Cheapest Long Distance Service EVER, made possible by converting sound into digital data and sending the information over the internet. They’ve been talking about this forever but now it’s a reality. I’ll be cancelling my phone service with Telus very soon. You should too.
Update: Vonage Canada is coming soon — not available like I previously thought. Well, I’m ready when they are.
I went into the bookstore this morning to take my semi-annual gouging. While browsing the new media books to find the required purchases I noticed a book titled The Animator’s Survival Kit. I own this book. I paid $42 + tax at the local Chapters Bookstore. The bookstore was selling the same title and edition for $80 new and $60 used (of course they didn’t have any used copies). What is even more bizarre is that they had price tags on the back of them for $42. So they mark-up their books right? It’s a free market, why not? Right? Well maybe so, but they have the nerve to display a giant poster explaining why books are so expensive and where percentages of the cost go…. 75% to publishers and the rest of the 25% broken up between the University, the Student Union, the Bookstore, ect. Well even if the bookstore ordered the books through Chapters and got the same selling price as was available the general public (and it’s unlikely they would not get a discount) the most they should possibly have raised the price to would be about $56. That’s $4 less than the price they would sell a used copy for. Sick.
An Open Letter
By John Moe
TO: THE GRINCH
FROM: MAX YOUR FORMER FRIEND AND DOGDear Steven,
It’s been several months now since you left and I remained here on Mt. Crumpet in the home we built together. I think it’s important that I share my feelings. I hate you Steven. Hate; hate; hate you.For years we stood for something. We hated the Whos. Like we always said if it weren’t for Christmas and the Who’s infernal screeching of “carols”, we would have had absolute quiet all year long and isn’t that why we moved to Mt. Crumpet in the first place, Steven? Every December our meditation, gardening and literary work were shattered with “Wahoo-Boraice” or whatever that stupid song was. Have you learned it yet? Well have you? The Whos ruined our lives. Annually. And then you joined them. And why? WHY?! Because you heard them sing. Who was I living with all those years? Honestly, if you know, tell me Steven.
And, by the way, there was nothing wrong with your heart. I have, in our big file cabinet, a report from the Dr. that says while your heart was abnormally small (5th percentile), it was completely functional and unless you attempt to run a triathlon, you’re fine. And all that aside, your heart has nothing to do with your emotions. You left your Zoloft here, by the way. If you haven’t picked up a new prescription, I will send it down to you but you should really renew it.
Alone up here on Mt. Crumpet my thoughts have turned to that night. In retrospect, there were many mistakes. You shouldn’t have worn a Santa suit. Also you should not have engaged Cindy Lou Who — at all. I’m not sure what inverted Stockholm syndrome took place while I waited on the roof, but I do know that it all could have been solved with a hard shove and a quick exit. Additionally we should have stashed the Christmas crap and then left town right away … the shore, Cozumel, my parents’ place even.
But really the problem was the Whos. They’re stupid, Steven. People who get robbed and then sing with joy are stupid people. And now you’ve gone to live with them, in a ̬ what? Hut? — I can’t blame them anymore for being who they are. Perhaps I can’t even blame you for being who you evidently were all along. Perhaps I can only blame myself for seeing you as the one I spent all those years with. The one I thought shared my yearning for solitude and my deep and justified hatred for everyone else. But that was not you. You are a Who. Enjoy the roast beast. Whatever. Jerk.
Max
(Excerpt from Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Dad Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences)
What You Can’t Say is an interesting essay by Paul Graham about heresy: how to think forbidden thoughts, and what to do with them. So take the Conformists test,
“Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.”
Think about this, “We often like to think of World War II as a triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. We conveniently forget that the Soviet Union was also one of the winners.” But Graham goes much deeper than that. He explains that searching for popular misconceptions not only satisfies the curiosity and confirms whether you are right or wrong about a particular idea but it exercises the brain, “If you can think things so outside the box that they’d make people’s hair stand on end, you’ll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that people call innovative.”
I posted a link to my Stairway to Heaven Backwards page and got what I consider to be a pretty uninformed comment from someone by the nick “steal my handle”.
Here is what he/she has to say:
“too bad thats fake if you listen to the song backwards it dosent really say that, this guy just chopped up syllables to make it say that! and the beat wouldnt sound like that either! and why do you think he has it in flash? so you cant download it and reverse it!”
The fact of the matter is that I really did download Stairway to Heaven, then found the particular section of the song shown on the page, reversed it and got the reverse message as you hear it. I left the instructions right on the page explaining how to do it, but just remember if you are to do this yourself, don’t use the live version because I originally tried it with the live version and it didn’t work. I’ve been thinking that maybe I should put up an MP3 of the short forward clip so that people can test it for themselves. But not right now because the car is running (it’s -35 out and I’m keeping it warm) and we are off to a party.
In an effort to educate the masses via easily drawn stick figures my friend Gavin has put together a quick step-by-step explanation of how indie films are made. New Media students and Drama geeks alike — take note.
Brazillians are now finger printed, photographed, and are required to have travel visas to enter the United States. In a move to try and show the US how obtuse they have become Brazil is reciprocating.
In October of last year first lady of the United States of America, Laura Bush, related at a national book Festival Gala that her husband “Miserable Failure” George W. had written her the following poem.
Dear Laura,
Roses are red,
violets are blue
oh my lump in the bed,
how I’ve missed you.
Roses are redder,
bluer am I
seeing you kissed
by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat
they miss you too,
Barney’s still mad you dropped him,
he ate your shoe.
The distance my dear
has been such a barrier,
next time you want an adventure,
just land on a carrier.
Despite the fact that this poem seems like something of caliber that George W. Bush might actually be capable of, it turns out that in fact — he did not write it. The following is an excerpt from NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS’s interview of Laura Bush by journalist Tim Russert.
MR. RUSSERT: Now, who could have written that poem, huh? I mean, what…
MRS. BUSH: Well, of course, he didn’t really write the poem. But a lot of people really believed that he did. That evening at the dinner, what some woman from across the table said: “You just don’t know how great it is to have a husband who would write a poem for you.”
MR. RUSSERT: Lump in the bed? What…
MRS. BUSH: Well, he did really call me that, of course, but…
MR. RUSSERT: Land on a carrier and you paid him back a little bit, huh?
MRS. BUSH: Yeah.
It’s not exactly like lying to congress and / or starting a war, and this is the first lady we are talking about here, not the President, but it stills makes me ponder — why the lie?