Author: Sammy G

In case you haven’t heard or read, the Supreme Court this week ruled that firms like Grokster are criminally liable for providing software for downloading and sharing copyrighted media, like music.

Every report I’ve read, from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post, called it a landmark decision. Each report also was skeptical as to whether the decision would hamper further illicit online infringing.

I personally agree with the Supreme Court decision. Given current copyright law, their unanimous decision makes obvious sense. I guess it sort of is a landmark decision.

I love bittorrent.

Need some advice from my fellow Barnsonians (particularly those with advanced vocal degrees from famous music performance colleges) on how to restrengthen the singing voice.

Yesterday, I auditioned a young singer for my studio recordings. The kid was pretty talented. Great pitch, nailing high notes. So halfway through the audition I decided to join in on harmonize, rev up the spirit of the process. It might have been by the third note that I realized how terrible my voice sounded. The kid was carrying me through the tune.

I haven’t sang in the studio or live for one year. 12 months. 365 days. You know what happens when you don’t practice an instruments for that amount of time? You lose your chops.

I need my vocal chops back in two weeks. What do I do?

The Beastie Boys’ “To The 5 Boroughs” album was released last year and I still don’t like the album. I’ve tried listening to it over and over, giving it the chance to grow on me. But it’s not happening.

Here’s why this is such a big deal:

In 1992, while driving around college campus, one of my UMBC hockey teammates was pumping tunes in his car. It turned out to be a track from “Paul’s Boutique”, the Beastie Boys second album and first album release to follow their mega-popular “License To Ill.” This is significant because “Paul’s Boutique” then went onto become a driving force in my life. Actually, the album became a religion. It was played 24-7 and every line on the album was memorized by Weed. In fact, we still speak about the album to this day with reverence. I would argue that “Paul’s Boutique” is the greatest album ever recorded in the history of popular music.

Subsequent to “Paul’s Boutique” were other popular BBoy albums that all were wonderful creations of sound and rhyme. Some of the albums didn’t initially take, but the more I listened, the more I loved. Each time I listened, there were new things to discover.

It’s not that way with “To The 5 Boroughs”. I can’t get into the individual tracks, the flow of the tracks, any motif in the rhyme cadence, no identiable sounds…nothing. It’s a dud. You think that six years in between albums would result in another sonic masterpiece?

Can anyone recommend a cool podcaster?

I’ve been hearing about the new podcasting rage but have been unsuccessful at finding a quality podcaster (or two). The providers I’ve located have ended up being too amateur for my tastes. Most podcasters I’ve found tend to follow the conflicting-personalities format, which quickly becomes stale.

I bought my Mom an iPod two years ago so she could tote around the latest in audio entertainment gear. My Mom reveled in having a superior gadget than her senior friends. However, when it came time to buy an mp3 player for the fiancee, I decided an iPod wasn’t worth it. Instead I picked up a Creative Muvo TX, which was 1/3 of the iPod price, has replaceable batteries, has no moving parts (so you can workout while listening), offers a radio, and contains enough capacity to put on the equivalent of 6 albums. Although the iPod offers more storage space, the size of the Muvo was fine. Size has never been an issue in our household (ba da BING!!!).

I was intriqued once I realized that Podcasting was player-agnostic. Originally, I was under the impression that pocasting only worked with an actual iPod player. So I started searching but uncovered lamecasters.

Help a brother out.

So I couldn’t sleep last night, and decided to pass the time in front of a computer. 4:30AM…

Kill thief with sword.

Discuss.

I believe there’s a serious flaw in the way that baseball standings are listed.

I’ve been following the Washington Nationals from a distance by reading the sports section in the paper. Each morning I turn to the standings to gauge where the Nats place in the National League East. The most important line in the standings is “GB” or games behind. This tells the number of games a team would have to win to pull even with the team in first place. Towards the end of the season, this becomes a magical number, because it’s based on a team’s winning percentage.

I believe the GB stat is misleading because a critical piece of data is missingthe number of games each team has played.

As of today the Nats are 2 games behind the NL East leading Marlins. Except that by adding up the games played, I see that the Nats have played 4 more games than the Marlins. Thus, the Nats are potentially 6 games out of first place. Or they could be 2 games IN FRONT of the Marlins.

Thus, I’m asking the baseball standing people to add a Games Played column to the standings.

I know this is going to ruffle some feathers, but I wanted to announce my displeasure with SportsCenter.

Is anyone else out there frustrated with their over-the-top, obnoxious style? I like watching the highlights and news…you know actual reporting of the facts? SportsCenter reached the point long ago at which they started making themselves the story. It went from being cute and irreverent to manipulative and flashy.

So, today, although still a fan of ESPN in general, I won’t watch SportsCenter. And The Best Damn Sports Show Period is even worse.

Where can a guy/gal go to get scores and highlights?

We’ve all heard the term that the capital markets are efficient, but in my opnion they certainly aren’t rational.

I’ve been involved with numerous publicly traded companies, and I’m always shocked when earnings and revenues increase, but the stock takes a hit because it “falls short of expectations.”

Recent case in point, from today’s news:

“3M Co. on Monday reported a 12 percent gain in first-quarter earnings, but its shares fell 6.1 percent after the maker of Scotch tape, Post-it Notes and industrial and health care products said sales were below forecast. Shares of the Maplewood-based manufacturer closed at $75.90 a share, down $4.96. Although revenue rose 4.6 percent, to $5.17 billion, it fell short of the $5.26 billion that had been forecast, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. The revenue gain was the smallest for 3M since the third quarter of 2002.”

Yeah, you read that right. Because revenue missed by 1.8%, even thought earnings roared, the capital markets devalued 3M. I’m could lead a case for arguing against efficiency, but this certainly isn’t rational.

Stock prices are reflections of future revenue and earning expectations in current time. When a company reports positive quarterly earnings, without the presence of a one-time event such as the sale of a dog-division, with a record-setting upward trend, that tells me that management and operations are in synch and future expectations should be raised.

Taking a 4.6% hit on the heel of good news isn’t rational and doesn’t reward management or employees. Instead, it causes management to look outside the corporate window and focus their time on managing Wall Street, rather than managing a business. As a shareholder of the business, I get frustrated when a company performs outrageously, and then gets hammered because a couple analysts on the Street decided to downgrade or warn.

It just goes to show that your stock and share price isn’t necessarily valued by the performance of the company, but instead by the perception of a select group of people, who have likely never run a business in their life.

I can tell some Best Buy stories if y’all are interested.

Can someone explain to me the “pie” inside joke? I don’t understand.

I’m wondering if anyone has a technology solution for creating a merged calendar for home use.

Right now, there’s a scheduling problem on the homefront because my fiancee and I continuously run into schedule conflict. Between my gigging and her social scheduling, we always run into problems. It results in one of us canceling a committment.

I’m hoping there’s a way to merge our personal calendars into a master household calendar. Updated daily. Able to be accessed and altered externally.

Ideas?