Big Breakfast  

I just ate a McDonalds Big Breakfast.

I'm sure I'll regret it later. Like, on-the-crapper-as-my-insides-slowly-ooze-out regret it.

But, for now, it was a really good choice. Sooo tasty.

I Can Walk Like a Penguin!  

Ah, YouTube. Is there anything from my childhood that you can't find?

Nope. YouTube, you are the greatest ... I really hanker for a hunk of cheese.

"Hello, Appetite Control? Need more protein. Playing tennis today, you knoooow!"

OK Go -- Masters of the Music Video  

I've written about OK Go before. They play some power pop. I'm a fan of the power pop. They put out an album last year that was pretty good, and the song "Do What You Want" was one of my favorite songs of last summer. Oh, the memories ...

OK Go got some notoriety when they put out a video for the song "A Million Ways." It's a video that harkens back to the old days (and certainly has a nod towards the work of Spike Jonze) when videos were more about drawing attention than whatever it is that videos are these days. Good videos have always been about being out of the ordinary (think "Da Funk" by Daft Punk, "Everlong" by Foo Fighters, "What's Up, Fatlip?" by Fatlip, "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim).

The video for "A Million Ways" fits the bill:

OK Go's new single is for their song "Here It Goes Again", and I think the new video has upped the ante:

Skating across treadmills! Synchronized treadmill dancing! Lip syncing! Fantastic.

Late to the game on Lily Allen  

I'm sometimes a little late to the game when the new band blows up on MySpace or the mp3 blogs (though I've found that elbo.ws helps me keep up a bit better). I also keep an eye on Ben Loves Music, which overlaps my musical tastes pretty well (and since he's a DJ, it means that I can find a place where I'll know the words to all of the songs).

Anyway, point being, Lily Allen's been all over the place and I just hadn't bothered to check her out. Mostly out of sheer laziness.

I'm reading my RSS feeds (at some point I'll throw up an OPML file of the feeds I read), and there's a post about the latest setlist ... I start reading because it starts with Weezer's "No One Else", which is a great tune and one I'd never expect to hear played. Five tracks later I'm floored -- Lily Allen covering the Kaiser Chiefs' "Oh My God" ... this I have to hear.

So a few Google searches later and a trip to a couple of blogs to find the song, I've got it downloaded. And it just flat out rules the school. Enough to make me go check out a bunch more of her stuff. What I've heard is good. Very Brit-pop mixed with hip-hop mixed with a metric ton of sugar. I'll probably add it to the list of things to try and pick up (like Ambulance LTD's new EP) in the next week or so.

(Or maybe I'll finally just get myself the disposable credit card number so I can start using allofmp3.com.)

The Pain of Shared Web Hosting  

The company that hosts my site, DreamHost, has been experiencing some serious problems recently. Hardware dying, power outages, and just general instability has caused this site to blip up and down a few times, and has caused more outages for The House That Dewey Built. DreamHost does a nifty thing and has a little bit of transparency into the process through their status blog, where they attempt to keep folks up to date with what's happening on the hosting side. It's a really great idea, assuming you have the stomach to expose yourself to the world.

Having worked in the shared web hosting industry for about 10 months now (not at DreamHost), I can relate to the troubles they're having. No matter what you do, hardware dies in unforseeable ways, and when that happens, occasionally backup hardware goes down too. Or one problem masks another, and you peel back the layers until you get down to the main issue.

In a dedicated hosting environment, this usually means you take down a server or two and have a couple of expensive customers mad at you. It's usually a manageable situation.

In a shared hosting environment, each problem means potentially thousands of customers have an issue, and it means they come looking to you for answers.

This DreamHost Blog post is a pretty good example of what can happen when you expose yourself to your customers. You get the good:

The thing that Dallas didn’t say, is how smooth DreamHost is taking it, I had my doubts about the company before I signed up, but this week has proven that I made no mistake, and that the admins know what they are doing.

Good job DreamHost, lets hope next week brings better luck.

And you get the bad:

My clients are frying about the recent reliability issues. I am loath to move them (over 100), but clearly DH needs to spend more of its profit margin on hardware!

Can we all say, together, “R E D U N D A N C Y” ! !

And, if your landlord can’t seem to get its power systems stable maybe they need to be sued for non-performance.

We’re using DH for business, not for play. It’s got to be more reliable

Maybe Dreamhost will be nice enough to cover all of the ad sales I’m losing off my website. Now it’s JUST my ad server database that’s down… they’re really sticking it to me…

Again, I love transparency, and I think this is just some of what you have to deal with when things go wrong. I wish the company I worked for was more transparent sometimes (and, the reason I'm not being transparent about where I work is because, as a corporation, I don't think they're ready to be transparent just yet, which is unfortunate).
And, again, you'd think that I'd be right there griping with the rest of the masses, given that this has affected *my* site.

But I'm not.

Because I've seen the other side. I've *been* on the other side. I've been the guy trying to explain to a customer why their site was down, or why it's still down, or why it may not be back up right away. The customer never sees the planning side--they just assume when something goes wrong that it was preventable and someone's fault. Sometimes it is.

Sometimes, however, it's the customer's fault. Let me explain ...
DreamHost is a shared web hosting provider, and a low cost one at that. They spread a bunch of sites out across servers, to better utilize the resources of the server, and they make money off of the folks who barely use their sites. The 5% of users who completely pillage the servers are money losers, but they're the price you pay for bringing in all of the less active users. It's all about economics and economies of scale.

Here's where customers are to blame. They expect that the slice of the server they're renting for $7 a month is *theirs* and they should be able to do whatever they want to it. If they want to run a CGI script that uses 100% of the processor, why not? If they want to move all of their binary data into their MySQL database so that they can pretend that they're not really using any web space, who are you to argue that they're killing the database server? They're the customer, they've paid for their chunk of the server.

Well, yes they have. But it doesn't give them the right to kill things for the rest of the folks on that box. Unfortunately, most shared web hosting customers don't think about things in those terms, in terms of a community. They just think about the site they own.

This is what leads to problems. The 5% of customers complain that they want to use cron, and 5% of a big number (total customers) is a big number, so you give them cron. Then they bog down the server, so you spread them out to other servers, which they then bog down. Replace cron with anything (unlimited databases, unlimited bandwidth, multiple websites on the same account, etc.). All propositions that lose the host money, but are done with hopes of attracting a large enough clientele to make it a winner.

But all of the additions occasionally come with the cost of downtime, or instability, or whatever. It certainly sucks, and it's not excusable, but it's shared web hosting.

So I say to the fellow complaining about his ad revenue: why the HELL are you on shared hosting if it's so important to you? Spend the money and get a dedicated host.

If your site is so important that it can't afford downtime, you should be paying for a dedicated host. It's that simple. The 5% of customers who cause server problems are almost inevitably the same ones who should be on dedicated hosting. Remove them from the mix and things would be far more manageable.

The flipside is that you can't drive them away. You can't afford to. They're the advocates. They're the folks who pimp the hosting (and get their affiliiate kickback) and bring in the other 95% who make the money. It's a double-edged sword, and one that's made all that much tougher when a company like DreamHost takes an admirable stance and tries to be transparent. It's the same thing that Jason Calacanis has been discussing with his offer to pay DIGGers to post stories on the new Netscape DIGG-alike--your most active users tend to be partially responsible for the success of your product (even if they often cost the most).
Shared web hosting is a fun, exciting, and often stressful biz. Doing it naked can sometimes bring the pain, and I can relate to what the folks at DreamHost are experiencing.

Now please make sure my site stays up.

Recent CD Reviews  

I've picked up a few CDs since the last time I posted a review ...

Snow Patrol -- Eyes Open
I completely dug Snow Patrol's last album (Final Straw), and this one starts out like my fave song from that disc ("Spitting Games"). "Hands Open" is pretty darn great. Then it devolves into an attempt to make a bunch of songs that sound like "Run" and it just gets a bit boring. Not bad, just boring.

Nada Surf -- Let Go
Liz recommended I check this one out when I mentioned that I really liked The Weight is a Gift. This is really good too. Not as thoroughly good as TWIAG, but definitely good. The only thing keeping it from being fantastic is two missteps ("Fruit Fly", "La Pour Ca"). The rest --- solllidddd.

Guster -- Ganging Up on the Sun
Probably my least favorite Guster album. Not because of the lack of hand percussion, but simply because it's got so little energy. It's a good poppy album, but it just lacks any sharp edges. "The New Underground" might be the best little indie rock song they've ever done though.

Mr. Lif -- Mo' Mega
Adding some hip-hop to the mix. I love Mr. Lif. He's always got ridiculously complex lyrics, beats that support the rhymes, and a the closest thing to the mind of Chuck D. Except on this album. "Fries" would have fit in on any album he's ever done. "Murz Is My Manager" has the tightest beats and is probably the most fun song Lif's ever done. "Washitup!" is the worst song he's ever done. Lif went away from politics on this album, and while it's good, it's just not as good (that seems to be a theme ...).

Mittens -- Fools on a Holiday
Mittens is a local band that sounds a bit like if The Shins holed up and listened to Elvis Costello and Jonathan Richman, and then turned up the folk dial a bit too much. They're light and easy and great live, but not quite as good on disc (or iPod). I actually dig this one a bit more than their self-titled debut. It's just a bit grander.

As Fast As -- Open Letter to the Damned
I picked this up because I heard "Florida Sunshine" and think it's the fucking rock song of the summer. It's probably the best power poppish stuff I've heard in a while. It's not a fantastic album, but it was cheap at Newbury Comics, so I grabbed it and it was worth the dough. There's maybe one back track on the whole disc.

There you have it. A bunch of mildly disappointing discs, with one real winner. I'm not really sure what CDs are coming out soon, but I'm thinking about picking up some older stuff from an online source cheapish, so the next set of reviews might be of some older Sufjan Stevens or The Smiths or something equally silly.

Random Things You May Already Know About Me  

  • I'm about 5'8" tall.
  • I weigh somewhere between 140-150 lbs.
  • I'm 28 and I've had 3 jobs since college (the first lasted 3.5 years, the second lasted 1.5 years, the third about 10 months to this point).
  • I'm very glad I don't work at the second place anymore. In retrospect, one of the sketchiest companies I've ever seen.
  • I really like the first company, but I need closure and wish they'd either become big and successful or go out of business.
  • I've got a Friendster profile that I never update.
  • I have an Orkut profile that I haven't even looked at in over a year. Ok, I've looked at it now.
  • I've never really had the urge to set up a MySpace account. Mostly because I'm not sure I could deal with adding another ugly web site to the world.
  • I went to Virginia Tech. When Michael Vick was there.
  • My 10th High School reunion is this year.
  • I'm learning more and more that I don't like Woody Allen films.
  • I hated Napoleon Dynamite and have considered making a site about how I hated Napoleon Dynamite.
  • I liked Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.
  • The only movies I've nearly walked out on in the theater are Celtic Pride and Cold Mountain.
  • I watch a lot of TV.
  • I've got 2 DVRs with 3 tuners so I can potentially record 3 shows at once. It has come into play.
  • I also read a lot, though I need to make a trip to the bookstore to pick up Feeding the Monster.
  • I post at the Sons of Sam Horn. So does Seth Mnookin, the author of Feeding the Monster. So does Bill Simmons, who I've argued with about the Celtics.
  • I listen to a lot of music. Possibly too much.
  • I really like power pop. I really like anthemic rock. For some reason, I don't like U2 that much.
  • I wish I could play the guitar.
  • I wish I could sing like Aaron Perrino.
  • I'm jealous of my friend Liz for being very funny and writing for PopMatters.
  • I've listened to The New Pornographers more than anything over the past couple of years, yet wouldn't call them my favorite band.
  • I haven't been to a live show in over a month. I need to go see some live music.
  • I'm running out of "interesting" things about myself.

I need to write more  

I do. When I write more, my brain works better, and the random cruft that gets stuck in my head gets jarred loose, spilling out and letting the good stuff percolate a bit more in there. That means I'm more cogent, less grumpy, and just a generally cooler guy*. Also, maybe I'll figure out what it is that's got me stuck in the general malaise that's permeated my life for the last couple of months. Again, I think I've just got some random gunk stuck in the brain that's keeping the good stuff out (there's a good scientific explanation for ya).

So, more music discussion. More web discussion (since that's what I do for a living a billion little things happen each day that I probably should write down so I can remember them later). More TV discussion. More movie discussion. More discussion.

I'm going to aim to type something every day ... just because that seems like a good aim. Let's see how long I can keep it up.

I also think I'm going to try to work up a new Wordpress template. Something my own. That'll take some time, and since I completely lack creativity, if you've got ideas, leave them in a comment and I'll take them into consideration. In other words, if you're more creative than me, I'll gank your idea. But I'll give you credit and maybe send you something cool like a 1987 Mike Greenwell Topps card. With the fake wood border!

(*definition of cool on a relative scale of Orville Redenbacher to Miles Davis.)

Old and Fragile  

I'm not sure at what point you cross that line from getting hurt/immediately recovering to getting hurt/having injuries last for weeks, but it's apparently happened to me. I've been having minor knee issues for a while. Nothing major, except that once or twice in spring (usually when I start to run distances again outside) one of my knees will just decide that it doesn't like running. No swelling, nothing jarring, just simply the inability to do anything more than walking.

A little over a week ago, I was playing softball and decided to run into a fence. I thought it would be the normal pain for a day, fine the next injury. Except it looks like I pretty severely sprained my ankle and did something to my wrist/arm.

The ankle's just down to about normal size now (probably still about 5-10% bigger than normal), but the bruising has mostly receded. It no longer looks like this:

The big dark line below my ankle is the black bruise that's lasted about a week. It got prettier as the swelling receded and actually made the bruise visible. A week of ice, wraps, heat, and advil have gotten me to the point where it's only sore in the morning before it gets loosened up.

Of course, favoring my ankle for a week has caused my knee to start to act up, feeling sore and generally making all sorts of noise when I go from sitting to standing. I assume that'll go away in the next few days, but given the way my body has been healing, maybe not.

Making things worse, I also slammed my wrist when I ran into the fence. It doesn't hurt a ton, but enough to be uncomfortable. Somehow, in the midst of all this, I did something to my incredibly underwhelming biceps. It doesn't hurt normally, only when doing something like pulling or pushing ... you know, using the muscles in my arm. I end up with a pain running from my shoulder down into my biceps.

I wish I knew at what point you start to become frail. It's apparently happened to me, but had I seen it coming, I think I could have at least started to be a little more careful (vitamins, advil, whatever). Or maybe I should just stop bitching and be happy that I can still get by with a wrapped ankle and some ibuprofen.

The Greatest NBA Draft in History  

The 2006 NBA Draft is going to go down as the most entertaining draft in NBA history. A weak draft, without a player who's assured to make a significant impact, and on ESPN rather than TNT, this draft could have been a disaster.

Instead, ESPN and the NBA got together and made it the most entertaining 4 hours of TV ever. Here's a couple of real-time recaps to check out:

Chairchuckers.com
Sons of Sam Horn
(The latter link might not work unless you have an account.)

I don't think I can possibly do it justice. Here are just some of the highlights:

  • A million random trades, including 400 by Portland
  • 4 Year Duke scholar Shelden Williams giving an interview in mumbleese
  • The Wolves/Blazers swap the 6th and 7th picks in one of the sketchiest deals in memory
  • Centers Sene and Armstrong go in the lottery
  • Rudy Gay miked up
  • Jay Bilas, Stephen A. Smith, and Greg Anthony ripping everyone -- while their commentary is being broadcast live in the arena to all of the draftees present
  • Dan Patrick and David Stern go at it live on the air
  • Dick Vitale verbally fellates J.J. Reddick and then asks him for tickets
  • Dick Vitale, who's never said a bad word about a player, disses Celtics' pick Rajon Rondo as the equivalent of a .220 hitter
  • Jay Bilas says Noah Lowry could beat up Rondo
  • Isiah Thomas spends his 1st pick on Renaldo Blackman, expected by many to go undrafted
  • Marc Jones getting accosted by Knick fans both times he was forced to venture into the stands

Just a stellar night. I'm sure Bill Simmons will have a lot to say about it.