The dog ate my insightful musings

Actually, I think I (gasp) emailed them to the wrong address. During the day, I write down whatever comes into my head, trolling the Web for interesting fuel and before I go home, I send it to my home account.

Well, guess who must of gotten dropped as a baby, because I come home and it's not there. It's very possible some poor Web citizen has a garbled, shorthand screed in his or her inbox and is wondering, is this some kind of Nigerian money scam?

I'm sure I could find it, whatever links and ramblings I stuffed in today's envelope. I'll wait until tomorrow, when I get to work and prowl through my Sent Items bin.

Until then...

A few weeks ago, I wrote a bit about how Madonna (April 23) took to the Web to cuss out wily surfers who were shipping around tracks from her upcoming album. With a little tinkering on her end, she sent out spiked files containing not the music, but an obscenity-laden diatribe.

I wondered what she was thinking, trying to outfox the foxes at the music-swapping game. Why not embrace the Web, I asked. Use the medium to play fun games with the fans, even to the point of making an online contest of who can make the best remix in 72 hours.

Well, turns out I was on to something. This guy here took lemons and is making a sugar-kick of a meringue, turning Madonna's little tirade into listenable art. Instant audible graffiti turned back on the artist...tai chi chien meets culture jamming. Again, Mrs. Ritchie, don't piss off kids who are better at tech than you are.

It'll be interesting to see if the songs become White Label hits, shuttled around from club to club.

Bad Mrs. Ritchie, no extra royalties for you.

In my neighborhood



An Associated Press photo of mock terrorism drills happening in Seattle today and tomorrow. Scenario: A radioactive weapon explodes south of downtown and local crews rush to the scene to figure out what the hell to do next.

From a news story:


The mock explosion of a radioactive "dirty bomb," the first event in the week-long drill, was being conducted on several acres in the SoDo area. Smashed cars and buses, ruined buildings, scattered debris and spot fires added to the realism.

Immediately after the small explosion, people portraying victims stumbled amid the wreckage as fire trucks and other emergency vehicles converged on the scene. Some of the simulated victims screamed, adding to the chaotic effect.

Later on in the story...

Meanwhile, students and others at Pacific Lutheran University near Tacoma, about 40 miles to the south, simulated a second, simultaneous attack on campus that resulted in dozens of mock casualties.

Like Seattle's scenario, a smoke bomb went off to simulate a car bomb. There were about 170 volunteers, including members of the university's drama club, pretending to be injured.

The script also called for a terrorist to run into a campus building and take hostages.


Sign of the times, I guess. If this keeps up, in a few years, parents will bring their kids down to the local counter-terrorism site for an afternoon of free entertainment, as family members use to take me downtown Chicago to see dinosauresque machines push dirt around construction sites when I was a squirt.