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Lucky Lucky

16-May-08


Lucky Lucky, originally uploaded by grabbingsand.

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You’ve No Reason Not To Podcast

15-May-08

Rusty has put together a tutorial on how to create your own podcast channel on Georgia Podcast Network, then upload content (audio or video) to that channel.

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, try upgrading your Flash player. You can also download the file and watch it on your desktop.

After about 13 minutes, you will know pretty much everything you might need to know about how to get your own podcast up and running on GAPN. Sure, you’ll need to do your own recording and decide what your podcast is all about and so on, but the usually complicated technical bit has been made so simple. Basically, if you can write an email with an attachment, you can make a podcast.

(Oh, and you’ll need to follow a few simple rules. In particular, as this is the Georgia Podcast Network, you’ll need to live in Georgia or your podcast should focus on Georgia-related topics.)

Speaking of … the latest podcast for North Fulton Drama Club was uploaded to the new and improved Georgia Podcast Network just this morning.

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A Ficlet Of My Imagination

08-May-08

The hardest part of writing a Ficlet isn’t the writing. The challenge lies in the editing. 1024 characters doesn’t give one much room for rambling, redundancy and so on. I love so many words, often for the way they sound one after another as much as for their meanings. Writing in a limited space goes against my loquacious nature. But Seth threw down the gauntlet ever so politely some time ago. And Rusty published his second ever, just this morning.

So today, I decided to step up to the plate and swing over lunch. I called it “Yesterday Girl.”

As it sits, I’m not sure entirely that the idea in my head made it entirely into the story. But it will do. Contributing audio influences included, but were not limited to: Burial’s Untrue (the track “In McDonalds,” especially), The Roots’ “Rising Up,” John Coltrane’s “Too Young To Go Steady” and James Taylor’s “Another Grey Morning.” The story’s title is also the name of a Smithereens tune, but one really has nothing to do with the other.

And now that I’ve completed one, another should be a walk in the park. Shouldn’t it?

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Midsummer Opens Tonight

02-May-08

NFDC Proudly Presents A Midsummers Night Dream

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iTunes Music Store: Now With More Fail

30-Apr-08

Tags galore.

Dear iTunes Music Store –

Thank you for making The Roots Rising Down immediately available for download.

Now don’t get mad, but I have to admit that you were my second choice. For reasons I don’t quite understand, you beat Amazon’s to the release line. Rising Down might be available for mp3 download on Amazon some day, but I was ready to make an immediate purchase. And so, my money went to you, iTunes.

But this morning, iTunes Music Store, you have disappointed me. I was looking forward to enjoying Rising Down during my morning commute, but what I heard was odd and disjointed. Admittedly, this is The Roots we’re talking about here. They’re known for being complex, for taking risks and doing the unexpected, but even the most adventurous artists would refrain from dropping a bonus track into the middle of their tracklist. So what happened?

In a pair of words, what happened was “bad tags.”

When I dragged and dropped Rising Down from my iTunes to my iPod, the tracks arranged themselves out of order. This can only happen if the audio files are poorly or incompletely tagged. Bad show, iTunes Music Store. I’m not saying you committed a cardinal sin here, but posting an album with bad tags on dear, departed OiNK could’ve gotten a user banned.

Luckily, the iPod has the oft forgotten On-The-Go playlist function, so after referring to the tracklisting on Amazon (!), I’ve made a temporary playlist with the tracks in the right order. Now, the album progresses as it should. One track builds on the next.

And “Birthday Girl” — the eye-roll inducing collaboration with Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump — is now at the far end of the album where it can be avoided entirely.

Cheers,

Me

(Neato price tag image found on illustrator Glen Mullaly’s blog, then cropped to suit.)

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Vale, Vox. Salve, Tumblr.

24-Apr-08

I’ve had a Vox blog for about a year and a half. I didn’t need another blog, but I was fascinated by the advertised “LiveJournal-for-Grownups” that Vox was meant to be. It would have all of the social interactivity, little or none of the bad design and clique-fueled drama. Seemed like a good idea. So I fired up a Vox account, deemed it a “reading blog,” and …

Then I proceeded to enter into a cycle of occasional posting between long bouts of forgetting the Vox blog even existed.

This is not to say that Vox was a total loss. Several of the MetaChat faithful — a Metafilter spin-off — started up Vox blogs of their own. But like me, they started to drop off in their posting frequency. Before long, posting to my Vox reading blog felt like shouting my literary habits down a deep well … or down the long hallway of a mostly vacant hotel.

So I’m making it official. Until today, my last Vox post was back in October. Today, I’m posting one more time to link back over here.

It’s been interesting Vox, but I’m moving on.

Now, brace yourself, because I’m going to look like a hypocrite for a split second. Ready?

I’ve been playing with a Tumblr blog for a couple of weeks.

I signed up on a lark, having seen some of my neighbors doing the same (Amber has one, for instance). What makes Tumblr different is the simplicity of it all. No comments. No post titles. Just post after post, photos with or without captions, quotes presented as typographical art. To me, it feels like a slow-stream-of-consciousness Twitter. Where Twitter is all about what you’re doing at a given time, Tumblr is more about relating just what’s on your mind from day to day, from hour to hour. And like Twitter, you can opt to “follow” the meandering thoughts of your fellow Tumblrs.

Like I say in my Tumblr sidebar, if Grabbingsand is a motorcycle, my Tumblr is a sidecar. It’s a bonus track for my regular blog, a place to put random bits of awesome or the occasional odd thought. And if frequency of use is any indication of successful adoption, then Tumblr is defeating my history with Vox handilly.

So check it out.

And make your own, should you feel so inclined.

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