Gang of people who sound an awful lot like you

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Oct 112005
 

For those of you who missed out on getting tickets to Queens of the Stone Age, it looks like there are still tickets available for Gang of Four tomorrow night, also at Emo’s.

Who’s Gang of Four, you ask? What a sweet kid. There are plenty of places out there on the Internets that can give you more in-depth info than I can. Suffice it to say that certain bands on today’s music scene (*cough* Franz Ferdinand *cough* Bloc Party *cough* Bravery) owe an awful lot to this bunch of brits who broke out in the late 70’s. Their ground-breaking album, Entertainment!, was recently re-released (not the first time. It was re-released roughly 10 years ago on the Rollins/Rubin label Infinite Zero) and a new album, Return the Gift, hit stores today. Check it out, chickadees.

Update: I should add that Return the Gift is newly recorded versions of old songs and remixes of old songs, not new material. I shouldn’t pass judgement without hearing it first, but it’s hard not to view this as an attempt to cash in. I suppose I can’t fault them. I’d just buy the Entertainment! re-issue if I were you.

 Posted by on October 11, 2005 at 8:11 pm

Topica can suck it

 Geek  No Responses »
Oct 112005
 

I decided to sign up for the WM3 Announcement Mailing List yesterday afternoon while I was on their site looking for something else. I’d heard of Topica before and may have even been on a list hosted by them in the past. I don’t think I had an opinion on them one way or another, but I do now.

As part of registering for the list, I got one of those affilated offer pages with about 50 checkboxes and offers that you see with some free services (and even pay ones, I’m looking at you, GoDaddy). As is my habit with these sorts of things, I scrolled down to the bottom of the page to find the “No Thanks” button, scanning as I went to make sure that there weren’t any boxes checked by default. I clicked the button and expected to get some sort of completion message. Instead, I got another offer along with a Submit and a Skip button. Skip. And another. Skip. And another. Skip. And another. There must have been 8-10 individual offers in all requiring me to dismiss each one before I was declared complete. Sure, I could’ve just stopped, but it’s human nature to want to be sure that you’re not getting signed up for something you don’t want and they’re playing off of that, forcing you to click over and over again instead of presenting it all on one page (or not at all, but I understand I have to do something for my free service).

Now that I’ve googled Topica, it’s clear they’ve turned into some sort of Internet Marketing Evil Empire. Surely there’s got to be a better alternative for the WM3 people and those who don’t want to be affiliated with these sorts of tactics?

 Posted by on October 11, 2005 at 3:01 pm