bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 ::

RIP: bloggedy blog, 2002-2007
Farewell podcast

Well, gang, it's been a fun ride. But after five years of blogging about music, God, life, religion, politics, etc. -- starting in March 2002 -- it's time to put an end to this blog.

These days I'm focusing my blogging energies on two projects: my higher ed marketing site and a name change blog I'm managing as part of my real job. Not much time for personal blogging here these days (or at Never Mind the Bibles, which has been on life support for several weeks now). Plus, it just isn't that much fun anymore.

This site will remain up for as long as Blogger allows.

I've virtually met some fine people through this blog, and even had the pleasure of meeting a few of your in meatspace. Because of those acquaintances, my life is richer. I hopes yours is, too.

Thanks for reading over the years. I'll still be around, popping in on your blogs on occasion, lurking, possibly leaving an occasional comment. But other adventures await me.

If anyone wants to drop me a line, feel free to do so at andrew DOT careaga AT gmail DOT com.

Peace!

P.S. - Here's some music to accompany this final post.
Labels: blogging, life

:: Andrew 06:17 + ::
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:: Monday, January 29, 2007 ::

Hiatus time
I need a break. Even as infrequently as I post here nowadays, I still need a break.

Lent is approaching. Maybe I'll give up blogging for that season. Who knows?

All I know is I need a break.

See you later.

Tags: blogging, hiatus
Labels: blogging, hiatus

:: Andrew 06:14 + ::
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:: Friday, January 26, 2007 ::

Friday five: stuff you should know edition
Five things I think you should know about:

Lost Highway Records gives us a listen to "Are You Alright?", the first tune from Lucinda Williams' forthcoming album, West.

The 20 Greatest Guitar Solos Ever - With Video. Plus bonus videos. Via Agent Bedhead.

Andrew Jones informs us that Wired's Big Questions Wiki needs some help filling in the blanks. The one Andrew mentions is, Where is the Holy Grail? But perhaps a more urgent, immediate query on the wiki needs to be solved: Why does it hurt when I pee?

Yeah, right, said I when I read the first line of this story: "Dennis Kucinich may be the next President of the United States of America." Jeff Bercovici of Radar interviews the diminutive Democrat.

How long has it been since you've listened to a podcast from GaragePunk? Far too long, probably. You should go there right now and tune in. That's where I'm heading.
That's all for now. Happy Friday.

Tags: Friday Five, music, Lucinda Williams, guitar, guitar solos, wiki, Dennis Kucinich, podcast, garagepunk

:: Andrew 07:26 + ::
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:: Thursday, January 25, 2007 ::

Ah, blogomediasphere, how I've missed ye
Hello, blog.

Did you miss me while I was gone? I missed you. I was busy, though, attending a conference and blogging all about it over there.

While I was away, someone tried to usurp my position as the blogger who coined the term "blogomediasphere". The guy at Oddhead thought he coined the term when he wrote, some 13-plus months after my original reference to the term:
C’mon: no matter how closely Apple guarded the iPhone’s specs, no matter how persuasive Jobs’s rhetoric, no matter how surprised industry watchers were at the blogomediasphere’s glowing reception of the gadget, Jobs’s speech could not possibly have revealed over $8 billion in previously undisclosed information.
But he was wrong, and fessed up in a later post. But he also suggested that two interlopers may have a rightful claim to originating the term. They do not. I was first. They all stole the term from me.

Let the record show that I am the rightful coiner of the term blogomediasphere.

Tags: blogomediasphere, blogosphere, blogging, etymology
Labels: blogging, blogomediasphere, blogosphere, blogs, etymology

:: Andrew 16:22 + ::
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:: Friday, January 19, 2007 ::

Happy Blog for Radical Fun Day
I almost missed it. Thanks to Slant Truth for showing me the light. Spread the good word!

Tags: blogging, blogs, blog for radical fun day
Labels: Blog for Radical Fun Day, blogging, blogs

:: Andrew 18:48 + ::
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Colbert does O'Reilly, O'Reilly does Colbert
Stephen Colbert descends into the den of the Papa Bear himself, and O'Reilly returns the favor. (Click headline for YouTube links.)

Snippets from the former:
Bill O'Reilly: Who watches you? Who is your audience?

Stephen Colbert: I emulate you, and I want to bring your message of love and peace ... to a younger audience, people in their sixties, people in their fifties, people who don't watch your show.

* * *

O'Reilly: How does [The Daily Show star Jon] Stewart handle the fact that you're now more famous and more successful than he is?

Colbert: I don't know. We don't talk.

From the latter:
Colbert: What's destroying our country more: activist judges, illegal immigrants, gay marriage or NBC News?

O'Reilly: NBC.
Via MetaFilter.

Tags: Stephen Colbert, Bill O'Reilly, the Colbert Report, the O'Reilly Factor, television, comedy
Labels: Bill O'Reilly, comedy, Stephen Colbert, television

:: Andrew 16:09 + ::
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Friday five: five free and legal mp3s
Grab 'em while they're hot:
The folks at Trekky Records sent over Tall Trees.mp3, from the forthcoming Time Taunts Me EP by a guy who goes by Lost in the Trees (MysSpace site). Trekky Records writes: "After fronting The b-Sides and The Never for years, Ari Picker is finally ready to reveal his solo work to the masses, under the moniker Lost in the Trees. A compilation of songs written over the last 7 years, the Lost in the Trees repertoire represents some of Picker’s most haunting and personal songwriting to date, coupled with his most elaborate and engaging orchestral arrangements." Time Taunts Me will be released March 20.

Another one from Ghost Stories (MySpace) (featured here last weekend): You Wear It Like a Stained-Glass Window.mp3. I'm really digging these cuts. Music courtesy of Team Clermont.

Another pitched my way by Team Clermont: Thank God fhr the Evening News.mp3, by Fulton Lights (MySpace). Team Clermont says: "The self-titled debut from Fulton Lights, brainchild of Brooklyn NY’s Andrew Spencer Goldman (John Guilt, Maestro Echoplex), is a big-sounding but hazy-feeling slow-burner of a record very much the product of the city it calls home. New York’s manic and sublime energy —sometimes majestic, sometimes claustrophobic, often both—radiates throughout these forty-four minutes of music that took over three years to create. The album achieves an unusual feat: Fulton Lights subtly rumbles, roars, screeches and buzzes while retaining melody and structure and leaving room for Goldman’s expressive voice and elemental piano/organ/guitar parts."

Via Earvolution: Deerhoof's new weird-rockin' single, +81.mp3. Don't let the "Magnificent Seven" trumpets fool you.

And now for something completely odd: Sisters O Sisters.mp3, by Yoko Ono (yes, the Yoko Ono) and Le Tigre, via Fluxblog, who calls this "an inspired combination -- few living people represent the aesthetic of 60s progressive activism as completely as Ono, and Le Tigre made a career out of trying to revive it in a new context. Like a lot of their respective music, it contains a lot of protest language that may seem anachronistic, corny, and cheap, but they know that, and at least part of the point is to make the listener question why they feel that way about this sort of thing even if they essentially agree with the politics."
Tags: music, mp3, download, new music
Labels: download, mp3, music

:: Andrew 06:54 + ::
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:: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 ::

GuruLib: my latest Internet obsession
I survived the weekend ice storm that racked much of the Missouri Ozarks, thanks in part to a new Internet library thing called GuruLib.

GuruLib is a web-based cataloging tool that allows users to organize their book, music, CD, DVD, software, video game collections. It uses the power of the Internet to search some 530 public and university library databases and six Amazon.com servers to retrieve the info you need about your library. I spent several hours over the weekend cataloging my stuff on GuruLib. (Hey, it was better than watching the "Missouri Miracle" on every cable and local TV new channel, or listening for the next tree limb to fall.) Now I have a nice inventory of my personal music and book libraries, complete with pricing, for inventory and insurance purposes.

If you're looking for a nifty way to catalog your stuff, I suggest you give GuruLib a try. It's free and, despite a few bugs, relatively easy to use. Plus, you can meet other people who share the same interests as you.

Disclosure: GuruLib is the creation of a UMR Ph.D. student whom I interviewed for a press release about the service.

Tags: GuruLib, books, music, online cataloging, online catalog, catalog, social networking, libraries, Internet
Labels: books, catalog, GuruLib, library, music, online catalog

:: Andrew 12:57 + ::
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:: Saturday, January 13, 2007 ::

A fistful of mp3s -- free and legal
For your listening pleasure, some free and legal mp3s from independent artists many of us (including me) would have never heard of if not for the blogosphere:

A couple from The Swimmers' forthcoming album, Fighting Trees, due this spring: The Swimmers_It's Time They Knew.mp3 and The Swimmers_All the New Sounds.mp3. You can also stream the album at the Swimmers website.

From Ears Like Golden Bats, My Teenage Stride's third album, to be released Feb. 27: My Teenage Stride_To Live and Die in the Airport Lounge.mp3.

A little something from Ghost Stories' new album, Quixoticism, due Jan. 23: Ghost Stories_The Motions.mp3

Brent Amaker and the Rodeo_Bring Me the Whisky.mp3, a fun one from Brent Amaker and the Rodeo' self-titled debut, coming Feb. 20.

Or listen to the entire playlist.

Tags: music, mp3, download, new music
Labels: download, indie, mp3, music

:: Andrew 13:35 + ::
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Vote for your favorite fake band
What's your favorite fake rock band? Is it Spinal Tap? The Banana Splits? The Partridge Family? Greg Brady as Johnny Bravo? Rock the vote for your favorite at Faster Than the World.

Tags: music, quizzes, surveys, memes, pop culture
Labels: memes, music, polls, pop culture, quizzes, surveys

:: Andrew 11:05 + ::
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:: Friday, January 12, 2007 ::

Delurk, delurk, delurk
I like saying delurk. It's one of my favorite words of late. And according to some folks, it's National Delurking Week here in the USA. So, all you lurkers out there, remove your invisibility cloaks and post a comment on this and every other blog you visit. Come out of the dark and delurk, delurk, delurk.

Tags: delurk, delurking, national delurking week, memes, blogs, blogging
Labels: blogging, blogs, delurk, delurking, memes, National Delurking Week

:: Andrew 14:58 + ::
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:: Thursday, January 11, 2007 ::

Post-'surge' speech roundup
Taking a break from the usual musings on music, pop culture and other frivilous pursuits to bring you some Monday-morning quarterbacking re: President Bush's Wednesday night speech offering his rationale to increase troop levels in Iraq. (Like you couldn't find this stuff anywhere else.)

From OpinionJournal (the Wall Street Journal's site): Mission Baghdad: "Clear, hold and build" will take at least this many troops.
Crucial to all of this will be the new U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who not only recruited and trained the Iraqi Army starting in 2004 but also oversaw the drafting of the U.S. Army's latest Counterinsurgency Manual. His job will be to execute the "clear, hold and build" strategy Mr. Bush has talked about for some time. General Casey has resisted the deployments necessary to make the "hold" and "build" phases work, and General Petraeus will have to insist that he has them.

Iraqi leadership will also be important to the new strategy, as the President noted last night. ...
Winning headline: Bush admits mistakes, promises to make more, from TruthDig.

Second-best headline: Surge protector, which Slate used on its cover package.

Surge Scoring -- Peter Brookes, Cliff May, Clark Judge, Joseph Skelly, Jim Robbins and others analyze the speech for National Review Online.
Brookes (of the Heritage Foundation): "[I]t's clear from last night's post-speech response that the Democratic congressional leadership still doesn't have a plan for victory in Iraq other than thwarting the president's efforts."

Clark Judge, of the White House Writers Group: "The president must move fast. The speech has brought him time, but not much. The Democrats probably won’t dare block him, yet. But six months from now — even three — will be another story, unless our forces are producing results."
Takes 'n takes on the speech, via Donklephant.

The Uniter Divides: Bush plan fractures the DLC, from Daily Kos:
Well, the reviews are in. Bush's 11% doctrine speech was a ~~bomb~~ IED.

So now, the scramble is on for politicians of all stripes to distance themselves from his idiotic "plan." Of course, that surge was well underway even before the teleprompter was even hooked up, and Democratic presidential candidates were among the first to find their way to the microphones.
Tags: Bush, politics, Iraq, current affairs, current events

:: Andrew 07:27 + ::
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:: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 ::

Patti Smith selected to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Along with REM, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and the Ronettes. Good for them -- especially Patti, the godmother of punk.

If you're wondering which Van Halen will show up for the ceremony in March:
Both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar are set to be honored during Van Halen's induction, and it would be a shocker if sparks didn't fly between the cantankerous rockers and lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen.
What about Gary Cherone?

Tags: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rock and roll, music, awards, Patti Smith, Van Halen
Labels: Patti Smith, punk rock, rock, rock and roll, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rock'n'roll, Van Halen

:: Andrew 07:19 + ::
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