Billboard has willingly made itself entirely irrelevant

December 17th, 2009 • chatter
Tags: economics, music

I’m going to choose to use the National Post’s exact headline runner for this, because of the sheer absurdity:

Nickelback: ‘Band of the decade’, according to Billboard

Yes, they deemed Nickelback as the band of the decade based on one analysis point alone: sales. And they somewhere throw in and derive “importance”. Who are they important to besides their record company? I have exactly one friend that actually likes Nickelback, basically on the same premise why everyone else dislikes them: they suck. I don’t know about you but I’ve found their last 5 or 6 singles to sound exactly the same — musically, they are — and that’s what is making them money. I’m glad they found a formula to keep the cash rolling in and they have no need to innovate or progress in their music. Frankly, take their first album and compare it to their latest album, you’ll hear that it’s basically the same album, rearranged differently and with different lyrics. Instead of writing songs that might be insightful to someone at some point, they’ve simply delved into writing radio songs about sex. Only sex.

I love this quote from the NP article:

“We’ve just accepted that we’re never going to be the critics’ darlings, and we’re OK with that,” frontman Chad Kroeger told Billboard in 2007.

He’s OK with it because his label is shipping them off for tours around the world and bankrolling them. The subtext of this is pretty simple: they’re completely content with being lowballed by critics and other reviewers (who help to get their music sold) because they’re making money. Truck loads of it. Kroeger knows economics well.

I find the comments equally funny because it shows just how many people, myself duly included, despise such a terrible band. However, I find it even more sad that Billboard would actually come out and say this even though I understand completely what their own metrics models are based on: sales. Although, Billboard is also used to trend popularity and where the market is going, musically. They have a hue bevy of data at their disposal about this stuff and they chose to home in on a single vector. Why? I have no idea, but I’m sure it was done in good intentions although, they did not think about what they were doing to their own reputation in the process.

Long way up, long way down – Photo of the Day #14

December 15th, 2009 • photography
Tags: guinness, photo of the day, photography

My girlfriend on one of the ultra long escalators in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland. I believe the length of the walk-on and walk-off portions was about four feet, compared to the normal one foot of room you get when stepping onto one of these things.

Westboro Baptist invades South Florida

December 14th, 2009 • christianity, intolerance
Tags: hatred

The infamous Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, known nationwide for its religion of hate and extreme intolerance, has sent some of its acolytes to Palm Beach County to protest. What are they protesting against? Well, besides hating homosexuals which is their usual M.O., they’ve brought out copious signage to incite hate against our huge Jewish population down here. Outside of New York and Israel, south Florida has the highest population of Jews in the world, so what better place to hate them than in their own backyards? Besides being here to spread hate, I have absolutely what other reason they’d be here for but they’ve got a new gag they’ve brought with them: trampling the American flag. As many of us know, defacing the American flag was a pretty big deal back in the Vietnam era, I personally have no experience with it but it was fairly heinous from what I’m told. In Florida, it is a public crime to desecrate the flag. So, one Hezekiah Phelps was interviewed on the CBS12 news while he was walking all over the flag, openly participating in the crime. The irony in this is the fact that he’s protesting against Jews with an obvious Jewish name. I guess shacking up with ol’ Fred Phelps removes the idea of irony from your memory.

I found it interesting that the Sun Sentinel was not able to interview any of these hate peddlers but CBS12 simply sent a camera crew up to West Palm Beach today and not only interviewed two of them but was able to video all of the protesters — all 6 of them. Seems the Sentinel didn’t think hate against two large portions of their readership would be important to cover.

The Westboro crazies are going to be at Spanish River High School tomorrow in Boca. I’m not sure what time they’re going to be there but I am going to attempt to get down there for some pictures of the insanity in action.

Meteors come and sometimes they glow

December 14th, 2009 • chatter, photography
Tags: photography

Last night was the Geminid Meteor Shower and I was lucky enough to see a few — two to be exact. However, my girlfriend, in the span of 10 minutes, saw nearly a dozen. I have no idea how I missed so many since I was standing in the middle of a field looking up, mostly. I admit that I was fairly busy snapping shots of the hanging fog and attempting something artsy. I did get some neat pictures but all of my sky-ward shots turned out terrible, I think it was due to the overall amount of ambient light around coupled with the hazy night. Everything is either too blue or too amber/red, despite having tweaked all of the white balance settings to get as much black as possible. I’ll see if my pictures from the shower tonight are a similar color, although I’m going to a different location entirely where there should be a lot less ambient light around.

Here’s one of the hanging fog pictures from last night since all my actual sky pictures turned out looking like absolute garbage

Resistance was almost futile – Photo of the Day #13

December 14th, 2009 • photography
Tags: jameson, photo of the day, photography

Barrels of Jameson Irish Whiskey. From bottom left to right: 1 year, 3 year, 5 year. From top left: 10 year, 15 year. There are different levels of whiskey due to alcohol evaporation, which causes about 1/5 of a barrel to evaporate every few years.

Come on in! – Photo of the Day #12

December 12th, 2009 • photography
Tags: jameson, photo of the day, photography

Entrance to the Old Jameson Distillery, Dublin, Ireland

The 1780 Bar – Photo of the Day #11

December 10th, 2009 • photography
Tags: d90, jameson, nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography

Lovely window applique at the Old Jameson Distillery, Dublin, Ireland

Holiday break, time for action

December 9th, 2009 • chatter, photography
Tags: d90, nikon, nikon d90, photography

Now that classes for me have officially ended as of yesterday, I can begin whittling away my free time in the next few weeks. I’ve got plans to redo my office and clean it top-to-bottom and get rid of some of the crap that’s accumulated in the last year. I can’t wait to get to this undertaking as it’s severely affecting my allergies along with my ability to work in my own space. Both of which are entirely my own fault. Maybe I should also hang some pictures that I’ve taken.

Along with pictures, I got a few new lenses recently that are from the mid 1960s and are pre-AI so they’re not working just right on my D90. I’ve got to get them sent off to be fixed up and I can tool around with them. One of the lenses, a Nikkor-s 35mm f/2.8, is fun to shoot with and I think it will prove interesting to use in a photo shoot — we’re trying to plan one or two for the remainder of the month. There’s a portraiture shoot/call this weekend but I’m not sure if we’re going to go; we also lack most of the equipment really needed to shoot portraits. Speedlights alone will not be enough lighting I think.

I really think it’s time for an employment change. I’m growing more fond of staying outside rather than sitting inside, working all day at a computer. I could be doing so many other things rather than slaving around, fixing email and hacked accounts. Plus, it’s not like I’m actually going anywhere at my current company and I’m certainly not moving to their shit hole office to get a raise or job advancement I may already be due since they simply dislike remote employees. Of course, the things I could be doing as a job don’t sound very financially feasible to my girlfriend, which stinks because they’re a lot more fun.

I’ve got to go find something temporarily fun to do, I can’t stare at this screen any more.

Taste test for strength! – Photo of the Day #10

December 8th, 2009 • photography
Tags: d90, guinness, nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography

One of the best parts of the whole Guinness Storehouse, the Tasting Lab! This is where you can get some of the freshest Guinness available to man, outside of an actual brewery.

Sage words from Rupert – Photo of the Day #9

December 6th, 2009 • photography
Tags: d90, guinness, nikon, nikon d90, photo of the day, photography

From Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, Ireland