Apple Inc - Maximizing Profit: Anything For A Buck?

I do not use Apple products although they look very slick and nice. Never caught a blow from the ol' Apple Windmill. And I seriously doubt if I'll purchase anything by the company anytime soon.

Everybody who has been following the ICT developments over the years knows - or should know - that Steve Jobs may be a design visionary, he also rules Apple like a potentate. Stories of how he checked 150 shades of black to get 'just the right kind of black' for his computer-casing may be charmingly quirky, but they tend to cover up the less friendly and eccentric sides of Jobs(and Apple).

The other day Gizmodo got their hands on a new IPhone. Apparently it was left/lost by an Apple-employee and then sold to Gizmodo by the lucky finder.

So far so 'good'. Mister Jobs has been known to throw employees out of the building when they blundered like that but ok; it IS pretty stupid to leave a new prototype IPhone in a restaurant.


But now the home/office of the writer of the Gizmodo-article has been raided by the police, although that has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

So what we have here is a company that wants to decide what you can see on your IPod, on your IPhone, and on your Personal(!) Computer(ITunes anyone?).

And all this while back in 1984 this same company produced one of the most famous commercials in history, in which they accused IBM of being Big Brother...  History has come around again. And it's biting Apple up it's royal fat ass.

Recently Apple announced that there would be no 'Porn-apps' for the IPhone or the IPad(although apparently the Playboy App was not a problem...). Erm.... Excuse me? Even Bill Gates never wanted to decide which content was/is suitable for you. As long as people watched it on their Windows PC.

Jobs is trying to control the content of the Internet. He will fail, but what an incredibly stupid move.

On this beautiful Saturday afternoon...

There must be music!

Donald Fagen - I.G.Y.
Donald Fagen - The Goodbye Look
Donald Fagen - The New Frontier
Donald Fagen - Walk Between The Raindrops


Don Henley - Not Enough Love In The World
Don Henley - Building The Perfect Beast


Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin'


Duran Duran - Save A Prayer
Duran Duran - Wild Boys


The Beatles - Got To Get You Into My Life




Al Stewart - Merlin's Time


The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles - For No One




Al Stewart - Almost Lucky


Gerry Rafferty - Get It Right Next Time


Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
Fleetwood Mac - Dreams

TBC...

The Ludicrous Glenn Beck

Here's an informative story about the person who is trying to become a real life Howard Beale.

The problem is that God is giving The Plan, I think, to me [...] I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. But I'm telling you, here's what I feel with everything in me.



And here is Jon Stewarts unsurpassed and absolutely brilliant parody of the guy.

"Glenn Beck didn't want to have to tell you that people who believe in safety belts are killing America."

A Poem For The Ages

And death shall have no dominion

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

"And death shall have no dominion" by Dylan Thomas

Serious Music Cafe 18/04/2010 Riverside Live In Paradiso

DJ Lenne and his mates 'did' a serious music cafe again yesterday. These sunday afternoons are dedicated to ProgRock, ProgMetal and related genres.

Yesterday saw a cafe very much focussed on Progressive Metal. The CD of the month was by Knight Area and the music played was mainly Progressive Metal. The video played was of a concert in Paradiso by Riverside, a band from Poland, which I must say is very much Progressive Metal. Fun to see how the long haired fierce looking gentlemen of the band took a deep bow after the show, almost modestly accepting the audience's cheers and praise. I have seen a lot of bands with a hell of a lot worse attitude.

The latest Knight Area CD was the prize in a ticket raffle so somebody went home with an extra bit of music in his pocket!

Two weeks from now there will be a much more classic progrock sunday afternoon, and on May 16th there will be a band performing.

We may be quite a while away from Tilburg or even Zoetermeer, but it goes to show again : one can play Progressive Music everywhere.




(Overheard this afternoon: Riverside, Katatonia, Knight Area, etc.)

Heroes

I guess we all know the details already. Still a great article about heroes

The Most Useless Publication Of Lyrics On The Interwebs!

Mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe)

mahna mahna

(ba debe dee)

mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe badebe badebe dee dee de-de de-de-de)

(repeats)

mah mama na mahna mah namwomp mwomp

ma mo mo mana mo

mahna mahna

(ba dee bedebe)

mahna mahna

(ba debe dee)

Mahna Mahna!

(ba dee bedebe bedebe badebe debe de-de de-de-de)

(long pause)

...mahna mahna?

Seriously...

ProgRock > 1985 - The Second Wave

Last night was a fun night, even though I had to work on my tax forms. As long as there's ProgRock I will not complain.

Transatlantic - My New World


IQ - The Darkest Hour
IQ - Failsafe


Glass Hammer - Revelation / Chronometry


Dream Theater - Pull Me Under
Dream Theater - A Nightmare To Remember


GTR - Hackett To Bits


Klaatu - Set The World On Fire

Music tonight...

A bit of what used to be...

Tears for Fears - Advice for the young at heart
The Hollies - He ain't heavy, he's my brother
A-Ha - Hunting High and Low


Bonnie Tyler & Todd Rundgren - Lovin' you's a dirty job(but somebody's got to do it)
Linda Ronstadt - Tracks of my Tears
Jim Croce - You don't mess around with Jim


Carpenters - Rainy days and mondays
Gilber O' Sullivan - We Will
Cher -Walking in Memphis
Cat Power - Ramblin' Woman
Robert Cray - Right Next Door
John Lee Hooker - The Healer

I almost made a dreadful mistake : Apres Ski Must Die!!

Ok, so I see this as a dreadful mistake where others will not understand what I get so upset for. But still...

I almost made a dreadful mistake and it has taught me to do better research before accepting a DJ-gig.

Some time ago somebody asked me to join in for an evening as a DJ on what they incorrectly call 'Apres Ski'. It is named aptly incorrect because I live in The Netherlands and there really are no Dutch Mountains, let alone Dutch Mountains with Lots of Snow... (Full Disclosure : I've never ever even been on a ski-ing holiday). ;)

Now I know that there are hardly any standards when it comes to that 'style' and after all; how can you name a serious style after a boozerama-Fest?

So although I did have some ideas about what to play on the night(go real bad and play Wham, Abba, yes; I would even put aside most of my musical principles and play Boney M!),  I investigated 'Apres Ski' a bit more. I Also checked the torrent-sites to see what kind of Apres Ski CD's were being released.


My Word And I Don't Fucking Believe It! I am definitely most certainly so NOT going to DJ on saturday!

Holy Fuck what an incredibly bad taste in music must you have to DJ on such a night!!!

I just found a whole load of Apres Ski CD's ready for download and they made a chill run down my spine. I was transported back to the days when my parents used to like that stuff and the rest would curse it whole heartedly.

Believe it or not : Boney M is not even at the same level as this drivel; Boney M are an artistic landmark compared to this Apres Ski shit.

No way Jose: I have my principles. I don't even want to be there as a guest so I absolutely Do Not Want To Hear Any Of This Bleh!

Now I know why some people call me a musical elitist, or even a musical snob. If these people believe that Apres Ski is music than I AM ONE BIG FUCKING ELITIST SNOB!!! And very, very! proud of it.

I know that there are people who absolutely adore this shit. Some are even friends. They go so far as to travel to the big city to hear it! I am allergic to it. Possible also because I have seen studio-guys put this kind of crap together in the studio in my days.

And now for another cup of coffee to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth. To think that I actually almost was an Apres Ski DJ. Brrrrrrrr... This was a very close shave.


P.S. As an afterthought I just realized that if I wanted to I could blow the doors of the bloody cafe with my Apres Ski DJ-set. The only thing I would have to do is recall my parents dutch language record collection. Jan Boezeroen, Rob de Nijs, Gert en Hermien, Zangeres zonder Naam(Mexico-hoooo!), De Kermisklanten, etcetera, supplemented by a bit of German: Freddy Quinn, Marianne Rosenberg, Freddy Breck, Heino(!!!).

I am SO glad that those days are over!

Another day, another forum.

First : Heads up for the Dutch Progressive Rock Page !
 
The 'Now Playing' thread is very informative. Only if you like that kind of stuff of course, which I do. So much so that I don't want to discuss my tastes anymore on some other laymen's forum where people still think Progressive Rock means Yes or Marillion. How On Earth people think they can judge ProgRock without even knowing Gentle Giant or Soft Machine is a mystery to me anyway.

As an extra, here are some of the more relevant wiki-entries to ProgRock, ProgMetal, etcetera :

Progressive_Rock
Progressive_metal
List of progressive metal artists
Symphonic Rock

and a couple of useful links to some ProgRock-sites :

Dutch Progressive Rock Page
Prog Archives
Prog Rock Startpagina(dutch)