Friday, October 24, 2003
There are lots of remakes on the radio these days - Uncle Kracker and Dobie Gray?s ”Drift Away”; Sugar Ray?s remake of the Joe Jackson 1980s hit ”Is She Really Going Out With Him?”; No Doubt and the remake of ”It’s My Life” by Talk Talk; Counting Crows doing Joni Mitchell?s ”Big Yellow Taxi”. The radio is flooded with remakes. Most of them just aren?t that good ? note to Sugar Ray, don?t mess with a classic Joe Jackson song.
The worst remake I heard the other day was Barenaked Ladies doing Wham’s, ”Careless Whisper”. I like Barenaked Ladies, but this version sounds like a bad night at a karaoke bar. Leave it alone!
Let?s keep some of the remakes for the fans at your concerts, it will be fun I promise. They will cheer wildly like they really loved the song back in the day.
I have added some new lyrics ?
The Replacements - Here Comes a Regular
Talk Talk - It’s My Life
Paul Van Dyk - Time of Our Lives
The Waterboys- Whole of the Moon
The Waterboys - Glastonbury Song
posted in: Lyrics, Music
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Friday, October 17, 2003
I am sure there are several instances where a manager or coach has cost his team a game, but I can?t think of any but Game 7 of the ALCS. All too often managers and coaches get blamed for a team under performing when in reality; they are dealing with a bunch of overpaid whining babies. This team- the Red Sox- wasn?t those guys. This was a team full of energy; with an attitude of we can beat anyone, anytime. A team that never gave up and outplayed the Yankees-- and still lost. The Red Sox players beat the Yankee Players. Grady Little however, caused us to lose the game.
Once the Yankees tied the game I started to channel surf, I couldn?t bare to watch us lose this one. I had lost faith. At the top of the 10th I changed the station for good. I nodded off and was woken by a noise in the room. I flipped back to the game only to see Boone rounding third. The baseball gods wanted to inflict their usual suffering on a Red Sox fan and wanted to make sure I was sick to my stomach for at least the next 2-3 days.
The day after I turned on Sports Center and watched it all over again. I bounced from one sports station to another looking at the highlights over and over again. I got in my car and put on sports radio to hear the same thing we were all thinking ? Grady Blew It! Sick! Sick! Sick! My wife called me a masochist and I guess I am. I guess all Red Sox fans are, year after year we all subject ourselves to this unpleasant and trying experience.
I will restate the obvious. Why didn?t Grady go to the bullpen? Embree, Timlin, and Williamson had proved themselves throughout the post-season. Without those three there would be no game 7. Embree 0.00 ERA, Timlin 0.00 ERA, Williamson 1.13 ERA. Over 23 innings pitched combined, 26 strikeouts and 5 walks. These 3 men could have easily shut the Yankees down for 2 innings.
Through all of this one image will stick with me, the face of Kevin Millar when Grady finally came to take Pedro out. Kevin Millar, the rally karaoke guy, the cowboy up guy, the guy who gave his all to this team, stood there in disbelief. As Grady consoled Pedro, Kevin wanted to be positive, he nodded in agreement to what Grady was saying. His face however was saying I can?t believe the situation we are in. He looked beat down, the wind knocked out of him and so pale you would think the ghost of Yankees past were looking at him.
No dropped balls, no strikeouts at key moments, no bizarre plays, only the Red Sox players doing what they were expected to do and that is win. Losing to the Yankees makes it worse than normal. I have already started talking about spring training. Discussing with friends the moves we need to make to get there again next year. I hope the core of this team doesn?t change much because I don?t think I have enjoyed any team as much. They were a selfless bunch and in about 5 months we can start hoping again. My 2 year old daughter will wear her Red Sox shirt and continue to shout, ?Go Sox? and my son, which is arriving any day now, will sport a Red Sox bib and onesie ? and if we are lucky we can win it all on his first birthday.
posted in: Sports
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Discussions about RSS (really simple syndication) have been popping up all over the place. One of the majors pushes for RSS is a replacement for traditional email newsletters. Some have commented that advertisers won?t want to run ads in RSS newsletters because they cannot track readership.
This isn?t necessarily the case. Many email marketers currently insert what is known as a bug into an email. This bug isn?t the type that will cause your software from not working. Rather it is a bug in the spy sense of the word. Marketers will insert a line of HTML into an email that may display a 1x1 white pixel. The image name may look like this: <img src="/spacer.gif?code=898237" / > or maybe even <img src="/spacer.asp?code=283874" />.
In one case log files can be mined to pull data. In the other example, one in which I have employed, the image tag actually calls an ASP page. The page parses the query string, inserts into the database and redirects the user to a .gif file.
This same method can be used in RSS feeds. Let me preface this by saying I am no RSS expert and have only tested this using RSS 2.0 using Newsgator and FeedDemon but this certainly is a starting point for further discussion.
In the example here I use the ASP file method and have an image tag included: <img src="http://www.savedbyzero.org/mime.asp?rssID=1" border="0" >. The query string contains an id to let you know which rss file the user is reading.
If you add the channel http://www.savedbyzero.org/rss/tracking.xml to your newsfeeder I should record a hit when you view it. To see if it worked visit: http://www.savedbyzero.org/rssvisits.asp and see if your IP address appears.
I would love to hear from people regarding this - if worked or did not, improvements, questions. If you do reply with, “it didn’t work”, please let me know what newsreader you are using and leave an email address.
posted in: Coding, Marketing, Technology
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Monday, October 13, 2003
I have added some new lyrics to ’new’ lyrics section of this site. I will be adding to this list on a regular basis. Note to readers - if you are looking for lyrics for something or have a music related question shoot me an email or instant message and I may be able to help.
Bruce Cockburn - If a Tree Falls
Josh Kelley - Amazing
Peter Murphy - Cuts You Up
The Replacements - Left of the Dial
posted in: Lyrics
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Monday, October 06, 2003
Taking a page from Dan Cederholm and an image from ericwebster.net, I decided the Sox can use all the help they can get. So we have the regular cap and rally cap. As an added measure ... Rally Karaoke Guy
I am going with Boston 5 - Oakland 2. Next stop New York City ....
posted in: Sports
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