eulogy for napster and lounging in greenlake

i like bouncing ideas off people. i mostly do it for the sound of my own voice, but occasionally - i listen. a friend of mine's been bouncing off quite a few of her beliefs about life, the universe and opinion-forming-principles off me and some of it is starting to stick. damn.


bob dylan at 1:00 am. i really need to get some new mp3's. oh! the days of napster.


did i really type that aloud? i wish i could take that back. but i can't ... so i'll admit it.


"i used to napster, but i didn't inhale".


so this aforementioned friend used to napster just as i did in grad school. she stopped because she can now afford to pay for music. i stopped because it'll be a drag to hire a lawyer when they slap a lawsuit on my behind. the bigger issue obviously is about paying for content. she believes that it's okay to pay $20 for a cd because the record label says so. the artist and the people behind the music deserve the money. fair enough, i agree with her on the second point. what i don't like is that nirvana's smells like teen spirit costs more now than it used to when Kurt was alive. so where does all that money go now? not to kurt for sure. it's sucked up by some chubby guy in a golden suit with a big flashy diamond on his pinky and an unlit cigar sticking out of his pouty lips underneath a receding forehead set off by beady eyes.
patents die out after twenty years. perhaps the amount you pay for music should taper off as an album gets older. when an industry hires chubby lawyers in black suits with tasteful rings and cigars (dominican, not cuban) sticking out of their pursed lips to sue thirteen-year olds it's close to hitting rock bottom. shame on you.

and please, please - don't introduce so many formats. it's stupid. figure out a smarter way to protect downloaded music. locking people in by restricting the devices they can play their music on, preventing them from making copies of their music ... wrong approach people. you have some smart minds working for you but they're probably controlled by mba wielding technology-control-management types. the dark side is filled with razor sharp minds with endless time on their hands trying to make you look stupid.
darth's clan will win. figure something else out.


i saw this ridiculously funny movie called the breakfast club over the weekend. highly recommended watching if you're not in the mood for mindless comedy. on that vein, lolita is a must see. kubrick's treatment is quite different from nabakov's yarn. and yeah, nabakov's being accused of pliagirism. shame on you ... dirty old man :).
if you're in the mood for some mental gymnastics the corrections by jonathan franzen is a good workout. somehow, his writing forces me to re-read most lines. the language is simple, the grammar is great but i can't grok it in the first go. go figure. huh?


the weekend was great. it's sunny out here most days now. yipee.

green lake park had tons of people in skimpy clothes working out, looking great and being generally un-naturally healthy. a few of us drove out there, found a convenient tree and plonked down in the shade. the closest i came to exercising was a running critique of the ultimate frizbee players in the vicinity. but we did detect a statistical anamoly - there was an inordinate number of shoebox dogs being taken for a stroll (shoebox dog = a dog that can fit in a shoebox). some of the women walking the dogs had platform shoes that were bigger than the dogs. really.

and then we headed out to alki beach to witness another statistical anamoly - women in really short, frilly skirts poised precariously on their hips. the skirts seemed to emit a dangerous predisposition towards leaping off hips, slipping across pavement and hailing a passing guy. before you mutter 'wishful thinking', i have witnesses. really.