During the show, however, I was completely and thoroughly won over.  The man is talented, not just a talented singer, but a talented performer over-all.  While I took issue with the order of a couple of songs within the setlist (in the encore especially, he should’ve closed with the second encore song (a slightly slower but more heartfel number in which he sang some opera – absolutely enthralling).

Here are a couple of the songs a friend of mine recorded at the show.  Enjoy!

Details in the Fabric
Anything You Want

Here’s a what-if scenario:  What happens when these matter compilers are on every other street corner and instead of the purchasing cycle beginning with the material resource as the commodity, the matter becomes the commodity and the code becomes the actual product that gets marked up.  The better quality the code, the higher the price and profit.  You insert the code (soft) into the matter compiler and out comes something tangible (hard).  You get charged flat fees from the matter compiling machine based on elements used, difficulty of element pairings, and overall usage (mass).

You could even have reusable codes, things you always kept on you, like the code for an orange or cookie, in the event you need a snack.  Stick the code on a flash drive and keep it on you at all times.  Hunger solved.

What this does, invariably, is foul up all the existing economic models.  All that money that gets funneled into a thousand different industries (all of whom make and sell a physical product – from bikes, to clothes, to cars, to toys, to food) first goes to coders.  But with an already thoroughly networked globe, the advent of sharing is immediately and irrevocably built-in this particular industry.  Coders/designers, really good ones, can command high fees for their custom codes/products, but once the design is complete and distributed to the buyer, it’s out in the public domain – inevitably, that code will be found, disseminated, shared.

So from that point, the only way to really make money is to be the person that owns the matter compiling machines.  You would have to harvest resources in order to have a steady supply, but you would also build in a recycling system, where people can bring their trash and even their old, unused items and get either money back or a credit to their account (for a discount on their next use of the compiler).  The compiler would break the items down and re-use their constituent elements.

This must, inevitably, lead to my ruminations on what constitutes life (to be continued…).

Some pretty funny stuff.  Strikes a chord with me because everywhere I look I see these detestable tract-housing “communities” with names like “Deer Creek”, “Walnut Grove”, “Quail Meadows”, “Arid Cliffs”, ad infinitum.

Mind you, I live in Kansas, so some of these names are completely inappropriate and misleading.  “Mountain View” is one that comes to mind.

Just once I’d love to drive by one of these joints and, on the sign out front, read (in a nice italic script):  P*ssy Prairie.  How freaking great would that be?

She is I am

…for hurt:

Iliost

…for drinks and the sun:

San Diego

Infodump: These songs were written and recorded by Underhill, a band I played in for some years, which is now just a loose affiliation of like-minded friends who sometimes get together to: A) Play and make music, and/or; B) Talk and drink beer (aka “Make Merriment”). The album can be found on iTunes and emusic.com, among other places. Album artwork is below.

Self-titled first release from Underhill

I think my x and y axes are inverted, so you’ll have to do some mental rearranging.  Done?  Ok, good, now note how QUANTITY (sales) plummets toward the end while at the same time the QUALITY (pure shittiness) is ever-increasing.  Combined, these round out the visual statement:  Not only does this really look like a mountain, but I’ve done it in such a way that completes the mathematical – BUSINESS FAIL – aspect of the logo.

Sh1t Mountain

Yes, this is yours truly.  Prepare yourself for the horrific…and truly awesome.

This is what my days have become.  My work, here at my job, has become a farce.  Back when I thought there was hope for this miserable little company and, thus, a future for myself, I could make fun of the glaring inefficiencies, canyon-wide faults and schisms, with a relative sense of humor and diplomatic aplomb.

“Because,” I thought, “there’s hope, to fix it, for a future here.”  But a very important thing happened in the last month – my review.

Now, there is none of that.  This pathetic waste of money is an evil, hateful enterprise that ruins good, smart people and their rising careers.

Oh, the anger, the fury, that blazed in my heart that day when I sat in my manager’s office, having a heated discussion that lasted an hour and a half.  I even managed to curse my boss out and, surprisingly, he took my f-bombs with a deft and obliging sort of ease.  He knew my anger wasn’t directed at him, but rather at our CEO, the detestable runt of a woman who decided to revise my entire review.  I won’t get into heavy detail, but instead use one word that sums it up in my mind:  Hypocrisy.  I went beyond my ascribed duties to try to make a name for this organization (involved video production) and was told that I couldn’t be graded/rewarded for those efforts because they didn’t fall into my job description.  Then, no more than a week later, was asked by the CEO to produce a video for her.

After the anger, the void left by the dying embers remained just that – a void.  I feel nothing now.  No motivation to do anything of value or quality, nothing…Managers, take heed, this is an invaluable lesson in human psychology.  Incent (aka Reward) good employees and they will continue to do good work.  Fail to do this, or, in my instance, do the exact opposite, and they will resent you, the company and the work for it.  They will turn into a cancer.

Now I know what you’re thinking:  “Malaise” implies a certain benign quality.  If I tended to remain silent in my little pocket of misery, I would agree.  But being the vocal sort, this actually works like an infectious disease…my thoughts, words and flotsam of discontent are strewn about this wasteland, waiting for some unsuspecting co-worker to happen upon them and, subsequently, get infected.

Jesus takes coffee with cream.

Milk sales up ten-fold.

Personally, I understand that the genius comes from this sort of heightened sensitivity, a tapping in to the well of human empathy that exists all around us.  That being said, I also believe the best way to nurture it, hone it and sometimes perfect it is to do the work, which is something Gilbert talks about as well.

Enjoy…I know I did.