Musings of a Punk Rock Father

I just added another widget: books I am currently reading. I saw Kyle's library widget on his blog, and wanted just to add what I am reading right now. So I set up a LibraryThing account to do just that.

I haven't taken time to check out all I can do on my blog, but yesterday I dug into the admin portion and found some cool stuff. I changed skins so as to allow for a sidebar, into which I discovered I can insert widgets. I didn't even know what a widget was, but I managed to figure out that I could insert stuff from my last.fm account, such as recently played songs or most popular artists of the week. I also put a compilation (which I blogged about a few weeks ago) together on last.fm, and inserted it into my sidebar also. I feel pretty awesome. Now I want to find other sites where I can get more widgets to insert here, just because I know I can.

I keep hoping to start blogging regularly, but by the time I get a chance to login here, I forget whatever I was thinking of blogging about.

I apologize for the infrequent posts here; I still update at my Blogger account.

Mostly I'm continuing my Album of the Day series, in which I write about albums I've listened to that were referred to me by others. I have months worth of albums left.

Since I'm having difficlty accessing my blog from work, I started a blog at www.hintofdisaster.blogspot.com. As often as I can, I'll transfer my posts over here as well.

The billionth song, ”Speed of Sound,” was purchased as part of Coldplay’s “X&Y” album by Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Michigan. As the grand prize winner, he will receive a 20-inch iMac, 10 fifth generation iPods, and a $10,000 Music Card good for any item on the iTunes Music Store. In addition, to commemorate this milestone, Apple will establish a scholarship to the world-renowned Juilliard School in his name.

“I hope that every customer, artist, and music company executive takes a moment today to reflect on what we’ve achieved together during the past three years,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Over one billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet.”

I just think it's unfortunate that the download that won the young man all of that loot was from a popular bandlike Coldplay. I think it would have been great if the 1,000,000,000th track downloaded would have been something from the Hellacopters or the Reigning Sound.

Since Citigroup has decided that brendoman.com contains sexual and/or violent content that is inappropriate for the workplace, I can no longer post on my lunch break, making new topics from me few and far between.

I wonder what actually triggered it to be blocked? Since it can't possible be content, I can only think that it is due to the amount of time or number of times it had been accessed. But I see what my co-workers are doing online, and it certainly isn't all work-related.

Maybe I need to change my blog name to something mortgage related to slip past their filter.

First, there was the murder of a teen's parents that was related, at least in the news, to MySpace, now there are threats made against a teacher on a blog. Although myspace seemed to have very little if anything to do with the first story (it wasn't the catalyst for the crime nor was it used in any way to commit the crime), the second is a little worrisome.

I guess the question is this: Is blogging a threat against a teacher any different than writing it on a note that is intricately folded into the shape of a medieval torture device and handed to a classmate to read and toss away? I know we all got upset with a teacher or fellow student, and vented in some way, whether telling someone face to face or writing it on a note.

The internet, however, gives students another forum to air their grievances, one that is not only slightly more permanent, but also, in most cases, very much public. Is punishing the students involved a blow to free speech, or protecting the safety of students?

If it were a crude drawing saying, "I hate u, Mrs Smith," I might be inclined to believe that school officials and law enforcement are over-reacting. But with what we've seen in Columbine and other similar situations, sometimes the worst thing to do would be to ignore internet postings.