Colbert Roasts President Bush - Supposed to be overly harsh or something - it all seemed to be simply humor, appropriate for an event of this type. I especially liked the chase scene at the end.
Also … this is old news. See Colbert interviewed on Letterman about the dinner.
Snake and phone - This is, to me, the essence of hilarity. Thank you, Natalie Dee.
Wondermark, a great comic from last week’s Onion - A bit of the graphical feel of Married to the Sea, with a more traditional panel layout for the strips.
Wondermark is a funny comic.
Simple Shoes brand - Sustainable (renewable) resources go into these shoes. Plus, they look cool, too.
Ever overheard conversations that make you sad to share the distinction of humanity with the individuals conversing? How about the ones that make you wish you didn’t have ears? I thought so. Well, on the way to dinner this evening, I was treated to a doozy. As two St. Thomas girls walked south, their paths briefly intersected my own …
Girl 1: I mean, where was it we were going? esctatic giggling
Girl 2: Yeah!
G1: You know what? I’ve been sooo hungry lately.
G2: Really?
G1: Yeah I mean I’m in, like … pain. I think I’ll call Daddy and get a bigger meal plan.
From memory, this is as close to verbatim as I can recall the conversation, but I know the last part was said for sure. I wept for the future and for the University and its recently relaxed admissions policies (dropping the requirements for admission to all time low levels). I think these girls exist in an utter perversion of reality, where their concept of pain is missing their super energy power booster with guanine shake for lunch. esctatic giggling
Best phone I’ve seen in years - Ok, get this. This MOTOFONE F3 cell phone I linked to a bit ago … it looks amazing in these pictures. It does nothing extraneous … no pictures, no silly color screen; all in a 9mm thin package. It gets a reported 400 hours of standby time … take a quarter of that to make it realistic and you still get over 4 days of standby time.
One more thing. Before cell phone contract, it will cost under $50.
Sign. Me. Up.
In the central Minnesotan radio market, Clear Channel Communications owns more than one station. Initially, I didn’t think much of this, until I realized truly how many stations it controls: 101.3 KDWB (Top 40), 102.1 K102 (Country), KFAN (AM Sports), KFXN (Sports), 107.9 KQQL (Oldies), 97.1 Cities 97 (Adult Alt.), and 100.3 (News/Talk). If you expand your search across the state, you’ll find 19 stations owned by Clear Channel. Combine this monolithic parent company structure with payola through a third party loophole and non-musical compression techniques, and you have what appears to be a musical wasteland. Grating as it all is, one thing bothers me far more: the capacity to introduce listeners to new music and to provide mechanisms for their feedback is being squandered. The same dang list of songs is being repeated over and over when a simple hour or two per day could be used to facilitate a “we play it and you vote on it online” format. The profits of blaring the same set of songs repeatedly is too attractive to allow for any other methods of playing music.
There used to be a certain organic build up for artists; a DJ would take a chance on a song late at night, people would call in, the song would build momentum, the band would build momentum. All I’m suggesting is a slight return to that format by taking time out of the day for some more obscure music, coupled with the ability for listeners to actually give feedback about it.
Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore.
This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.
-vertinox
Now, within a controlled microcosm American Idol returned the ability to “vote” on music to a populace that didn’t realize they lost that ability to huge conglomerates. Then, in a brilliant move, American Idol sold the results of people’s “choices” back to the payolla-ridden sewer of corporate promotion of music on radio and tv. Why do people love American Idol? It gives the illusion of having a voice in determining what is “popular” by aping the feedback system between listeners and musicians that was present before. Before what? Before the deregulation of radio facilitated the purchasing of vast numbers of radio stations by a select few companies.
It’s a sad state. I thought some more people should be aware of it … hence the writing about it. To conclude, this mess makes stations like KCMP, The Current, one of the best “real music” radio stations in the country, extremely important.
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