Keep the props coming….

by Ocherdraco

Got a really big buzz, no make that several, this morning upon popping the e-mail box open:

1) Hey
I am basically writing just to tell you I really enjoy your podcast. I had not heard of it until you were
just finishing the “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” reading. I wanted to read some of Cory Doctrow’s work but had not gotten around to it. When I found out someone was doing a reading of it I thought it would give me an idea about the book so I could purchase it at a later date. I really enjoyed how it was done with music and the story. Once you got the narrative flow down with the music it became very good. After I finished it I started listening to your regular podcasts (as well as the “Free Culture” ones) and I
began to really like what you were doing with those. I am definately digging your work
-Keep up the good work
-Mike

Nothing like someone caring enough to write and give up some of their time to share some props-thanks Mike!

2) Received e-mail confirmation from Dave Slusher of EGC to be interviewed on debut of Free Culture News time tba soon.

3) Received e-mail from Simon Steadman of the really cool Brit-rock Steadman Band (formerly the Dharmas). He thanked me for playing their music and he gave me a link. If you don’t know, they’ve graciously made their entire professionally produced musical output available for free download under Creative Commons license. Simon is a friendly bloke in addition to being a talented musician.

4) Found out that my little Brother Love has decided to use 2 of the tools of the community, that have embraced him-Podcast & Blog. Podcast is a monthly thing with Rob from PodcastNYC. Good move BroLo and Rob. Rob’s site is wheer I first found good NYC podsafe music to use in my podcast including the Loveman himself! Then I played “Push” on an early podcast when fellow “music maniac” Charles Chapman (yes I let the cat out of the bag!), more widely known as “CC Chapman.” of Accident Hash just about came through my DSL. In is own words,”Dude, KILLER show today. Great stuff. Can you send me the Brother Love track? I was grooving out to that thing hard core!!!
-C.C.”

Don’t take my word for it-CC and I both get name checked in BroLo’s inaugural podcast.

4) Props for my man Evo”the Holy” Terra of DragonPage fame. His new book is coming out shortly.

5) Cory’s new podcast-”Sysadmin” totally kicks ass! Everytime I want to compliment Cory I almost feel like puking, because I don’t want to sound like a blithering idiot or an overly exuberant puppy dog. Still, I can’t help it-he is an intelligent, talented, and impressive conspicuous producer of compelling content. This guy is like the bastard child of Kurt Vonegut and the Energizer Bunny!

6) Last but not last(maybe this least-ok, I’ll shut up) I’ve had several e-mails back and forth with virtual-troubador Jonathan Coulton and his performance partner and friend(very interesting eclectic content author), John Hodgman. I have an idea to do something with their 700 Hobos piece. Will update soon.

7) Finally we bring on the band , well close. Big props to my brother and one of my main crime partners Aron Michalski for the fine cast (yes-I laughed my ass off once again) and the name check!

Virtually welcome

Photo by Poagao

Had a nice virtual visit with the Aronski via skype(rumour has it a new PIBC podcast is imminent). Did some nice sharing of musical “zeros and ones.” I actually got a “very cool” comment from him on one, “Sly Williams”. I assure you, no mean feat here. This is the Mr. “been there, done that” of music. One of the resources Herr Aronski graciously shared was this: Aurgasm, the conjuction of audio and orgasm. I can think of much worse combinations. Aurgasm( a music blog) is right up my alley offering an eclectic mix of music picks, and no excessive text. Very class act-drop by and give Paul some props. He is very susceptible to positive-reinforcement, so don’t be bashful.

Not the Pink Panther, the Pink….

While doing business related searches on View Four (you can use it to run off of any search engine and it will return hits with multiple scanable windows), I came across this link for the Pink Pistols. Their tagline is, “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed.” Kind of sad, people need to consider firearms for being a target due to sexual preference. I guess one of a list of things that are sad. In the context of the search hit the whole page is rather humorous. Nothing personal, but I’m sill more of a “Sex Pistols” guy.

Breaking the mold

Business people have a reputation for being cold and calculating, if not outright cynical. I’d have to say that is a mostly true truism. “Truism” because it is not an absolute truth. Well, in the course of my business researching an industrial material I contacted numerous companies that appeared to be qualified candidates at producing the industrial ceramic form I was seeking. One of them, a gentleman named Rob Snow demonstrated there is still quite a bit of decency left in the human race, and the world of business.

1) He answered my e-mail, even though it was in the negative-most business emails go unanswered if the receiving party doesn’t have an aparent benefit(not his line, no profit in it for him). 2) When other companies I had contacted didn’t reply, I went back and contacted Mr. Snow for having the courtesy to reply and simultaneously asking him if he might be able to reccomend possible suppliers for the part that I was after. He did so rather graciously.

Thanks Rob-for the information and the demonstration that chivalry is not dead.

More irons in the fire

Got a good idea for adding to Free Culture podcast series-Free Culture,EFF,CC, DRM issue news. Will continue after done reading book with weekly Free Culture Newscast including CC music. Cory D thinks it’s an excellent idea as well. There is so much going on these days in this area. If you just read Cory’s post’s in BoingBoing alone, there must be at least 15 stories a week. I feel these issues merit the additional attention and coverage. We the producers of Citizen Media are the one’s who stand to profit or gain the most, depending on how these issues are resolved by the presiding courts or government bodies. My concern is, this like most other issues will catch people’s attention and cause them to offer a sincere, “wow-that really sucks”, or “gee, that’s really important, someone should really do something about that…” Well, you know the drll-we are the “someones that need to do something.” If we leave it up to the professionals, or semi-professionals, I think we are in real danger. Not because they’re not competent, but rather due to their inadequate numbers and insufficient funding when stacking up against multi-national corporations with bloodlust in their eyes, and hellbent for unfair domination, caring only about maximimizing profits.

In following up on some of Cory’s posts today, I found out that Stanford’s Law School is trying to organize a forum to discuss issues like Yahoo’s Jerry Yang giving info on Chinese dissident to Chinese gov’t to keep peace with them and not jeopardize Yahoo’s business interests in China. It seems many of the big corporations are “closing one eye and blinking the other eye” as the Chinese saying goes, to not rock the boat with their Chinese gov’t patrons who keep the door open with the same “foot that steps on the heads of their citizenry.” The Chinese message is only too clear, “play footsie with us and you can have all the market access in China that you crave, but the price of admission is the technology China demands, often ending up bulding the police state and stifling the growth of democracy.

Cyberspace Telephone?

Remember the game of telephone that you played as a kid? Youknow the one where you said “grape jelly” to the person next to you, and they repeated to it to the person next to them, and on down the chain, repeating to each successive person. Then you’d ask the person at the end what the word was and he’d proudly proclaim some aberrant answer that maybe rhymed with the correct answer,”ape belly” or something like that.Well I find in writing, and in e-mailing, particularly when both parties are pretty busy sometimes you get a result not much different from our childhood game of telephone.

Case in point, I had asked a podcasting friend if he new about a certain Sci-fi/Fantasy publishing company. They specialize in sci-fi programming for podcast and even have a book review program. I thought I had indicated my intentions were to “read” online published stories within podcast of my own. Somehow he construed my intention as “reviewing” book company’s publications which he’d like to include in his podcast???

You know, I think I like his permutation better than the idea that I had. I’m going to follow up on that with friend: Evo from DragonPage and check with publisher: Baen Books. Maybe even do both-I love people, so much less predictable than machines, yes it’s that alluring “random factor.”

Protesting what?

I took my Japanese kamikaze bandana(or handkerchief) that I got way back when on a stateside trip, rolled it up and put it on as a sweatband, preparing for my morning walk. Strangely, on one of the cultural issues I knew about and even thought about briefly while putting bandana/sweatband on, is that white bandanas are worn here when Taiwanese people attend a protest rally. No wonder why all of the people in the park, particularly the old-timers, were looking at me more than usual, especially in the direction of my head. Well, I guess that’s better than them staring at my large butt(which is gradually becoming smaller due to walking and dietary adjustment).

Now, that’s what I’m talking about

Site of Punk/New Wave singles covers. Great link from Mark F. of Boing Boing. this brings back the memories. Had a lot of these and sold a lot of these-with no regrets strangely enough. I love the digital mp3 files in my IRiver just fine.

How Cool is That?

Well the postman knocked once and what did he bring? My Evil Genius Chronicles stuff package. Yeah, big lift from this one. Get to help some people, get a cool shirt (in slimming effect blogger-black), great CD-The Gentle Reader’s Hi Honey, and a hand written note from Dave Slusher. Now I know Dave really is a genius because his handwriting is virtually unintelligible,one of the conditions for geniusship! It was also written on a totally cool piece of paper-I think from a George Carlin memo pad calendar. In summary-Dave you’re quite welcome. Listening to EGC is one of life’s pleasures for me.

We live in a world of color!

Big kudos to Krazy Dad for his great tool for finding photos of a certain color scheme. Creative whimsy with excellent utility to boot. Photo from color picker-Riet van der Sar