Summer Thus Far

Well the actual summer has arrived, the weather is finally nice and there are occasional thunderstorms. This is how summer usually happens, although this year the first two summer months were quite un-summer like.

I finally managed to get a job (thanks Grandma) and I’m now an employee at Atlas Paper Company. I work in the warehouse and basically have the position of warehouse bitch, I sweep, lift things, cut down the weeds growing around the building, etc. Unfortunately working in a real paper company isn’t like working at Dunder Mifflin. The boss is old, and funny, but not on purpose. Everyone is less attractive than the people working at Dunder Mifflin, and for the most part fairly normal. The warehouse is another story, everyone that works down there is crazy, they swear like sailors, and in usually say things not fit to post in this blog. It’s pretty much manual labor for me, but I do need money to survive and buy beers.

Speaking of beers, last weekend was the Lowell Folk Festival, which has become my favorite summer event. I’m not a big fan of the festival it self, unless you like Zydeco bands and throat singers, its not that interesting. The food is definitely worth it, but the real action is at night when the streets are closed off and the bars serve beer outside. Why isn’t this happening all the time!? Beers outside in the street is always a good idea, plus the lines force you to double fist, which seems excessive at first, but then just makes sense.

Of course the Folk Festival also means straw hats, and this year didn’t disappoint. The straw hats were out thick and deep, I could barely keep up with them. Everywhere one turned, a straw hat was close by. So without any further delay here is: Straw Hats of the Lowell Folk Festival 2009. (I’ve got too many pictures and Flikr won’t let me upload all of them without upgrading to Flikr Pro, which isn’t happening today… Part II coming soon)

Summer break: Week ?

Its the third or fourth week of my summer vacation, and I’m still unemployed. Because of this I’m instituting the “Unemployed Summer Budget” or USB. As part of the USB I’m going to attempt to only spend 20$ a week. This isn’t going to be easy, I spent that in one day last week.  Also last week was KDino’s birthday where I racked up a 13.00$ bar tab, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was all PBRs, so it was quite a few drinks. Hopefully this week, ill curb my booze spending.

Last week our friends across the pond voted in the European Parliament election, and the Swedish Pirate Party won a seat! I first talked about the pirate party in a previous post, and in that post I declared they would never get any real legitimacy, I was wrong! Now the pirate party is totally legit. I think there needs to be an American branch of the Pirate party, although I don’t want to start it, third parties aren’t exactly popular here in the US of A.

Since I spend lost of time at home now, I’ve been watching the Today show on occasion. The Today show is on for hours and hours every morning. The show actually ends and Regis and Kelly come on… but after Regis its another hour of the Today show! Today show watchers are no doubt familiar with the 10:00 hour of the show where Hoda Kotby and Kathy Lee host. This is the funniest part of the show, since Kathy Lee is out of her mind, and the other lady is named Hoda. Hoda. Anyways I highly recommend the 10:00 hour of the Today show for some good chuckles.

The new Passion Pit album, “Manners” came out recently, and is a good listen.

If you have a job for me, that doesn’t involve anything too illegal, let me know. Maybe if I get a job, I can up the USB from 20$ to 25$!

Get With It

The semester is over, and I managed to pass all my classes with decent grades. (with one exception) There will be no more Legal studies posts, and I’m sort of disappointed there was no feedback from the professor concerning my posts. The intent of the posts was to make sure the class was doing the assigned readings, and I suppose to get a reaction out of us since there was little dialogue during the classes. I read other students blogs, and it seems people took it a little more seriously than I did. Most of  my posts talked about how crazy copyright laws were, or how the media loved talking about twitter. Other blogs expressed genuine concern over Facebook TOS and problems with safety on the internet. I find it difficult to write in a real serious tone about those things, and hey I got a good grade in the class so someone thought I was doing alright.

Throughout the semester I acquired lots of new music that I listened to on my iPod while walking around campus/sitting in class/eating in the DC/ignoring people around me. I had my headphones on all the time, and I probably listened to a new album every week. Here are some highlights.

Beach House – Devotion

This was without question my favorite album of last semester. Beach House makes mellow dream-pop with great hooks and simple backing beats. Beach House is music for drifting through space riding a dolphin. Like Dolphin Olympics.

A.C. Newman – Get Guilty

A.C. Newman is a member of the New Pornographers, and this album is similar to their ultra-catchy indie rock. The title track has a crazy good chorus, and should definitely be listened to loudly.

Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

It took me a few listens to get into this album, but once I did these songs were stuck in my head for days. Think 60’s girl group plus lots of strings.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

This album is noisy and awesome. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart do sound a lot like the Smiths at times, especially on “Stay Alive” but the album is worth listening to.

Wolf Parade – Apologies To The Queen Mary

This album came out four years ago, and I’m not sure why it took me so long to finally get around to listening to it. Wolf Parade is great, interesting vocals, catchy hooks etc. Their second album is also good, but Apologies to The Queen Mary is superior.  The members of the band are in a whole mess of other bands, which I’m just starting to listen to. The Handsome Furs album Face Control came out recently and should be listened to also.

The Smiths

If you don’t listen to the Smiths, you should. I’ve listened to three of their albums, they’re all great. Straight 80’s awesome.

Those were my favorite album I listened to this semester. There’s more, but I don’t feel like listing them. They’re all availabe on iTunes, and through intelligent Google searches.

Semester Over

This is my final post for my legal studies class, so I’m going to talk about hazardous waste. Dell, the fine folks who brought us this guy, have banned the export of “e-waste” to developing nations. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Internet law, but who hasn’t seen crazy pictures of this stuff?  Here’s some

Ewe. That stuff can’t be healthy, and at lest Dell is trying to do something about it, although the article mentions that it “does not mark a significant change in the PC maker’s behavior.” So in reality nothing will probably change, but we’ll still see crazy pictures of mountains of old PC monitors rotting somewhere. I predict that in the future when slobs in western nations continue to throw out our old PCs, this will become an even bigger problem and eventually the piles of “e-waste” will rise up and attack their human overlords who threw them away. That’s just speculation.

A better solution to this problem would obviously be to recycle these computers, I’m not exactly sure how this happens, but it can’t be that difficult. Of course, rather than recycling computers, I’d rather try to sell my old computer, as most people do. The best solution is a program where I decide to recycle my old computer, and someone gives me some cash for it. Problem solved.

Now on to more pressing issues, like my deteriorating pants.

These pants are falling apart faster than a Tokyo drift crash. (Pretty fast) Never before have I owned a pair of pants that have fallen apart faster. Every time I wear them, the holes get bigger. The fabric of this particular pair is paper thin, even though all my jeans are the same brand/style. I remember the first hole that developed, it was a tiny rip, which I soon made huge by sticking my foot through it when I was putting them on.  Since them I’ve been extra careful to not stick my foot through the holes, and I’m not even sure how both legs ended up with these huge holes.

Wearing these pants is like driving a car with the windows open, its breezy and chilly. At this point potentially embarrassing holes are beginning to develop in the crotch. It might be time to put these pants to pasture, or maybe ill turn them into shorts, but I worry this will make me look like Daisy Duke. Scary.

Finally to commemorate the end of this collegiate road season, here’s MHC’s sex doll sitting on my bike. Enjoy.

Biiiiiike Raaaaaaaace

This Saturday is the sort-of -annual Orchard Assault! Bring your friends, bring your kids, bring a cowbell! The race is always a suffer-fest for the riders and shouldn’t disappoint this year.

Candidates in  Sweden running for the European Parliament seem to think that new anti-piracy laws are too harsh. The candidates argue that most politicians in Europe who support the laws are old, and don’t understand modern technology. Ouch! But seriously, no intelligent politicians with knowledge of the internet would support the laws anyway. The article also mentions how the laws were influenced by Hollywood execs and under pressure from the US.

The fact that this article mentions that these lawmakers are under pressure from the US and Hollywood is interesting, since no laws like this are even being considered in the US right now, and there aren’t any lawmakers speaking out either. It seems that the Pirate Bay fiasco has made politicians in Europe eager to pass legislation to try and stop file sharing activity, even if the laws are unrealistic. Nothing like this has caused any controversy in the US, but its bound to happen. The best part of the article is that it mentions one candidate who is from the Pirate Party. Pirate Party! Why isn’t there a Pirate Party in the US!? Who wouldn’t want to be a member of the Pirate Party?

I found the Pirate Party’s website, and they have some pretty extreme views, they’re in favor of abolishing the patent system all together. They bring up some good points about why they believe this, but something like this will probably never actually happen. Most of the website is in Swedish, but if I can find a Pirate Party tshirt, I’m all for it.

The post about my deteriorating pants is coming soon.

Blake’s got a new face

Looking at my old, cracked, scratched cell phone (LG VX8550) which I’ve had many fun times with, I couldn’t help but wonder when I can get a new phone. Then I saw this article and got super excited! I can get a Hi-Phone in China for pennies!

It seems like knockoff cellphones are a huge hit in China. And why not? Who wants to pay for an expensive phone from Nokia of Motorola when you can get one with a similar name, and exploding batteries?  According to the article a group of just a few people can churn out these phones and sell them for as little as 20$. These knockoff phones even have their own late night inf0mercials, which is pretty cool. I can only imagine Billy Mays hawking cell phones here in the states.

The issue with the fake phones, (aside from taking away business from the big cell phone manufactures) is the possibility of the batteries exploding. This is pretty scary, and I wouldn’t want my pants catching fire due to an exploding cell phone.

What this really shows is people are tired of paying crazy amounts of money for phones that could obviously be produced cheaper. The article mentions that the fake cell phones are already driving down prices. Although the knockoff phones may be dangerous, in the end it helps out the consumers who are willing to buy the legitimate phones. Knockoff products will always be produced and although this phenomenon hasn’t spread to the US, its possible.

Last week I saw Vampire Weekend in North Hamptron. I remember first reading about Vampire Weekend a few years ago, when every music blog was constantly talking about them. The show was pretty good, but also pretty short. When I though about it I realized they only have one album, and most of their songs are fairly short. Either way it was a fun time and the lead singer Ezra Koenig definitely looks like Roger Federer from a distance.

This weekend I’m going to start tracking the progress of a pair of jeans I have. These jeans are deteriorating at an alarming rate, so I’m going to take pictures of the pants until they turn to dust. Stay tuned.

Brains!!!

The Pirate Bay trial ended last week, and the Swedish Pirates were found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison. Yikes! Earlier in the semester I predicted that this trial wouldn’t result in any change in the activities of people online seeking movies/music/software by illicit means, and I was right! Sure the guys running the site may have been found guilty, but the site is still up and running! What has this accomplished? According to the New York Times article its “good P.R” for the music and recording industries. Really? Maybe to the uninformed this is good P.R., but in reality the only thing that’s different is these guys are convicted felons.

Trying to take down Bit Torrent tracking sites is a losing battle that the movie and recording industries are only now beginning to fight. Just like the Napster, Kazaa and Grokster issues years ago, when one website/file sharing software goes down, more spring up to take its place. I’m not sure there is an easy solution to the problem, and to be honest, for me there is no problem! Of course I don’t want any of these websites shut down! If the majority of people knew how easy it actually is to get music/movies/software online, companies would be shaking in their boots.

In other news it appears Humans v. Zombies has started up again on campus. I don’t personally know anyone who participates in this, and when ever its brought up everyone seems to have a negative opinion of it. This leads me to wonder, who is taking part? Most people seem to think its ridiculous, and childish. I tend to agree, but if people want to shoot each other with Nerf guns, and throw socks, who am I to stop them? Carry on zombie hunters/humans. I’ll keep my zombie hunting contained to the video game world.

Little Droogies

I watched A Clockwork Orange for the first time a few days ago. It has come to my attention that there are lots of movies I haven’t seen, this being one of them, so I’m trying to watch as many movies as possible. Last week I also watched Lawrence of Arabia, when I told people about that they seemed confused/found it funny. I’m not sure why…  Anyways  A Clockwork Orange was absolutely crazy. Violent, unsettling, with great music. I remember seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was a kid and it really freaked me out. I found the movie incredibly creepy, and still think its pretty creepy. Stanley Kubrick movies are great, definitely memorable.

News agencies seem to love to talk about Twitter almost as much as they love to talk about pirates. Two articles from the New York Times both deal with Twitter. The first one talks about backlash from the discovery by authors that gay/lesbian themed books had been placed in the “adult” category on Amazon.com, making them difficult or impossible to search for. Soon after the discovery, concerned authors/readers were firing off angry tweets left and right. Amazon’s response wasn’t quick or reassuring which led to more angry tweets, and finally Amazon admitted it was probably an error.

This is an example of how Twitter will probably be used in the future… to complain! Everyone likes to complain, and with Twitter its easy to complain about things that lots of other people are complaining about. Just tag it! Bingo! The possibilities of complaining on Twitter are endless. If the Red Sox lose and Papelbon blows the save, you can Twitter about it! Enough Tweets, maybe Theo will get nervous and trade Papelbon for  Mariano Rivera. That’s a fictional situation which will never take place, of course. I predict that soon Twitter will take over Facebook as the Internet’s medium for complaining. Complaining on Facebook is accomplished by creating groups to convey anger/start rants about religion/complain.

The second article offers a more interesting and useful future use for Twitter: starting political protests! Last week in Moldova, a country known for its wine and its women, massive protests erupted after an election. Angry, tech-savvy young people took to the Internets and Twittered up a storm. Soon the streets of the capital city Chisinau were full of protesters,  and riots/fires/beating  happened, but the hard-line Communist government (which just won the election) soon had things under control.

Good effort young people of Moldova! Maybe if the government hadn’t cut off Internet access once they realized what was going on, more people would have rioted! Maybe there would have been a coup! This story shows the huge potential for the angry or possible disenfranchised to get their voices heard and to start a crazy riot via Twitter.

Everyday People

Well the NCAA tournment ended last night along with my bracket, which ended when UConn lost to Michigan State. Damn! I was hoping for a UConn/UNC final. But Michigan State won and got smoked by UNC. I think UConn/UNC would have been a way more interesting game. Whatever. Next year I’m calling UMass in the Elite 8. Ha. Ha.

Here’s an interesting article from WSJ about the government allocating funds to improve internet access in the US. The funds would be used to improve the network, making it much faster than what’s available today as well as looking at competition between internet service providers.

I’m all for improving internet access, and especially improving internet speeds. If a next generation network were put in place here, it would certainly make internet addicts like myself happy, and improving internet access would help out those who can’t get it now. The problem is whether the FCC would try to place restrictions on internet companies improved with government funds. The article mentions how it could hurt investments and be “counterproductive”. I definitely agree, the government can shell out money to improve networks and speed all it wants, but if it tries to place restrictions on how the companies operate, the improved network won’t do much good if it hurts investments in new startups.

Over the weekend I went down to West Point to race with the team. (Where I finally scored some points) The van we took lacked a working tape deck, so we were forced to listen to the radio. That’s when I heard this gem for the first time. This song is hilarious and most surprisingly, its by Jamie Foxx. Ha!

Blame It (featuring Christophe…

Wham City

It looks like copyright issues are now popping up in the book world. JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series is trying to get her books removed from the site scribd.com, where users can upload their own literature, or apparently someone elses. Some of Rowling’s books were up on the site, available for free and she wants them taken down. The site administrators say they comply with request by copyright holders when asked to take material down.

The article mentions how this is a small problem now, but will be a bigger one in the future. If new technologies like the Amazon Kindle start go get popular, people will definitely start looking for free ways to acquire books. I’ve done some searching for text books online, but couldn’t find the ones I was looking for, but just doing a quick search on a torrent site, its easy to find the Harry Potter series books in downloadable form. The article concludes with a statement saying how the music industry has been ruined by this kind of thing, and it would certainly be a disaster for the publishing industry. Correct! Instead of fighting it like the music industry did, maybe publishers will take the hint and adapt to new technologies before piracy and illegal downloading of literature become even easier.

This week I’ve been listening to the new Dan Deacon album. I’m not exactly what musical genre Dan Deacon could be placed into, its completely electronic and completely crazy. I listened to some of his first album, but couldn’t really get into it. This one is definitely a step forward. Here’s a highlight

Build Voice – Dan Deacon