In my research of Allofmp3, I came across BoycottRIAA.com. I remember hearing about this awhile ago, but I never checked it out. I think the most interesting part is its advice for upcoming artists. I have had an idea in my head for a number of years of a confederation of artists whose resources could be pooled to support new artists. Sort of a communal-type of thing to help break new bands and ultimately work towards a less homogonized music scene pumped out by Clear Channel and MTV. It’s good to see something like that already happening online, and the artist section of BoycottRIAA has links to some helpful sites for indy bands. I think I am going to have to grab a shirt or two from the store.

Recently, I found out about Allofmp3, a Russian web site offering a wide selection of music available for download in MP3, OGG, WMA and MP4 formats all running the gamut from 128kbits/sec to 384 kbits/sec! Wow!

I signed up for the service last night and downloaded the Kill Bill V1 soundtrack as well as Moulin Rouge 1 & 2. All told, the three albums cost me $3.10 in 320k MP4 format. I burnt them out to CD and the sound quality was clear as a bell. The service is easy to use and may get me off Kazaa forever.

The biggest question regarding this site is legality. Since it is located in Russia, a country with considerably less stringent copyright laws than the U.S., many have said the site is not entirely legal. Having done a little research, I posted the following to chumps.net.
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I got my new Sony Ericsson T610 today from Amazon. This thing is sweet. Paired with the bluetooth headset, it completely rocks. I have been synching contacts from my Palm Pilot, playing with the Bluetooth and messing with the settings. Pretty slick. I haven’t used it enough to say whether T-Mobile is worth it or not, but ther contract is only a year, and I’ll make $100 after I all the rebates come in.

For the past week (including Xmas) I have been sick with some damn virus that just won’t go away. At first I thought it was a common cold. Nothing big, so I took a day off work. Went back to work and fellt horrible all day. After that, it seemed like it took this thing forever to peter out. Anyway, I am finally feeling better. Today was the first morning I woke up and was able to swallow without any pain.

Going to the Outer Banks today to meet up with my folks. They came down after Xmas and stayed the night. The house they rented with their friends is supposed to be pretty awesome. It has a theater, hot tub, sauna, pool, sports bar (yes, a sports bar in the house) and an elevator. Should be pretty cool. I will post pics when I get back.

“His name was Flemming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer…”

Every time I get this email (I’ve lost count), I cringe. Sure, it’s heartwarming and all, but so is just sending someone an email saying, “Hi, what’s up? Not much here…” Something quick that tells your friends you haven’t forgotten about them.

Another one of my favorites is what I call the justification email. This one says it’s alright if people forward along B.S. stories and chain emails to everyone in their address books because the fact that they remembered to add your email address to the list means they were thinking of you. Now, isn’t that sweet?
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Last night, I watched Comedy Central’s Richard Pryor documentary “I’m Not Dead Yet, @!#$!%*!” Throughout the show were clips of interviews with the likes of Eddie Griffin, Mos Def, Bernie Mac, Margret Cho, Whoopie Goldberg, Robert Townsend, Jon Stewart, Dave Chapelle, Colin Quinn, Dennis Leary, Cedric “The Entertainer” and a number of others. Among the topics discussed was Pryor’s use of the ‘n-word’ in shows.

Personally, I am not a big fan of this particular word, but I accept it’s usage in the way described by Eddie Griffin: when pronounced with an ‘-er’ on the end, the word is derogatory; when pronounced with an ‘-a’ at the end, it’s a positive thing amongst brothers (his own words). Throughout this whole segment, both pronounciations were said over and over totally unbleeped. They even spelled the word out on screen. While I was watching this, I was thinking that two years ago, that word was still taboo and bleeped out. Just as I was thinking this, Colin Quinn was shown talking about it. He happens to say the word, and it is bleeped out. What the hell? Are only black people allowed to say it? I can’t remember if Margret Cho said it, so I don’t know if the rule was appllied only to Quinn or to everyone who wasn’t black.

I was pretty dumbfounded by this one little bleep. I was under the impression that the struggle for racial relations was all about equality. Doesn’t that work both ways? If so, why is this one word reserved only for one race. Why can’t the word ‘honky’ be reserved for white people. Same with ‘chink,’ ’spic,’ ‘mick,’ ‘goomba’ and any number of other racial slurs. Is this policy following in the tradition of painting the white male as ‘everybody’s asshole’ simply because of history? I thought societies and nations were supposed to learn from history, not punish groups because of it.

Having fully alligned myself with the Mozilla web browser quite some time ago, I grow ever tired of seeing pages that will only work in Microsoft’s non-standards-complient web browser. If the only way you can make a page work the way you want it to work is to use proprietary Microsoft/FrontPage/IE/Exchange code, than you’re a crappy web developer. That’s right, I meant YOU!
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I was looking for an old flash movie of Mario Brothers and came upon this site. This guy is hilarious. An asshole, but a hilarious one for sure. I think I finally found someone who hates people more than I do. Maybe.

Found this linked off of some site somewhere. It’s pretty funny. My favorite has to be either “You have gotten drunk and cursed out the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree for not being lit up at 2 AM” or “You?ve studied the subway map so many times that you?ve finally realized Manhattan looks like a penis”