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MTV is 30
So the other day I watched MTV for the first time in probably over five years. Why? Well, 120 Minutes is back! The downside is that it’s only on once a month. The last Saturday of each month. That kind of sucks. It should be on every Saturday night, but I guess once a month is better than never.
Monday happened to be the 30 year anniversary of the launch of MTV. You can watch the first hour of MTV over on the mental_floss blog. MTV launched in 1981, but I don’t remember our cable company getting it until 1985. I loved MTV in the early days. I use to watch it all day long waiting for my favorite videos. I don’t know if it was because I was getting older, but it seemed to get worse as the years went by. By the time the 90s rolled around, the only time I watched MTV was when 120 Minutes was on. I couldn’t even tell you what MTV is like nowadays, because I haven’t watched it, but watching old MTV clips sure brings back the memories.
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Anything but an Atheist
via Friendly AtheistThis video is depressing and the amount of ignorance, discrimination, and hatred toward Atheists is amazing. It boggles my mind how we can be the most hated and mistrusted minority group despite being the “least violent, most tolerant, most intelligent, most progressive” minority group out there.
To me science and religion don’t mix. If science showed even a sliver of evidence of a God I would feel different, but the more we learn, the more obvious it is that there isn’t a God. I don’t understand how I’m part of a minority because I believe in science, but maybe someday the majority of the populace will wake up to science.
Thankfully I don’t live in the bible belt, so I haven’t been discriminated against too bad. I still believe the reason we were denied the ability to adopt a child was because we left the religious questions blank since they didn’t apply to us, but I don’t really have proof of this. That is just my speculation. My family is pretty battshit crazy about religion though. When I’m hanging around with my family, and reading their ignorance on Facebook, is about the only time I have to deal with religion. I just keep my mouth shut when I’m around my family, and chuckle when I read their Facebook comments.
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Flashback Friday: The Juliana Hatfield Three – “My Sister”
I never got into the Blake Babies. My first introduction to Juliana Hatfield was on the amazing Lemonheads album, It’s a Shame About Ray. So of course I picked up her second solo album, which strangely is the only one where she used the band name The Juliana Hatfield Three. I fell in love with the album instantly, and have bought every Juliana Hatfield album since.
She recently released her latest album, which was financed buy her fans with the help of PledgeMusic.com. I gladly gave her $40 for a signed copy of her book, and the album download. Like I said 100 times before, I love it when I can support artists directly. Plus I got a signed copy of Juliana fucking Hatfield’s book!!! Ok, I guess you would have to be a fan to understand how awesome this is.
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Dissecting the brain of a football player
via boingboing.netI remember Dave Duerson during his football playing days. It’s kinda creepy seeing his brain. If you remember, Dave Duerson killed himself this past February. He was struggling with mental health problems from football related injuries. He purposely shot himself in the chest to avoid damage to his brain. Before he died, he wanted his brain to be donated to science to help study what happens to people’s brains after being struck over and over again.
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My take on Google Plus usernames
So there is a big houpla going on over Google Plus user names. Google seems to be suspending accounts of people that don’t use their real name. Well, I don’t use my real name. I’m a nobody, so I doubt I will be suspended. I feel more comfortable online using a pseudonym, and have been using it for years. I want to be able to say whatever I want online, and not have to worry about employees, friends, or family finding it online. I want to be able to say I am going on vacation without worrying about somebody finding where I live and robbing me. I just feel better using a pseudonym online.What is Google going to do if celebrities start joining Google Plus? Are they going to expect Lady Gaga fans to look for Stefani Germanotta? Charlie Sheen fans will have to look for Carlos Estévez? And the countless others that go by different names. How does anybody at Google even know a person didn’t use their real name if their aren’t popular? And what about Kevin Rose? He is forwarding his blog to his Google Plus account, but his real name is Robert Rose.
All this nonsense of making people use their real names is just stupid, and unenforceable. It’s still the early days of Google Plus though. Google is full of smart people, so I’m sure there will get this figured out soon.
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I won a Roku 2!!!1!
Like most people, I feel like I never win anything. Well, this morning I was surprised when I checked my email to discover that I won a Roku 2 from Todd over at GeekNewsCentral.com. I’ve been listening to his podcast almost since day one. I have entered many of his contests, and many I didn’t enter because I never seem to win anything anyways. On a whim I enter this one. I thought what the hell, I would give it a shot. I could use a Roku for our upstairs TV.I have the original Roku and love it. I have been thinking about getting one for the upstairs TV for quite some time now. I now will have one for each TV just in time for me to cancel my DVDs from Netflix since I never seem to watch them anyway.
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Sesame Street Muppets Doing Sure Shot by Beastie Boys
via Laughing SquidThis is pretty much full of win.
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Flashback Friday: Ace Of Base – “All That She Wants”
Ok, I honestly hate this song. The only reason I am posting it is that it was a hit back in my early college years, about the same time as my other Flashback Friday’s have been. When this song was big, all my college friends started calling me “Ace of Mace”. It’s kind of stuck with me, and I forever can’t forget this crappy song.
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My take on Lion
I always have to have the latest and greatest in software. Some people hate change, but I love it. So of course I upgraded to OS X Lion yesterday. It was a pretty simple and easy upgrade. It took about 45 minutes, and Lion was up and running with all my settings intact. For the most part it works great. Nothing too revolutionary though. I’m not even sure how much I am going to be using any of the new features.The Launchpad it interesting. It’s like an iPad look of your apps. I think it would be great on a touch screen, but don’t see the point of it on a desktop. It’s much quicker to use Spotlight, or my favorite Google Search Box to launch an app.
Mission Control is pretty looking and makes it easier to set up your multiple desktops. I like it, but I’m not a fan of the new layout of the multiple desktops. I preferred them in a grid rather than a in a line, but I can get use to it.
I don’t really understand the Full Screen Mode that most apps have now. I guess I see if you want to work distraction free, but it just blanks out my second monitor when I go to full screen. It kind of defeats the point in having two monitors.
Then there is the backward scrolling. I don’t know anybody that didn’t turn that off. Again that makes sense on a tablet or touchscreen, but not a desktop. It should have been off by default.
I also wasn’t a big fan of the new layout in Mail, but that can be quickly changed in the preferences. No big deal.
As for the new mouse gestures? I hate the Magic Mouse, so I won’t be using any of them. My Logitech mouse just feels so much nicer in my hand. Apple makes some great hardware, but for some reason they can’t make a mouse that fits comfortably in your hand.
I did have one problem with Lion. It would not connect to my NAS. A quick Google search and I found a workaround, and got it working. A few terminal commanded, a couple reboots, and I connected to my NAS.
Overall I like the look. It’s not drastically different from Snow Leopard, and they have added some cheesy animations, but overall, probably worth the $30 upgrade despite all my complaints.
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Free Tribute to Nirvana’s Nevermind
So it’s been 20 years since my favorite album of all time, Nirvana’s Nevermind was released. Spin has released a “free” tribute album. It’s not really free since you have to like Spin on Facebook to get it, but it won’t cost you any money. I refuse to to like things on Facebook, or retweet thinks when forced to. I usually just ignore whatever it was and assume it doesn’t exist. This album was an exception, and by exception I mean, I used my fake Facebook page to like it.I gave it a quick listen and I love how each band put their spin on on each song. It starts off with the Meat Puppets version on “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The Meat Puppets probably are best known for playing with Nirvana on their Mtv Unplugged appearance. The Vaselines cover “Lithium”. Kurt Cobain was a big fan of The Vaselines. Nirvana covered a couple of their songs on Incesticide, and played “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” during their unplugged session. It was only fitting that The Vaselines would cover “Lithium”. The song almost brought me to tears. Amanda Palmer also has a song on the album. She does an eerie stripped down version of “Polly” that’s pretty amazing. You can get the album for free here.
