Well well well, look who's back

After a two year leave of absence I am blogging here again...same format and rules apply...just my thoughts and musings see you around.

I have been doing most of my blogging over at my Xanga site. Go there NOW!!!

Oh Hey.......

If you want to listen to my obsession that is Launchcast Radio. Just go here and then click on the orange ear phone icon in the "About my station" box (Listen to my Radio Station: (icon) therrrant). Then it will take you to the sign in page where you log in to Yahoo (you need a Yahoo!ID to listen to anything on Launch). Then it will play my station!!

Hey if you haven't done it yet sign my guestbook. It is the little icon with the pen on it on the side panel. Also I have a message board so if ya want to discuss anything that is the place to do it.

A new obsession

I have a new on-line obsession....Launch Radio. If you have a yahoo account you can create your own Customized radio station. You do it by picking genres and subgenres, band/artists, albums, and songs that you are into. Then they will play random songs according to your choices of genres et al. and as they paly you can rate the Artist, the album and the song on a scale from 0-5 0 meaning never play it again to love it (5). then music starts showing up according to where it ranks on you lists aswell as random stuff. So the obsession comes in finding artists and ranking them and all their stuff and making your Radio station truly yours. I have been annoying my wife greatly as everytime she turns around I am on-line editing my paly-list. I will type in a band/artist I enjoy and then rate it. Next I go to the "similar artist" file and rate some of the ones I know from there I follow the link to similar artists of those ones and on and on it goes. Then I listen to some artists I have heard about but have never heard. and then the cycle starts all over again.
Then there is this little thing called "moods" where you can have playlists that are done according to the moods you are in (once again you create the "mood" and what genres et al are included). But this is part of the pay portion of Launch cast so sucks to that. Vive le Free!!!!

I have been doing this radio thing for days now, I even put off doing any blogging and had to do this in two parts because of it. I can't seem to e-mail anyone (and man I have to do that) but I sure can rate the hell out of my radio station. All this has brought to mind an idea that has been rolling around now for a couple months, it would be a way for me to put my obsession with music to good use...start a label. I know absolutely nothing about the way it would work or how we would be different from anyone elese out there but hey gimme some time to figure it all out and this too will be able to be added to the list of really good deas that I have no time/money to work on. Oh well I am young and it could still happen blah blah blah...actually somewhere deep inside I believe that those words are true but the cynicism that often plagues those my age just won't let me hope. I so dislike how cynical I have become. (Remind me to share some of my thoughts on cynicism vs. irony al a Douglas Coupland).

sorry about that little tangent but sometimes a mood just hits ya know?

while I have been writing this I have gone to maketradefair.org and searched the site and have been reminded how much navel-gazing I do and how little thought I give to the oppressed around the world and how I can help them. I also watched The Hour and was deeply saddened to hear of a two year old that was shot by those who took many children hostage from a school in Cambodia because he was crying too much during the hostage taking. Like what the eff!!!!! The boy was TWO!!!!!! killing, violence, war and the like bother me enough but when it involves children it goes beyond upsetting. Children should never have to deal with any of this stuff. Not here in Canada or the US or "over there" in any part of the world. I grow weary of seeing children being made to pay for the "sins of their fathers". I grow antsy for the time when the Kingdom of God will rule on earth as it does in Heaven and there will be peace. Having spent the better part of two years working with children in some shitty situations and seeing their innocence attacked and violated but also seeing that same innocence still trying to hang on I know that as a follower of Christ I am honor and duty bound to help those children and woe unto me if I don't. That children are made to be our examples compells us to act in an attempt to create a world where children are allowed to live freely and simply as children, not as slaves to fear and hate and greed.

Wow sorry again for hijacking my own light hearted blog entry but this is and other related topics just can't be ignored and are imoprtant to me and as such will appear many more times in the future....but I promise that I will try to give better warning, I will try to not to do too many stream-of-conciousness-like rants and I will always mix it up with many topics from the inane to the serious, from the dry to the witty....I won't depress you all the time.


Ps be on the look out for a new heading in my links "social Activism" where I will have as it states sites, blogs, etc. whose focus is on "Social Activism"

The Hour

Hey there is this really amazing show on CBC Newsworld called The Hour: with George Stroumboulopoulos, and is hosted by a guy named, well, George Stroumboulopoulos. George used to be a VJ on Much Music (and a damn good one I might add) and "as producer and host of The Punk Show, host of The NewMusic, LOUD and MuchNews". He was asked to host a segment on Tommy Douglas during CBC's Greatest Canadian Ever show and wouldn't you know it Tommy won the polls and was crowned The Greatest Canadian, George was given a show and CBC was blessed with a hit.
Now I don't know if you all could figure it out but it is a news type show (I guess they call it a variety news show or something) and it is incredible and the reasons the show is so incredible are varied such as things like the fact that he has regular contributers as well as other guests who come from all sides of the political spectrum (he also gives them chances to answer or state their view even if he doesn't agreee with them...take that O'Riely). Or all of the pop-culture references and stories. Or because he does a show geared for 20-30 somethings that deals with intense topics, actual news and does it in a way that treats us like we have a brain and may care about more than the latest hollywood gossip. He does all these stories in short-form and then does a few stories in depth and then if the story requires some background to understand it he does what is called the set up which is a breif history and then it leads into the story.

Anyway I love it and if you get a chance to see it do...you will become addicted for sure.
http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/