Year: 2009

Categories
Uncategorized

Your Last Chance to Get JPG Magazine

Stack of issues of JPG magazine. JPG magazine was beautiful but unsustainable. A photography magazine whose contributors were also its readers, it was part publication, part online community and part art project. You didn’t have to be an established professional photographer to get published in JPG; all you had to do was submit a really good shot (and everyone’s got one really good shot in them). Photography magazines aren’t really my thing, but I actually bought a couple of issues of JPG because the photos and articles they featured caught my eye.

With the public’s flagging interest in print media, the current economic situation and the costs of running a print publication on photo magazine-quality paper, JPG magazine was running out of money. They tried for months to find buyers or investors without success. Yesterday, they announced that they will be shutting down completely – not just the print magazine, but their website as well – on Monday, January 5th.

If you’re a JPG reader or are just interested in what the magazine was all about, you should follow their suggestions, which include:

Remember, if you want to download PDF back issues, do it before Monday!

[This article was also published in Global Nerdy.]

Categories
Music

“Before the Music Dies”: The Full Documentary

In an earlier article, Branford Marsalis’ Take on Students Today, I posted a video in which jazz.funk sax man Branford Marsalis talked about his music students. His first lines in the interview are:

What I’ve learned from my students is that students today are completely full of shit.

That is what I’ve learned from my students. Much like the generation before them, the only thing they are really interested in is you telling them how right they are and how good they are.

I mentioned that the interview comes from a documentary titled Before the Music Dies,  a documentary film in which filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen “traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation.”

A reader named “Tomas” said in a comment to the article that Before the Music Dies was posted in its entirety on Google Video. You can watch it in the little video window above, or at a larger size on its Google Video page. If you really care about music, whether as someone who plays it or simply enjoys it, watch it; you’ll find it’s two hours well-spent.

You can also buy the video on DVD for US$14.99 or download it for as little as US$2.99 from the Before the Music Dies site.

Categories
Uncategorized

Spam Fritters

Package of Spam Fritters on a refrigerated grocery shelf.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

I like the Hawaiian treat called “Spam Sushi” (it’s properly referred to as Spam Musubi since the rice is salted rather than vinegared), which is probably why I the idea Spam Fritters (“succulent pieces of SPAM covered in a deliciously light and crispy golden batter”) sounds all right to me.

According to this article at MeatInfo.co.uk, the Spam Fritter was re-introduced to the UK market along with two other spam variants: Spam with Stinky French Garlic and Spam with Bacon. These new products are meant to reach “a younger demographic, as well as satisfying the needs of its core market.”

Categories
It Happened to Me

“Accordion Guy’s” 2008 Stats

Both my blogs hit new readership records in 2008. Global Nerdy got nearly 703,000 pageviews, more than double the previous year’s numbers. The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century didn’t quite double its 2007 pageviews, but it still did pretty well: over 2.6 million, of which about 2 million were unique.

Here’s a chart, courtesy of StatCounter, showing the pageviews the blog has received over the past few years. Keep in mind that web statistics should be taken with a grain of salt:

StatCounter graph showing pageview statistics for 2005 through 2008 -- 2005: 396,134, 2006: 1,488,773, 2007: 1,407,757, 2008: 2,616,865

Here’s how the numbers break down for each quarter of 2008:

StatCounter graph showing pageload counts for "Accordion Guy" for each quarter of 2008 -- Q1: 565, 219, Q2: 842,600, Q3: 604,923, Q4: 604,123.

The second quarter numbers got a big boost from an article I posted on May 29th, Geek Gang Signs, which was responsible for nearly 100,000 pageviews on May 30th alone.

I’d like to thank you, the readers, for continuing to visit both The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century and Global Nerdy. There’s plenty of blogging to come in the new year – please visit often!