Monday, February 4, 2008

I kinda want to switch to Imeem

And filefreak is actually better than fileden, once you get past the ads.



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Monday, January 21, 2008

skeleton man

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Monday, January 7, 2008

Top Five Tuesday:
Making Lists Like Mad Crazy


Day Two of new features brings us to Top Five Tuesday, complete with a nifty graphic by our good friend Josh. Since Ryan is writing this week's list, I have no idea WTF he is going to write about! Maybe Top Five reasons why Tuesdays are fun for making lists! That would be silly!!!


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Sunday, January 6, 2008

Mixtape Monday:
Songs That Made Me Feel Like a Jerk


So we're starting a new feature here on the site. It's called Mixtape Monday, and it's an opportunity for us to bring you music. We'll pick a new topic each week. This week it's Songs I Used to Hate But Which I Now Love.


Type rest of the post here

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Friday, January 4, 2008

Column:
My Little Corner of the World

“You feel like the unappreciated scholar, so you shit on those who know less than you.” "No." "Which is everyone." "Yes."

By Nicole Pope

In college I wrote a weekly column for the school paper called “Common Cents.” My beat was to write about, as you might guess, consumer issues. I was less than thrilled with this assignment, though I was able to write about everything from used CDs to thongs to psychics. (Incidentally, I recently Googled my name and found the aforementioned thong story still floating around the net. Good to know I’ve had such an everlasting presence in the world of journalism.)


Anyway, what I learned from having this weekly column was that no matter the topic, I loved inhabiting my own little space in the newspaper each week. And ever since I started writing for this blog, I’ve dreamt of my own column. Thanks to the magic of positive thinking and a nifty graphic, I have succeeded. Way to go, me.


So now I can say goodbye to consumer issues – though a few might come up from time to time. These days I spend much of my time listening to music. Much too much of my time, I’d say. So I might as well keep writing about it, right? Recently I read someone saying blogging is the ultimate act of narcissism: to think people would care to read your inner thoughts and musings. Well, let’s just put narcissist on the list of Nicole’s shortcomings. I’m sure I’ll let you in on a few more in time.



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Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Now For the Issue That Really Matters

When a Washington Times reporter asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino what she thought about Radiohead's new album last October, she replied, "I don't even know what that is. Is that a band?" To her credit, I'm not sure why someone would ask her such a question (even if, as P4K pointed out, she was twenty-one when Pablo Honey was released). Ultimately I don't know which she should get more flak over: being clueless about Radiohead, or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ahem.

In any event, with the Iowa Caucus tonight, I've been thinking again about the intersection of music and politics. Take those videos of former Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee playing bass, for instance. Or the candidates ever-evolving campaign music. If you're like me and believe that musical preference can tell you a lot about someone, consider the following:

  • Last summer Hillary Clinton allowed supporters to select her campaign song. Guess what they came up with? "You and I" by Celine Dion. Just look what happens when you leave the big issues up to the American people... Clinton has also used 80s, uh, classics like "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones and "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
  • Barack Obama is using Ben Harper's "A Better Way" as his campaign song, which is admittedly far less cheesier than Miss Dion. Apparently he is also a big fan of Earth, Wind, & Fire. That should make my mother happy.
  • John Edwards has used The Music of Mellencamp in both the 2000 and 2008 elections, including "Small Town" in the former and "Our Country" in the latter. No big surprises here.
  • Rudy Guiliani has reportedly used the song "Rudie Can't Fail" by the Clash. Although it was probably chosen for the title alone, I still have to give him props for edgiest artist.
I found an article from an apparently satirical news site stating that Mitt Romney's official campaign song was -- wait for it -- "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung. I admit, I believed this for the better part of a minute. Isn't that sad? (Not so much for me, but for Mr. Romney.) If anyone can find out what his real campaign song is, please let me know. Of course, after today's caucus, this might just be a moot point.


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