So the Chicago Tribune decided to write an article about Ian and Travis and their successes with Fastservers.net. While it certainly speaks to the success of the company, the overall tone of the article speaks to a greater issue which I suspect was the real impetus behind crafting the article in the first place.

Business schools have long held the idea that for one to be successful in business, one must come from a business educated level. It's how they market themselves. It's how any college markets itself (in the "learn-a-skill-here-and-manage-to-sell-yourself-as-a-result" sense). But I guess we all got a chuckle when the professor in the article says:

"Still, learning how and why to obtain outside capital often comes with a formal business education, said Tom Tyrrell, a serial entrepreneur who is the chairman of the Elmhurst College board of trustees.

"Most businesses are started by people with a technology background. They take their product and begin to make it better, but they don't give enough thought to how to take it to the next level," he said."

Umm yeah. I'd go ahead and order you a wah sandwich with a side of cry fries Tom. Obtaining outside captial and "taking it to the next level" is exactly what killed off Fastservers.net's biggest competitors, not to mention the people who had the "formal business education' destroyed Proceed and are well on their way with Fathom Online (former companies of mine).

I'd go into a big diatribe on how full of shit the upper education system is and how inflated some of their egos are, but suffice to say, its high time guys like Tom and his ilk started to wise up to the notion that "the next level" ain't all its cracked up to be unless you know what the fuck you're doing with the level you are on.

Riding Bertha to work the past few days has helped me draw a few key conclusions about the functionality of a computer (pictured on the right) on a beach cruiser. Specifically, it is about as useful as tits on boar I never even bothered to properly calibrate the lil' fucker (although it is amusing riding a beach cruiser with a spedometer telling you you are moving along at 30+ mph). I kind of knew that when I bought it but let it slide under the guise that having a computer as big and dumb as that one would somehow be characterized as "cool".

It has also occured to me that my fill of Drive-By Truckers, Tom Waits and their ilk extends beyond the time I leave work and would be most enjoyed on my otherwise relaxing ride home. It also bears mentioning that the computer gave up the ghost when the whims of the weather decided to dole out a terrential downpour last friday while I was @ the bar with work peeps.

Which brings me to my current juncture. Mobile audio. This is a particularly hair-brained idea since most small and inexpensive speakers that would suit this cause sound like an open can of ass (yeah I'll take an extra helping of hiss with that treble please). But what I aim to do is lend the computer to the cause due to its unique mounting capabilities and fashion a small speaker system that can be easily detached (and if you were wondering, yes I'm exactly the kind of person who thinks this would be a good idea).

My first instinct was something like this, however as the reviews indicate, this is going to be way too quiet (I'm not looking to wake up the neighbors, but c'mon...we're in downtown Chicago here). My attention was then diverted to this:

What I'm thinking is that this could be permanently mounted on the face of the computer and the whole thing could be detached on the fly when parking outside. It says they sound good, but now i'm not so sure of its ability to be particularly portable. So now i'm thinking some portable speakers that could be permanetly afixed to the computer shell and then one of those plastic ipod cases for mounting the ipod itself.

Obtaining the supplies could very well occupy my lunch break tomorrow.

Bertha's beverage holding capabilities also grew last Thursday night. I don't have pics, but it can hold beer bottles like a champ right on the handlebars right now. Unfortunately, that's about all it can hold. My idea of a Foster's can seemed brilliant in a unabashedly Bohemian way, however my measurements were a little too tight and it doesn't seem to like soda and gatorade bottles as much as I hoped. So back to the drawing board on that one.

There's something about beach cruisers--the gawdier the better. This one is even replete with palm trees. PALM TREES FER CHRISTS SAKE! Now I really need to get that amp sold. Replace one largish old space hog with a new largish space hog. I can't speak much to if it's actually a quality bike, but it is twice the bike as Bertha and half the price. The math is certainly a little suspect. I can't honestly say I really trust anything that comes out of a Wal Mart in the way of bikes, but this could very well be my solution to properly transporting Megan myself and proper booze to the beach on the weekends efficiently.

NOTE: The aforementioned purpose of purchasing this bike is certainly valid. Unfortunately, while I would vastly prefer the riding solution, I'm quite certain Megan would vastly prefer I never ever mention this yellow leviathan ever again. So let's be clear that I realize how preposterous my vision here really is. I'm not like, crazy or anything

UPDATE: Welp, we can go ahead and put this one to bed. Megan's response:

"The beach...i will be ice skating in hell before you get me on that thing...that is all i have to say on this subject"

Hmm...I can see we'll have to file this under "long term projects"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

At least know that the democrat side of the fence is leading the charge in hypocrisy on Iraq.

Just sayin is all...

(thanks Travis)

From a "Box-that-accomplishes-all-the-outboard-shit-I-need" standpoint, this essentially does it all for the best price. They are $130 bucks and from what I can tell, reasonably 'loaded with techno' for that scratch. I'd post the question to the folks @ Analog Industries but those people think Line 6 gear sounds like an open can of ass, not to mention they find no need to spend anything less than 1k on gear. For my purposes (which are, commit things to record so I have something to do in a very portable way) this seems fairly reasonable.

Since I don't have a shitload of room and since I'm not working with a band, this route makes sense to me. But since I know some of you (Shino, Chuck, Gabe, Sam...I got my eyes on you here) may have opinions/insights that assume one doesn't have a six figure studio budget, I ask...am I wasting my time with this box or will it git r done till I convince Shino to record all my shit for real?

Prediction: if this kid is an only child, a mother will never have grandchildren.....

Spelling Bee Winner

This is why you don't homeschool your children.

Since the first Triathlon of the season is only a month away, I've been ramping up my running. And boy oh boy do I suck balls. Did an 8 miler and for some reason I couldn't get the mojo working. I think I might need to get insoles. In short, I walked a lot. Not good.

List of projects I've threatened to start but haven't started:
-Make my own brand of wine (I have no answer other than it got nice enough to keep me outside)

-Mountain bike (seems like Spokeeasy has been taking to the road...I aim to rectify this this weekend...more on that later). My bike is in solid working order. Although it needs a computer, clips and a back fender (maybe).

-Make music -I go in phases. The riffs are there, but as alluded to in the previous post, the implements aren't yet. But I have a feeling this will happen by summer's end

-Tunes on Bertha...The Ipod thing proved to be woefully expensive. I may go Megan's route with the 30 dollar thing.

Why do all my projects require spending money?

Well I guess one is free, I just need a free weekend to do it. And that's spending more time on the beach. I'm pretty sure the weekend after this could be the magic week.

I'll actually be in Cedar Falls this weekend! Unfortunately my time is going to be pretty much sucked up by a wedding so teh odds of me getting over to Main street to the Reverb or any old haunts is fairly remote. Since moving to Chicago I have this intense fear of driving if it involves drinking in any way. Especially since almost everybody I know back in the old town has since gotten a DUI or been threatened of in some regard. Needless to say I'd like to avoid such a fate. One thing about living in the city is that you really don't need to drive to do anything. Our Taxi's actually, like, work and stuff.

Totally random, but was I the only one who knew more about what the fuck is going on with Paris Hilton than the astronauts doing a spacewalk? Something is painfully wrong with that.

Spent a good chunk of the day over @ Google's Chicago headquarters. I'm not really at liberty to discuss deets. But suffice to say everytime I'm @ that office, I am in awe of the weird cult like thing they have going on there. People are silly for Google. They live and breathe it. I suppose if my office had an onsite dentist, doctor and gourmet chef, I'd probably live and breathe Google too. They are expanding to the floor above it seems so I guess that means more Googlers meanduring about the various industry functions (largely sponsored by Google to begin with).

Fellow blogger Chuck Hoffman wrote an editorial that came out in the Waterloo Courier today regarding the lack of attention to all Cedar Valley artists.

If you read, the artist in question, Paco Rosic is also responsible for the mural on the Spokeeasy Bus. Not that this diminishes what Chuck is saying in the editorial. Having lived in the Cedar Valley for a combined total of over 15 years, this certainly isn't a new phenomenon. The thing I think resonates with Paco is the whole gimmick to his art (the Sistine Chapel on his coffee shop). Plus he was on Rachel Ray so people think that's cool.

I do find it ironic that Gary Kelly also lives in Cedar Falls, who is a much more reknown artist, yet you never hear about him.

Last I knew Paco had painted his restaurant, but that was about it for big coverage. It bears mentioning that the Des Moines Register wanted to feature our bus, but the courier showed no interest. Just sayin....

It's a demonstratable fact that the chances for an artist to further their careers are more abundant in a place like NYC, LA or even Chicago. I don't think I'd go as far as to say the degree to which the Courier covers other people's art besides Paco's will be what keeps people in Cedar Falls or Waterloo. I really think the reason Paco gets so much publicity is because he has a lot of national coverage...so the Courier is just riding on the coattails of that.

I can't really say intelligently if this is going on or not, btu I do specifically recall that back when I was a janitor @ the waterloo rec center, almost any installation they gave two shits about either pertained to some school or some traveling exhibition. Rarely was it any local talent. If that museum and ones like it made more of an effort to showcase local art, I think that might help draw attention, and maybe get the Courier more interested in what else is going on.

Am back in Chicago....wedding and trip back to the Cedar valley stomping grounds went as expected. Wedding was done quite tastefully all things considered. They spent more on it than I make in a year I'm sure but that's to be expected.

Apologies to anyone I didn't manage to see (yes I'm talking to you ericka). My Saturday night sort of got squashed by virtue of the fact I never managed to leave the wedding when I was originally thinking I'd do teh requisite hello's and then leave. Turned out people I hadn't seen in around 15 years were there and I ended up chatting with them teh whole time. then i went and played Asshole with people from the wedding (and by played, I really mean sit around and drink while they played...I can't be bothered injecting strategy into my drinking habits).

From the "Boy I wish I thought of that first file, I give you this site. From my own heart because 90% of the hot women I see when I'm "Out on the scene" (which really means "where said douchebags spend all their time") are with people cut from teh same fabric as the assclowns on that site. Plus they get points for adding "hipsterbag" to my vocabulary. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to say MC Cul de Sac here in the Shell shirt is a strong candidate for fucktard of the week:

Terry Semel stepped down from Yahoo today. Nobody is suprised. 100 bucks says this is the year they finally are acquired by Microsoft, although the 6 billion dollar pricetag they swiped up A Quantive for may hinder their ability to go splurge on shit.

But if you RLY want some funny/gossip shit in my industry, you'll want to whack this link. iCrossing was at one point the 900lb gorilla in our business but has lost a lot of its luster recently (or maybe I just stopped giving a shit about them...kind of a chicken/egg thing). Nevertheless, its always funny to see the shit-talking fly when the lay offs occur. Without naming names, I can think of at least a half dozen other firms that are probably housing equally disgruntled employees. Don Scales is no doubt cut from the same mold as every other "25 year veteran of an industry that is really only 10 years old". All hat no cattle. Innovation for fun and profit (but mostly profit). These guys are in like the 9th level of hell just below all those fucking black-hat spammers from eastern europe trying to make a buck. In fact they may be worse because they manage to trick people who have money into believing their bullshit. Well, for now at least.

sometimes the music world gets it in their heads they are the most important entity in their master's arsenal of money making ventures. The context of this post on John Baetell's blog certainly looks at it from a realist perspective.

"We have to find new models, it's clear the old ones are not working," Stringer announced. "And the only way we'll find them is to let the music find them for us."

Now if history has shown us anything, its that the music machine that is Sony couldn't possibly have the foresight to do something this intelligent. Not to mention its a demonstratable fact that Sony couldn't possibly care less "how they can best serve the artist" . But essentially, I think this hypothetical represents the most forward thinking idea for how a large corporation like Sony could turn their music entity into a profit leader (or loss leader as the case would imply)

I'm apparently late on the game because everyone is saying "oh yeah I've played that", but I've decided to shelf the music DI thing until I get a chance to shock the shit out of my friends.

Priced to move at 24 bucks (30 by the time they tack the shipping on)

After 14 years of surfing, I do believe I have finally found the single most retarded page on the internet. This page/site is actually 10+ years old, but for some reason I dug it up (and was actually amazed Geocities hadn't put it out to pasture yet)

(fair warning: if you are reading this in the morning, you may want to have your first coffee/smoke whatever).

They are filming the upcoming Batman movie near my perch. Instead of calling it Batman, the movie is listed as "Rory's First Kiss"...and were one to believe that title in fact had anything to do with the movie, said kiss seems to involve lots of cars all banged up and some random Gotham City street signs and police cars strewn about Randolph and Franklin. Whatever scene they are filming seems to be taking place in a parking ramp. Interesting if you're into that sort of thing. I think I can offiically say I'm a dyed in the wool city dweller because the prospect of a huge movie filming right by my house actually creates more headaches and annoyance than excitement. Nevertheless, I may roll out on the bike later tonight and see if I can't get a glimpse of the Joker or Batman milling around (note: movies are usually filmed very late in the night to minimize disturbances from ambient traffic and to take full advantage of the lighting...unless of course the scene takes place during the day, and even then its subjective).

Ideas for crashing the set of batman:

1. Fake an accident on the John Deere bike through the middle of the scene
2. Get in my wetsuit, put a skimask on and pretend to be Venom and accost any and all actor-ish looking people
3. Get a big lantern flashlight and make a bat symbol out of it and point it at people
4. Get in the car and play the batman theme song from the 60's VERY loudly throughout (man if we had the Spokeeasy bus this would rule)
5. Mill around outside and yell "Biff!" "Bang!" "POP!" "ZAAP!"
6. Dress drew up in a tuxedo, monacle and give him a cigarette holder, I'll put on white cover-alls and a bald cap, and Megan can put on a leotard with cards on it...and we'll show up and see if we can't get on the set as the Penguin, Egghead and Harley Quinn

WARNING TO CO-WORKERS: As an homage to the late great Vincent Price, I shall spend a day using egg puns (Egg-actly! Egg-cellent!). You won't know when or where, but soon....

I haven't gotten around to installing Google Analytics on here, and even though more than a few people have bitched at me for not monetizing Thought Sausage with Adsense, I DO actually have Sitemaps installed on here.

According to Google, these searches represent the most our fair little site here is showing up on Google searches. Yep, my "what the hell?" sensors are going off just as much as yours...

Download this table

Spent the weekend in Antioch Illinois amongst Megan's home-town friends. Antioch is apparently part of the chain of lakes, which means it makes for a beach town. Good times...the major takeaway from taht journey is that Antioch has awesome potential for biking. The Spokeeasy bus may be stationed there so there is a good chance we'll be riding around there a lot.

I'll post more later, but quite frankly I'm absolutely KO'd and watching that Reno 9/11 movie. Killa no filla.

If you have been living under the largest rock on the planet, you may have missed the big PR machine that is the iphone campaign. Now, back in January, I was a giddy little school-girl over this thing. But that was back when I still spent unhealthy amounts of time in airports and having all that portability in one unit seemed like a good idea.

Well it's been a few months. My days of constant moving around are behind me, the prospect of plunking down 600 quid for a phone isn't so neat, and the hype is getting a little...umm...retarded?

Look I get it, you've combined all sorts of gadgetry into a "single sleek unit" that provides all sorts of solutions to problems I didn't know I had. Yeah, I was really hard up for a unit that let me watch full length movies and sync up with my email. I had a Treo for awhile, and never got into half the features of that thing any-damn-ways. The big iphone proponents (which are typically the people who think everything apple does is the greatest) are saying this unit's intuitive interface makes everything so much more accessible than units that may have required the user to dig in. That is essentially what made the ipod such a success.

Well what may be right for some may not be right for me. I know for a fact at least 5 of my friends will be lined up @ the Apple store on Friday because the geekfactor in my clique is quite high (although it bears mentioning many of them couldn't give a flying fuck about this or anything apple is pedaling...I'm looking at you Roly).

The other big factor for me on this is that the preliminary reports are already saying this thing has issues with the screen. Either its too sensitive or not sensitive enough depending on who's reviewing it. Then when they do use it, the video playback on the web browser is woefully inadequate to get any real stream out of it. Those all scream to me to be bugs that will get fixed when the next gen comes out. So I think I'll actually consider buying this when the initial testers (see: uber-nerds) get done finding new and unique ways to install World of Warcraft and Second Life on it, or whatever the fuck people with the disposable income to buy such a thing do with it. And even that purchase decision will require me to actually require the needs for such a device. I went through a phase where I lost 6 cell phones in under year (yes, they cancelled the insurance on me) and the screen on my digital camera cracked. The prospect of buying a device that is capable of both of those things happening in "one portable sleek unit" isn't all that appealing.

You gotta hand it to Apple though, they've cornered the market on being "edgy and cool" by basically taking pre-existing technology and making it retard-proof (cos you know, who else besides a borderline retard can't get by unless they have visual voicemail). Boy, that says somethin about the edgy and cool Apple gang doesn't it?

EDIT: Shit, I got so wrapped up in what annoys me about the iphone I forgot the point to this rant.

PREDICTION: Apple will sell a shitload of these out of the gate to geeks who have 600 bucks to blow because this thing is absolutely useless to business l33t (people like my dad who travel around the world and need international connectivity, not that AT&T monopoly bullshit). Then Apple will either scramble to release a next gen or dramatically drop prices. To summarize, Friday isn't a good time to buy if you have 600 dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

I'm sitting here with 20gigs of mp3's now sync'd to my computer that I pulled off my 20gig ipod using NO ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE. Took some doin and uncovering some hidden files (which is a much easier task in Vista than prior versions).

So fuck you very much Apple for making it difficult to back up mp3's onto new computers, but y'ain't got me yet!

But fuck it, somebody has to say it...

That's a picture of Chris Benoit and his wife. This weekend, Chris strangled that lady and their kid. Then he hung himself. Chris is a professional wrestler, which is a profession long associated with steroids, which, I am to understand, have a tendancy to make people rage and freak out.

Now I'm not saying steroids are the cause of this tragedy (and I certainly don't mean to make light of it). But the "shock" coming from "insiders" on this story baffles me. Now, aside from the fact that Chris is an adult who has chosen to earn his keep by bashing other adults over the head with trash cans and folding chairs or pinching their nuts with pliars (I know because i saw one do it once in college)....FUCKING LOOK AT THE GUY!!! Seriously look at the pic! I don't watch pro wrestling, but his gimmick name may as well have been 'Steroid Steve'. I love how of all the pics they prolly have of this guy, the one of him and his wife also happens to be the one that looks like he changed a tire with his face. Who looked at this couple together and said "naw man, that guy couldn't possibly do anything wierd".

Yep...I'm goin to hell

Take everything you thought you knew about people who have too much time on their hands and throw it out the window. This website will take it to a whole new level. I'm not even sure what the fuck the point to it is. I mean I _THINK_ this guy has some political agenda, but after clicking enter on about 20 different splash pages and listening to some of the absolute shittiest midi music ever comitted to the interwebs, I'm not quite sure I grasped it.

But look on the bright side, if that site doesn't kill your browser nothing will.

Okay, after re-reading that last post and realizing what I had subjected you, my loyal reader to, I have to make amends. And amend I shall with the greatest single time-waster ever to grace the interwebs. Yep, that shit is what Al Gore invented the tubes for right there. I actually remember a primitive linux version of that game from way back in the day, but was pleasantly suprised to find the site and the ware still exist.

Admit it, your life just got way cooler knowing you have unlimited and constant access to a light cycle

This week, I submit to you "the only cluster balloonist in the world (to his knowledge of course)

Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?

No...no I have not you fucking idiot

I spent all of today and yesterday @ work listening to nothing but Brian Wilson's Smile (before you go thinking I'm crazy for doing this, know that I once listened to nothing but Metallica's And Justice for All all the way from Waterloo iowa to Breckenridge Colorado when I was 12...old habits die hard). I bought this album the day it came out, listened to it maybe 3 times, when "meh" and promptly filed it away. I'd already heard a million shitty old compilations that had Blue hawaii and Heroes and Villians on it, not to mention you're a completely sheltered moron if you haven't heard Good Vibrations at least 100 times in your life and your over the age of, say, 12.

I don't think Smile can properly be called a "concept" album the way you'd call Year Zero or 1.Outside one. I don't think I ever heard Brian Wilson specifically call it that. But i must say, of any concept album, this one is definitely one of the more superior in the way of actually converying a feeling that is consistent throughout the entire album. Tom Waits has come close, but I don't think even he's quite loony enough to pull it off. Smile is quite literally, what it sounds like inside the head of a crazy person. You get that vibe throughout the whole album and the way the songs weave together really do make me think at the end "Holy shit, Brian Wilson really is fucking loony!". Don't get me wrong, I find that notion totally awesome. This is an album Hunter Thompson would have written if he were a musician (although it'd involve more shooting people). It's not just the lyrics (although Brian's treatise on his favorite vegetables and how much he likes cool water are amusing)..its the overall arrangements and instrumentation. He took the ride a step further than Frank Zappa did (because Frank Zappa wasn't in fact, actually bat-shit crazy, whereas Brian Wilson most definitely is).

Buy this album if you haven't and listen to it straight through repeatedly sometime. I guarantee you'll feel "diff'rnt".