I Gave MySpace A New Chance
I just realized I have a blog. I better write something – make it seem like I give a damn.
So, I figured it was about time to log in to MySpace, my account have been somewhat dormant since 2006. I have found a bunch of new artists/bands lately and I wanted to friend them — it’s amazing how fast all of the friend requests where accepted. Bang! Nice stuff. Then it all went to hell. The pic above says it all and the next one I’ll post underneath this illustrates what I was greeted with at their contact page when I tried to talk to them about my problems with their service (well it’s free so it’s not EXACTLY a service — but you get my point):
Wow. Now I wonder if it’s a common occurrence, does this happen all the time nowadays? As I said, it’s been ages since my last visit. How often does this happen and does this last long before it goes back to… working?
Facebook is working fine but I miss the music stuff over at MySpace.
UPDATE:
Alright, I managed to get a message through to the almighty MySpace ‘Technical Team’, it took a few tries. I explained what I had done on my part, flushing cookies and the cache in Firefox, Chrome and Safari. The response; Clear your cookies and cache and install the latest Adobe Flash Player. The version of Flash Player on my mac was about a week old, I went to Adobe and got the ultra latest release. It still didn’t work. I guess I’m at loss here, still waiting to hear from the guys at MySpace. I’ll get back to you, my dear readers, when there’s more to tell. I’m clearly not alone in this mess, people seem to go crazy all over the web about this (un)expected error…
Newscorp, owners of MySpace and Fox News — explains a lot, doesn’t it?
Goodbye 2009 Hello 2010
This post was actually in the making long before 2009 came to an end. How would I go about setting it up? The style and content was the issue — not if I would write it or not.
The picture above is nothing special, it’s kind of a crappy shot I took from my balcony a few hours ago. What IS special about it is that it’s the first pic in my 365 Project. Starting today I will upload one photo every damn day for the rest of the year. I’ve created a Flickr set and here’s a link. It’s a starting point for kicking the new year into gear.
I thought long and hard about making various Best Of-lists for this post summing up what I liked in the year 2009 but I grew tired of list just researching what other people wrote about. Best and worst, who would rule in 2010 and who people wanted to completely disappear from the face of the earth in the year that we now live in. All of a sudden ranking stuff seemed so trivial and — well, unnecessary.
I’m already losing track of this post, what will it be about? I feel I have to go Ad Lib on this one. 2009 wasn’t that bad, I’ve seen worse. Some bad stuff happened, no denying that. My awesome moped was stolen, I had surgery and spent a few days at the hospital and just before the end of the year I got word that I have to move out of my apartment, the landlord is renting it to his cousin.
Good stuff happened too though. I fell in love with woodworking, I got a Macbook and the iPhone3GS. I will write a post about my experiences with it sometime in the near future. I set up this new blog and I’ve been updating it fairly regularly since the start, proud of it too.
DJing is picking up, it’s a great way to spend time in a bar/club setting when you don’t drink — I have something to do, something to keep me occupied and not missing the joy of grabbing a cold beer. My friends are amazing, I love them all — mostly for their flaws.
I still get more out of good TV compared to movies. I’ve started to appreciate good, reliable shows a lot more during 2009. A few comes to mind, The Colbert Report, Better Off Ted, Beautiful People, Star Wars The Clone Wars, The Office (US), Mythbusters, Glee, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Torchwood, Two and a Half Men and especially BBC’s Top Gear. The show where three middle age men talk about cars have actually brought me to tears in 2009. Jeremy Clarkson contemplating the demise of ridiculously expensive muscle cars set to a beautiful score combined with breathtaking photography actually made me cry. Not a single movie brought me to tears last year but a show about cars did. I’m currently following around 20 to 25 different shows on TV, I love it.
Music. 2009 was a good year for music, really good actually. New artists and bands I’m happily bringing with me into this year are numerous. A few stand out in the crowd. White Lies, Donkeyboy, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Visitor, The Sound of Arrows, Bat for Lashes, Lake Heartbeat, Bombay Bicycle Club, Metronomy, Monarchy and my new favorite Marina and the Diamonds. 2009 was also the year I started to listen (sometimes almost exclusively) to electronic dance stuff or ‘blogelectro’, stuff like The Bloody Beetroots, Deadmau5 and Fukkk Offf. 2009 will, at least for me, be the year of the remix (and Marina and the Diamonds). Vid below is Bombay Bicycle Club – “Dust On The Ground”. They are a slightly happier version of Joy Division.
This post turned into a nice little summary of 2009. I’m going to keep on truckin’ and I hope you’ll be along for the ride.
Cheers.
Woodworking Project ‘Curvy’ Complete
I almost forgot to write an update on my latest woodworking project! I laid my finishing touches on it well over a week ago but I couldn’t write about it until today.
Why, you may ask? Well, you see — it was a Christmas gift for my father. Here is a link to the previous post. Anyway, here it is, the Alder Wood Candle Holder:
It turned out real nice and I’m doing two more after the Christmas break. I’ve already started and I can’t wait to get back to work! Bigger pics of the piece can be viewed at my Flickr page. Two more in the works…
Lying Lyrics and the Lying Liars Who Sing Them
The title of this post it kind of long, I know. It’s also pretty similar to Al Franken’s book ‘Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them’. Anyway, this post is about lyrics that may sound poetic and creative and stuff but are in fact — lies.
Mick Jagger was indeed correct when he sang ‘I’ll never be your beast of burden’. You see, only animals can be beasts of burden. To be able to give the Rolling Stones an ‘A’ the song would have to be called ‘I’ll never be your slave’. You get the idea.
Hound Dog, Elvis Presley – That person is neither a hound nor a dog.
Stairway To Heaven, Led Zeppelin – There is no stairway to heaven.
When Doves Cry, Prince – No known animals have the abillity to cry.
Every Breath You Take, The Police – Sting, you Sir, are a liar.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps, The Beatles – Only people can cry.
Purple Rain, Prince – Water have no color.
The Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel – Silence is just that – silent.
I Only Have Eyes for You, The Flamingos – No you don’t. You have eyes for everything around you.
I Can’t Stop Loving You, Ray Charles – Yes you can – and you did since you died several years ago.
New Twitter Account: fredstuff
A few weeks ago there was talk on the net about Twitter being hacked. Users were encouraged to change their passwords. I did, and there’s been all kinds of trouble since.
My account couldn’t be verified by Twitter, the old account still works to some extent at the Twitter homepage but the Twitterrific app on the iPhone refused to play nice. I had to make a decision — wait for it to fix itself (that’s actually the advice from Twitter) or get a new account.
I’ve had the ‘fredwifi’ account for over two years but it’s not a big loss to get rid of it, I guess most of my followers are spammers anyway. So, my new Twitter account is: fredstuff. Fits like a custom made glove, doesn’t it? Long live the new and improved account! I’ll change the Twitter feed in the blog sidebar in a few days.
Link:
My new Twitter Profile