Gerald Ford is Dead...

...And yet the oil-fields of Nigeria continue to burn...

Who's had the last laugh now, Mr. President?

The Wonders of Christmas

I know, I know. I promised a countdown, and so far no countdown has materialized. I promise I will rectify this in the new year; I have been diligently working on an essay. This leaves considerably less time for idle if central pursuits like blogging.

That said, I thought this story was seasonally appropriate. Apparently female Komodo dragons can reproduce on their own. No partner needed!

"The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island."

So maybe, if we need to get to a new spiritual "island," human women can do the same...

Oh Yoko!

Yet another reason to destroy Iran as soon as possible. It seems this clown:
Koral Karsan has made some pretty horrible threats to Ms. Ono:

“I will not only write about these recordings but will distribute them to European broadcasting stations,” the letter said. “Be advised I am moving back to Turkey permanently and will publish my book in Turkey and will distribute the prints throughout the Internet from Iran where I have already secured e-commerce capability.”

God damn that sounds awful. Fucking Iran, allowing Turkish scumbags to exploit brilliant Japanese conceptual artists, it really makes my skin crawl. I mean, honestly, the threat of Turkish/Iranian web-content? I can't believe Yoko didn't just stab the guy in the face with a katana blade... What a betrayal.

Oh yeah, he also threatened to kill her. And she definitely has no reason to fear being murdered on account of her celebrity. None at all.

Movie Myspace Snocap

More shameless self-promotion! Now, thanks to a new wrinkle in the Myspace world, you can now download tracks from artists pages for money right now! An example? Well, it looks a little something like this:



Cool right? And It's not like Myspace/Snocap is taking a flat fee of $.45 on every download... Oh wait... That's a lot, when you consider Itunes pays $.70 for every $.99 sold to indie labels, and probably more to major labels... But it is easy to get on snocap, no screening, no hassle... And if you can afford to charge $.99 a song, you can make $.54, but that is still less than the $.63 you would make through Itunes (with CDBaby as a middleman taking their 9% cut).

But the real question is will people ever really, really pay to download music? They've begun to, but I bet 100x as many people illegally download music vs. pay for it... Oh yeah, download my songs... Please... This is pathetic.

Anyway, despite any reservations I might have alluded to above, this could be a real "change of the guard" type moment... By offering a flat fee, at least Snocap is being straight forward, unlike many other companies that require a $40 sign-up fee when the likelihood of an unknown artist selling even $10 worth of music is extremely small. I obviously took the plunge with Snocap, not that I expect much in terms of revenue, but hey, it at least gives me the (comforting) illusion that my music is "out there" or "for sale"... I guess this is a kind of contradictory endorsement, but we'll see where this leads over the next few weeks/months/years... It could have serious ramifications for not only CD sales, but for Itunes and the like. I'm surprised Steve Jobs didn't work out some arrangement with MySpace before this... We'll see if any big groups opt-in. As the big fish go, so goes the market...

The Real Killer

Dmitry Kovtun is the one who poisoned Litvinenko. The guy is guilty as sin. Just look at him! It's all in the eyebrows. Trust me!

Best Blog Posts of 2006 Countdown

It's that time of year. To all relevant bloggers or blog readers, please give me some help this year by e-mailing my your nominations. We've got to make sure everyone puts their best work before the judges eyes.

Samara Bar Scene

All Glory to the Actual God:

(Snowing viciously)
Dasha: This is beautiful.
Rod: Right.
Dasha: This will probably be one of your best nights in Russia; it's snowing, so it's pretty warm.
Rod: This is warm?
Dasha: Yeah.

...

Rod: What the hell is that?
Dasha: It's a beer cocktail. It has Blue Curacao and Piña Colada.
Rod: Ugh, awful.
Dasha: What?
Rod: I said 'UGH, AWFUL.'
Dasha: It's really nice, I like it.
Rod: What kind of beer?
Dasha: Miller.

...

Dasha: Uh oh.
Rod: What?
Dasha: You see that guy?
Rod: Sure.
Dasha: He's a skinhead.
Rod: I mean, sure, his head is shaved, but...
Dasha: No, you can tell by his shoes.
Rod: (mumbling) What do my shoes tell you?
Dasha: You know how to fight, right? --Just in case.
Rod: Of course, if I have to...(mumbling again) jesus, of course not, haven't you looked at my shoes?
Dasha: What?
Rod: NOTHING.
Dasha: Oh, it's okay.
Rod: What's okay?
Dasha: He's not a skinhead, he's just a sports fan.
Rod: Oh.

Exeunt.