03.20.06
Posted in shopping, new york, gadgets, iPod, rant, subway at 11:24 pm by admin
One habit I brought with me from the East Coast involves walking around in public places with my iPod, Shure E3c earbuds inserted deep into my ears, listening to music or podcasts while I go about my business.
In New York City, this was really nothing strange. One out of every three people on the bus, subway, or street would be plugged into an entertainment device of some sort. I think it may be a side effect of New Yorkers’ notorious anti-social mentality. It is a city, after all, where you’re advised not to look anyone in the eye on the subway.
I discovered early in my iPod-listening days that walking around constantly plugged in also can have its dangers. For instance, you can’t hear someone approaching you from behind, or (in my case) the subway zooming up along the track beside the platform that you’re walking dangerously close to. Feeling the train graze my elbow when I didn’t even hear it coming woke me up to the danger very quickly.
Now that I’m in California, the iPod-walk takes on a whole new meaning. I now plug myself into music even while I’m shopping at Target. While everyone else is listening to screaming children, arguing couples, and other generally annoying people, I’m enjoying the Pet Shop Boys.
People seem quite puzzled by my behavior, though. They walk up to me and start asking if I need help, or asking me other various questions, and I have to slowly remove my earbuds and ask them to repeat the question. Usually it’s something completely irrelevant, boring, or obnoxious, and I just go back to listening to my music.
For those of you who haven’t experienced this yet, try it! You’ll be shocked at how much more tolerable a trip to Fry’s is when you can’t hear it.
Tags: iPod, new york, rant, shopping, subway
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02.27.06
Posted in rants, iPod, introspective, earbuds, ears, gym, shure at 8:30 pm by admin
Although I absolutely adore my Shure E3c earbuds, I had a bit of a tragedy with them last Thursday after working out at the company gym. I accidentally closed one of the buds in the locker door when I went to take my shower, and didn’t realize until I returned. I reassembled the earbud, thinking everything was fine, so I placed it back into my ear so that I could finish listening to the Feast of Fools podcast, like I do each and every evening.
When I returned to my desk, a co-worker approached me and started talking to me. Out of politeness, I went to remove the earbud from my ear, and it was stuck deep in my ear canal. Not the foam cover, but the entire plastic tip of the earbud itself. This, in fact, had already happened to me once before when I was working at Tommy Hilfiger in New York City. The rubber tip of these same earbuds had come out in my ear, and I was terrified that I would have to go to the emergency room to have it removed. Thankfully, the first aid kit had a pair of plastic emergency tweezers, which saved the day. Today at Yahoo!, no such luck. Not only do I not know where the first aid kit is, but I really didn’t feel like traipsing around building B to find it.
Seeing that I was struggling, the aforementioned co-worker simply walked away. I proceeded to try to pry them out wiith a pair of scissors, which in retrospect was not the smartest idea. Only later was my mind filled with images of falling on said scissors and having them penetrate my brain. Later I realized that I could have been like Phineas Gage, who had his frontal lobe pierced by a railroad spike in the 1800s, lived to tell about it, and was never quite the same. He went from being a nice, socially capable guy, to being an irritable jerk. I wonder if having scissors going through my head would have improved my personality.
Anyway, I cut the inside of my ear, and after it was clear that the scissors wouldn’t be of much help, I decided that I should try to dislodge the earbud a different way: using the handle of a plastic spoon. After about 10 minutes of fighting it, I finally got the bloody earbud piece out of my ear, letting out a huge sigh of relief.
The next day, I resassembled my earbuds using Krazy Glue, and as far as I can tell, they are as good as new, although my psychological state may be a little damaged from the experience.
Tags: earbuds, ears, gym, iPod, rants, shure
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02.07.06
Posted in music, depeche mode, iPod, music tuesday, iTunes, mp3, alphaville, crystal method, devo, download, echo and the bunnymen, erasure, howard jones, INXS, morrissey, new order, new wave, remixes, review, richard x, synthpop, the cure, tiga, yaz at 10:24 pm by admin
Okay, I will admit it. I’m a remix fiend. Some of my favorite versions of songs by the artists that I love are remixed. However, I’m pretty picky about the remixes I like.
For instance, if you’re going to remix Into the Groove, don’t waste my time by just looping Madonna saying “…and you can dance!” over and over again. The measure of a good remix, in my opinion, is whether it maintains enough of the original song to be recognizable, and whether it is musically engaging. Placing a cappella Cher vocals over a tribal beat does not qualify. However, take those same vocals and rework them over some Spanish flamenco guitar, and we might just talk.
Future Retro, a compilation that was released today, is a pure synthpop new wave masterpiece. It is one of the rare discs that follows the magic formula of combining amazing artists (Erasure, New Order, Depeche Mode, Morrissey), songs that were great to begin with (A Little Respect, Bizarre Love Triangle, Suedehead), and retooled versions by remixers who are actually talented (Tiga, Richard X, The Crystal Method).
The best part of this album is that the remixes are very true to the synthesized new wave roots of the songs. Instead of awkwardly forcing these classic gems into awful uptempo Dance Dance Revolution-style Europop mixes performed by boring stock vocalists (case in point: DJ Sammy’s Heaven), these productions, many of which are down-tempo, feel organic and natural. There’s none of that frequent feeling of disappointment I get with remixes: “I really like the song, but it just wasn’t meant to be remixed!”
Standout tracks include the synth-heavy Jaded Aliiance remix of A Little Respect, a totally glam rock remix of Book of Love’s Boy, and a minimalistic (yet still melodic) remix of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle.
For your listening pleasure, here’s a sample track from the album, which can be purchased through iTunes.
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Extended Mix)
Track List (from Amazon)
1. Walk (Infusion Mix) — The Cure
2. Situation (Richard X Remix) — Yaz
3. Lips Like Sugar (Way Out West Remix Edit) — Echo and the Bunnymen
4. Need You Tonight (Static Revenger Mix Edit) — INXS
5. Shake the Disease (Tiga Remix) — Depeche Mode
6. Little Respect (Jaded Alliance ‘Electrospect’ Remix) — Erasure
7. New Song (Peter Black & Hadrock Striker Mix Edit) — Howard Jones
8. Forever Young (Hamel Album Mix) — Alphaville
9. Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Extended Mix) — New Order
10. White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It, Elite Force Mix) — Grandmaster & Melle Mel
11. Girl U Want (Black Light Odyssey Mix) — Devo
12. NoWhere Girl (Adam Freeland Mix) — B-Movie
13. Boy (DJ Irene Rockstar Mix) — Book of Love
14. Suedehead (Sparks Remix) — Morrissey
Tags: alphaville, crystal method, depeche mode, devo, download, echo and the bunnymen, erasure, howard jones, INXS, iPod, iTunes, morrissey, mp3, music, new order, new wave, remixes, review, richard x, synthpop, the cure, tiga, yaz
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02.02.06
Posted in iPod, politics, iTunes, around the web, podcasting, air america, air america radio, al franken, broadcast, liberal, podcast, podcasts, rachel maddow, radio, randi rhodes, talk, talk radio at 8:25 pm by admin
What’s the first thing you learn when watching those after-school specials on video in health class in middle school?
The drug dealer always gives you enough free smack to get you hooked. Then, it’s going to cost you.
This is the path that liberal talk radio network Air America Radio appears to be taking with its podcast content. I am shamelessly hooked on listening to the Rachel Maddow Show each morning, and I have been a devoted fan of the show since the beginning of last year. The show’s podcast has taken me from riding the PATH train from New Jersey to New York City early last year, all the way to my commute from San Jose to Sunnyvale on the opposite coast.
I woke up Monday morning and started up my iPod only to hear a scary robotic woman informing me twice that as of February 7, Air America podcasts will no longer be offered for free, and that I would be required to subscribe to the podcast through Air America Radio Premium, the new paid podcast service. After taking a moment to contemplate why Dr. Sbaitso’s wife was chosen to tell me the bad news instead of Air America’s regular voice talent, my heart quickly sunk. I’m so used to enjoying a good thing for free that the thought of having to pay for it is positively irritating. However, I can’t imagine my morning without it, so I’m not really sure what choice I have.
Now that I’ve had a few days of that scary robotic lady in my ear at the beginning of all of my Air America podcasts (I’ve named her Ariana), I’m beginning to realize that charging for these podcasts only makes … *gulp*… sense. In perusing the Wikipedia article about podcasting, I came across an interesting statement that hadn’t crossed my mind previously:
“Some podcasters found that exposure to iTunes’ huge number of downloaders threatened to make great demands on their bandwidth and related expenses.”
It’s really easy to forget that commercial radio is a business - emphasis on the word “commercial”. These podcasts are provided commercial-free at no charge, yet the bandwidth bill is being paid by someone. No advertising money is being made from podcasts, and I would imagine that I’m not the only person who no longer listens over the air now that I can easily bypass an hour of commercials per show, and listen on my own schedule.
So, while it still frustrates me, it makes sense that Air America has chosen to offer its podcasts as a premium service. So, what’s it gonna cost me? This is the pricing structure from the premium website:
Single Show Membership:
$1.95 1-day pass (one time charge)
$6.95 per month
$29.95 billed every 6 months
$49.95 per year
Gold Membership (Access to all shows):
$10.95 per month
$49.95 billed every 6 months
$69.95 per year
Some observations: the “Single Show Membership” is grossly overpriced. If I can have every show for under $6 per month (paid yearly), why would I pay only $1 less per month to have a single-show subscription? I imagine that this is the reason the pricing structure is set up in this way. A little bit more money gets you everything. It’s clearly a better value, which means that most people (including myself) will probably choose this option, but most people may still only download one show. Essentially, that extra dollar pays for the option to download other shows.
The important lesson in all of this is that if something is in high enough demand, people will pay money to access it. Whether it’s being done to make a profit, or just to offset the expense of making the content available, content fees seem to be the only viable way (short of advertising) to capitalize on the popularity of podcasting.
Will there continue to be thousands of free podcasts available for download? Probably. Are we going to have to start paying for the really great ones?
Unfortunately, I think it’s almost certain.
Tags: air america, air america radio, al franken, broadcast, iPod, iTunes, liberal, podcast, podcasting, podcasts, rachel maddow, radio, randi rhodes, talk, talk radio
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01.31.06
Posted in music, iPod, podcasting, podcasts, radio, talk radio, satire, techno-babble, media, mental health, MOAD, satellite radio, XM at 12:48 am by admin
I’m afraid to say that my iPod might be trudging down the same dark path that sealed the fate of my XM Satellite Radio. No, not being stolen from my glove box through the smashed window of my car in San Francisco on Thanksgiving. I fear that the overwhelming amount of content on my iPod (8,793 songs and counting) could eventually spell doom for the device in the same way that I was compelled me to stop paying for my XM subscription several months ago (prior to the above mentioned robbery).
When I purchased my XM tuner, the draw was that I would have a massive selection of commercial-free music channels so that I would never get bored with what I was listening to. The iPod successfully eliminated my interest in satellite radio music, because I could have thousands of songs in my car or in my pocket, and my programming choices were far more tailored to me, because I became the program director of my own commercial-free radio station. In fact, while I can’t prove it for sure, I would imagine that my libary, which could get me from New York to Los Angeles by car and then back again without ever repeating a single song, is probably more complete than the one they’re using at any given Top 40 radio station in America.
So it’s easy to see why XM music is useless to me. However, I kept paying my $10 per month for the sake of listening to Air America Radio and XM’s “extreme talk” station in my car and at work. Talk radio became an addiction, and for that reason I decided to keep paying the bill.
Then came podcasting.
Now, I have 4 or 5 podcasts that I listen to every day, over the span of several hours. The Rachel Maddow Show and the Al Franken Show in the morning, This Week in Tech on Mondays, Democracy Now in the afternoon, and the hilarious Feast of Fools in the evening.
That’s a pretty full schedule!
So when am I listening to these 8,793 songs? Rarely. Maybe when I’m running on the treadmill, or walking around at the mall trying to be standoffish and avoiding making eye contact with people. In fact, I’ve only listened to 7,813 of the tracks currently on my iPod. The rest remain untouched. You do the math.
The cause behind this is MOAD, or Media Overload Anxiety Disorder. While not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness, its effects can be incredibly crippling. Symptoms may include the endless need to rate and categorize songs, micromanagement of playlists, the impulsive fast-forwarding of a song to the end prior to skipping it merely for the sake of ensuring that the play count is properly incremented, along with various other classic anxiety symptoms.
I propose that the mind’s way of dealing with this painful and life-altering syndrome is to regress into a more simple way of life. Much in the way that the Amish renounce technology, or the Republicans renounce ethics, a MOAD sufferer will eventually renounce the need to categorize and organize thousands of songs by sustaining him or herself almost solely on volatile content that needs no rating, remains fresh on a daily basis, and is fully disposable after it has been consumed.
In a nutshell: the podcast.
Each day, the podcasts I have listened to are deleted automatically from my iPod, and new ones are automatically synchronized. I don’t have to rate episodes, or put them into special genres, or distinguish between 18 different remixes, because they’re just daily shows. That’s it. End of story. I remain entertained and happy, barely even paying notice to the Chumbawumba and Vengaboys tracks lurking deep in the cavernous pit of unplayed songs on my iPod.
While there is no cure for MOAD, it’s definitely possible to treat it through education and prevention. I would imagine that this involves only carrying around music that I actually intend to listen to, and letting the useless crap clutter my hard drive at home where it belongs.
Please remember this new acronym, because like all good acronyms it certainly deserves to be the subject of numerous conferences, websites, books, and media events. Please contact me in person to schedule speaking engagements.
Tags: iPod, media, mental health, MOAD, music, podcasting, podcasts, radio, satellite radio, satire, talk radio, XM
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