This Is Why I Pay So Little Attention To The News

Here’s an RT hitpiece on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. I believe RT stands for “Russia Today”. Apparently, RT interviewed Bill Ayers, a known former terrorist and close associate of our current President. O’Reilly attempted to “no-spin” the whole thing, which resulted in motion sickness for most of his viewers. Hannity also devoted 4 minutes of one of his programs to this “non-issue”.

I pay little attention to any of the mainstream media outlets. Considering how much time they spend on what amounts to hot air, I always wonder what they’re not telling us. They seem to spend more time on celebrity affairs than they do on issues like the NAFTA Superhighway.

As for Bill Ayers comments, I agreed with one thing. Get your news from places like The Daily Show and The Onion. During my teenage years, I went through a period of time when I got my news almost entirely from Mad Magazine. I was amazingly current with the issues. To this day, I still prefer to get my news from satire, which at least amuses me while I’m getting current.

Buying One Song…

Sometimes I wish I had musical talents. Or I wish I had a Mac and Garage Band. Or I wish somebody would come out with a Garage Band like product for the PC. Don’t tell me Audacity. It’s not the same.

I found out about this $3 of free music promotion by Amazon today. When I got home, I decided to get some songs. I had a song that I’d been wanting for a while, so I bought it. It was $1.29. Fine, it was free. Then I went looking for another song. For some reason, lately I’ve been wanting “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” I don’t know why. My church never sings it. I’m curious if any of our song leaders have heard of it. In any case, a podcast I listen to occasionally leads in with it. I figured “how hard could it be to find a version of ‘A Mighty Fortress” that I’d like?”

A lot harder than I thought. Amazon returned hundreds of songs under my search. I started sampling them. I quickly realized that I didn’t want a version of the song with pipe organs or a congregation singing in a very-bad-for-sound auditorium/sanctuary/whatever they call it. I also quickly decided that I don’t want an instrumental version. I just want one good singer with a good instrumental mix, that doesn’t include pipe organs or a single guitar. Turns out, my want was impossible. I did find a couple of versions of the song that made me wish Trans Siberian Orchestra would tackle it.

I hate some Christian paradigms. “A Mighty Fortress” is a great song. It’s a powerful anthem. Why can’t anybody put together a good version of it? Just  because it’s 500 years old doesn’t mean it has to be sung with pipe organs and sound like a death march. I’m sure Luther never intended it that way.

T-Mobile MyTouch 3G: But What Does It DO?

Like I asked in my last post, based on the embedded commercial, what does the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G actually do? It's the first phone that becomes you, or something like that. Great. So what does it do? Does it have 3rd party apps? Can it manage multiple email accounts? Can it sync to Google Calendar (I'd hope so, since it's based on Google standards). Can I manage a task list? Can I use it for work?

Or, are the people who put that commercial together not really thinking of me as their target market? That's probably a smart choice. Woe unto the marketer who thinks I'm his or her target customer.

Albert Mohler: Seperation of Church and Sport?

Contemporary theologian and seminary president Albert Mohler is a man I enjoy reading. I follow his blog and listen to his podcast regularly. I like him because he is a thinker. Rather than regurgitate a “party line”, Dr. Mohler thinks through issues. His work has been a real benefit (blessing?) to me in my own intellectual journey.

Dr. Mohler posted an entry on his blog recently about a sports journalist’s call for “separation of church and sport”. The column deals with complaints about athletes who are Christian and the exclusivity of the Gospel.

I’m not opposed to my own version of separation of church and sports: specifically, let’s reduce the number of sports-themed sermons. Nothing makes me want to leave the church, sit in my car, and watch somebody else’s sermon on YouTube on my iPhone like a sermon that starts out with a baseball illustration.

But then again, I also realize that it’s not about me. I’m not sure what to tell the sports journalists. I sit through the sports-sermons. They may have to live with the Christian players.

Probably Bad News: What Happens When Journalists Don’t Check Sources

A site I've been following lately is Probably Bad News. They had a post today about two newspapers in Bangladesh taking a story from The Onion, not realizing that The Onion is satirical.

Makes you wonder about the quality of fact checking in the news you read, doesn't it?

Microsoft Has No Clue About Digital Media

Apparently, Microsoft is now running commercials claiming that it would cost
$30,000 to fill an iPod, but that a Zune Pass only costs $14.99 a month. If
you’re not familiar with the Zune Pass, it’s a subscription model for music.
Essentially, you pay for a subscription and can listen to any music that you
want. That model is in ways better than the “buy a song, keep a song” model,
which is better than the “buy a CD with 12 songs, 11 of which totally suck, in
order to get one good song” model we followed previously. Of course, that model is bad in the way that once you stop your subscription, it all goes away. Supposedly you can keep 10 songs per month.

Microsoft created it's own competitor to the iPod, known as the Microsoft Zune. I think it came out in 2007. At one point, I briefly considered it but then I got an iPod Touch. From what I hear, the Zune does have better battery life than a video iPod. After the frustrations that led me to dump Windows Mobile for the iPhone, I'm not going to consider a mobile device with Microsoft's name on it any time soon. The Zune is made mostly in-house though. I'm sure the hardware is made with communist child slave labor like the iPod, but the software integration is done at Microsoft.

New Thoughts Media Community Site: Apple Thoughts

I first stumbled onto Pocket PC Thoughts 4 years ago this month. It was started by Jason Dunn 8 years ago and has become a media empire of sorts, with community sites dedicated to Smartphones, the Zune, Digital Media, and now Apple. Apple Thoughts just launched. If you happen to have a Thoughts Media account already, it is good on the new site.

Silencing the Christians Videos

I’ve ended up on all kinds of mailing lists over the years. I’ve canceled several. There are others that I find annoying but occasionally useful, such as the Libertarian Party and the American Family Association. The LP is always asking for money (but I’m sure the Republicrats and Demonicans do also but I’m not on their lists) and the AFA is always asking for money or to boycott something for some reason or other. I did participate in the Ford boycott, but to be honest that really didn’t cost me anything because I never buy new cars and I never buy Fords (OK, one exception and it will be the last. I’ve always said our 1995 Ford Windstar has run flawlessly since we spent $5500 in two visits to a Ford dealer to get Ford’s manufacturing defects worked out of it.) That’s like saying I’ll participate in a hip-hop music boycott. I never buy the stuff anyway, so why not let my otherwise inaction contribute to active support, however symbolic it may be? The AFA currently has a McDonald’s boycott going on. Guess where my lunch came from yesterday? I didn’t buy it, it was brought to me. It’s not that I don’t support the reasoning behind some of these boycotts, and the one against Ford was eventually effective, but I’m not sure this is a good long-term strategy.

In any case, several months ago the AFA was sending out emails about a series of videos about Silencing the Christians. To be honest, often when I hear of things like this, I assume it’s just the usual whining. "Whaw! the Liberal Media is ignoring Christian issues!” Right, and my three year old is lying to me that mommy said he could have ice cream and his little brother said he could have his share too. Where is the news in that statement? I’ve started to ignore the so called “conservative” news sources as much as I ignore the “liberal” or “mainstream” sources.

I’ve had a browser tab on my laptop open to the Silencing videos for several months. Maybe it’s time to watch them. If they actually contain something that I didn’t already know or write off as whining, maybe I’ll comment on it.

Interested in Christian Self-Publishing?

I got an interesting email today. I have no idea how I get on some of these lists. I guess when you have a broad range of interests and find yourself constantly chasing down something new, your email address pops up to a lot of marketers. Actually, I got two weird emails today. One had to do with a business school. Somehow I got on the mailing list of BioPharm. Why, I have no idea. My occupation and interests don’t really cross many lines with biology or pharmacology, but somehow BioPharm sends me magazines and sells my contact information to all of their “partners.” I unsubscribed from that marketing list immediately.

The second email was slightly more interesting and could actually be useful to me at some point, God willing. I’ve always for some twisted reason wanted to write a book. A book about what, I have no idea. At one point, I wanted to be a right wing political writer, until I realized I could fart out the window and be slightly more coherent and productive in the public discourse. It’s a long story, and no I haven’t switched to the other “wing.” That’s why you see little political content on my blog. I do occasionally put up something I feel like commenting on, but I try my hardest to either stick to the facts or find some way to make it humorous. Anyway, I’ve thought about other areas I could write a book in, until I realized that I have absolutely no knowledge of how to write a book, or what to write about, so I pretty much stick to posting on my blog as I work on my writing skill.

I read the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, Michael Hyatt’s blog. I subscribe to his RSS feeds. He posts some interesting content. I could care less about his half marathons, but he write a lot of interesting posts about leadership and Christian publishing. One thing I have gathered from him is that if I ever did assemble a manuscript, I probably wouldn’t have good odds of getting it through Thomas Nelson. I figure if I did write anything, I’d probably just post it online and ask for $5 from anyone who was blessed or informed or even mildly amused by my book, or just read it and enjoy it. I’ve come across a lot of good books that way, and it wouldn’t bother me to do the same, especially for a first book, which probably won’t be that great. I have no editor or professional assistance. I’m normally the guy people I know go to for help with writing, so where could I go for help?

The email I got was from Inspired Publishing, a Christian publisher that seems to specialize in print on demand, self-publishing. It sounded interesting. If you have a manuscript that you’ve considering publishing, give them a look. It will probably be a long time before a book from me is anything more than a dream.

iPods and Rental Cars

Because I travel a lot in my current job, I’ve come across a minor complication: I hate the radio. Ever since I got my first Pocket PC and discovered that I could copy MP3 audio files onto it to listen to, I’ve done all I can to avoid listening to the radio. I got a cassette adapter and somehow every car I’ve had has had a cassette player. But now that I’m renting cars, I’m finding that nobody makes a car with a cassette player anymore. All rental cars have CD player. That does me no good. As I said, I hate the radio.

Why do I hate the radio? Sure, there are some decent songs and talk programs, but for the most part, listening to the radio for me is painful. I may hear a good song, maybe I’ll hear a helpful talk program, but in between are the horrible songs, the mindless DJ chatter, and the pointless at best and annoying at worst commercials. Thanks to Steve Jobs and Apple (and my Dad’s generosity,) I’m on my second iPod, the 32 GB iPod Touch. I love it. I have hundreds of podcasts that I can listen to, anything from This Week in Tech to Theology Unplugged, from Chuck Missler to John C. Dvorak, I can listen to what I want just about whenever I want considering the mood I’m in. That is unless I’m in a rental car. In a rental car, I’m stuck with the radio. The radio is painful considering the podcasts I could be listening to.

When my family went with me on a week long trip to the Virginia Beach area, I stopped and bought an FM modulator, as I expect to have lots of rental cars in this job. I found that it didn’t work very well. Even driving around the block I couldn’t keep a decent signal on any given station. Then, leaving the area, leaves you constantly tuning the radio and the modulator. That’s no good. I returned the modulator to Circuit City today.

On my last trip, since I rented a car and drove 5 hours rather than deal with another butter knife issue with Homeland Security (I’ll write on that later), I solved the problem by bringing my own speakers. But that really only works if I’m driving from New Jersey to my business location. If I’m flying, the speakers might take up too much room in my luggage.

Why can’t rental cars just include an iPod dock? I don’t know about the rest of you, but it would make my life so much easier. Does anybody really listen to CDs in a rental car? I guess I have one case of circumstantial evidence. One car I rented for a business trip in 2005 had a Steven Curtis Chapman CD left in it.

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