Got an email yesterday from NewsGator, pointing out their new versions of NetNewsWire and FeedDemon, which syncs to Google Reader, and mentioning that they’re discontinuing non-enterprise syncing to NewsGator for both. That part was no big deal, as I only used NewsGator as an “in case of emergency, break glass” solution, and I’m always glad to see software I enjoy using partnered up with our new robot overlords.

However, upon installing the new beta version of NetNewsWire as per the transition instructions, I got a nasty surprise. The bottom left corner of the app is now used for banner ads. What a bummer. I don’t know how much money they’re getting paid for leasing out that corner to whichever ad network is using it (I know, but I’m not giving them any press), but it can’t be worth making their software less valuable to their hardcore users when other, ad-free solutions exist and will improve rapidly if people want to switch. So, with that, I dropped an email to Greg Reinacker, the CTO and founder of NewsGator, and if you use either FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, I encourage you to do so as well. My letter’s copied below, and I’ll keep you all posted on his reply if he doesn’t decide to post a comment here.

“Greg,

Having gotten your company’s email yesterday, I set up the new NNW
this morning. Google Reader Syncing: thumbs way up (no knock on
Newsgator at all, but it was one more site to login to, and I don’t
mind my robot overlords so much; I mostly use online RSS reading as an
emergency backup, as I’m never as happy with its interface as I am an
offline, inbox-based solution, but if I have to use it, I prefer going
with Google). Cycling ads in the bottom left corner: thumbs WAY down.
If you could, please tell me why your company decided to do this. Not
being in the business, I’m not sure if there are actually costs
involved in essentially giving Google a HUGE database of information
to parse by sending your syncing customers to them that you need to
offset (if so, you’ve been had; that should be a pure data-for-disk
space and bandwidth barter transaction, if logic enters into the
equation) or if you just decided “Hey, revenue stream!”, but either
way, I think that, even with them not being super-intrusive, the bad
press you guys will get from this (I’m sure Lifehacker commenters, if
not the editors themselves, will have a field day, for one) may end up
outweighing the benefits of a few extra simoleons as it’s going to set
productivity nerds’ (in other words, your core customers’) teeth on
edge. You could make the argument that Google has ads all over the
place, and that a number of feeds use them inline nowadays, but
they’re usually text ads rather than last century’s JPEGs, so they’re
not as much of a visual distraction. That is not an invitation to fill
up the remainder of the subscription sidebar with AdSense, by the way.
I’m just pointing out the difference.

I came to NNW after getting frustrated by Vienna’s shortcomings, and
I’ve really enjoyed using your product, but I may revisit Vienna and
check out some other newsreaders after seeing that box in the corner
used as it was today. Please reconsider your new policy, or at the
very least, explain why it’s necessary, rather than just something
that Accounting came up with for a hoot.

Concerned,
Scott Crawford”

Like I said, we’ll see what we hear, if anything, but any time a company takes a step backward and makes their product less useful in the interest of short-term profit, it kinda blows. For those of you who think I’m a whiny freeloader for complaining about ads, keep three things in mind: first, the databases of information generated by an RSS syncing program are huge, and extremely financially valuable to those (and Google qualifies) who know how to use them, and anyone who can’t monetize such an exchange of information in 2009 isn’t doing something right; second, with any program that helps people sort up-to-the-minute information like an RSS reader, a Twitter desktop client, etc., that program’s job is to let people focus on the information, not distract from it. If you lose sight of that, there’s an army of brilliant coders out there who will remind you of it post-haste and produce a less obtrusive, free version of the software you’re marketing; and finally, as I mentioned above, the amount of bad press generated by switching your software from freeware to nagware is never worth the money you make from paid, ad-free versions or from selling the ads. If there’s someone out there in the software industry who can prove to me that the money far, far outweighs the ill will you generate among users, let them speak now or forever hold their pisser, so to speak.

As those of you who read my stuff regularly know, just about every initial opinion I have of an record is just that, initial. It’s very rare for me to fall in love (or in hate) with a record on first listen and stay that way for all time, and the stuff in the middle has a way of making its way out of it. With that in mind, a few quickies on records I haven’t listened to 100 times yet…

Moby
Wait For Me
Mute

I’ve given this one a few spins now, and I’ll probably give it a few more full ones over time. It starts off slow, but gains momentum as it goes along (it hits its stride for good at about the seventh track, “Mistake”, though the third track, “Shot In The Back Of The Head” is pretty solid as well), to the degree that mostly somber, introspective albums inspired by David Lynch speeches can gain momentum, anyway. There’s some listenable, likeable stuff on here, but it’s very “Play” meets Eno meets Badlamenti, for those who find cultural reference points helpful. In writing this review, I found them very unhelpful, because Moby’s a tough enough guy to listen to without comparing his new work against his older work, even when a lot of his work’s been radically different. So, you add that tough-to-shake critic’s/musician’s mindset and then throw in a few other unmistakable influences and it’s tough to listen to “Wait For Me” simply as music, as Moby apparently intended it. I think it’s worth giving a try, though, especially if the namedropping I did above sets off your Spider-Sense, and like I said, I’ll probably spend some more time with it soon.

Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood
Mute

Music made by a quirky, slightly damaged European waif for other quirky, slightly damaged European waifs and the people who love them. I’m so gonna get in trouble for saying that, but it’s true, and it’s not a dig! There are some fun hooks on this record (“Please Don’t Touch” being the standout track for me), the arrangements get pretty inventive, and listening to it makes me want to put on a pink dress and stand on a table, too! If this is your thing, go get this record!

I’m depressed.

This is nothing new, actually. Happens all the time. What is strange, new and unusual about this for me is how I feel about feeling depressed, if that’s not too meta for y’all.

It feels kind of like having a cold or something.

It doesn’t feel like that up-all-night-for-weeks-at-a-time, nagging, world’s-gonna-end “Keats was right” shit. It feels like I’m unhealthy at the moment, and with rest, care and exercise, I’ll be back to normal at some point.

I am pretty sure I’ve never felt this way about being depressed, so I figured I’d document it.

I am *thisclose* to canning the text ad program entirely, mostly because finding an adult-oriented ad provider whose network ads aren’t cheap looking and embarrassingly laughable is just about impossible these days. Lousy network ads equal lousy clickthroughs, which in turn equals shit in the way of money and a lousy amount of network advertisers signing on for individual ads, and for whatever reason, the loyal, hairy-palmed readers of this site seem to be afraid to advertise their wares here.

For a little while there, before they lost their collective minds, AdBrite was solid, but now they’re just another fucked company. Google AdSense rejected me. AdToll is really not knocking my socks off. I haven’t looked at Yahoo! yet, but I’m really not sure I want to jump through yet another set of hoops to give up some of my screen real estate to products and services that I don’t actually endorse personally.

So, yeah, during the course of writing this article, otherwise known as “thinking out loud about shit that no one gives a rat’s ass about”, I’ve decided to start a pilot program called “MOTHERFUCK ADS”. I’ll be hiding the ad section of the sidebar for now, but if you do decide that you want to buy ads from me, suck@mybigblackcock.com and we’ll talk.

It’s time for another song, and I’ll probably hear a bunch of shit from people for my commentary on this release, so let’s get to it…

The Scott Crawford Show by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

The Scott Crawford Show: 320k MP3 | WAV

Right-click this file (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save it. If you want to play it first to hear how it sounds, click the play button next to the mp3 download link.

If my bandwidth takes a hammerin’ from all this fun, I may also post links to .torrent files, so you can help spread the load around, but let’s learn to crawl first.

Still no one volunteering artwork. Oh well, if it happens, it happens.

The Scott Crawford Show
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford
Guitars played by Kage Hopkins (as he worked on this, if you donate and want part of your donation to go to him, let me know)

I’d like to welcome you
the strangers and the ones I know
get closer to the stage
there’s nowhere else to go
the planets are aligned
we’ve finally sunk this low
you’ve waited years for this
it’s time now for The Scott Crawford Show

forget your conscience, girl
relax and let it flow
you’ll be more comfortable
once you take off your clothes
this is my universe
and I’ve wrapped it all up in a bow
just stare at the stars on the ceiling
they’re part of The Scott Crawford Show

so now you know the score
the ducks are in a row
you’d better stand back, folks
‘cuz she’s about to blow
is he for real or is he kidding
I don’t even think he knows
pathetic spectacle
oh man, I love The Scott Crawford Show

Some info about this song: of any of the recordings I’ve released to the public, this is probably my least favorite. No, I’m not fishing for compliments, I know some folks definitely like this track Geoff Precious being one for sure, but to me, this one sounds the least finished. The drums are barely there, the keyboards are kinda phoned in on the first verse without anything terribly interesting (to me, anyway) going on, and the whole thing sounds more demo-ish to me than the rest of these, well, demos. I’m also not in love with all the lyrics, and a line or two may fall prey to revisionist history at some later date if I feel like doing something with them. I will confess that I’m quite happy with the instrumental breaks between chorus and verses, but that’s about it. I’ll stop bitching about something that I’m putting out there for you to enjoy now, and tell you a little more about the song. At some point after my first solo show, in a really, really bad state of mind (in part because of my first solo show, but that’s another story for another day), I decided that it’d be amusing to have a theme song, in a gallows humor sort of way. It ended up meshing with a tune that’d been kinda floating around in my head which was my brain’s 5227596028748593th feeble attempt at channelling Ultra Vivid Scene, and this was the end result. It’s been played at all of the solo shows since. I still think it needs work, but I’ll let you be the judge from here out.

From here, I’ll be continuing to compile and finish up what I have of “babykiller.”. I probably won’t record any new tracks that I haven’t already, not yet, anyway, but I may tweak a few (For example, the vocal track on “If I Could” needs some serious help). I will probably also throw some bonus tracks up as I go through my archives and find stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Stay tuned!

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.

15 minutes walking
16 minutes walking

Total time: 31 minutes (I was planning on doing 28, but my pace was pretty leisurely)
Total mileage: 1.45 miles

It wasn’t especially warm out there, and there was a nice breeze, but it was still humid as a bastard. Hate that. Knee only behaved itself until about the turn-around point and is still bugging me, but I’ll get past it. Humidity also made me wear out easier, as it always does. Brought Moby’s new “Wait For Me” with me so I could start giving it a proper listen before I review it (review’s a week or two overdue already by my standards, but it’ll happen, along with the Polly Scattergood review; hopefully Stephanie at Mute hasn’t written me off for dead yet). Didn’t bring a water bottle. Need to get a new one.

Riveting stuff, people. Onward to Wednesday, if my leg doesn’t fall off. I know you all just keep reading these entries in the hope that one day, I’ll type “Day 2184. My fucking leg fell off today. Oh, and I saw some deer.”

12 minutes walking x 2

Total time: 24 minutes
Total mileage: 1.21 miles

Nothing unusual to report. Next week, water bottle and iPod start coming with me again.

Onward to Monday.

Gonna stick with my old “every other day” weekday routine. Yesterday was not a day for using my left leg.

10 minutes walking x 2

Total time: 20 minutes
Total mileage: no pedometer (battery died) but I’d say it was a mile.

Knee was sore but not intolerably sore throughout. Less of that pinching feeling in the muscles. I was slightly winded toward the end, which is a good sign that I need to be doing this. 20 minutes of pretty casual walking should not be doing that. I think I’m basically back to the drawing board after 5 months off from regular exercise, but that’s fine. I’ll get where I need to be.

Onto Friday.

…it’s not every day that I get to say “What a fucking cunt!” and have it be a compliment, so let’s revel in this for a moment, shall we?

As I just said to Lizz Winstead, “Somewhere in England, Maggie Thatcher just looked up from her fog and said “That bitch.”"

Don’t get too excited. I jogged maybe 10 paces, just to see how it felt, and it didn’t feel so good yet.

Today’s workout:

8 minutes walking, then 8 minutes back

Total time: 16 minutes
Total mileage: didn’t have the pedometer on me; next time.

I’d decided a while back that after a month to 6 weeks of no walking unless I had to walk, to heal the unholy trinity of bad shit that was up with my leg (bursitis, tendonitis and shin splints), I was going to start testing and exercising my legs again. This was the first step. Not a long walk at all, just a few minutes in one direction, until I felt what wasn’t much pain, but was some sort of discomfort, then home. There was some tingling in my left calf and thigh, and a very mild, dull pain through the leg. The knee wasn’t as cranky as it can be when I’m on it for a while, and still isn’t.

I’ll try again tomorrow, time, weather, and leg permitting. Back to fucking work.

Back to the grindstone, and the first solo track I did any kind of serious public “release” of…

Love Life And Sign by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Love Life And Sign: 320k MP3 | WAV

Right-click this file (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save it. If you want to play it first to hear how it sounds, click the play button next to the mp3 download link.

If my bandwidth takes a hammerin’ from all this fun, I may also post links to .torrent files, so you can help spread the load around, but let’s learn to crawl first.

As for artwork on this one, just like Volume Five, I’ve never done any. Does anyone want to make me some? That’d be kinda cool.

Love Life And Sign
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford

love life and sign
she finds me
chase all the pain
away

breaking the waves
behind me
nothing else feels
the same

heaven or hell
i’ve been there
hadn’t a care
in the world

win or you lose
just ain’t fair
can’t stay away
from the girl

give me your hand
i’ll show you
a shower of orchids in the sky

don’t walk away
i know you
love you until
i die

die

Some info about this song: I wrote it in my sleep. Literally. I heard the music and lyrics in a dream I had, and remembered enough of it long enough to do a scratch pad version when I woke up. It’s, as I said, the first “finished” song I released, though “finished” is relative, as it has been played live with another guitar line by Kage over the top of the existing music, and I’ve also used the following additional lyrics, written in 2006 before you Kelly Clarkson fans descend, over the end of the song at times, which I’ve intended to flesh out into another song but never gotten around to:

Hell would suck without you
You may say I’m crazy but it’s true
I can’t think of anyone else who needs to be there just like I do
And I know you’d miss me too

Something else the sonically astute may notice and cringe at: I purposely mixed the vocals so they lean more to the right speaker than the left, which I’m pretty sure is an audio engineering no-no. I get bored sometimes.

From here, I’ll be continuing to compile and finish up what I have of “babykiller.”. I probably won’t record any new tracks that I haven’t already, not yet, anyway, but I may tweak a few (For example, the vocal track on “If I Could” needs some serious help). I will probably also throw some bonus tracks up as I go through my archives and find stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Stay tuned!

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.

(Heck, at its new intersection. Photo credit: Scott Crawford)

• Heck moved to PORNO CONTINENT!
  Yes, I moved my beloved (by about 8 people) Second Life club to a fantastic parcel of land on Zindra, Second Life’s new adults-only continent. The build’s done. Formal grand opening soon. In the meantime, bring on the pr0n.

• Free Music Program Continues Next Week
  Yes, that’s kind of like non-news in a way, but I don’t have time to post something before the holiday weekend, so we’ll get to it sometime after Saturday. In the meantime, some stats:

  June MP3 Song Plays Or Downloads (my stats program doesn’t differentiate):

  june:

  Zenova: 280
  Sybil (Instrumental): 276
  Sybil (version): 250
  Sybil: 243
  Puppet: 227
  Wolftab: 217
  Tonight: 207
  Something In My Drink: 172
  Ecstacy: 151
  Untitled: 148
  Chord: 127
  New Song: 85

  total:

  Sybil: 419
  Sybil (Instrumental): 361
  Sybil (version): 315
  Ecstacy: 287
  Zenova: 280
  Puppet: 269
  Untitled: 225
  Wolftab: 217
  Tonight: 207
  Chord: 188
  Something In My Drink: 172
  New Song: 85

  So, the exposure appears to be reasonably solid so far, and feedback from people I’ve talked to has been solid as well. Donations are still quiet, but I’m cool with that. The button’s below if you’re feeling frisky. More stats next month, and another free song next week.

  
  

  
  
  
  

• I’ve been thinking about the movie “Trading Places” a lot today. Specifically, the scenes toward the end with the baggage clerks (Al Franken and Tom Davis) arguing over who gets to drive the luggage cart next (though the late Stephen Stucker comes to mind in their scenes, too). Then, the words “Senator Al Franken” appear in my head, and for a moment, I become very proud of the world that I live in. Then I start laughing about the gorilla.

• I may be off the grid for a good portion of the rest of this week. Stay black, Happy Canada Day, and for those of you in Senator Al Franken’s home country, Happy Blowing Shit Up Day. Be safe out there, but not so safe that it keeps you from firing Roman Candles out of your butt. Just make sure you light the right end.