Here’s a groovy photo I snapped somehwere in downtown Chicago.

Remember that little puzzle game I made in Visual Basic 6? Of course you don’t. Well… now that I have image-posting capabilities, here are some screenshots. The game’s not too flashy. I’ve always intended to add some pizazz to the game or port it to the web or SOMETHING. If anyone is interested in seeing the code for this, drop me a line.

Grab the Puzzle Dropper installer.

I just had Andrew Cantino update a link he had on his site to point to my blog rather than my web design site. And since he has a link pointing here, I thought I would return the favor.

Please check out Andrew’s AbsurdlyCool Freebie Finder. And here’s a link to Andrew’s personal blog.

Now Andrew’s another fellow with a lot of real estate on the web. So I won’t be surprised when he emails me asking to change that link to his other blog.

The new automatic image attachment feature works (mostly). In celebration, here are a few pictures of my cats. The gray kitten is Remix, and the tabby is named Moxie. Enjoy!

You can’t tell, but I’m testing a new feature for the blog which will make it easier for myself (and others) to add images to a post. In the meantime, check out this picture inspired by an idea for a t-shirt.

A bit of creative curiosity and a lot of personal guilt have got me thinking about my music acquisition habits. It’s been six months or so since I’ve bought a CD that wasn’t a gift for someone else. These days I get my music online.

I’m part of the demographic of people who are bothered more by the cost of CDs rather than the inconvenience of them. $10.00 per CD (or even $0.99 per song) is just too steep for me when other options are available. I like having CD quality. I like jewel-cases with the track titles and little books full of lyrics, photos, and art. But I also like a lot of other things I could spend that money on. Mmmm…
cheese steaks.

I more often listen to music on my iPod than a CD player. So being able to rip songs off a CD I buy is crucial. CD “protection” which prevents me from moving my music to a perfectly “fluid” format is not acceptable for me, and in this case I could be driven to illegal online downloads for inconvenience purposes rather than economic ones. It seems like this may be the case in the not-to-distant future.

Let’s assume I’m speaking hypothetically from now on to avoid incriminating myself…

If I rip songs off a friend’s CD or download music from allofmp3.com, I’m not only sticking it to RIAA. I’m robbing the artists of the little bit of money they would have received from the sale of a CD I didn’t buy. I’ve been able to ease my conscience so far by believing that the money I have saved shunning CDs has gone earnestly towards more concert trips. I’m sure I’ve spent more on concerts this year than I’ve spent on CDs (and concerts) previous years. I’ve gone to concerts I wouldn’t have gone to if couldn’t have heard the musician’s music for free first. Add to this the fact that artists receive a larger percentage of a concert’s profits than percentage of record sales.

From a high-level perspective, I am giving a larger portion of my disposable income to “the artists” than I would have if I were buying CDs and ignoring cheaper (so called illegal) online distribution channels. And this has kept me content for the past 2 years or so.

Let’s take a more detailed look at things though. I’ve downloaded a Kanye West CD and a Jason Mraz CD. I’ve seen Jason Mraz in concert before and will probably see him again. And while Mraz (and his band) may get as much as 1/3rd of the $100+ I’ll spend on tickets for his shows, how does this help Kanye West? Surely I owe this guy money.

But maybe I can just say, ‘Well, Kanye West just failed to impress me enough to motivate me to see him live.’ However, if I wouldn’t have been able to get his album for free (or really cheap without paying his label), I might have bought his CD. And in that case he would have gotten somewhere between $0.25-$2.00 for that CD.

[side note: I wish I had a good reference for how much artists get paid for CDs and concerts. If you have one, let me know. This page sites $0.0755 per track: Giving Away Music to Make Money. I’m also using the “common knowledge” that artists make more money from concerts than through CD sales.]

What about Mr. West and that $2.00 I owe him? I don’t know what to make of this. It’s very possible for me to say that I wouldn’t have downloaded the music if I had to pay (more) for it. That eases my conscious a bit.

But what about other artists, who I would see in concert if they played a venue closer to me? I’ve downloaded some Taproot. And I would see these guys in a heartbeat next time they show up in the Philadelphia area.

[results of a quick search: Taproot comes to Atlantic City with Stain’d, POD, and Flyleaf December 12th, 2005]

… but I haven’t been able to catch a Taproot concert so far. I have some “mp3 bucks” stored up to spend on that band. I could go out and buy the Taproot CD I guess, but I’d rather send them a check in the mail.

… not a bad idea, eh?

I’ll report-in later to expand on this topic with some ideas I have for “paying the artists”. In the meantime, anyone from the Kanye West, Jason Mraz, or Taproot families can contact me to get that check.

[other reading: Here is a website which explains a lot of thoughts I have on “illegally” downloaded music (with more research and analysis to support it): The Recording Industry is Trying to Kill the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg.]

So what do I do when I’m not posting to the blog?

I read other blogs. Here are some of my favorite I’ve run across recently:

• Matthew Good – Canadian Musician, Artist, and Political Activist
• Michael Bechtel – Accenture Tech Labs Employee
• WebWord – Web Usability and Design Expert
• Mark Cuban – Dallas Mavericks Owner and Businessman

Enjoy!

A while back I made a post about googling for good ideas and used the phony search string “automatic rubber-chicken dance hit studio”. Well, my blog is now the number one hit for that google search!

I also had a link to the search for “best idea ever”. Sadly, my blog does not come up for that search… yet.

If ya’ll are reading this, you have either way too much time on your hands or your life is very boring…

You should visit my site instead: jeremy@strangerstudios.com.

Then again if you’re reading this, me and you are probably day and night.

This is a common scenario for me. Yesterday, I came up with what I think is a great idea. As usual (I get great ideas often), I went to gandi.net to look for domain names appropriate for my idea. I found some great domains which I’m surprised are still available. But before plunking down the $20-$30 to order both the singular and plural version of the domain I wanted, I wandered over to Google to make sure no one else has created a website based on my idea.

This got me thinking. How many other people google for something like automatic rubber-chicken dance hit studio or the best idea ever just to see if anyone else is as genius as they imagine themselves to be? I do it at least once a week. With google these days gathering as much information about our habits as they are, why not steal our great ideas as well?

Here’s a rough algorithm:
(1) Identify “unique” search strings by noticing when a lack of high scoring results return for a search.
(2) Filter the unique strings by some genius logic.
(3) Hire post-docs to browse through the string for that next big thing.

Take note.