who’s next and my 35-year-old self who was downloading Who’s next outtakes from dodgy websites are all looking at me agog.

But it’s still a problem. And the problem is me.

The Daily Loper – November 26, 2007

November 26, 2007 by Lopy

I’m Not There, I’m Gone Daddy Gone Edition

Todays links of interest:

I’m Not There and the Changing Face of Bob Dylan on Film
Didn’t get a chance to see it this last weekend because of the holiday, but this is going to drag even the most theatre-phobic of your ‘Lopers out of his lair, because his life-long love of Dylan trumps his more recent dislike of going out to the movies.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 Trounces Vista In Speed Tests
Sigh. XP is so much nicer than Vista.
Streaming video, the latest trend in online movie piracy
Bit Torrent? So early 2007. So over. All of the kewl piratz are streaming their bootleg filmz now.

CBS: Down The Rabbit Hole Without A Parachute

November 26, 2007 by Kassia Krozser

Outside the bubble, awareness of the Writer’s Guild of America strike is less than you’d think. For those of us who are living and breathing the strike, it seems that everyone should be talking about what’s going on. It turns out that this is not so. As the two parties sit down today to again try to find common ground, the average American, exhausted from a weekend of shopping, is discovering that TiVo is delivering less in the way of new programming and more in the way of wacky recommendations.

(Side note: how about that TiVo love letter on ”’The Simpsons”’ last night? I’ve long maintained that bad things happen to people who watch commercials…I was right!)

This post isn’t about the strike, per se. It’s more about how Hollywood simply doesn’t get today’s consumer. Or rather, Hollywood doesn’t get how today’s consumer is rejecting the notion of appointment television. A common ‘loper mantra is that we want it when we want it. Seems simple enough to understand.
[Read more…] about CBS: Down The Rabbit Hole Without A Parachute

The Daily Loper – November 24, 2007

November 24, 2007 by Lopy

Second Second Life Edition

Todays links of interest:

Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing
My guess would be, because it’s still on the market.
MYSTIC NIGHTS: The Making of Blonde on Blonde in Nashville.
Do we really need to write anything else to make you wanna click this link? Didn’t think so.

The Daily Loper – November 21, 2007

November 21, 2007 by Lopy

Drunkard’s Dream Edition

Todays links of interest:

Wipe Away a Tear For Mr. Whipple, And 2-Ply Times
An eulogy for Mr. Whipple, Charmin perv. (jc)
Dr. Adams Blames Malpractice on Bad Patients
"Hi, evvverrrrbody!!!" "Hi, Dr. Jan" It’s a very DuroSport move, of course, to blame your customers. (jc)
GM Readies Chevrolet Volt for 2010
It looks like the electric car may have been given an infusion of Claire’s blood. (jc)

Remaster and Servant (On Not Quite Seeing Star Trek: The Menagerie in the Theater)

November 21, 2007 by Sherilyn Connelly

Yeah, I’m Paramount’s bitch. Or would I be CBS’s bitch, since they own Star Trek now? Hell, I’d like to think that on some corporate DNA level I’m still Desilu’s bitch.

From the moment I saw it on startrek.com, I knew I was going to the big theatrical screening of the remastered version of the two-part Original Series episode “The Menagerie.” To the uninitiated, what’s unique about that particular episode is that much of it is a diegetic flashback to the original series pilot “The Cage,” which featured a different cast of characters except for Spock.

I was momentarily deterred by the fact that the closest showing was at the horrible googolplex in Emeryville. As I’ve expounded on in the past, I hate those places, and if I have to deal with one I’d prefer it at least be in town. But, no. Evidently the Evil Ex-Sony Metreon and the AMC 16 (originally called the AMC 1000 in reference to its location at 1000 Van Ness but renamed a few years back because people wondered where the other nine hundred and eighty-four screens were) didn’t want to lose out any valuable showings of Bee Movie, so I had no choice but to leave the City and County of San Francisco. No choice, you understand. This was something I simply had to do. The opportunity to see an episode of the original Star Trek projected, from the season when the cinematography mattered, to get a close look at details that would be lost otherwise? Oh my yes. I anticipated spending much of the time studying the backgrounds and corners of the screen, much like I’d done in the past with The Motion Picture.