December 2007 Archives
Last night after getting back to Chicago from the suburbs, I was checking my internets and I noticed a little change on a site I wouldn't always frequent via the web: FriendFeed. By the very nature in which this site rules, I only check via RSS. Usually.
Except last night where there was no FriendFeed in existence. It was FestivusFeed that took over for the holiday shift, complete with a new logo and a spot to air some grievances to those that may have wronged you during the year. Get the joke? Good. If not, please watch more Seinfeld reruns and search Wikipedia...
Very clever, guys.
I'm a huge fan of web easter eggs, namely because I'm not the type of guy that's ever been too clever in the "i'm clever" department. I'm always amazed by the mix of creativity and sheer mechanical genius that some of these web app developers possess. It's truly an art form. Again, kudos.
Hugo, my Dad's dog...
Today is a special day for many and one that's best spent in the comfort of your home with family. And your pets. And maybe at the skatepark for a little bit with your brother...that, too.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Have a killer holiday and make sure you make some quality time for yourself lest you go a little stir crazy. I know I will be.
Lost: Season 4 is about to make its triumphant return with only eight episodes finished before the writers went on strike. The trailer for the new season is 100% awesome.
LOST Season 4 - NEW official extended trailer!
Lost is a show that just amazed me from the first episode, and everyone I know who revisits that episode is blown away by the sheer force of a Pilot that was ambitious to say the least -- it was two hours of prime time, a full hour and a half longer than most people are used to when consuming chunks of TV time. Some friends and I used to have Lost parties where we'd get half-drunk, talk theories, and then proceed to get blown away but another episode featuring another curve ball with a plot line that we're never sure will go anywhere. The plots are created and never closed and I think the audience is supposed to keep questioning what they "thought" they knew from the previous season -- I think that's the point of the show at large. And I think that's what they've been hugely successful at. The back stories are rich. The foreshadowing is huge and so evident when you review episodes you've seen already. And they continue to switch the direction of the show on a dime and I can't wait for a new season full of curve balls and weird theories on the internets. (via Buzzfeed)
You know, I'm a pretty fortunate blogger given my relative career path lately. When I joined FeedBurner, I actually began working on their ad network and hardly ever really got involved on anything on the publisher side of the house (even though I tried to speak up whenever applicable on something I felt I was invested in). Because of this, I feel I have a nice understanding of the inner workings of an advertising network and the business model that spurs the creation of the network in the first place. I still have tons to learn but I'm beginning to feel fairly well-rounded in the online publishing space.
And thanks to Live Music Blog, I've gained some traction with understanding how many other ad networks work, including Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, Blogads, and then of course FeedBurner. I knew the consumer-facing side of these products once I got a chance to test the waters -- always invite-only to help quality control the content within the network -- and I've come to enjoy being subjected to their eccentricities, their processes, their ad styles, etc. I'll probably start assigning more science to this once I start focusing on LMB again, but until then, I just take the "no ad network is better than the next approach," and choose to run ads from different providers in different spaces. Granted, my new employer might disagree with that approach and I'll have to work on figuring that part out going forward. That's something for the "Someday/Maybe" to-do list.
Anyway, I happen to be a fan of what Blogads has created specifically, because by and large they've been the largest provider of ad revenue to LMB so far. They created their own ad unit that doesn't conform to any Interactive Advertising Bureau ad units, so I like that they march to their own drummer on that. Their system is downright disgusting looking but it seems to function exactly as I need it to. They did a killer job of networking publishers together early on to help the packaged properties look valuable to advertisers, an approach that all networks take but they really exposed early on.
But they still make mistakes. Or maybe not.
Yesterday I approved another ad that came my way for Jameson Irish Whiskey -- not a bad brand, I might add -- and I noticed that it looked familiar to an ad I'm already running on the site. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but it looks like the advertiser is now doubling up on the placement. They literally want to show their ad twice in a column. It kind of reminds me of the doubling up of TV commercials that you see sometimes, which I'm told is a strategy and not usually something that occurs by accident.
Sometimes I take advertising too seriously and I get all ragey about the fact that our brains are bombarded with countless amounts of information causing a lot of extra noise in all of our lives, and sometimes I can rise above all of that. Sometimes advertising can be appreciated or half-heartedly mocked, and that's cool, too. I want to try to highlight both a little better on this site, considering I do live and breathe this every day.
I'm going to start playing with Tumblr a bit more to test the hype. And with that...
Introducing...Wardo Mini.
I'll try to keep a lot of the media there and get to some more thoughtful, insightful posting on this here blog. It should serve a little more professional considering it bears my name, and it is fun to have a stream-of-consciousness blog where I post stuff that I find around the internet. It'll mostly be YouTube stuff until I start frequenting some other sites and broadening my horizons, but check it out if you're interested in keeping up with me on some stuff.
It's really no secret for those reading this blog or my music blog that I'm a fan of music outside of the mainstream, major label sort of medium. I tend to like music that is hard to enjoy at first listen. I listen to something and think, "huh?!?" and if it's enough to intrigue me, that makes me enjoy it at first listen; it's weird how that works actually...
I can think of countless bands I immediately passed over at first listen that I eventually came back to and really, really, really enjoyed once I just sat down and listened to their music: Phish, Tortoise, Menomena, Bjork, Umphrey's McGee, etc. The list could go on if I felt like sitting here and thinking through my entire iTunes catalog...
Another band that I know I consciously passed on was Animal Collective.
While down in Arizona with my brother, he put on their latest album and said, "you ever listen to Animal Collective?" I gave some half-hearted answer like, "Yeah I've heard a little bit but I've never gotten fully into them." This, by the way, is the response I usually give to anyone talking to me about music I don't know much about. Call it my hipster defense mechanism.
As an aside -- I fucking love that question template, "you ever listen to XXX?". Regardless of how big a music nerd you claim to be, that question almost always leads to a new musical discovery courtesy of hearing it from someone you know.
At any rate, I should reiterate to protect my credibility -- I'd heard a lot about but never really gave them a proper chance. It's really good stuff although I'd definitely say it's hard to digest. It's mostly electronica but it's not really dance music, and it's sort of folky and etheral without any semblance for standard song structures and timing. Their live show, from what I've heard and never seen myself, is pretty amazing and innovative (sounding). These live videos from a set they did at the Midi Festival are incredible.
Lately I've been at a loss for words on this site, as you may have already noticed. I'm sure it's mostly related to the fact that I'm in the midst of a very interesting time of my life. It's been a tough year for me front-to-back, and one that those close to me are aware of and helping me through as best they can. For that I'm grateful.
However, sometimes I worry that I'm one to find myself in a situation I might not find satisfactory, and as a result, I can be a hard guy to be around sometimes. I'm a glass-half-empty sort of personality and I always have been. It's a shame to me quite a bit. I think this has caused a lot of my relationships in life to become strained. I can be a very negative person and I think that's a tough characteristic to enjoy being around. Socially it's awkward, and it's enough to inspire an entire Saturday Night Live character -- Debbie Downer -- out of the concept.
What you'd come to find out if you knew me well is that I employ these same tactics I show externally on my own internal thought process, accomplishments, goals, dreams, aspirations, and basically every aspect of my own personal life. I'm super hard on myself and never really let myself experience the fruit of my labors, which in my brain is some day in the future where I finally can sit back and take a deep breath and say "ahhh," and of course, I know that day will never truly exist unless I choose to make that day become a reality.
Professionally, I think this trait has usually worked in my favor because I can prove to be a person that can work my ass off when the duty calls for it. Knowledge work is boundless, so it can be hard to put it down sometimes and I have a hard time satisfying myself. That, along with some rampant pessimism has worked for me for a while. At work, I can also poke holes in a plan early if it's a bad idea by suggesting a better idea. I have a knack for auditing, for finding the small bug, for locating that hole in the data that causes a query to bomb out, etc. In that regard it's been very good to me, also.
Which is where I'm at now. I'm becoming a bit more self-aware of my strengths and weaknesses (and frustrations) and now I'm trying to parlay all of that -- my mind/skillset, if you will -- into a meaningful life and career. And I'm finding it's quite difficult to step outside of my day to day to find some clarity on that. Trying to find the proper balance between being someone that person that's finding continued strength in something I know I'm good at -- being negative -- and someone who's looking for bigger challenges and rewards out of life and career...
I think trying to offer up less of my initial pessimism is a worthy challenge and might be one that help me find new rewards out of life not previously explored. A very good theory for me but probably not too realistic, but then again, that is just my pessimism talking again.
At any rate, all I'm trying to say is that I'm trying to be a more positive person and work on bringing a better, more positively contagious perspective to life. I forgot how good that feels and I know it's still there for me, but I think lost sight of it for quite a while. In fact, I think I'll struggle to keep in touch and close with it for the rest of my life. For some reason I think you can teach an old dog new tricks, despite the phrase that implies you cannot. I'm sure you can do it, but it probably just takes a long time.
But then again...somewhere, something -- deep down -- is telling me that everything I know is usually wrong. It's a little omnipresent voice that says, "you probably can't trust that person," "you can't believe that marketing message," "don't assume that those in charge are EVER correct because we know that more often they are not," and "trust the hell out of someone like Henry Rollins because he stands up for himself against those that think they know a lot," -- and man do I fucking love that voice of mine. It's kept me out of so much trouble and hurt and pain and wasted time and effort that I couldn't even come close to quantifying it.
Still, I know that this is a very negative, untrusting, and otherwise unproductive example I'm setting and I hope to avoid it going forward. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm here to face it and just run with it.
And it helps to know that there are others out there that are just like me in ways. I read a post on Khoi Vinh's blog, Subtraction, that literally just jumped right out of the screen, kicked my ass a little bit, and helped me feel better at the same time. Like a scene out of Fight Club or something. I'm only going to grab a snippet or two and you should really read the whole thing...
I don’t allow myself to enjoy whatever success I’ve attained; I’m forever re-assessing my status or beating myself up for not yet having reached some higher, better plateau that seems to lie perpetually just beyond my grasp. I don’t let up on myself.
And...
This isn’t bragging, nor is it career advice. It’s a strategy that got me where I am today, but it’s exacted its own kind of price. As much as I try, and as intent as I am on reshaping my behavior, I have a difficult time appreciating what’s good about my life. And this careerist sensibility bleeds over into my personal arena, too.
Yeah that pretty much sums it up for me. Time to face the music for both of us, I guess...
Portishead @ ATP 2007 [YouTube]
Portishead was always one of those bands that I never really got into but I always enjoyed what I heard if/when I found myself in a situation where their music was playing. I've seen some cool stuff from their back catalog, including a fantastic DVD from a special show they did in New York City (Live: Roseland NYC is the title).
I'm pretty sure they're coming out with a new album soon and they've debuted a few new tunes incuding the cool one shown above. There's another one here. Check 'em out.
I got an email the other day on an interesting idea that I thought I'd plug briefly. It was from Jared Schwartz, co-creator of a site called Audio Exposure. It's a site dedicated to raising money for Critical Exposure, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit that teaches students to use photography as a medium to express the need for social reform.
From the website:
Your love of music can make a difference! Add your favorite songs to the mix tape and help a cool charity in the process!For every song added, we will donate $1 to Critical Exposure, which teaches students to use the power of documentary photography to advocate for school reform and social change.
Add a song daily. Spread the word. Thanks, Jared & Stacey
I thought this was an interesting approach that got people interested in helping a good cause just by spreading free mp3 downloads around. Very cool.
The folks at Nintendo are really thinking this Wii thing to the next level of gaming, regardless of whether or not you think you're into that sort of thing. I've asked myself countless time why I can't have some sort of controller that resembles the old Duck Hunt shooter from the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Now I don't have to worry about that anymore. I can finally focus on this world hunger thing...
I've always been a fan of the "one" house in everyone's neighborhood that takes Christmas decorating to the next level. Seemingly, the owner of the home saw Christmas Vacation at a time where they were most impressionable, and they swore to themselves that their own house would rival that of Clark Griswald's. There's usually one of these in every square mile of habitation on the United States -- something tells me this isn't as popular in Europe or Asia -- and I always seek them out to gawk, photograph, and generally just take in the fact that this home is now a tourist destination for the next 30 days. Fun.
