I'm doing this post from my parents' house over in 'Jersey. It's the first time I've seen the default Blogger interface under 'doze. I figured it had to look a little different from what I was using at home on my Mac under Safari. The URL at home points to the "LoFi" directory, and the interface is significantly different.

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On my way out this morning, I walked past the scene of the accident of last night. The skid marks start just before the traffic light, and it looks like the S.U.V. swerved to avoid the taxi, and didn't really brake hard until just about the moment of impact. My guess is, just their bumpers met. It was probably the taxi that ran the light. I didn't see any skid marks from the cab, other than the arc-shaped scrub of tires caused by the car flipping around in the intersection.

I didn't mention that the taxi driver was lying on the sidewalk with his shoes off last night. The police asked him questions, and he gestured slowly with his hands. They didn't seem to be offering first aid, so I figure he was OK for the moment. It took a long time to get back to sleep last night.

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Let the pile-on begin...
Newscasters seem to love to harp on how Clark has "no political experience..." other than his stint heading up NATO, or something like that. Yeah, like being Governor of Texas equals significant political experience. Well, maybe you can claim indirect experience if you got to visit daddy in the White House as Vice President and again later as President.

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Have I mentioned that I really don't like Earthlink's popup blocker? It's too aggressive. It blocks all open window commands, not just windows associated with OnLoad. That means to run the integrated spell checker in Blogger, I have to turn popup blocker off. Oh, well, at least it tells me when it's blocking something.

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Finally, I have in my paws a copy of the Calendar/Directory I designed for Essex County Education Association, and I have to say the final product actually exceeds my expectations. One ad that I had scanned, and looked a little questionable on screen, came out very nicely. The whole project was done in InDesign 2.0, which is a really fabulous product. I'll be happy, if I rarely have to use Quark from here on out.

Actual and potential damage
I was awakened at about 3 this morning by the unmistakable sound of a car crash. It sounded like a heavier thud than usual. I looked out the window, and could see a taxi cab in the middle of the intersection that is maybe 100 feet from my front door. I went outside, and discovered that the other vehicle was a white S.U.V. The taxi's front bumper was almost completely ripped off, and the SUV had considerable damage across the front section. Apparently the tie-rod on the driver's side had been broken, leaving the wheel flopped at an odd angle.

My guess is that the S.U.V. had been speeding down the street, as the taxi entered the intersection. One of them had to have blown through the traffic light. The kicker of the story is that the taxi driver was apparently drunk.

I was impressed at how quickly the police, fire and ambulance units were on the scene. I counted three police cruisers, two fire trucks, and one ambulance within minutes of the accident.

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The hurricane is headed for our neck of the woods. Depending on its track, we'll see a bunch of rain, and more than a little wind on Thursday and Friday, at the very least. A friend of mine lives under the star on this map, showing the potential path of the storm.

Time for me to go.

Moby Journal 9/5/2003

so the universal music group are lowering their cd prices by $3 in an attempt to get people to start buying cd's again.

it's a good idea, but it might be a case of too little, too late.

if anyone were asking me (and they're not, actually) i would advise the music business to do the following:
1-come up with a standardized platform for file-sharing that all of the labels would provide music to, but that would be owned by an independent 3rd party source.

something like the apple on-line store. when the record companies try to start their own on-line retail services they invariable become proprietary and greedy. at some point the record labels are going to have to realize that you can't expect people to pay a lot of money for something that they can get for free. so:
a-the price needs to come down
b-the value needs to increase
c-the product has to be easy to acquire.

2-sell cd's at two retail prices, kind of like hard-cover and paperback books. sell your basic cd for $5 or $6 with very minimal packaging, and sell an enhanced cd package for $15 that would include bonus discs and posters and free access to on-line material and discounts on concert tickets, etc. that way the casual consumer can buy a cd without it costing too much and the bigger fan can buy a more exciting and value-filled product for slightly more money.

3-stop spending insane amounts of money making records and videos.

the world doesn't need albums that cost more than $100,000 to make, and the world doesn't need videos that cost more than $50,000 to produce.

how much did it cost to make 'nevermind'? how much did the 'smells like teen spirit' video cost? expensive records and expensive videos are a waste of everyone's time and money. it's just insane that most 3 1/2 minute pop videos cost more than a 50 acre estate in north carolina.

4-stop putting out shitty records. people don't associate music with value because most record labels put out valueless music. and they know it. their goal is to get a single on the radio and then put out a crummy album that will sell on the strength of the single with no thought to artistry or artist development. they don't sign artists based on artistic merit, they sign artists if the artists look and sound like the other artists on radio and mtv, and that's a recipe for long-term musical and corporate disaster. if you consistently make a crummy product then at some point people will lose interest in you and your crummy product, and they certainly won't be willing to pay for your crummy product.

5-stop persecuting people who are music fans. people who engage in file-sharing are people who like music. you can't make people feel guilty about loving and listening to music. the record companies need to see people who engage in file-sharing as music fans and not as criminals. and then they need to try to convince people to spend a little bit of money for music (with added value) rather than downloading it for free.

record companies and rich musicians complaining about file-sharing rings terribly false with most people. i mean, how can a 14 year old who has an allowance of $5 a week feel bad about downloading music produced by multi-millionaire musicians and greedy record companies? the record companies should approach that 14 year old and say, 'hey, it's great that you love music, instead of downloading music for free why don't you try this very inexpensive service that will enable you to listen to a lot of music and also have access to unreleased tracks and ticket discounts and free merchandise?'

the record companies and the riaa have up until this point been like nero, fiddling while rome burned (or george bush, vacationing while the economy implodes...). the record companies are faced with an inescapable fact: the music business has changed and will continue to change. if the record companies can't change with the times then they will very quickly become obsolete. whether that's a good or bad thing, it really is as simple as that.

thanks
moby

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From: Warren
Date: Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:42:46 AM US/Eastern
Re: Moby on the state of the music industry

Word -

Thanks for the link. It's amazing how many artists are in agreement with Moby's opinion (and how many, like Aimee Mann & Courtney Love, have gone indy as a result of the ailing industry).

I would have no problem paying a little extra for an enhanced CD, PROVIDED there was some actual value to it. Frankly, I don't want to pay $15-$20 for a disc when all I might want from it is the one song I'd like to learn on guitar. Writeoffs be damned, that's a major loss of money.

And you can't give me the argument that record stores let you preview discs--the industry pays well for product placement in Tower Records' listening stations. I guarantee you that you won't be able to preview Joe Average Songwriter's album in the store.

Did I send you the link to Courtney Love's "sharecropper" diatribe about the industry?

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The guy's a four-star general. Can you really get that high up in the military without gaining political experience?

Schmolitics...
Well, now, this looks interesting. Wesley Clark is probably going to run. It seems he's not the hawk I thought he was, either. Maybe that means the Dems will have somebody they actually consider electable on their side. Dean's still hot, but Clark could possibly blow him away. In either case, he's a far cry better than Lieberman.

Granted, much of what I know of him comes from this letter by Michael Moore. I'll have to research more, but I also know that Bill Maher likes him too, and I suspect Bill's done his homework on the guy.

Meanwhile, in California, the recall vote is to be delayed; and the Texas State Senate Democrats who put themselves into exile in New Mexico have returned home.

Another trip to the garden...

I like this pic so much, I had to post it.

Looks like Denise is wearing flowers, doesn't it?

“Our world is not for sale, my friend, just to keep you satisfied”

The Cancun meeting was marked by the emergence of a powerful grouping of developing countries, including China, India and Brazil. They stuck together despite differences in their own agendas to demand major concessions from richer nations, including the slashing of farm subsidies.

Talks have collapsed at the World Trade Organization. MakeTradeFair.com | AP

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Nirvana
Restaurant fans know 6th Street as the place to go for Indian food, but if you're in search of peaceful sanctuary, walk a little bit further East. Beautiful community gardens await. These pix are from the 6BC garden, on 6th between Avenues B and C. Even as Autumn approaches, and the blooms are waning, there is much to marvel.

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Scene on the Streets
Most of these images were taken yesterday, in the East Village.

In memory of Joyce Ann Carpeneto Lost at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

I have no idea what it means, but it certainly caught my eye

I may just have to chase down some of the photoblogs, and see what they look like. The idea of posting directly from your camera-phone to your blog sounds like a case of technology over quality. I suspect that the images will have a bit of a spy-cam feel to them: low quality and shaky composition. The limitations of creating text is likely to make the language terse. Having said all that, the net result might actually be very interesting.

They've tried to outlaw street Artists in SoHo a few times. It was a public-relations nightmare for Giuliani. The artists have sprung back like wildflowers. Isn't this the nice little piece you've always wanted for your living room wall?!

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...because I felt so inspired...

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JERUSALEM - Israel's vice prime minister said Sunday that killing Yasser Arafat is an option - A.P. story

... Wheel turnin' round-and-round, you go back, Jack, do it again...

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“The Anne Frank and Elvis of the Iraq War”
Imagine my surprise. It had been a while since I tuned in to Where is Raed, the weblog of Salam Pax, only to find out that The Guardian is in the process of making him a star by publishing his book.

If you want views from the streets of Baghdad, check out Where is Raed and Baghdad Burning.

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I love, love, love Peggy's September 12 post on A Moveable Beast. For one thing, it led me to Fred Kaplan's piece on what Dubya & Co. hath squandered [Slate].