Free Stuff on my Birthday

Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’ll be turning old. The big 2-5. The last official milestone, a drop in the car insurance and the ability to rent a car without paying outrageous fees.

Actually it’s not that big of a deal. But since I’m self employed and set my own schedule, I’m finding myself thinking of all the free stuff available on your birthday. Where can I go to get the best free stuff on my birthday? I think places like Chili’s and TGI Fridays give you free dessert, but you have to endure that damn singing. I don’t know if it’s worth that.

Meet Joe Blog

In what will surely be a much-maligned and often-linked article, Time reports on the blogging craze. The piece gives a good overview and history of blogging, though it does give the impression that amateur blogs are replacing professional news outlets, which is hardly the case. Most blogs have more of a mutualistic, if not parasitic, relationship with pro news outlets, and rarely do blog readers get their news solely from blogs.

The Craigslist Introvert

The man behind the web phenomenon Craigslist is 51-year-old introvert Craig Newmark. His network of local portals offering personal ads, job listings, and other local-interest lists in 45 major cities worldwide is in the top 20 of U.S. portals, putting it with the likes of Yahoo!, MSN and AOL.

The shy celeb can’t write a personal ad (much less navigate that awkward social scene), but still puts a lot of stock in connecting people: “My feeling is that something connecting people to fix the world over time is the deepest spiritual value you can have.”

Free Romantica Show @ the Fine Line

Romantica - It's Your Weakness That I WantTwin Cities alt-rock band Romantica will be playing at the Fine Line tonight. You can get free tickets (PDF) through their web site. They’re an up-and-coming band worth checking out. I’ve thought so since following two-thirds of the band around to dumpy coffee houses in college.

Their new album, It’s Your Weakness That I Want, is tight and catchy, and sounds exceptional, especially for a local band’s debut recording. The only time I saw them live was worth the second-hand smoke, and the set included a few tracks that didn’t make the CD and should have.

Once Upon a Millionaire

Amazonia by James MarcusStock options from Amazon.com make an editor filthy rich and the Internet bust makes him penniless again. Amazonia is the story of book reviewer James Marcus, who became the 55th employee at Amazon, hired to work on content. While there have been other inside tales about Amazon (Amazon.com: Get Big Fast, 21 Dog Years), you won’t find many written by a lowly once-millionaire editor. Read a review and excerpt (requires subscription or watching a short commercial) from salon.com.

New Duds

You may notice a new look around the blog. I’m trying something a bit different, hopefully making things fit in a bit more with my main blog.

You’ll also notice that those lovely snapshot images at the top are changing now. My long-term vision has finally been realized, thanks to the techno wiz that is Josh Lewis!. Hopefully I can add some more of those images as the days go on. If you like the images you can either keep hitting reload to see more, or just go look at the fancy new art page.

As a minor consequence to all my fiddling, all my pages are now php files instead of html. To most of you that means nothing, but basically you might experience some funkiness when I link to past entries in this blog. I’ve fixed all the entries in 2004, but stuff farther back isn’t fixed. You should still get to the file, but it won’t have all the new glory of those little black and white snapshots loading at random. And I’ll eventually delete those old html files.

Changing Blogging Habits

I’ve been thinking about changing how I blog. These Thoughts have been a random mess of all sorts of junk, from creative writing exercises to random diatribes to links, quotes, and interesting news tidbits. While that’s been all well and good, it’s certainly gotten away from my original intent. It’s not like that’s a big deal, this is a morphing, changing thing, and I like it that way. I’m just contemplating another morph.

In the last few days I’ve toyed with posting a few different things on my main Monkey Outta Nowhere blog that I normally wouldn’t blog about or would post here. It’s more the links, quotes, news, and kind of throw away, pop culture type stuff. I think it’ll be a nice way to keep my Monkey Outta Nowhere blog updated with stuff that showcases some of my writing. After all, Monkey Outta Nowhere income doesn’t exactly come from my diatribes, creative writing, and other such stuff.

And it’s a shorter url.

So looking back on what I’ve blogged about lately, some stuff would show up on Monkey Outta Nowhere (like this, this, this, and this). Most of the other personal junk would stay here. Which has the potential for making this blog really boring. Then again, maybe that’s what some of you like. Those that do can find that here. Those that like the other stuff can head over to Monkey Outta Nowhere. Update your bookmarks accordingly. I’m feeding each blog to the other in the sidebar, so you can certainly stay up to snuff that way.

It’s all more exciting experiments for my world of blogging. We’ll see how long it lasts. Though I have to say, I love doing stuff like this. I hope to do more of this on the Monkey blog.

Misplaced Music

Misplaced Music - An Internet Radio Station featuring Local Twin Cities Music.A new local music co-op is starting in the Twin Cities, Misplaced Music. They have their own Internet radio station playing local music 24-7. It’s all over the place stylistically, but most everything I’ve heard is quality. They happily invite local musicans to submit music for the radio and consider joining the co-op.

Misplaced Music is planning a fundraiser concert Saturday, June 19 at the Uptown Bar, featuring music from Romantica, Coach Said Not To, and others.

You Just Don’t Cover U2

Dan Spencer, trombone player for the O.C. Supertones.The other day I interviewed Dan Spencer, trombone player for the O.C. Supertones, for an upcoming article (Spencer mentioned that half the band now lives in Nashville, prompting me to wonder if the band should be called the D.C. Supertones for Davidson County). Their seventh album, Revenge of the OC Supertones comes out on June 15. After Spencer mentioned U2, I asked if the Supertones were given a chance to take part in the In the Name of Love U2 tribute album, which song they’d cover. This was his commendable response:

“You just don’t cover U2. Unless you’re somebody like Johnny Cash, you just don’t do it. Even if we were offered a lot of money we wouldn’t do it, it’s just against our philosophy. I applaud the guys who can, I just think we’d butcher it. There are just some bands you don’t cover. You don’t cover the Beatles, you don’t do U2, you don’t do Bob Dylan. There are some guys that are untouchable.”

Yet the butchering does happen. Before details of the In the Name of Love album emerged, I pondered what CCM bands I’d like to see cover what U2 songs. Sadly, no one listened to me.

Media Frenzy Threatens Shark Victim

Bethany HamiltonA tiger shark chomped off 13-year-old Bethany Hamilton’s left arm while she surfed the waters of Kauai, Hawaii on October 31, 2003. But the media frenzy has been just as intense. Now her family struggles with the interviews, the book deals, and the TV offers — all the trappings of 15 minutes of fame.

But as other death-defying hero stories play the media circuit and bow out, Hamilton continues to draw attention, even though she’d rather surf. She calls the one-and-half-inch stump on her left side “Stumpy,” and she doesn’t like to wear her prosthetic arm. She has wise words about courage (“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.” Guideposts for Teens, June/July 2004) and isn’t going to let something like a missing arm slow her down (“I know not everyone believes in a guiding hand. Sometimes it’s really hard to see — like when things aren’t going your way. But this was God’s plan for my life, and I’m going to go with it.”).