R0x0r j0ur b0x0rz – Updated

I know I’ve already talked about the iTunes Music Store, but some things have been happening lately and I want to point them out. This is extremely exciting.

Ladies and gentlemen, the stars are aligning. I’m not sure if there’s something in my musician’s genes, or what it might be, but I can feel something big happening here. Big like, “change the face of popular music as we know it forever,” big. First off, it’s almost unquestionable that the other non-iTunes download services (subscriptions?) are pretty much laughable. They have a few more songs than the iTunes Music Store (maybe for the next few months), but you can’t actually do anything with the music. You want to stream the music over the ‘Net? Okay, that’ll cost $9.99 per month. You want to download it? Well, if we let you, that might cost extra. Burn it to CD you say? How about another $0.80 for each track? Put it onto your MP3 player? Not a chance, especially not if it’s the best selling MP3 player in the world.

My first question is this: Why would anyone use a service like that? If you really love music, you’re not going to let someone else tell you that you can’t do perfectly legal things with it. And I’m not talking about obscure things, I’m talking basic digital music stuff. I want to burn a CD. That’s basic. But these services treat me like I’m a criminal, and they’re giving me my “outdoors time” for the day before they lock me back in my cell.

Note to other music services: Your days are numbered.

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Kibbles ‘n Bits

I seem to have caught some kind of disease where I’m only able to write one paragraph about any particular topic. Henceforth, this will be the last time I make mention of my disease until I am cured of it.

Good day to you, Chatty Cathies! It’s so great to see everyone participating in the Peanut Gallery and enjoying themselves on the site. That’s what I’m doing this for, really. The most interesting part is how many visitors I have that never make comment. More than I would have thought. (I see you, Bozeman, MT!) I’ve even got the beginnings of an international community started here. The second most popular country from which to read my blog is apparently Australia (Hi Kami and Andrew!), followed by the United Arab Emirates (huh?). Brazil and Mexico are next, obviously due to the absolutely gargantuan amount of Latino-centric content on the site. And Taiwan comes in just after something called "old style Arpanet" whatever the heck that is. Upgrade, people!

Stephanie (Queen of Scrabble) and I had a fine morning today, if by "fine" I mean "active", which in this case I believe I do. We walked several blocks to some outdoor tennis courts, during which travel I repeatedly asked Stephanie why God gave us cars if he wanted us to walk. Upon arriving, we played a game much like tennis, but with more running, and much less volleying. And also much less racket-to-ball contact. Actually, it reminded me a lot of another game, commonly called "fetch." When we came home we went for a dip in the pool, played with diving rings, and pulled each other around the pool by the ankles. I think I even got a bit of a tan! Will wonders never cease? I must say, a bald head may be interesting by itself, but a tan bald head is quite a thing to behold.

I discovered something truly amazing last weekend, and I would be far too greedy if I didn’t share. The geeks in the audience have already heard of MegaTokyo, but I imagine almost everyone else out there hasn’t so I’m introducing you today. Give that link a little clickeroo and read it from front to back. It’s pretty fun. I’ve always enjoyed anime, but I like this particular brand especially. From what I’ve found, people with no experience in the world of anime seem to expect the content to be of the X-rated or R-rated nature, but I assure you MegaTokyo is no more than PG-13 at most. One warning though: It won’t make sense if you don’t start from the beginning. So if you just begin by reading the latest strip, well, there’s no way you’ll enjoy it. I believe there are currently 434 strips in the series. I read all of them last weekend. I wholeheartedly encourage such a venture on your part!

With reviews of Pirates of the Caribbean

popping
up
all
over
the
‘Net

, I can’t resist adding my own. Steph and I saw the flick two nights ago, and both of us thoroughly enjoyed it. I went in expecting another half-hearted Hollywood dung heap, but left wondering why I never fully realized the talent of Johnny Depp. For those of you who’ve seen the film, let me make an even more powerful example of Depp’s talent: Johnny Depp is 40 years old. Now you fully understand. For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, the reviews I linked so tightly a few sentences ago may give you some idea of whether this film is for you or not. From my perspective, this film reminded me quite a bit of The Princess Bride. No, it wasn’t quite that good, but it approached it at points. Romance, comedy, escape scenes, swordplay, witty dialogue, witty dialogue during swordplay. Crazy characters. You get the idea. If you see it, I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and just a word to the wise, think twice before you laugh at someone else’s drawing in a game of Pictionary.

Bad things could happen.

(Hmmm… that was two paragraphs… maybe my disease is in remission?)

Surprising?!?

Well well, lookee here! Surprising?!? I was so surprised by that article that I sat down and wrote this heartfelt letter:

Dear Associated Press,

You suck.

Sincerely,
Josh Lewis

Surprise, everyone! Gamers aren’t hole-dwelling, life-hating misanthropes! Stop the presses! How could we have ever known without that wonderful study? Pardon my strong words here, people, but honestly, are gamers truly that misunderstood? Do we need studies to tell us that video gamers aren’t going to crawl in through our windows and attempt to drink our blood while we sleep? Obviously since I’m part of that demographic I’m a little touchier about it, but I’m surprised this issue came up in the first place.

Charlie’s iTunes

The preliminary reports I’m hearing suggest that the new audio blog format is more portable across platforms than the first one I tried, but I’m still getting results in from people who actually have access to Windows. If you can’t hear my blogs, the best things to do are, 1) Try a different browser, and 2) download QuickTime. It’s free, it’s a one-time download and it’ll provide you with tons of internet content besides this blog. You won’t be sorry!

Link #1: Screen It : Charlie’s Angel’s
Link #2: ReAL Thoughts by Kevin Hendricks

Rock Around the Clock

I found a nifty little program called phptunest that lets you run a PHP script to turn the XML file in your iTunes library into a webpage. Here’s mine. I’ve got it organized by Play Count, so the artists I listen to the most are at the top of the list, and as you scroll down they become less and less listened to. There are a few artists that I actually have listened to, but show a zero because I listened to them on another computer. There are also a few cases where I just loaded a CD in recently and haven’t listened to much of it yet, so it’s at the bottom with zero plays even though it might be really good.

One thing I’ve noticed about people and MP3 playlists is that guys are usually really proud of how many songs they’ve got in their playlist. Two thousand. Five thousand. Twenty thousand. I only have just over eleven-hundred, and frankly that’s fine by me. As you can see from the stat at the top of the page, I’m just barely fitting inside my original 5 GB iPod right now with all that music, so I suppose I would be too cramped to add much more until I can afford to get a bigger one.

Does anyone like the same artists I do? I highly recommend everyone at the top there. 🙂

Bruce Almighty

Steph and I went to see Bruce Almighty tonight. Going in, I figured the film had tremendous offensive potential for a Christian, or even a “religious” person, whatever that is. But with the exception of a few short scenes I was wrong. They actually avoided offending me entirely, outside of one sexual scene.

The way they portray God is interesting. He is benevolent and wise. God is intimately connected to each individual human. He cares about us. Wants relationships with us. Wants us to pray. Won’t force us to love Him, but wants us to. Some of the things they portrayed might cause real thinking theologians to shift in their seat (the assumption of free will, for instance) but it certainly wasn’t a massacre of God’s character by any means.

I think the thing that boosted it for me was one scene where Bruce uses his powers to humiliate someone, and it’s really well done if you’re in a wacky mood. Overall, I give it a 70% (50% meaning it was exactly average, and 100% meaning it was the best movie I’ve ever seen) and Steph gives it a 55%.