Freyburg

Joey Devilla, who runs the always entertaining blog Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, is ruminating on how even though he’s edging towards 40 he’s not going to sink into the typical “ah, screw it, I’ll just listen to the crap I liked when I was 15” syndrome that comes with getting older. To that end, he lists some of the stuff in his iTunes playlist.

I’m in much the same boat. I don’t believe in just backsliding into the swamp of 80’s hits that defined my youth, so I usually take a little bit of effort to go looking for new stuff. And the Internet makes searching for new sounds easy. You can always preview tracks in the iTunes Music Store, or go onto MP3.com and use their Musicvine tool, and there’s also a ton of internet-based radio out there of every stripe. I haven’t owned a radio since I got back to Vancouver, and I don’t think I’ll bother. I can get CBC, BBC and NPR on my computer, so why take up space, power and listening time with something that only gets one good station and otherwise pollutes the atmosphere with top-40 pap?

Those pinko commie nogoodniks at the Nation have a really good article on their site about the connection between organized sports and mindless, braying patriotism. Apparently the Victorians looked down upon sport as something vulgar. Time for a Victorian revival! 🙂

The Vancouver Housing Market blog is a wellspring of finely-tuned cynicism in the face of the real estate madness that currently infests my new home. Condo and house prices are sky-high, and in my opinion the bubble will burst soon. The VHMB does tend to attract people who agree with my perception, but the guy who runs it does a pretty good job of keeping everything on an even keel.

Everybody’s favorite band of maniacs has apparently moved most of their operations to the Internet, eliminating the need for training camps or carrying around incriminating evidence.

Have you ever wondered what World War 2 would have been like as the text message chatter of several overly-caffienated teens? Nah, me neither, but somebody out there on the intarnets did, with hilarious results.

Keillor hosts “A Prairie Home Companion,” which to be honest was always kind of a pain to listen to after a solid week of great NPR programming. PHC is a folksy raconteur-and-tunes show that really isn’t my cup of tea, though it’s enormously popular and an argument could be made that it’s kept NPR going for years. By the way, when I was in Osoyoos (a mere 5 km from the U.S. border), I found CBC was great for weekend listening, other than the execrable DNTO, but NPR had the CBC beat hands down during the week.

But I digress. Keillor talks about how Clear Channel’s formulaic approach to radio won’t last, and how the iPod and satellite radio will take the air out of the tires of ranty AM blowhards.

Wired has a really good story about soldier bloggers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how instant eyewitness accounts straight from the operations theatre are a new aspect of warfare. No-one’s sure just how it’ll play out, but the bloggers are pretty sure eventually the military will clamp down on their freewheeling posts.

There’s a radio show/podcast called “The Gilmor Gang” where a number of Silicon Valley’s eminence grises expostulate on the current state of technology and the computer industry. Gilmor is a bit of a ornery jerk, but he runs a pretty tight ship. At any rate, the guest this week was George Gilder, who soared to great heights during the dot.com boom by vastly overselling the telecom companies. Apparently the cold, hard reality of the crash hasn’t affected his hype chip, because he’s now singing the praises of China and saying Warren Buffett and George Soros don’t know anything about economics. Sorry, Gilder, but frankly you’re full of shit. I’ll bet on Buffett any day of the week over a failed madman with delusions of prophecy.

Juan Cole has a fine breakdown of what went wrong in the Middle East and Afghanistan, from Reagan to Dubya. Not exactly the least biased source available, but still a decent summary of recent history.

The New Yorker veers off from trenchant observations and elitist fiction to weigh in on Hollywood’s new dependence on the DVD market. But apparently smaller, more diverse companies can also make some decent cash directly through the DVD market.