Insomnic Dreams

Weezer released the official video for their song Pork and Beans a little while ago and my friend JerBones sent it along to me. The best thing about the video is that it stars all your favorite YouTube celebrities!

Weezer just extended quite a few 15 minutes of fame.

The LA Times has an article stating that iTunes is now the 2nd largest music retailer and that 48% of teens bought zero music CDs in 2006.  iTunes is only behind Wal-mart in music sales… and that’s using information from over a year ago.  Apple also posted that they’ve sold more iPods than ever in 2007 and their addition of the wildly popular iPhone surely increased  iTunes Store purchases well over what 2006 ever saw, even on a good day.

Amazon MP3 also opened its doors in 2007 and has been doing very well (I’d recommend them over iTunes for quality MP3s and the lack of DRM).

So is the CD on its way out the door? I’m sure there are solid numbers out there about this, but I’m lazy and it seems like boring data anyways so we’ll just use anecdotal information. I think the CD is definitely out the door and the reason I believe this is the simple fact that it is harder and harder to find audio CDs. There aren’t many chain music stores – they all sell multimedia now, not just music and music related stuff – and the big box places that do sell CDS have such a marginal selection you can tell it’s not worth that much of their time and effort. The local music shops seem to do okay by servicing local bands, collectors (especially vinyl), and the scene, but they seem to carry a lot more mp3 players than usual.

Also, lets look at the new Border’s concept store being test marketed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It’s being given a make over to provide more of a “hang out” atmosphere. They have added a digital media space as well where customers can use computer kiosks to purchase and immediately download music and books to their MP3 players, flash media, or even burn a CD. Ars Technica has further details about this new concept store.

So taken all together it seems like CDs are on the way out.  As one final piece of anecdotal evidence… just look around see if you see more people with portable CDMD players or MP3 players?

The hell is Caramelldansen?

Well… it’s a song by a Swedish group named Caramell – and I assume you can figure out that it translates into Caramell Dance. Yes… there is a dance that goes along with it. It’s been parodied like crazy too. So why bring this up? Well – it’s another of those odd memes that is kind of interesting to see (like Numa Numa) and are often kind of fun.

This is one of the “original” ones from Popotan:

Here’s one with a neat bit of trickery using Augmented Reality and Vocaloid Nendroid:

Real people are doing it too:

Here are a couple popular ones:
—Watch till the end!—

—Guys Too!—

—Some are Sad—

All in all – it’s a song that will get stuck in your head even if you don’t know the words. Plus, next time you are out at the dance clubs you’ll be able to perform this intricate dance and impress everyone with your impressive repertoire.

I previously talked about using multiprotocol IM clients to handle the mass of instant message services that abound. My previous recommendations were Adium on the Mac and Pidgin on PC/Linux. Each program has had lots of significant updates and offer compatibility with almost every IM service out there.

Neither of them do voice or video though. So it seems getting a multiprotocol IM client is not enough anymore. So what are the options?

Well, iChat on the Mac is actually excellent for voice and video, but it only works with other people with iChat or the AOL IM client. I’m trying to have fewer programs not more so that doesn’t really work for me (though may be enough for some).

Well, if I’m going to install another IM program to handle video and voice then I want the one that the majority of people are using and has the most available uses. This is where Skype comes in.

There are other programs like Skype (Gizmo Project is also coming of age), but Skype has wormed its way into so many areas that it really seems like it would be the best way to go.

So why use Skype? Well, lets say you are going on a business trip to a foreign country, and you know that the cost of phone calls is going to be ridiculous. Install Skype on your computer and your friend’s and family’s computer and now you can have a live voice chat with them. If you have a webcam available you can even use video.

I don’t know these people.

It doesn’t end there either. You can get on Windows/Mac/Linux, on your Wi-Fi enable mobile phone, on a dedicated Skype phone, and soon it will be built into the PSP and they have partnered with MySpace. So now it’s easy to use and available many form factors… but there is one more little benefit – you can send and receive calls from regular phones and even have voicemail. That part isn’t free though – but still pretty cheap for a phone service.

Oh wait – did I mention that yet? Yeah. Skype is free. Video and voice between Skype clients is absolutely free.

Adium and Pidgin don’t support voice or video (probably won’t for awhile) which means to have voice or video you’ll need another client. To pick only one… I would suggest Skype.

There is a song that plays during the credits at the end of the game Portal called “Still Alive”. It was written by Jonathan Coulter who is a folk singer/songwriter with a large geek following. He wrote Code Monkey for example (YouTube AMV version here) – a song I really love even though I’m not truly a code monkey.

Here is the trailer for Portal which should give you a real feeling of the game and the computer that is “helping” you:

Anyways… Scott at VGCats made a flash video for the song Still Alive and it’s flippin’ hilarious. It’s the perfect video for this song – and I just wanted to share because it has infested my brain. Hopefully it will infest yours as well.