Day: February 13, 2003

Random bad virus karma

Earlier this week, after Clay Shirky published Power Logs, Weblogs, and Inequality, I subscribed to his mailing list at nec-request@shirky.com. I got a confirmation email from the list and nothing else so far. Until tonight, when I got an email from that address and what looked like a virus in the message body. (Fortunately I was reading mail with a client that wasn’t susceptible to email viruses.) The headers included all the usual mailing list headers. All possibly forged, of course, but the address to which the mail was sent is one that’s not on the web anywhere, but is subscribed to the list.

If someone’s hijacked Clay’s mailing list administration system to send a virus, that’s seriously uncool. I’ve emailed Clay to let him know what’s up.

Return of the Tin Man

After a year’s hiatus, the Tin Man is back with guns blazing. I missed his return on Tuesday (I saw a referral from him, but since his blogroll was the only thing on his page for so long I assumed it was a random click. Ooops), but today he blogs about his customer review being edited by some folks at Amazon for using the word gay:

Here are Amazon.com’s General Review Writing Guidelines. I’m trying to figure out where the word “gay” fits in. Maybe someone thought it counted as “profanity, obscenities, or spiteful remarks.”

I love you, Amazon.com, but this is for you:

Gay gay gay gay gay.

So there.

Welcome back, Tin Man. You’ve been missed.

The Critiquees

So BlogCritics is doing its first critics’ poll for the best music of 2002, and as a registered BlogCritic I’ve submitted my ballot. (It was harder than I thought, mostly because there’s no authoritative list of which I’m aware for what music was actually released in 2002.) Anyway, for the curious, here’s my list (five nominees, tops, in each category):

album of the year

  • Sea Change, Beck
  • (), Sigur Ros
  • Murray Street, Sonic Youth
  • Blacklisted, Neko Case
  • Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco

song of the year

  • 45, Elvis Costello
  • Deep Red Bells, Neko Case
  • Disconnection Notice, Sonic Youth
  • All We Have is Now, Flaming Lips
  • Fell in Love With a Girl, White Stripes

songwriter of the year

  • Beck
  • Tom Waits
  • Neko Case
  • John Vanderslice

rock album

  • One Beat, Sleater-Kinney
  • When I Was Cruel, Elvis Costello
  • White Blood Cells, White Stripes
  • Blood Money, Tom Waits
  • Life and Death of an American Four-Tracker, John Vanderslice

country/Americana album

  • American IV, Johnny Cash
  • Blacklisted, Neko Case
  • Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
  • Jerusalem, Steve Earle

r&b album

  • Don’t Give Up on Me, Solomon Burke
  • Higher Ground, Blind Boys of Alabama
  • Power in Numbers, Jurassic 5

jazz album

  • Footsteps of Our Fathers, Branford Marsalis

electronic album

  • 18, Moby
  • Kinda Kinky, Ursula 1000

soundtrack album

  • About a Boy, Badly Drawn Boy
  • Long Walk Home (Music from the Rabbit Proof Fence), Peter Gabriel

best re-issue or compilation [box sets, re-mastered, or bonuses]

  • Nirvana, Nirvana
  • Best of 1990-2000, U2

best new artist

  • Interpol

I’m a strange, despotic, unpredictable madman, too

The Onion: N. Korea Wondering What It Has to Do to Attract U.S. Military Attention. I’m wondering this myself, but this summed it up beautifully for me:

“Bush says his number one priority is eliminating weapons of mass destruction, but he sure doesn’t act that way,” Kim said. “Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction and may be developing more. The DPRK, on the other hand, does have weapons of mass destruction and isn’t about to stop making them any time soon.”

“Can I be any more clear?” Kim continued. “We have nuclear bombs and delivery methods. Kablooey! There goes Anchorage! But does Bush care? Nope—he just goes on about how we’re ‘a diplomatic issue, not a military one.’ If he even mentions us at all, that is.”

“It’s like I don’t even exist,” Kim added.

Houses in motion

One thing that George and Becky remarked on last night while visiting us was how new Kirkland looked, despite being a fairly old community. We pointed out that a lot of the building in Kirkland over the past few years has been “teardown”—small houses on valuable properties have been razed so that new, larger (I wouldn’t say ostentatious) houses can take their place.

Kari Happold Real Estate agent, says that the neighborhood was originally vacation homes for folks coming across the lake from Seattle in the summertime, and so a lot of the original houses aren’t especially large. I suspect, on the basis of this history of the town, that some also housed workers in the Kirkland shipyard. Today, of course, on our hill overlooking Lake Washington any property that has even a little bit of a lake view is enormously valuable. So the old houses are going.

Another one (this one a bit of an eyesore) was demolished yesterday down the hill from us. While I certainly don’t mind the potential appreciation in the value of our house, I also can’t help but feel that some of the history of the place is being lost.

(Title reference: “Houses in Motion” from Remain In Light by the Talking Heads.)