The Internet is a strange place, full of everything and nothing, like an image of the tombstone of my first friend to die:
Aislinn was a friend of mine from high school. She was brilliant but never applied herself, not seeing the value of high school. She was insanely smart, articulate, funny, but would sabotage herself by coming to school high and so on. She never even took the SATs, as I recall.
When I was in college, she sort of snapped herself out of it — everyone else going off to college has that effect on a lot of folks — and proudly told me in the fall of 1989 that she was attending community college classes at Northern Virginia Community College and was planning on transfering to James Madison University for the next school year.
A week or two before Virginia Tech’s 1990 spring break, she collapsed in her parents’ kitchen, spilling milk all over the floor. It turned out she had a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball. She kept up a good attitude, and rediscovered her Catholicism in a big way.
She died that fall. Because I was always moving to a new place each year (sometimes each semester), and it was in the days before cell phones and e-mail addresses, our mutual friends couldn’t find me and tell me, I didn’t hear she had died until the spring of 1991. I remember breaking down in a movie theater when Macaulay Culkin got stung to death by bees; I hadn’t had any real release prior to then, and became a basket case in the theater. (The film was no great loss, as I recall. Slim pickings in Blacksburg back then.)
When Aislinn turned 18 following our high school graduation, I brought her multiple grocery store flower bouquets merged into one as my gift. The normally tough Aislinn sort of freaked out at this: Somehow, she had managed to go 18 years without flowers.
I like to think that, if she was alive today, Aislinn would be Queen of the World by now.
And in a completely different mode, here’s a picture of a friend of mine from high school/college, Wendy Wickham, holding up a fish:
Everything and nothing, see?
Inexplicably, Wired doesn’t have the links to the plug-ins in the article, but they still have a new list of the best Firefox plug-ins.
I’m always amazed that people don’t customize Firefox more, since it’s so easy and so powerful. Forget how complicated it is to futz with Windows or other programs, Firefox just requires clicking on a button or two and you’re off and running.
Even though I think it’s great, the latest episode of This Week in Tech attacked the new revamp of the Wall Street Journal.
John Dvorak’s prescription for the industry: “A newspaper is supposed to be about news. It’s not supposed to be about features, these long-winded features about hemlines or something that’s got nothing to do with anything. … If you’re going to bore the public to death with the product and wonder why the circulation is down, look within.”
But apparently not to your hemline.
In related news, all of the Freedom Communication papers are going to be getting new Web sites in the next few months (so yes, this means a new, new Daily Press Web site). I’m not quite sure what the end result will be, but it sounds like the new Hesperia Star site will be of a destination site than it is currently, which is all to the good. First up will be a big Web-only feature about Hesperia hemlines.
I don’t know if it’s true, but Wired makes a convincing case:
The new contract clears the way for Jobs to sell iPods loaded with music.
Who cares?
Well, the iPod could become the new CD, especially if Apple starts offering cheap shuffle iPods pre-loaded with hot new albums or artists’ catalogs. Imagine a whole range of inexpensive, special-edition iPods branded with popular bands containing a new album, or their whole catalogs.
Flash-memory drives are now so cheap, software companies are starting to use them to ship software. H&R Block, for example, is selling the latest version of its tax-preparation software on a flash drive for $40 — the same price as the CD version. How much would it cost Apple to add a few music chips and some cheap earbuds?
Apple was prevented from doing this until now by the 15-year-old contract between Apple Corps, the Beatles’ music company, and Apple Computer. This contract precluded Jobs’ Apple from acting as a music company and from selling CDs or “physical media delivering prerecorded content … (such as a compact disc of the Rolling Stones’ music).”
These cheap album iPods could be sold at bus stations and airports: instant music, no computer required. Bands could sell pre-loaded iPods at concerts, maybe containing the concert they just played. There could be Broadway show iPods, movie soundtrack iPods and iPods burned at retail stores with custom play lists.
I heard this new song on Today’s Top Tune (and honestly, if you’re reading this and not also listening to podcasts, come on, already!). It’s off Cat Empire’s new album, Two Shoes
.
The song straddles the border between “so annoying it’s catchy” and “so catchy it’s annoying,” but I suspect it’ll end up being the former, not the latter, for most people. A great peppy little tune.
Check it out on KCRW ASAP (they take down the Today’s Top Tune songs after a week or so) or on iTunes.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, I’m not getting this damn song out of my head for months, I can tell already:
The weekend is the weekend
And it’s sunny in the park
I’ll stay here with my beer and fish and chips till it gets dark
I’ve got a lot of homework
But homework he can wait
I never start my homework till its already too late
My parents say think about your future and my teachers say the same
But it’s hard
When there’s a basketball game at the park
It’s 1998
And everybody’s saying:
“Harry, you’re gunna be a lawyer some day…�
It’s Monday bloody Monday
And there’s two things I forgot
I forgot to do my homework
And I only got one sock
I’m halfway through a test
But I just can’t concentrate
While sitting next to Fontaine
I want to ask her on a date
I really want to start a conversation
But each time she walks past
I start choking on my pencil
And fall flat on my ass
I need to concentrate
If i dont get this grade
Then I might fail to be a lawyer someday
BRIDGE
But just right now
Can’t think of anything better to do
Than just sit down at the piano and a write this tune
And maybe later
Maybe later in the afternoon
I’ll sit back and relax
And think of all the things I’m going to do…
CHORUS
Someday…
I’ll buy an old car
Someday…
I’ll get that car to start
Someday…
I’ll learn how to drive too
And then Someday…
Imagine all the things I could do.
(That was 1998 now
Bring it forward to the present day now
Cause some things have changed
but some things [some things]
don’t change [don’t change]
check it out [check it out])
The weekend is the weekend
And it’s sunny in the park
I’ll stay here with my beer and fish ‘n’ chips till it gets dark
I just saw Peter Parsons
Who used to be in my class
I always gave him wedgies cause I thought he worked too hard
He said, “Harry, life is great –
I feel so happy these days –
I’m a litigation lawyer –
So I got it made
I’m going out with Fontaine
Rememer her from tenth grade?
I drive a Porsche so I can’t complain…�
BRIDGE
sh**! And look at me can’t think of anything better to do
That just sit down at the piano and write this tune
And maybe later
Maybe later in the afternoon
I’ll sit back and relax and think of all the things I’m going to do…
CHORUS
(BREAK)
BRIDGE
CHORUS
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