On bikes

This article is by no means the end all be all authority on the topic, but I want to use it as a launching point for a larger discussion.

How hard would it really be for the city of Memphis to add bike lanes to a few of the more used routes bikes travel on. I am not saying they must be added to Poplar and Union, but why not Madison, Peabody, Central, and Vance?

Oh and while we're at it, Making the trolley's run faster and expanding the routes through more of midtown wouldn't exactly be the worst thing in the world.

My point isn't to start a campaign that try's to change the culture of the city all at once, but more to simply give the city something that is good that a portion of the culture already wants. Why not embrace that?

On Copyrights

I stopped by one of my favorite blogs (The Dish) today, and noticed a fairly interesting discussion going on about copyright laws. The issues being discussed seem to stem mostly around the idea of fair use, and the duplication of media.

I have for the last ten years or so been on the side of more strict protection of copyright laws. A long time ago a friend got me to switch all of my computers over to Linux with this very compelling argument. "Do you really want to keep stealing software?"* Now it isn't that I was unaware of this concept, but it was something I had been doing for so long that I didn't even think about it anymore. It was simply part of my process. I started doing it when I was 12 (and certainly not thinking about fair use or copyright), and just continued doing it without a second thought.

My friends point really struck home, and got me to change the way in which I approached several other things. Most notable the way in which I consume music. Now I got out of the stealing MP3 game back when you had to long onto someone's BBS to get anything. I have never used Napster, Kaza, torrents, or any other form to get music.**

Now with that said I have long been a huge fan of making tapes/cd's/play lists for people of music they have not heard. I have gotten into countless band because of this practice. If not for a bus ride to school in 1994 when a friend let me hear Sky Scrapper by Bad Religion my taste in music could have easily gone a different way.

I suppose what I wonder about is where do others draw the line. If I had to guess I am a bit more draconian in my beliefs about these types of things then most of the people I know, but it's really hard to say.

Now one last thing I want to address real quick. I saw a few people trying to make the argument that the reason people pirate so often is the price. While I feel that is true with really expensive pieces of software and DVD box sets, I don't feel it's true with music. I am not sure what the average cost of a CD is anymore, but the average LP tends to run me about 12 bucks for a single LP and around 15-18 bucks for a double LP.*** Does anyone really believe these prices are super out of line. Is 99 cents really to much to pay for a single song? How much do people think these things should cost? They sure as hell shouldn't be free. That was someone's hard work and time that went into making that record. If people want to give it away for free, good on them, but I think your nuts if you expect it to be free.


*Note there a ton of technical reasons I also use Linux. It isn't a 100% altruistic love of not stealing. I am a fan of it as a technical platform first and foremost.

**I do have some music on my iPod that I have gotten off of friends computers. This was only done in cases where I was unable to buy the music on the format of my choosing. This isn't right. I just felt like full disclouser was in order.

***I talking about indie labels here. I don't really buy to much stuff on major labels. Not that it can't be good but that I simply don't know of any bands on major labels that I enjoy that are still together.

Just a question

I have been wondering a good bit lately about the place of social networking and blogs in our current culture. It seems to me that more and more everyone is becoming more self involved. Though I don't really think self involved is the best way to put it. It seems like people feel this weird compulsion to document nearly everything they do in one place or another, as if everything we do is important and some how urgent.

Now I am not arguing against the poetry of day to day life or how beauty can be found in the smallest thing. Far from it. In fact I am not exactly arguing against anything per se. What I am wondering about is whether all of this documentation of every single moment of ones life is really a good thing. I mean see people constantly breaking out their smart phones and checking face book for status updates. Stuff like this has really kind of been an on going problem since mobile communication came along. I call it the, "Always looking for the better party syndrome." In the past you were just out with who you were out with and that was kind of it. I mean you may run into your friends out somewhere and forum a larger group or switch to a different group, but I just believe that had to be more rare then it is now.

I dunno...maybe I am crazy. After what is a blog if not a rambling of my thoughts as if they are important.*

I'll save you the time. They are not important in the slightest

Was in which I am idiot

That 3 miles into a semi long bike I realize that I have forgotten my water bottle at home and that it is in fact 96 degrees outside and that the thermometer in the car was not lying.

Quote of the day/Quick review

Today's funny emotive quote comes from La Dispute off the album Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River Between Vega And Altair. Might I just say this a great record that I have been enjoying a great deal. It gets a bit close to metal at times, but it doesn't bother me. The vocal style is pretty unique (think Me With Out You), but rocking way harder. The lyrics are over all pretty good. They are filled with a bit more hope then the stuff I tend to go for, but I enjoy them.

However let's focus on what brings us here today. There is one part in the album on the song Sad Prayers For Guilty Bodies
"Now, I am thinking of the past and how we both said vows and lied and
I am wondering how we trust ourselves to say a second time:
To have and to hold,
From this day and onward,
For better and for worse,
For richer and for poorer,
In sickness or in health,
To love and to cherish
Till death do us part? "

I mean that is comedy. Imagine that screamed in a very serious manner. It was great. Check out the album. It truly is a great listen. Really tech instrumentation throughout the whole record with lots of great tempo and time shifts.

Quote of the day

And the over the top emotive quote of the day that for some reason like goes to Lemuria for the line, "When I lost everything, you offered Jesus. Didn't seem like a fair trade at all."

Thoughts on Cultivating A Sports Fan

Every so often when I allow myself I wonder what it would be like to have kids. I have no real interest in having them, but it's fun to think about sometimes. I think about what books I would like them to read, what films would be interesting, how it would feel when they achieve something that they care about and worked for. This are simple harmless idle thoughts. The thought that seems to come up the most to me though is what sports and teams would I try and convince them to watch and enjoy.*

I have always felt like my sports fandom was missing something because I never had a team that my family carried about. Both my dad and my brother are sports polygamist. I find this idea to be disgusting. I have long said that you pick a team and that's it. You root for that team forever not matter what.**

Most kids inherit their teams from their parents, or at least that is how it has always seemed to me. But, I often wonder about the kids who grew up in families that didn't really watch sports or who were fans of the ilk of my dad and brother. How do these kids go about connecting with a sport or a team?

I remember when I was growing up that Wimbledon use to be on HBO. My parents both worked and so I had tons and tons of free time during the days of summer to myself. Wimbledon became appointment viewing for the majority of my youth. Even today I can't help but watch if Wimbledon is on, and I don't mean watch a few minutes, I mean watch hours of it.

How do you get that sort of brand loyalty out of someone exactly? I often hear about how baseball is not getting new fans and such. I think there are a TON of reasons for this, but maybe one of them is that it isn't on enough. I know that sounds a bit crazy. You have the ESPN Monday night game, the ESPN Wednesday Night Game, The MLB Network Thursday Night Game, The Fox Saturday Day Game**, The MLB Nework Saturday Night Game, The TBS Sunday Day Game, and last (but certainly not least) The ESPN Sunday night baseball game. And of course you have whatever game is on your local RSN, possible a cubs or white sox game on WGN, and in the past a Braves game on TBS.***

However I really don't think that's enough games on. I mean it's a TON of games, there is no doubt about it, but half of the games are fairly uninteresting and b/c of national start times tend to lead to an East Coast bias of what games are shown. I have found that with baseball the announcers do a fairly poor job of actually explaining the game. I mean not the high level stuff of throw ball, hit ball, catch ball. I mean the more subtle stuff of why a pitcher choose to throw which pitch there, why the defense is aligned the way it is. More of the game with in a game stuff. I think to do that and to really drive it home you need to show more games.

Now, I know there is a ZERO chance of what I am suggesting happening, but why not have more day games? I know the big money for the teams is games at night, but if you truly want the sport to grow, why not show the games during the day and really suck in the younger audience who is at home doing nothing all summer? I think if baseball could some how get that demographic then they would be set. The younger you suck a fan in the better.

In the past baseball was able to do this with stuff like baseball cards, but those have essentially gone the way of the Dodo. So I am wondering if MLB could work out some sort of deal to have all day games televised in all every market. It would be costly and odds are they would lose some money, but it could create some life long fans. I dunno, the idea is pretty damn pie in the sky, but all I know is that I still watch tennis, and I am not even what you would call a tennis fan.

*And by try I mean force.

**Baring them moving or doing something truly unforgivable like signing A-Roid

***Not really sure if they do that anymore or not. My gut says no, but I wonder if they are on a different channel b/c I live in their "region"...