Me 4.0

Sings America

Don't ask me why, but I somehow ended up browsing David Hasselhoff's artist page on the iTunes Store. Curious as to the heinousness of Hoff's singing prowess, I browsed to a recent release, Sings America, to check out some track clips.

You proably don't need to indulge in the experience aurally to understand just how frightening the German Wunderkid's skills were on tracks like Madonna's La Isla Bonita or Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Were Made For Walking. However, you probably should browse by on iTS just to stare in awe at possibly the strangest connection ever.

As those of you who browse iTS know, there's a section that directs you to what listeners of a particular item also bought. With the Hoff, you'd figure that it would point you at... well, you probably wouldn't figure anyone bothered to buy in the first place. However, what you probably would guess is that the Hoff gets bought by people who also buy:

• St. Elsewhere, Gnarls Barkley
• Illinoise, Sufjan Stevens
• Demon Days, Gorillaz
• Guero, Beck
• Garden State, Soundtrack

Okay, so Gnarls Barkley maybe isn't a huge surprise, on account of the ridiculous success of that admittedly fantastic album. The laws of probability pretty much state that if everyone buys something, then those fringe people who pick up the Hoff will naturally be connected. It's like using a Robert Altman movie to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

But Sufjan Stevens? Indie-Folkie-50-States-Concept-Album-Making-Sufjan-Stevens? The same guy with song titles like They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon) and A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze? I'm not really sure how to process this information or what to do with it, but it strikes me as extremely important in the grand scheme of the universe. If nothing else, this connection only further stresses the need for someone to ultimately figure out and decide on a grand unified theory of everything.

What's your favorite foreign accent?

I'm a complete sucker for Russian accents. Actually, Slavic languages in general sound amazing to me. In fact, I like Russian accents so much that I have an alter-ego, my cousin Vladimir, who likes to come out at parties sometimes. Amazingly enough, I can usually pull it off for awhile and convince people. Granted, these people are usually drunk, but it's still a whole lot of fun.

It probably helps that I like to collect old Soviet stuff, too.

My good fried Karle e-mailed me an article from Slate titled I Queue that takes a good hard look at the ramifications of Netflix's whole "Friends" feature. Since Netflix debuted the ability to spy on your friend's rental habits, I've been decided obsessed with the whole thing. I think the Slate article nails it perfectly.

It does bring up a very important issue, one that occurs to me frequently (and just did yesterday as I rated a few books here on Vox), which is how to treat the 5-star rating system.

I find that a lot of my cultural appetite has some involvement with the whole 5-star system: iPod+iTunes, Netflix, Vox, Amazon, Cnet, 1up. This is just a tiny sampling of places where I'm given the opportunity to rate something. Okay, upon furture reflection I realize that some of these (1up, in particular) doesn't stick to the 5-star system, but elaborates it into 10-points. But regardless of that, any rating system can ultimately be boiled down to 5-stars and, more than likely, probably should.

So how do you treat the 5-stars? Netflix offers a handy guide, in ascending order of: Hated It, Didn't Like It, Liked It, Really Liked It, and Loved It. It's handy, yes, but it doesn't really capture everything, does it?

Moving forward from this point, it seems logical to consider the percentage into which each star falls. Is it simply 20% across the board, or do 1- and 5-star ratings cover a combined 20% of the polarized ends of the spectrum, with the remaining 80% evenly distributed among the middle ratings? After all, as Sam Anderson points out in the Slate article, you might love both Mean Girls and Annie Hall (leading to a 5-star rating for each), but can you really equate the two and still sleep at night?

I don't have an overwhelming answer to the quandry, but I find myself being a hell of a lot more discriminating about 5-star ratings than anything else. With books for example, a 5-star rating can only be applied to a book I would read again. This may not sound like much to most people, but you must appreciate that for myself, there is so much out there I'd like to read, from low- to highbrow and every step in between, that it's really difficult to justify picking up a book I've already read, particularly if the details of it are still fresh. In fact, I could probably count on both hands the books I've read multiple times, and the authors on one crippled hand after an accident in a factory. Kurt Vonnegut gets read multiple times (I can't even recall the number of times I've ploughed through Slaughterhouse Five) as does William Gibson's Neuromancer (which also doubles as the source for every name I bestow upon a computer-related hardware device).

Films are a tougher nut to crack, particularly given the time involved in watching a film compared to reading a book. After all, it's far easier to devote the time to watching even a bloated (albeit, masterful) film like Apocolypse Now than it is to revisit Dostoevsky's Crime & Punishment, as tremendous as it is. Therefore, the rules for 5-star books don't apply to film. So what does?

Well, I haven't quite nailed it yet, and as any of my Netflix friends could attest to, the rules change on a regular basis. Films that have changed my life sound like a good candidate for 5-stars, but that also seems so limiting. After all, as much as I adore Annie Hall, I don't really think I can call it life changing, yet to bestow anything less than 5-stars on it would be a crime.

There was a time I fancied making films. I think herein lies the key to the 5-star rating: Films that inspire me to want to make films. Unfortunately, even here lies a fallacy, as I'm sure any one who has sat through a Renny Harlin picture can tell you, an awful film can be just as inspirational, in a "I could do it so much better than that!" sort of way. As a result, it's important to specify that the 5-star rating is reserve solely for brilliant works that inspire to make films that one would-be director could proudly hold up alongside those masterworks, not garbage that instills a sense of self-important ego stroking.

As for music, well, all bets are off. The big problem I see with rating music is inherent in my approach to music. I'm an album guy. Single songs aren't my thing. This is why I have a difficult time appreciating radio, since radio is entirely dependent on the playlist format, not the album format. As a result, while I may not love the Lennon-McCartney song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", I find it difficult to rate the song anything less than 5-stars because of how much I love Abbey Road.

I don't think I've really come to any conclusions here, but hopefully my ramblings can lead others towards putting a little more thought into their rating systems. Incidentally, anyone who cares to add a Netflix friend, feel free to send me an invite at eurotransient(at)gmail.com.

Holy crap-o-la!

In what must be a fit of insanity, iTunes Music Store is selling the season finale's from Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Lost -- FOR FREE!

I'd link to it, but alas, I can't seem to pull an iTunes link off. Go to iTMS, TV Shows and look for the banner ad for "Million Hit Low Down".

Brilliant.

The iPod updates are out now. I've been eagerly waiting for this. I'm still back on the black & white screen 4G and extremely tempted by video functionality. Don't know if I'll sink a rack of cash into iTunes shows, but I *am* a sucker for some kick ass podcasts. That, and my 4G hates podcasts encoded in AAC with chapter stops. Hates them. Refuses to play with me if I introduce them.

I managed to sufficiently ignore work for the good hour that Apple's "Showtime" event took place as I read live blog coverage. Immediately, I knew I'd get one of the new 5G's -- 80 gigs? Brilliant!

Then iLounge took the wind out of my sails. Strangely enough, given my previous statements regarding future purchases of iTMS shows/movies, what most disappointed me was the lack of improvement in screen resolution. 320 x 240? Booo! Okay, I'll admit it: I haven't tried. Maybe it looks great. Maybe it's the best thing ever. I don't know. But the problem is, I don't know if I want to know anymore.

What else is coming out down the line, Steve? If I buy this 5G Part Deux, will I be burned like I was back when I bought my 4G? You didn't even wait six months to take the wind out of my sails and leave me with a sadly deflated and remarkably monochrome iPod as you unveiled the lovely, vibrant iPod Photos.

Anyone reading this? More importantly, can anyone reading this make the decision for me? And as a word of warning: I have no interest in switching to [insert name of another company that makes mp3 players]. I'm an iPod guy, what can I say?

Using Vox for the past couple of weeks, here are some impressions:

• Super simple. Almost stupid simple, actually. Not that people who use Vox are stupid, but it's so basic, it's almost a serious fault. Maybe I'm overexaggerating this. Maybe my problem is that I expect too much. But when I can't even add a customized sidebar module to show off my last.fm tracks, it upsets me a wee bit.
• What if I don't like any of the templates? When are we going to see more exciting template choices? More customizable template choices?
• No track backs? Am I missing something?
  

With the negative stuff out of the way, let me point out some things I do like about our little Vox here:

• Gets me blogging in no bloody time at all. And unlike Wordpress' post editing screen, the one here works. Brilliantly.
• Spellcheck? Big bonus.
• The "Organize" area is really slick. I can see a lot of potential here for the future.
• Nice community feel.

Now I realize that Vox is still in preview form. Maybe some of this will be added as development moves forward. It does cause me to pause a bit in really dedicating myself to this service with my personal blogging, because as it is right now, it's just not enough.

I also fear what Vox's inherent simplicity will bring: Simple minds, simple folk, uninteresting posts. A community of common people. Maybe I'm an elitest. Certainly these things plague a great number of blog areas. However, with Vox's built in community features, it'll feel a little more difficult to keep yourself a little more private. All in all, maybe not what I'm looking for.

On the plus side, I do think that Vox's simplicity will bring about a surge of computer illiterate bloggers. One of my closest friends is a complete fool when it comes to computers, but even he'd be able to pull this site off. Good for him, and good for those like him.

Also contributing to my possible lack of interest in all that is Vox is the new Blogger beta. I didn't much care for Blogger before, but the beta is looking really slick so far. A nice mix of user-friendliness with enough customizable features to keep me happy. In particular, I'm super impressed with the drag and drop interface for managing sidebars, headers and footers. The color picker screen is impressive, too, and really simplifies that whole experience.

I just loaded up my new Blogger site, so let's see who wins out in the end.

What with my somewhat insane TV obsession, this is a pretty irresistable project to delve into:

Instructions: Bold all of the following TV shows which you've ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime. Bold and Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode of it. If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

I'm at it again.

When I was a college kid, studying English at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, I went through a very long (roughly 5 year) period of obsession with journals. The concept of the journal (or diary or whatever you want to call it) appeals to me. A lot. So much so that I can't seem to stop myself from buying empty journals with the fullest of intentions of filling with my messy printed word.

I won't go into grand detail about what I filled those journals back then with, or if I filled them at all. I'll let the reader out there, whoever he or she may be, work that one out for themselves.

As usual, I digress. So this is Vox? I figured I'd give another one of these launching pads another shot. I've tried blogspot. MySpace, too. Then, back in March, I got the genius idea of buying my own domain. Paid up front for a year of hosting, started up a sight that I ambitiously envisioned as a fantastic nexus of pop culture talk, gossip and review, a veritable solar system of Hollywood insight, masked uncomfortably as a cadre of planets revolving desperately around yours truly. That was Double Negative Pop.

If you really want to, you can check those three links. You might find something entertaining. Probably not. (And if you visit DNP, please ignore the banner.)

Then again, I'd rather you stuck around here. I'm going to give it another shot. I can't promise it'll be good. But I think I've figured that the direction I envisioned myself blogging would be something that I ultimately never wanted to do in the first place. It's the difference between choosing and feeling obligated. It's my fault, of course, but there you have it.

Stick around. I want to do this a little different, keep it a little simple, and hopefully entertain you a lot with things about me.

Cheers.