[LINK] Nobody Surfs to Work

Local NYC band The Peculiar Gentlemen have posted a hilarious list of albums I can no longer stand to hear when I'm at the bar. Especially Weezer:

1.  Weezer - The Blue Album
This is a combination of the band becoming douche-bags and douche-bags doing what douche-bags do best.  Weezer only made 2 great records.  This was one of them.  I'm afraid to tell you the other out of fear that they'll ruin that one too.  The Sweater Song isn't witty or cute after the 14 billionth listen.  Buddy Holly isn't associated with that awesome video anymore.  You still haven't learned the correct lyrics to Say It Ain't So.  He lied about his name being Jonah and nobody surfs to work.  Weezer has become everything they set out to defy.  (See also Metallica and Rage Against the Machine)  They were once the anti-hero and now they are the typical run of the mill mainstream mediocrity that douche-bags flock to.

 The rest of the list is just as spot-on: 10 Great Albums Ruined by Douche Bags

[LINK] The Nature of Internet Monopolies

Faza over at The Cynical Musician has a really interesting post about the nature of online business to tend toward monopolies (Everything, Everywhere, All the Time). You may have heard the phrase "the internet only wants one of everything" recently, and his post explores that concept.

During a recent hearing on the reprehensible IRFA legislation, debate arose about why there's no other online radio service as popular as Pandora. In light of that discussion, here's a bit from Faza on the difficulties of launching a competitive business on the internet in a market dominated by one company (Pandora in this instance, but it just as easily applies to Amazon, Facebook, and Google):

Once we have someone in this position, there’s very little other businesses can do to compete. They can’t sell something that the established power player isn’t selling, ‘coz he is. They can’t go for geographic advantage because there’s no issue of distance on the internet. They cannot hope to sell when the big guy’s closed, ‘coz he’s always open. Their only hope is either to compete on price, which is a race to the bottom (and one could argue that online everyone’s living in silt as it is) or on purchasing experience, which only becomes a factor if they can match the established player’s prices – tricky if you ain’t got the scale to make it up on.

Everything, Everywhere, All the Time at The Cynical Musician

Free Programs I've Come to Learn That I Can't Live Without

I find myself the owner of a new computer. My old one, which wasn't even mine to begin with, finally crashed for good. Or to be more specific, I grew tired of fixing it after the most recent crash, an event that was becoming more and more common. I shouldn't complain, though; that computer lasted a good eight years, four albums or so, on top of being given to me at no cost.

Anyway, since a reinstall of all my preferred programs is fresh on my mind, I think I'll go ahead and list the ones that are essential to me, both for the sake of my own weakening memory and just in case this info might be of some use to someone else out there on a lonely pursuit of music-making and whatnot. These are all Windows-based--but many have Mac builds--and free. And of course you can donate to the authors if you find them useful enough:

Judging a Book by Its Cover

The woman with whom Gen. Petraeus had an affair was also his biographer. The name of the book? All In ... yep... all the way up to the nuts, apparently.

Jerry Sandusky had his own life story published years ago. It's title? Touched: the Jerry Sandusky Story.

You can't make this shit up.

Not Like a Phoenix, But Still Rising from Ashes

Apologies to my handful of reader(s?) for the long lapse in posts. I recently moved to a new neighborhood in NYC, which coincided oh-so-conveniently with my battered old laptop crashing for the last time. Presently, I have moved from the East Village to Crown Heights, and I now have a new computer.