Cooking With Snoop on Turkey Day

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and leave you guys with a special video. Along with the usual turkey, have fizun while making some mashed potatoes, Snoop style with Martha Stizzle. (?) These two worlds colliding together make for some hilarious moments.

Happy Thanksgizzle my nizzles!

Songs in the Clouds - Streaming Music

10 years ago, if you told me that the general public would prefer to download music digitally instead of buying CDs, I would have thought you were crazy. Now imagine 10 years from now, we wont even need to own digital tracks- everything we'll want to listen to will be streamed through the internet. Sounds pretty crazy, right? That future is already turning its wheels.

Lala, an online music service, revamped its website introducing a new business model, which lets users listen to a full tracks for free the first time and then gives them the option of buying the track for 10 cents to be able to stream it anytime they want as long as they have access to the internet. Also, for 79 cents more, users can download a DRM free version of the same track for portable devices. Think Myspace Music, except a lot more music and without all the annoying advertisements. Record labels are gambling with this new model, because it's all new territory in the digital world called, "cloud computing."

Billboard referred to this as the "concept of information and content stored on the internet and temporary delivered to computers or other access devices rather than being permanently downloaded." This new model could potentially change they way music publishers function and force a change in the way music gets licensed. According to Billboard, 35% of the average major publishing company's revenue comes from mechanical royalties. 

What's the likelihood of this happening? Very high.

Wireless internet is becoming more and more widespread throughout America, with more wifi spots popping up everyday. In less than a decade, America will be blanketed by wifi networks. Already, our MP3 players and cell phones have continuous access to the internet. With complete access to the internet so we can stream music anytime we'd like, will we need to digitally download music anymore?

It's a complicated concept to grasp. Personally, you could call me old school because I like to buy albums as opposed to downloading music. This new model could completely wipe out any need for albums and that would be a sad day for me. Consumer-wise though, this model could be very successful. It'll makes it easier and more affordable to listen to music. But at what cost? Technically, we wont "own" the music per-se. Rather we'll be continuously "borrowing" it to listen to. Is this the future?

House Cleaning!

I just updated my blog with a new header/logo, using Fireworks. I think it looks pretty damn spiffy. 

What do you think?

Facebook Wars: The Presidential Menace

It's been a little over a week since the nation witnessed history as Senator Barack Obama was voted as our 44th President of the United States with, by electoral votes, a landslide decision. It'll be one of those moments that I will never forget. People shouted out in celebration and in agony, and did so through the help of our era's way of connecting with people:

Facebook.

Specifically, through their Facebook statuses. Weird, isn't? For one night, statuses completely exploded with updates, which took on the form of mini blog posts, not unlike Twitter. To watch history as the first black American be elected as president quickly went from happiness and excitement to shock and disgust as I saw the things posted on their status. Here's just a few of the actual updates from last Tuesday night:

"-is leaving the country"

"-thinks that America is stupid"

"-thinks Georgia should just secede again... I got guns and ammo, and enough cigars to last a long time."

"-What has america done?"

"-hates everyone for only liking Obama because he is black... what ignorant fools."

"-...guns in hand, ready to secede. Let's do it Georgia. So why was Jessie Jackson crying? A little gay..."

"-Congratulations America, you got it wrong... and you will be sorry."

"-is going to become a drug dealer so she doesn't have to have a real job and 'spread the wealth.'"

"-is thinking that only in America can a man with ties to terrorism and a non-existent birth certificate become president. Good job guys."

"-is disappointed that the new national bird will be fried chicken."

"-is wearing black tomorrow to mourn the death of our country to a black man.."

I don't think this is what the guys at Facebook were thinking this tool was going to be used for during election night. Facebook, something used to connect friends and family together, was used as a tool to bring people apart. Countless comments to statuses littered news feeds everywhere, making for an entertaining read. I, myself, managed to get tangled into a heated debate over Obama's economic plans. 

I don't mind talking intelligently about opposing views of mine, as long as people present themselves and their argument rationally and they also respect opposing issues. I'll talk to you all day! The problem is when people make ignorant comments and act self-righteous with their beliefs. This one person told me I was irresponsible for voting for Obama. 

Bad idea.

The debate turned into a pointless argument where I finally had to stop replying because this other person couldn't respect my opinion and could care less to educate himself with views he didn't agree with/understand. I can't have conversations with people like that.

America has come a long way in the past 50 years. Be that as it may, Facebook proved to me that there are still issues in America we still have to deal with: racism, stereotypes, understanding each other, and working together. Who knows if those issues will ever go away, but I think we're taking good steps in the right direction. 

Oh, and to the people who are saying they want to the leave the USA now: let me know- I'LL HELP YOU PACK!

:D

Angels and Demons Go Viral

Seems like the new fad in the movie industry is online viral marketing, with past awesome viral marketing for Cloverfield and The Dark Knight. Now we can add Angels and Demons to the growing list.

The prequel to The Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown, Angels and Demons is an action packed story of an ancient, secret brotherhood, called the Illuminati, who's been planning to destroy the Catholic Church for hundreds of years and finally sets it's evil plan in motion and it's up to Robert Langford to unravel the mystery to save Vatican City.

Sony quietly started it's viral marketing campaign with the release of the Angels and Demons teaser trailer last week. In the trailer, the ambigram "Illuminati" twists on screen and if you look a little bit closer, you'll see a hidden message: "alters of science." If you go www.altersofscience.com, you find a very familiar sight, if you've read the book. It's a "live streaming" video of the anti-matter that's ticking away to go off somewhere in Vatican City. Subsequently, the timer is ticking down to the release of the movie on May 15, 2009.

Angels and Demons is one of my favorite books and when I found out they were going to make it into a film, I went crazy. I think it'll be a much smoother transition from book to film than The Da Vinci Code. If Sony keeps up with this marketing campaign, I think this movie could be a box office hit! Read the book if you haven't already! 

...wow, seeing a "real-life" image of the antimatter bomb gives me the chills.