newpageone.com

According to UrbanDictionary, a “troll” is:

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

That’s the first entry.  Most of them are something along the same lines, but if you only scroll down to number six, you’ll pick up this nugget:

One of many unsung internet heroes who are almost entirely misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, many trolls are actually quite intelligent. Their habitual attacks on forums is usually a result of their awareness of the pretentiousness and excessive self-importance of many forum enthusiasts. As much as people may hate trolls, they are highly effective – their actions bring much of the stupidity of other forum users out into the great wide open.

Both definitions are most certainly valid.  But it’s the second one that I find more truth in.  These days, it seems like just about everybody needs to get trolled once in a while to keep them in line.  And like most things that seem to Internet-only phenomena, trolling can spread into real life.  And boy, was 2009 a good year for trolls.  That’s why I want to recognize some of my favorites from the past year.

The Balloon Boy Family: Sure, we know the aftermath.  The kid’s father, Richard Heene, was just sentenced to 90 days in prison.  But for one wonderful afternoon, the country could remember a simpler time when kids could fall down a well or something like that and lie about it for attention (like Bart Simpson did).  Give them credit for saying they sent the kid up in a hot-air Jiffy Pop balloon.  Let’s see Sting get ‘em outta that one.

Michaele and Tareq Salahi: AKA the White House Gate Crashers.  Another couple of attention-seekers, these two trolled their way to the top.  Not only did they get to rub some elbows and shake some hands (one of which belonged to the president, I believe), they exposed the fact that even the Secret Service has become just as inept most other government agencies.  And that’s scary.

Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher: Tex gets on the list for telling the Red Sox that he’d join them, only to turn right around at the last second and sign with the Yankees instead.  Sox supporting colleagues gave me the stink eye all year long, never with more vitriol than after the Yanks took the World Series in November.  Feels good, man.  As for Swish, the dude was obviously in the wrong place all season.  Nobody, not even Johnny Damon, caught onto the fact that this guy should have played for the Red Sox in another life.  He’s a full-blooded “idiot” if I ever saw one, and just knowing that his switch-hitting, relief-pitching visage is in pinstripes only makes it sweeter.

Mahmoud Amadinejad: As long as this guy remains in power in Iran, he’s trolling it up.  And he’s not one of the good ones.  Election protests?  No problem.  Round them up, arrest them, shoot them, whatever, just as long as it shuts up the opposition.  Holocaust?  What Holocaust?  Oh, and the whole nuclear power program has nothing to do with building missles, even though I really want to blow up Israel.

James Cameron: Avatar is probably the best example of the long con that I can come up with.  For years, geeks like myself had been reading all about The King of the World’s glorious return to science fiction after spending years underwater taking pictures of jellyfish.  When he came back up, he announced that he’d be making Avatar with all sorts of new CGI, mo-cap, and camera technology in order to create a hyper-realistic movie experience.  The rumor mill was going crazy, saying that the film was going to be revolutionary and that the story would be beyond epic.  And then the trailer hit the Internet, and all of geekdom reacted with a unanimous, “Meh.”  Remember the last time a visionary director said he’d wait years until the special effects were good enough to produce his magnum opus?  Yeah, thanks, Mr. Lucas for those prequels.

Had our hopes been built up too much by all the hype?  No.  Not this time.  You can get out-hyped by Transformers 2.  You can’t get out-hyped by being told one thing and given another.  This didn’t look like something I’d never seen before.  It looked like a video game.  It’s a cliche, I know, but it’s true.  Then again, I still haven’t seen it (probably tomorrow afternoon, incidentally).  But I’m nowhere near as pumped.  If I still was, I’d have seen it already.

Barack Obama: You know, I’d give the president the number one spot, but you have to look at it like this: he’s nowhere near done.  It’s like when the Lord of the Rings trilogy was coming out.  The Academy didn’t give Peter Jackson the Oscar for The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two Towers.  That’s because they all knew that The Return of the King was coming.  They’d shower him with little naked golden men when the story was over.  It’s the same here.  And boy oh boy, if this is where we are after just one year, you can only imagine what the next three can bring.

And the winner of the 2009 Golden Troll Award:

Lady Gaga: Yeah.  Lady Gaga.  There, I said it.  That’s one reason she’s my Number One.  She made people have to say the words “Lady Gaga” with a straight face.  Why?  Because she sold records.  Tons of ‘em.  And the music is terrible.  It’s like the second coming of Italo Disco.  Plus, those ridiculous outfits.  It’s beyond Bowie or Madonna when they hit the scene.  She’s even been accused of being a hermaphrodite.  And the kicker?

Her lyrics are fantastic.  Being a person with working ears, I am subjected to hearing these songs all the time.  And after hearing “Poker Face,” “Just Dance,” “Paparazzi,” and “Bad Romance” as many times as I have, beneath that mind-rotting beat, there are plenty of lyrical gems.  I won’t get into it, but if you can stomach such aural torture, you can’t help but notice that she can write a good song.  Yeah, she writes the words.  That makes her legitimate.  I can only hope that she picks up a producer who knows what “melody” is so that I don’t want to shove sharpened pencils into my ears.

So good on you, Stefani Germanotta of Yonkers, NY.  You are the Golden Troll of 2009.  Take a bow.

You should have seen that coming.

As far as I’m concerned, I am pleasantly surprised with the way things turned out in music in 2009.  Part of that might have to do with the fact that I didn’t go into the year with high expectations.  I went into things with a “let’s see what happens” kind of attitude, and it made for some discoveries as well as new ways to look at old favorites.

A couple of weeks ago I did a huge writeup on the old site about Steely Dan.  They made up so much of my listening time this year (last.fm is the greatest) that it seems like everybody else was robbed of plays.  But forget statistics and my obsessive/compulsive need to see how many times I listened to Joy Division over the last 12 months.  Let’s start with my album of the year…

Glasgow's Finest

I love Franz Ferdinand, and the funny thing is that Greg does, too.  We have a big overlap of musical tastes, but we are fanatical about the Scottish quartet.  They are everything a good rock band should be: energetic, exciting, funny, and danceable.  Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is their third album, and it’s an upgrade over the first two, which were essentially one and the same.  What sets Tonight apart?  Greg might’ve put it best when he said, “It’s like when the Beatles did Revolver.  They did a bunch of songs that were all Beatles songs, but they did something different to all of them.  Each one works on its own, and they all go together really well.”  So while “Turn It On” and “No You Girls” are stock rippers, they put on faux-reggae guitars for “Send Him Away” and mild synths on the second half of “Live Alone,” you still know, with or without the “I’m-more-macho-than-I-look” vocals of Alex Kapranos, that this is still FF.  At least until the epic funkified second half of “Lucid Dreams,” which was the biggest surprise in all of the album’s 43 minutes, and maybe of any new music all year.  It’s a shame that Spin Magazine forgot about this one in their year-end round-up.  Next time these guys come around, I’m going.

In other music this year, Yeah Yeah Yeahs also did some reinventing.  It’s Blitz! is a great mix of their usual loud sound, but Nick Zinner is now manipulating a synth more than his guitar at the insistence of Karen O.  Unbeknownst to me, YYY recorded some of the album at Long View Farm Studios, which is literally minutes from my home.  I have my own code when it comes to Long View visitors: Leave ‘em alone.  They came here for a reason, and that’s to record in peace.  It goes without saying that had I known, I would have abandoned this ethos on the spot and shown up every day until I got to give Karen a hug and high five Nick and Brian.  The whole CD is great, but if you don’t think “Dragon Queen” is the best track, then you obviously don’t think that dance music is the direction that YYY should go.

Jack White was busy, too.  But instead of starting another band in which to showcase his guitar chops, he started a band in which to show us that he’s really good at the drums, too.  After joining forces with the smoldering Alison Mosshart (The Kills) and the Raconteurs’ “Little” Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita, Jack created The Dead Weather.  The result is what you’d expect: it’s bitchin’.  That’s really the only word there is to describe it.  Imagine combining The Kills with The Raconteurs and take Brendan Benson out of the picture.  “Bitchin’” is the word you should be thinking of.  (Note: Brendan is a great songwriter and singer in his own right, but there’s only so much bitchin’ness to go around.)

A couple of new acts caught my eye:  for one, New Zealand’s Pip Brown emerged under the moniker of Ladyhawke, giving us some straight-outta-the-80’s tunes.  Her “My Delirium” and “Paris Is Burning” are required listening.  Brooklyn is constantly churning out handfuls of twee college grads at a time, but The Pains of Being Pure at Heart really caught my ear.  They’re essentially The Smiths without being morose, and had they existed while I was in high school, I’d have owned a lot more sweater vests.  I’ll just leave it at that.

Meanwhile, some old faves got back in the game.  Pearl Jam, Wilco, and The Flaming Lips all put out great new efforts.  PJ’s Backspacer is their most vital and fun (!) work in about a decade and Wilco (The Album) is just plain good.  The Lips’ double-sized Embryonic is surprisingly dark and experimental.  But when it comes to Wayne Coyne and company, the more experimental, the better.  Long-time fans only.

Sure, there’s more, but that’s the gist of it.  2010 looks to be exciting for a guy like me:  R.E.M., Radiohead, and CAKE are all working on new music right now, and The White Stripes are due for an album, too (and maybe a movie?).  But it’s not only a new year to look forward to in music… it’s  a new DECADE!  The Aughts are over, it’s time for… Awwww, what are we gonna call this decade?  We had a hard enough time naming the one we just got through!  I can only assume the “Teens,” but we have to wade through three years until that’s relevant…

Let’s not worry about it for now.  Just turn up the music.

Well, here we are.  Christmas has arrived once again.  Thank God.  I couldn’t stand to put up with the continued emphasis on shopping, while we’re still living in a recession.  That’s why I’m happy that when I talk to all of my friends, they all say the same thing: all we want is time with the people we love.  That’s what Christmas really means to me.  Sure, the fact that I was Kris Kringle might be shining through, but it’s true.  Let everyone know how much you care.  If you care enough, you show your love with a gift of some sort.  It shouldn’t be because it’s expected of you.  It should be because you want to.  One of my co-workers said it best.  “Christmas should be like Thanksgiving, only better.”  And I agree.

The other thing I hate about Christmas is wrapping the presents.  Every year I get the idea into my head that I’m good at it, but the exact opposite is the truth.  But the fact that I’ve made it a tradition of my own to watch The Big Lebowski when I wrap makes it a little easier.  I didn’t have many presents to wrap, so this year I only got up to the part where The Dude meets Maude.  A couple of years ago I managed to do the whole film, but those were simpler times, when we all knew what we wanted for Christmas and Billy Mays could get it for us.  We’ve lost our innocence, in a way.

Well, I hope you all have a great Christmas.  Just remember, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.

So you make a one minute video for a friend and upload it to YouTube.  As soon as it finishes, it gets muted because Warner Music Group knows that you played the beginning of “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash over it.  I understand the importance of copyright infringement, but if you’ve got the ability to know that your video of kids trying to breakdance contains sixty seconds of a song, and then block it, it seems… disturbing?  Frustrating?  A little of both?  Of course,  I don’t want to sound whiny.  But it’s just a little scary that your own content can be instantly removed because a song that you think fits well should be included in it.

However, I hear that there’s a new deal in place to bring Warner’s material back to YouTube, but they’ve been saying so since September, with a scheduled date of  “by the end of the year.”  Week and a half to go…  I wonder if it’ll be worth the trouble.

Yet somehow, this classic managed to slip through the cracks…  I’m bringing back a couple of old NP1 Films and putting them up on the Tube, because that’s the only way people are going to watch them these days, anyway.  If you still think this is funny, then God bless you.

All this talk about RSS feeds is making me curious.  Probably making you more confused every time I mention it.  Why don’t we all watch this educational video and maybe we’ll feel better.

I hope that was fun for all of you.  I only recently caught onto the idea of syndication, and I think it’s because I was  sort of resistant to the interconnectivity happening online.  But that’s what was leaving me behind.  I suggest using Google Reader, both because it’s easy too use and because Google is going to take over the world and I really don’t mind.  So give that little orange box a click and subscribe.  It sure beats aimlessly checking in.

It’s time for another go at it.  If you’ve stopped by over the last couple of days, you’ve noticed that I’ve been doing some redecorating around here.  I think that I’ve just about got it now.  Time to actually start posting again.

The reason behind the redesign, as I said in a post that is now lost, is that I’ve been looking to streamline the process of building NP1 and actually join this whole “Web 2.0″ movement everyone’s talking about.  So, I ended up making a bit of a trade-off.  I have moved from the easy-to-use, difficult-to-master confines of FrontPage and moved on to the open source and mostly coded world of WordPress.  So far, I think that WordPress is full of potential, but I don’t know any code beyond HTML.  I understand the concepts of what makes WordPress work (CSS, php, etc), but I can’t really make it work without cheating.

As for the old site, the pages are all still there.  For now, if you want to see it, you can visit this page.

High five, more dead than alive!

Now there’s a guy who knows how to party!

Well, that’s what’s going on right now.  I can’t wait to keep working on things around here, but it’s late.  There’s a big snow storm on the way and I think I might have some time to work on it…