A white flag in ones and zeros

Alright, I give. I'm not going to write on the tech blog anymore. The reasons for that are numbered below, like terms of surrender:

1. My life was too fragmented. I was tired of thinking what to write where, instead of just plugging it all into the same place.
2. It wasn't fun to write. I like the voice I write with here; the snarky, obnoxious, vaguely-insulting voice. I was basically writing documentation over there, and I do enough of that at work.
3. It wasn't reaching its intended audience. I wanted to make it a place where I could convince people who were a'feared of computer to pet their computers and finally be friendly with them. For the kid's sake.

Then there's the bad news, much like the news of surrender is followed by the listing of the dead. The first bit of bad news is that whatever tech I want to write about is going to be written about here, and there's going to be a lot of it. It's a force-feeding. Sorry.

The second bit is that this site might go a little squirrely at some point if I switch blogging platforms. You won't need to change your feeds or bookmarks unless they include the word "blogspot" in the URL, but there may be moments where the site won't come up. It'll be back up eventually, so don't run out into the street in a blind panic, throwing bricks through the first windows you see. Again.

Me + guitar + tomorrow

For those of you looking for to rock Monday night away (and if you're not looking to do that, you're sad and lame not keyed into the counterculture), I feel I should let you know that I'll be playing guitar with Sprites tomorrow at the Galaxy Hut. Lookit:

Sprites
January 28, 2007
Galaxy Hut
2711 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA
Clarendon Metro

You can tell it's a big deal, because that text is CENTERED, and by law, you're not allowed to do that unless it's VERY IMPORTANT. All-caps indicates an emergency situation, which in a way, this is.

I have to take the chance to throw in that it's such an amazing feeling to play in a band that I'm also a huge fan of. Same goes with The Positions, but that's a little different, since I've been in it from the get-go. To be able to not only still get to play, but play songs that I absolutely love...it's an honor and a thrill. In short: it rules.

See you there, rocker.

Quieting down

As you may or may not have noticed, I haven't been posting so much here lately. That's partly due to the fact that the mix took me an incredibly long time to put together, which was (as it always is) very rewarding, but a little frustrating as well.

There's a couple other reasons (which I'll get to), but this is probably the standard here for a while. I'm not quitting this blog at all, and probably never will. I write mostly for myself and my mental exercise, and because it keeps me somewhat in touch with people I wouldn't otherwise. I'll still post here, but it'll be less scheduled and more prompted by having both the time and topics and not anymore by staying regular, which I hope I don't have to say has nothing to do with my digestive system.

The first (and lesser) reason that I'm cooling down on this page is this: as most of you know, part of how I make my living is analyzing web statistics. I pull together a bunch of numbers and then interpret it for the folks in my organization. And if I had to sit down the CEO of the vast Are Seven media empire to go over the statistics, it would go something like this:

Frankly, sir, I think everyone's bored. People are still coming to the site, but it's a little bit hard to see why exactly. We get good feedback from our users, but the comments have been declining, fewer people are clicking through the feed and after four years, I think everyone's gotten a little tired. It's time to hit refresh on the whole blogging thing.

Refreshing it means doing what I've thought about for a long time: starting another blog. So I did it:

Tech for the Technophobic

Lord knows I need a better name, and it'll probably change a lot, but I wanted a place where I could:

1. Recommend software and steps for the people that I often find myself talking to about why they should use RSS readers, why they should blog, and basically why they should stop thinking of computers and technology as a separate world that only "tech" people can understand. I hope to make it something that people who don't subscribe to a bunch of tech-minded blogs can learn a lot from, though I'll be talking about analytics and such as well. The suggestion box is open.
   
2. Where I can talk about the computer-type stuff that interests me to an audience who knows that that's where they're getting, hopefully eventually building up a community that I can help and that can help me in return.
3. Have a single-topic (basically) blog that I can practice promotion and marketing on, and potentially even make some money.

I'm realistic enough to know that I can't keep that blog going and regularly update this one. So the tech blog experiment is going to become my priority, but I'll still write about music, sports and stupid shit and stories around here. In fact, it'll probably take a much more informal, dashed-off tone. I'm not really sure what'll happen here. We'll see.

Anyway, your mother and I felt you should know. Sleep well.

Internal memo (leaked)

TO: Are Seven Marketing Dept.
FROM: Are Seven Executive Board

CONFIDENTIAL

The Are Seven Executive board has two requests of the Marketing Dept.

The first is that we need a marketing campaign centered around the mp3s. We're going to need to clear out the existing stock to make room for the year-end mp3s, so we need to get across to our readership that they need to download now before the files are cleared out. The Executive Board strongly recommends cutting-edge, "action" language, such as "act now" or "everything must go".

The Executive Board also recommends the use of exclamation marks. Multiple marks may be used if necessary.

The second issue is, unfortunately, damage control. The readership has noticed the decline in quality of our writing, but they still don't know that the decline is because the entire staff of writers was fired over a sexual harassment complaint revolving around an suggestively obscene act involving an empty bottled water container, a frozen bratwurst, and a "tickle-me Elmo", and that the dismissed staff has been replaced by mail-order Russian bloggers.

Because of this dramatic change, the Marketing Department is advised to concentrate on music, delivered in posts that don't require a grasp of written English higher than a 3rd grade level. The Marketing Department will need to finesse the writer's language to de-emphasize that nothing but music and maybe sports are being discussed.

Finally, the Marketing Department should be advised that the Russians have stumbled upon the Christmas present that the CEO of Are Seven had bought for his wife and had hidden in the writer's room. The present was a holiday gift basket of machetes and hand grenades. The members of the marketing department are advised to take extreme caution when going down the hall to the bathroom.

You feed me when I'm hungry

Hello, feed fans! Who loves ya?! I do. That's why I created ("created") two new feeds for you, both described and disclaimed below.

First, your boss and I are concerned about your productivity, so there's now an RSS feed for all the comments on Are Seven. That way, you won't have to check back to see if people have commented. It's done for you:

feeds.feedburner.com/aresevenComments

Now, for those more nervous of you out there, don't think this means that there's more pressure to have something wise or witty to comment. Commenting on a blog is a little like taking over a bottle of wine when someone invites you over for dinner: no one's really going to hold it against you if you don't do it, but it's still the nice thing to do. A comment's a comment. Conversation. Tip your blogger.

The other feed is for those of you who want to bypass the inanity and go straight to the music:

feeds.feedburner.com/aresevenMusic

I don't blame you if you're only around for the tunes. The way I figure it, you'd have to know me to really enjoy the non-music stuff around here, so this way, the inside jokes are left inside and don't even have to bother you. If you prefer living your life as it was in 1999 and prefer the bookmark route, you can always just check the music label page.

And of course, all of the posts on the regular flavored feed. So if neither of the options above appeal to you, just do what you enjoy doing most: nothing.

That'll be all, soldier.

Memorandum

TO: Are Seven Employees
FROM: Are Seven Corporate Headquarters

The July Fourth holiday that was scheduled for next Wednesday, July Fourth, has been canceled. All employees will be issued one (1) sparkler, which they may light at their own desks at 3:00 pm in celebration of our perfect American version of capitalism.

Employees wishing to further celebrate the fourth of July may do so by using a personal day on the 17th of August.

The time you have spent reading this memorandum has been noted on your timecards and will be deducted from your pay. That is all.

Listen...

You know what, readers? You've been doing such a great job lately, and the work load around here's a little light, so why don't you take the rest of the week off? Spend time outside, see your families, do some shopping. The entire Are Seven organization values the work you do for us, and just accept this as a big thank you for quality work you do.

Nah...don't worry about the Peterson account. It'll still be there on Monday. You just go out and have yourself a great time, killer. Don't worry about work.

Enjoy your week...

...and you ain't got no soul power

You know how, when you haven't seen a really close friend in a long time, and you finally get together, and even though years have passed and plenty has happened, you can't really think of what to say? If it's been a really long time, you can't just talk about a movie you saw or a book you read or something weird that happened on the street like you can with a friend you see a couple times a week. Logically, the more time has passed, the more you should have to talk about, but it doesn't work that way.

That's what it's become with this page. The lack of posts isn't because I couldn't think of anything to write about. It's only because what I wanted to write about was going to require more paragraphs than I had time for. So I may have to tinker with the format a little bit so that I can go back to posting every day. It may make even less sense than usual, but I'm confident that you can handle it, dear readers.

In other news (which I say as thought the above paragraphs could, in any sense, be called "news"), I want to extend the invitation to join my NCAA bracket to anyone who reads this post to join my NCAA Tournament bracket:

http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men
Group ID#: 65470
Password: goacc

So brace yourselves for some tournament action and some shorter and even more incomprehensible posts from me.

Things we forget to remember

Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America,

We are a nation of short attention spans. We all know this and accept it. Personally, I'm kind of proud of it. God bless Amer.

But short attention spans don't excuse bad memory. And there are two things that Americans forget every single year:

1. The ads in the Super Bowl, while highly anticipated, are ALWAYS "disappointing". Every single year.
2. The Oscar ceremony—no matter who is hosting, no matter what movies are nominated and no matter what unthinkable disaster has happened in the year preceding—is always boring. Yes, yes...there are interesting subplots and big upsets and interesting speeches. But these are a tiny majority of the time, and everything in between is so achingly dull that you can only watch it in the presence of your smart-ass friends who could make anything entertaining.

I am in no way saying that we should not watch either of these. I'll watch both of them every year until the day I die (or have a damn good excuse like "same night as the Belle & Sebastian show" or "was in the hospital). But just remember when these things come around: the Super Bowl commercials are never as entertaining as you thought they'd be, and the Oscars are a tedious bore-fest occasionally interrupted by something interesting. But only occasionally.

Pardon our mess!

You may notice that things look a little different around here! We upgraded to this Blogger beta thing this morning and it's done all sorts of odd junk: moving things to where they shouldn't be and keeping stuff that should be thrown away. In other words, it resembles our apartment.

Things will likely be a little off for a while until we can clean up a little. Patience is a virtue, but that doesn't mean we're not sorry that every single post we've ever done may have shown up in your feed reader.

One of the millions

I've been wracked with guilt over not posting here and leaving you free of procrastination material, but I've been caught in a snowstorm of work, illness and actual snow. I've had fascinating, deep insights on such things as the self-checkout machines at CVS, missing one of my favorite bands ever...twice, ridiculous Chinese movies and the ridiculous (but H.O.T.) parade of American movies known as the Oscars, and I kept meaning to share these insights with you, but...I just didn't. I hope you forgive me. Won't you please forgive me? Oh WHY won't you see it in your heart to forgive me?!! JUST THIS ONCE?!!

I'll have something controversial for you tomorrow that we can all get all worked up over in the comments tomorrow.

A comment on the comments

With the commenting debacle getting more controversial than the election, I just took off the old comments. It's new or nothing, punk!

No, no...what do YOU think?

Here at areseven.com, we value your thoughts and opinions. More than our own, in fact! So, since so many of you have had such interesting and smart things to say, I thought I wanted to change the comments from that dumb little popup to the Blogger comments so that, on those occasions when you have something to say, it's easier to read and more a part of the blog itself.

I'll keep the old ones up until they get pushed off the page, which will be a while since I'll be at the beach next week.

No refunds!

The previous week and this current week of Word Practice have been called on account of crankiness and, in a incident related to the crankiness, the purchase of Madden 2005. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. No, wait...we're GLAD for any inconvenience this may cause!! See? Cranky!

Good.

It's come to my attention that yesterday's blog didn't make any sense. I never said this page was for anyone but me, so stick it, whitey.

Knock yourselves out. Seriously.

Okay, fine. There's comments now. Happy?! You can have your own say now, your precious little "freedom of speech", you stinking Democrat. So now you can go on about whatever your bleeding heart likes, things like "community" and "understanding", you freaking liberal.

You can't see me right now, but I'm making a face at you.

Every night?! On the telephone?!

I'm newly inspired to try to write here every day, even when it feels like I don't have much to say. This arrangement should last about two or three days. If we're lucky.

I was partly inspired by Brian's Bears Will Attack blog and the fact that, even though I think that I'd one day like to be a writer, I don't write anything except a few emails, and I'm not thinking that publishers will be falling all over themselves to publish a collection of the "what have you been listening to lately" emails that I send to Christian. Or maybe they will. In a world where Dave Eggers is considered a literary hero, anything is possible.